Top Beijing official in Hong Kong lays out 5 expectations for new lawmakers in unprecedented meeting

Xia Baolong tells lawmakers they must be ‘firm patriots’ who protect national security and defenders of executive-led model of government, among other duties

Legco president says it is ‘appropriate’ for central government officials to offer guidance to lawmakers after Beijing exerted full jurisdiction over Hong Kong

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Xia Baolong, director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office. Photo: Reuters

Published: 10:10pm, 5 Jan 2022Updated: 11:26pm, 5 Jan 2022

A top Beijing official overseeing Hong Kong affairs has laid out his expectations to a group of newly elected lawmakers in an unprecedented meeting, urging them to cooperate with the executive branch while defending national security.

Xia Baolong, director of the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, also told the 20 pro-establishment lawmakers on Wednesday the legislature had turned into a platform for “anti-China disrupters” in recent years but Beijing’s shake-up last March of electoral system finally got it back on the right track.

While Beijing representatives have in the past met local government officials following their appointment, the meeting in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, was the first time such an official had met newly elected lawmakers.

The legislators were sworn in on Monday, two weeks after the first citywide election under Beijing’s “patriots-only” electoral overhaul. No members of opposition parties were among them.

Legco president Andrew Leung Kwan-yuen, who attended the two-hour gathering, said Xia was delighted by the election results which he said had returned “patriots”.

The director hit out at the opposition for using the legislature as a platform in the past to challenge the constitution, national security and the executive-led model of the local government.

“[Xia] said the Legislative Council over the past five years has deviated from its constitutional order and become a platform for ‘anti-China disrupters’ … which affected the city’s governance and image,” Leung said.