[But Mr. Hu, who arrived on Friday and is to stay through Sunday to observe a change of local government and the 15th anniversary of the return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty, is encountering a very different sentiment this time. Public mistrust of the central government in Beijing is at its highest since the handover in 1997, while approval ratings for Leung Chun-ying, the incoming Hong Kong chief executive, have dropped sharply before his inauguration.]
By KEVIN DREW
But Mr. Hu, who arrived on Friday and is to stay through Sunday to observe a change of local government and the 15th anniversary of the return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty, is encountering a very different sentiment this time. Public mistrust of the central government in Beijing is at its highest since the handover in 1997, while approval ratings for Leung Chun-ying, the incoming Hong Kong chief executive, have dropped sharply before his inauguration.
Pressing economic worries have contributed to public frustration that has been building for months, both with Beijing and with the political and economic system in Hong Kong since 1997, a system in which special interests controlled by a small circle of tycoons select the chief executive.
“We still cannot choose our chief executive, and that has caused many problems,” said Andrew Shum, 25, who is organizing one of the demonstrations near where Mr. Hu is leading meetings. “People don’t trust the chief executive, because they don’t have a voice in voting for him.”
Fifteen years after the handover, Hong Kong faces a wide set of challenges, analysts say: property prices have soared to their highest levels since 1997; the gap between rich and poor, already the greatest in Asia, is at its highest level in four decades; air pollution continues to worsen; and no clear path has been presented to usher in a system to allow the public to directly elect leaders.
Beijing has said that direct elections of the chief executive may be held as early as 2017, but it has not given any guarantees.
A sense of urgency is beginning to take hold for many involved in politics here.
“I don’t think any Hong Kong government official can afford a honeymoon with legislators or the public,” said Miriam Lau, chairwoman of the Liberal Party, which supports business interests. “There are too many issues to face.”
While the economy is seen as robust, driven by financial and real estate industries that have helped the government build fiscal reserves of about $85 billion, recently released statistics point to worrying developments.
Property prices in Hong Kong, among the highest in the world, surged in June past the previous record set in 1997, according to Centaline, a local real estate firm that tracks prices. The government here says that the Gini coefficient, an international measure of income inequality, rose in 2011 to its highest level since 1971. The gap between rich and poor is greater than in Britain, Singapore or the United States, officials said.
Echoing the Occupy movements across the globe, residents here poured into the streets last July 1, the 14th anniversary of the return to Chinese rule, to voice anger at the growing inequality. Organizers said that rally drew more than 200,000 people. And while the police gave a much lower number, most observers said the march had attracted the most people since at least 2004.
“It is harder today to jump up to the middle class than in 1997, when you could still do it with hard work alone,” said Gordon Hon, 39, a Hong Kong resident with a two-year university certificate in social work who leads rock climbing and other outdoor pursuits. “Hong Kong has moved on to a knowledge-based society, and I would need more education to earn more.”
Much of the public’s anxiety is rooted in Hong Kong’s complex relationship with mainland China. Although the economy has become increasingly dependent on mainland visitors since 1997, Hong Kong retains significant cultural and political differences. Cantonese is the predominant Chinese dialect spoken here, not the Mandarin of the mainland.
Beijing guaranteed that Hong Kong’s civil liberties, which include independent courts and a free press, would be preserved for the first 50 years after the handover. But many here worry that the way of life is yielding to the flood of people coming from the mainland, either as tourists or immigrants, and to increasing business ties with mainland interests. Many also say that it is mainland visitors, coming to Hong Kong with large amounts of cash, who are fueling the property market’s soaring prices.
A recent poll by the University of Hong Kong’s Public Opinion Program found that 37 percent of Hong Kong residents mistrusted the central government in Beijing, the highest figure since 1997. The local news media have said that reports of human rights abuses on the mainland, like the extrajudicial detention of Chen Guangcheng, the rights advocate who has since been allowed to leave for the United States, have fed Hong Kong residents’ concerns about China.
Organizers were expecting a large turnout for the annual July 1 demonstration on Sunday, a day that activists traditionally use to press for action on various social issues. On Saturday, tensions between residents and Beijing were on display when the police briefly scuffled in the evening with a small group of demonstrators in front of the convention center where Mr. Hu was attending a banquet with local officials.
The demonstrators had rallied to call on Mr. Hu to investigate the death of Li Wangyang, a dissident whose body was found on June 6 with a cloth tied around his neck. Reports of his death set off protests in Hong Kong after the police in Hunan Province initially labeled it a suicide.
Earlier Saturday, the police briefly detained a local journalist when the reporter asked the Chinese president about the military crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in 1989. The reporter was forcibly removed from the press area at a cruise ship terminal that Mr. Hu was reviewing.
Mr. Leung, the incoming chief executive, has said he wants to speed up the construction of public housing and has promised to form a committee to study ways to ease poverty in Hong Kong. He has also said he wants to ensure better access to education and medical care.
But how effective a leader he will be is a growing question. His credibility came under attack in June when he was forced to admit to having illegal additions at his luxury home — after having used the same issue to bring down a rival — in the form of a basement and a glass canopy.
In March, Mr. Leung attacked Henry Tang, then the front-runner for chief executive, for first denying and then acknowledging that a large basement had been built under his own home without government authorization.
Popular anger over the perception that this was another case of Hong Kong’s privileged flouting the law helped Mr. Leung win enough votes from the 1,200-member election committee to push Mr. Tang aside.
In a separate poll by the Public Opinion Program, commissioned by the newspaper The South China Morning Post, 70 percent of respondents said the disclosures that Mr. Leung also had illegal structures at his home had lowered their opinion of his integrity. Fifty-two percent said the disclosures had adversely affected their view of his suitability as chief executive.
