State leader Zhang Dejiang to give keynote speech on Hong Kong issues

National People’s Congress chair meets city’s 36 deputies to national legislature at Great Hall of the People

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Zhang Dejiang, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, presides over a meeting at the Great Hall of the People. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 10:10am, 6 Mar 2017Updated: 11:18am, 6 Mar 2017

National People’s Congress chairman Zhang Dejiang is set to give another keynote address on Hong Kong issues on Monday morning, two days after he told the city’s advisers to Beijing that the central government enjoyed a “substantive” power to appoint Hong Kong’s chief executive.

Zhang, the Communist Party’s No 3 official and the state leader overseeing Hong Kong affairs, began his meeting with the city’s 36 deputies to the national legislature at the Great Hall of the People at 9am.

He will listen to speeches by several deputies, including former security minister Ambrose Lee Siu-kwong, before making his own.

Seven deputies put down their names to speak at the occasion. These included Rita Fan Hsu Lai-tai, the city’s sole deputy to the NPC Standing Committee, who praised Premier Li Keqiang’s annual work report as “accurate” and “substantial”, followed by Laura Cha Shih Mei-lung.

Monday morning’s meeting comes at a sensitive time – just three weeks before the chief executive election on March 26. It also comes a day after Li made the unprecedented move of publicly condemning Hong Kong independence in his report, saying that the movement would “lead nowhere”. Li also pledged that Beijing would hold fast to the principle of “one country, two systems”.

On Friday last week, Yu Zhengsheng, chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, also made the historic move of hailing the NPC Standing Committee’s interpretation of the Hong Kong Basic Law last November.