China said Hong Kong’s future leader needs to tackle the city’s housing crisis in the latest sign that the Asian financial hub’s expensive residential real estate market is a priority for Beijing as Chinese officials seek to reassert their legitimacy following unrest.
With a national security law ensuring stability and prosperity in the city, Hong Kong’s housing problems should be "greatly improved” by 2049, Xia Baolong, the director of the Cabinet-level Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office in Beijing, told a private gathering of the Hong Kong’s senior-most officials on Friday. Xia was alluding to a year that marks 100 years since the Communist Party came to power in China.
"A governor should not only love his country and Hong Kong, but also have both political integrity and ability,” Xia told officials at an event meant to highlight the positive changes since Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law on the city last year.