BEIJING (Reuters) – Beijing has named an official who became prominent during a crackdown on protests in a Chinese village as director of its new national security office in Hong Kong, the official Xinhua News Agency reported on Friday.
Zheng Yanxiong, 56, recently served as secretary general of the committee of the Communist Party of Guangdong Province, an economic power that borders Hong Kong. It is among a series of officials appointed by Beijing in recent months as it tightens control over the former British colony.
The new security agency was established under China’s national security legislation imposed this week in Hong Kong that will punish crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces with life sentences, heralding a more authoritarian era for the city. freest in China.
Under the legislation, the new agency in Hong Kong can take enforcement measures beyond pre-existing local laws in the most serious cases.
The legislation allows officers to take suspects across the border to stand trial in Communist Party-controlled courts and specifies special privileges for officers, including that local authorities cannot inspect their vehicles.
During Zheng’s tenure as party chief of the Shanwei city in Guangdong, authorities cracked down on protesters in 2011 in a village under his jurisdiction, called Wukan.
Thousands of residents sought compensation for the land requested by the government and elected a committee to represent their rights. They also relayed their complaints to the foreign media.
The video clips that leaked from an internal government meeting at the time showed that Zheng harshly criticized the villagers and called the foreign media “rotten.”
Zheng never held a position outside Guangdong and has extensive propaganda experience, having worked at the Communist Party official People’s Daily at his southern regional office for four years. He was vice minister in charge of propaganda for Guangdong province from 2013 to 2018.
Li Jiangzhou and Sun Qingye were named deputies for Zheng, Xinhua said.
Hong Kong was rocked by months of sometimes violent anti-government protests last year, prompting Beijing to impose security legislation that Hong Kong democracy activists and some foreign governments say further erodes the autonomy promised under the formula “one country, two systems”.
Earlier this year, China replaced two senior Hong Kong-focused officials, naming Luo Huining as head of the Liaison Office and Xia Baolong as director of the Hong Kong-Macao Affairs Office (HKMAO) in Beijing.
On Friday, Luo was appointed adviser to the Hong Kong national security committee, Xinhua said.
Report by Yew Lun Tian; Written by Se Young Lee; Editing by Clarence Fernández, Tony Munroe and Kim Coghill
.
