Former Australian high court justice Patrick Keane has been lined up to serve on Hong Kong’s top court after two British judges resigned citing concerns about freedom crackdowns. Hong Kong’s chief executive, John Lee Ka-chiu, accepted the recommendation to appoint Keane to the court of final appeal bench on Friday. Keane was appointed to Australia’s high court in 2013 after serving as chief justice of the federal court. The 70-year-old’s appointment as a non-permanent judge in Hong Kong will need to be cleared by the territory’s legislative council, which is…
Tag: Hong Kong
China appoints hardliner Zheng Yanxiong as its top representative in Hong Kong
China has appointed the head of the national security office in Hong Kong as its top representative officer in Hong Kong – a sign that Beijing will tighten its control over the city. Zheng Yanxiong, 59, replaces another hardliner, Luo Huining, 68, as head of Beijing’s top representative office in Hong Kong, the State Council said in a notice. As the inaugural director of the Office for Safeguarding National Security in Hong Kong, Zheng was among the Chinese and Hong Kong officials sanctioned by the United States for undermining Hong…
Chinese flock to Hong Kong to get private Covid booster shots
Private services offering Chinese travellers access to mRNA vaccines are attracting droves of mainlanders to Hong Kong and Macau seeking a booster shot that their government has refused to approve. As part of its dismantling of the country’s zero-Covid policy last month, China’s government also lifted quarantine and other border restrictions. It prompted a wave of interest in overseas travel, particularly for the upcoming lunar new year holiday later this month. However, there also appears to be a large contingent chasing the mRNA bivalent vaccines. Throughout the pandemic the Chinese…
Pro-democracy Hong Kong tycoon Jimmy Lai requests Rishi Sunak meeting – report
Lawyers for the Hong Kong activist and media mogul Jimmy Lai have reportedly requested a meeting with the British prime minister to discuss his case. Lai, a dual Hong Kong and British citizen, is awaiting trial on national security charges in one of the most high-profile cases brought by Hong Kong authorities against the pro-democracy movement. If convicted he could face life in prison. According to the BBC, Lai’s international legal team has written to the British leader, Rishi Sunak, requesting an urgent meeting about “potential ways to secure Mr…
As China Reopens Its Borders, Mixed Feelings at Home and Abroad
HONG KONG — Over the past three years, Zhou Wanhui, a Hong Kong resident, has visited her parents in China just three times. Though they live only two hours away by train, Covid restrictions made it so difficult to cross the Hong Kong border into mainland China that one of Ms. Zhou’s trips included a three-hour flight to Shanghai and nearly a month of quarantine in two cities. Families like Ms. Zhou’s — kept apart for weddings and funerals, birthdays and graduations — are finally preparing for less arduous reunions.…
As China Lifts Pandemic Border Controls, Mixed Feelings at Home and Abroad
HONG KONG — Over the past three years, Zhou Wanhui, a Hong Kong resident, has visited her parents in China just three times. Though they live only two hours away by train, Covid restrictions made it so difficult to cross the Hong Kong border into mainland China that one of Ms. Zhou’s trips included a three-hour flight to Shanghai and nearly a month of quarantine in two cities. Families like Ms. Zhou’s — kept apart for weddings and funerals, birthdays and graduations — are finally preparing for less arduous reunions.…
China drops quarantine for visitors as lunar new year travel kicks off amid Covid surge
China has lifted quarantine requirements for inbound travellers, ending almost three years of self-imposed isolation even as the country battles a surge in Covid cases. Beijing last month began a dramatic dismantling of a hardline virus strategy that had enforced mandatory quarantines and gruelling lockdowns. The containment policy has tanked China’s economy and sparked nationwide protests. In the final unravelling of those rules, from Sunday inbound travellers to China are no longer required to quarantine. Since March 2020, all arrivals had been forced to undergo isolation at centralised government facilities.…
As China Drops Travel Rules, Wariness Rises Over its Covid Outbreak
For the past three years, China largely shut its borders and kept its people home, retreating from the global engagement that was the foundation for its rise. As the country now prepares to gradually reopen its doors to help rescue a faltering economy, the world is both excited about the potential boon for business and tourism, but wary about exposure to a country facing an explosion of Covid cases. Starting Jan. 8, China will drop its strict quarantine requirements for travelers arriving from abroad and lift rules that had limited…
China’s Abrupt Covid Pivot Leaves Many Without Medicines
When demand for fever-reducing drugs more than quadrupled the price of ibuprofen, a city in eastern China began rationing sales by selling the pills individually. When a popular Chinese online pharmacy offered the antiviral drug Paxlovid, it sold out within hours. And when word of the medicine shortages in China reached friends and relatives in Hong Kong and Taiwan, they quickly bought vast quantities of drugs from local sellers to ship to the mainland. As Covid rips through parts of China, millions of Chinese are struggling to find treatment —…
China v Jimmy Lai: a tycoon, a trial and the erosion of Hong Kong’s rule of law
Even before his jailing, Jimmy Lai knew he faced a grim future, but insisted on fighting his cause. “Without fighting, we don’t have hope. We don’t know when we’ll win, but we’re so sure we’re on the right side of history, and time is on our side,” the founder of the vocal pro-democracy Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily told the Guardian in August 2020 while on bail, five days after his arrest over allegations of foreign collusion. Beijing’s national security law had come into effect two months earlier. Police had…