Politics

Tung Chee-hwa’s tenure as Hong Kong’s first chief executive reflected “a deep belief in dialogue”, the China Institute of America has said during an awards ceremony honouring the former leader for his decades-long efforts to foster understanding between the world’s two superpowers.The China Institute Centennial Award was presented at an event commemorating the non-profit institution’s 100th anniversary in New York on Thursday.Tung, who served as Hong Kong’s first chief executive after the city returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, was honoured alongside the families of former US presidents Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush, as well as the Rockefeller family.Andy Tung (right) displays the award he received on behalf of his father with James Chau, president of the China-United States Exc...

Two universities in Hong Kong have signed partnership agreements with a leading varsity in Kazakhstan, with the city leader saying the moves will help deepen academic collaboration and strengthen social bonds.The Education University of Hong Kong and Polytechnic University signed separate memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with Nazarbayev University on Wednesday to boost cross-border research and student exchanges.The signings were witnessed by Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu, who is leading a 70-strong delegation to explore business opportunities in Central Asia.On Wednesday, the delegation visited Nazarbayev University, where Chinese President Xi Jinping first announced the Belt and Road Initiative more than a decade ago.During a state visit to Kazakhstan in 2013, Xi proposed building ...

Beijing’s top official on Hong Kong and Macau affairs has visited the Hengqin cooperation zone in Guangdong province’s Zhuhai as part of a drive to help the two special administrative regions align with the nation’s 15th five-year plan.The four-day visit by Xia Baolong, director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office (HKMAO), was his third trip to the Greater Bay Area this year.During his trip from Monday to Thursday, Xia visited a university town, research institutes, and innovation and technology companies within the zone.The office said on Thursday that Xia’s tour focused on “supporting Hong Kong and Macau in proactively aligning with the national 15th five-year plan”, which guides the country’s development from 2026 to 2030.The office added that the visit also aimed to deepen the ci...

They included Chan Po-ying, former chairwoman of the now-defunct League of Social Democrats opposition group, and activist Virginia Fung King-man.Police said they stopped and searched five men and two women, aged between 17 and 79, for allegedly disrupting order in the area around Great George Street and East Point Road. They were removed from the scene for further investigation and later allowed to leave, the force added.Police said they would deploy appropriate measures in response to threats to national security and public safety and order.For about three decades, Victoria Park in Causeway Bay hosted an annual candlelight vigil to commemorate the June 4, 1989, crackdown in Beijing. The event drew tens of thousands of people each year until it was banned on public health grounds in 2020 ...

Lo Wai-kwok, the 73-year-old chairman of Hong Kong’s largest pro-business party and a former lawmaker, has announced his engagement to a Cantonese opera actress 42 years his junior, becoming the talk of the city’s political circles.Lo’s engagement to 31-year-old Yemina Yu Chung-yan comes five years after the death of his wife Adelina Wong Siu-chun.The couple, whose wedding will be held in October, are set to add to the city’s growing number of remarriages, which rose from 15,832 in 2019 to 20,971 in 2024, a jump of 32 per cent.Lo, who heads the Business and Professionals Alliance for Hong Kong, appeared with Yu on Friday at a media event at the party’s headquarters, where they smiled, held hands and exchanged affectionate glances.Sharing a passion for Cantonese opera, they also performed a...

Hong Kong Legislative Council president Starry Lee Wai-king has urged officials to respect lawmakers’ dissenting views amid a recent rise in government pushback, stressing that public policies “always have pros and cons”.Speaking at a media gathering on Tuesday, Lee said she had relayed lawmakers’ concerns to the government regarding officials’ recent rebuttals. She described the relationship between the executive and legislative branches as an ongoing process requiring mutual respect from both sides, while exploring ways to move forward in response to new circumstances.Her remarks came after several recent incidents in which government officials publicly rebuked lawmakers. These included the Department of Health criticising legislator Chris Ip Ngo-tung, without naming him, for raising con...

Beijing has appointed Yuan Gujie, a senior Guangdong province official who vowed to further connect rules in the Greater Bay Area, as a deputy director of its liaison office in Hong Kong.The state-run Xinhua News Agency announced on Monday that Yuan, 58, had succeeded diplomat Liu Guangyuan, who is expected to retire at age 61.The liaison office’s top leadership includes director Zhou Ji and four deputies.Yuan headed the provincial Political and Legal Affairs Commission and also served as a member of the Standing Committee of the Guangdong Provincial Committee and as an alternate member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China before being posted to Hong Kong.She has a legal background and spent her career in Guangdong. She graduated with a law degree from Sun Yat-sen Unive...

Hong Kong leader John Lee Ka-chiu met lawmakers on Friday to discuss a “highly targeted, substance-heavy” report they compiled outlining proposals on how the city’s first five-year plan should proactively align with national development.The closed-door meeting took place ahead of the government’s planned launch of a public consultation on Hong Kong’s five-year plan in early June as previously reported by the South China Morning Post. The plan is expected to be announced by the end of this year.Legislative Council president Starry Lee Wai-king, House Committee chairman Ronick Chan Chun-ying and Finance Committee chairman Jimmy Ng Wing-ka attended the meeting at the Chief Executive’s Office on Friday morning.They were joined by Stanley Ng Chau-pei and Yim Kong, members of a dedicated Legco s...

It’s that time of the year again – tax season, so don’t forget to fill out your return. It’s also the time of the year when the Hong Kong government decides on pay rises for its civil service staff of over 170,000.There’s a well-established system for deciding on pay rises. It includes the pay trend survey submitted to the government last week. Its preliminary results indicate that civil servants are in line for wage increases of 4.12 per cent for senior civil servants, 2.64 per cent for middle-ranking staff and 1.17 per cent for junior employees.The survey is just one of the factors the Executive Council considers before it determines the annual pay adjustments offered to civil servants. Exco will also take into account the state of the economy, the cost of living, the government’s fiscal...

Hong Kong authorities have allocated HK$5 billion (US$638 million) in funding for efforts to safeguard national security, bringing the total amount earmarked for this purpose to HK$18 billion over the past five years, an official document has revealed.The South China Morning Post’s check on the government’s general revenue expenditure accounts for the financial year ending in March 2026 showed a non-recurrent expenditure of HK$5 billion set aside for a “special fund to meet the expenditure for safeguarding national security”.This funding marks the third non-recurrent expenditure from the government for national security spending. The government previously allocated HK$8 billion in the 2021-22 budget and another HK$5 billion in the 2023-24 financial year, bringing accumulated funding to HK$...