- Title: China to target young of Taiwan, Hong Kong to boost loyalty
- Date: 3rd March 2017
- Summary: GREAT HALL VARIOUS OF DELEGATES SEATED LOGO OF THE CHINESE PEOPLE'S POLITICAL CONSULTATIVE CONFERENCE DELEGATES STANDING UP
- Embargoed: 17th March 2017 11:39
- Keywords: China parliament Hong Kong Taiwan young
- Location: BEIJING, CHINA
- City: BEIJING, CHINA
- Country: China
- Topics: Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA00266ENGAT
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: China wants to boost the loyalty of young people from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau by organising "study trips" and exchanges for them to visit the mainland, a top Chinese official said at the opening of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in Beijing on Friday (March 3).
More than 2,000 delegates representing a broad spectrum of Chinese society are expected to attend this year's CPPCC session, which runs until March 13.
Chinese President Xi Jinping walked into the main meeting room of Beijing's Great Hall of the People followed by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.
Young activists in both Hong Kong and self-ruled Taiwan have irked Beijing in recent years by pushing for greater autonomy or even independence and by organising protests against China's influence.
Hong Kong and Macau were former European colonial outposts that returned to Chinese rule in the 1990s.
Defeated Nationalist forces fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war to the Communists. China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control, viewing it as a wayward province.
Yu Zhengsheng, the ruling Communist Party's fourth ranked leader, announced the plan to boost the loyalty to China among young people in all three places at the opening session of a largely ceremonial advisory body to parliament in Beijing.
"(We) will strengthen friendship and communication with political organizations, social groups, and influential figures in Hong Kong and Macau, promote exchange and cooperation in all fields between the mainland and these two regions, and organize for their young people to visit the mainland on study trips and experience it for themselves, so as to strengthen the love of both region and country among the people of Hong Kong and Macao," said Yu.
The government would also increase exchanges with young people in Taiwan in order to "build up public support for the peaceful development of cross-straits relations", he said.
China is deeply suspicious of Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, whose ruling Democratic Progressive Party espouses the island's formal independence, a red line for Beijing, which has cut off a formal dialogue mechanism with the island.
Tsai says she wants peace with China.
In 2014, hundreds of students occupied Taiwan's parliament for weeks in protests nicknamed the Sunflower Movement, demanding more transparency and fearful of China's growing economic and political influence on the democratic island.
Yu did not say how many young people would be brought to China or give any other details about the plan, or how it may differ from existing schemes.
In the former British colony of Hong Kong, students organised weeks of protests in late 2014 to push for full democracy, but Beijing declined to make concessions.
Hong Kong returned to China in 1997 under a "one country, two systems" formula granting it extensive autonomy, an independent judiciary and rule of law for at least 50 years.
Yu said China would "remain committed" to the formula. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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