HK's development journey will continue: China Daily editorial

Ever since Beijing resumed sovereign rule over Hong Kong, speculation about the special administrative region's decline or even demise has never disappeared. And true to form, some Western politicians and media have been doling out gloomy forecasts for Hong Kong's future of late.

Yet, until the recent turmoil instigated by destabilizing forces and radical localists, Hong Kong has done well over the past two decades in terms of its socioeconomic development. It has cemented its status as one of the world's major international centers for finance, trade and logistics, as well as its reputation for being one of the safest cities in the world with one of the longest life expectancy.

The SAR owes much of its economic prowess and success to its unique role and close connections with the Chinese mainland rather than to its colonial legacy, as those holding anti-China sentiments try to suggest. After all, there are dozens of places with colonial legacy in the world but few — if any — have matched Hong Kong's achievements.

And Hong Kong residents can take comfort from the nation's 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) and Long-Range Objectives till 2035, the blueprint laying out the vision for China's national development over the next 15 years, which is now being deliberated on by the National People's Congress, China's top legislature. The document indicates that the central authorities will extend their steadfast support for Hong Kong to entrench its comparative advantages and its status as a connector between the internal and external circulations.

With a national security law introduced in the HKSAR last year, and reform of the electoral system impending to ensure that only patriots can hold positions of authority in the SAR, the toxic political activities and polarization of Hong Kong society that have hindered economic development and government efforts to tackle deep-seated social problems in recent years should become a thing of the past, allowing Hong Kong to continue on its development journey.

These moves are "timely, necessary, lawful and constitutional", as Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, Hong Kong's chief executive, said on Monday, referring to the draft decision on improving Hong Kong's electoral system that is under deliberation by the NPC.

As she said, "the central authorities' leadership and decision-making power are out of question", those suggesting otherwise are the doom-and-gloom mongers that have dutifully sought to deny the SAR's socioeconomic development trajectory over the past few decades in an attempt to discredit the "one country, two systems" framework.

But their efforts will not stop Hong Kong from continuing on its development journey.