A Hong Kong primary school is seeking student volunteers to spend a week in hotel quarantine ahead of the anniversary of the city’s handover to China, fueling speculation a ‘bubble’ has been set up to allow a visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
July 1 will mark 25 years since the handover of Hong Kong by the British Empire to China and the enthronement of new local chief executive John Lee.
Chinese presidents usually attend the swearing-in of the chief executive. Mr. Xi came in 2017 but has not left mainland China since the start of the pandemic.
Less than two weeks from the event, its arrival in Hong Kong is still uncertain.
Local media, however, fill their columns with stories about extraordinary measures that would be put in place to protect expected senior officials from the coronavirus, including placing hundreds of people in quarantine.
Among the measures quoted in these articles, from generally anonymous sources, one has however been confirmed.
Parents of students at Wong Cho Bao School, run by the pro-Beijing Hong Kong Federation of Education Professionals (HKFEW), have been urged to register their children so they can host visiting dignitaries.
Pupils will have to spend seven days in quarantine at the hotel, away from their families, and the government will pay the bill, said a note shown to AFP by the school’s director, Wong Kam-leung.
The document encourages parents to enroll their sixth-grade children (about 12) for a “rare honorable mission” to greet unspecified visitors at the airport on June 30 and greet them as they depart a day later.
The student volunteers will begin a hotel quarantine on June 23 under the supervision of a teacher and participate in classes by videoconference, the document explains, adding that they must have received two doses of the vaccine.
Wong told AFP that the document was an “internal administrative procedure” to gauge parents’ interest and that the government had yet to finalize the draft.
Mr Wong, also chairman of the HKFEW, declined to say how many families had volunteered.
Zero COVID
China remains faithful to its draconian strategy of zero COVID-19, which aims to extinguish any outbreak through mass screening campaigns, confinements and strict border control.
Hong Kong is following its own variation of the zero COVID strategy and this financial and trade hub has cut itself off from the world for much of the pandemic.
However, the restrictions there are less severe than in mainland China and have eased in recent months, although a few hundred cases are reported each day.
Because of this difference in policy, Hong Kongers called to come into contact with Chinese leaders will certainly have to observe a quarantine, according to local media.
Authorities have planned a “closed loop system” to isolate nearly 1,000 people, including current chief executive Carrie Lam, her successor John Lee and other senior officials, ahead of a visit by officials from Beijing. wrote the South China Morning Post.
Members of the Legislative Council may also have to go into quarantine, with a device so that they can participate in meetings of the chamber, according to some media.
Xi Jinping has not been out of mainland China since January 2020, when the coronavirus hit the city of Wuhan before spreading around the world.
The president has isolated himself from the rest of the world, and China with him, by keeping borders virtually closed and avoiding international travel.
The Winter Olympics in Beijing in February were the only opportunity for him in more than two years to meet foreign leaders face-to-face.
A huge system in a vacuum had been put in place around these Olympics.
In 2017, Mr. Xi stayed in Hong Kong for three days for the 20th anniversary of the handover and the swearing-in of Ms. Lam.
He announced in May a “new chapter” for the city after major pro-democracy protests were cracked down in 2019 and a national security law was put in place to stifle dissent.