Dozens of people protested noisily outside the former British colony’s new government house as Li, a protege of Chinese President Hu Jintao and widely tipped to succeed Wen Jiabao as premier in 2013, attended a ceremony indoors.
Before a large police presence, the protesters waved placards, some bearing the picture of jailed Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo, and shouted slogans such as: “Release all political prisoners” and “Democracy for China.”
“We’re here to protest against the repression in China. We urge the Vice Premier Li Keqiang to open his eyes. We will not forget Mr. Liu Xiaobo,” said Leung Kwok-hung, a member of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council and a political activist, who was among the protesters.
“We will not forget about his wife Liu Xia. And we will not forget those political prisoners in China. And we will not forget the June 4 massacre,” he said, referring to the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Beijing in 1989.
Li arrived in Hong Kong on Tuesday, and on Wednesday he unveiled a series of initiatives to boost the Hong Kong economy and promote its role as an offshore yuan trading center.
Such political protests are rare in Beijing, where China’s leaders are sheltered in leadership compounds and plainclothes police are posed to snuff out demonstrations as quickly as they start. But they are common in Hong Kong, which enjoys a high level of autonomy after it returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.
Outside the new Hong Kong government building on Thursday, one protester held a blood-spattered umbrella demanding an apology for Beijing’s crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen uprising.
Another carried a replica of a coffin urging a renewed push for a “jasmine revolution” in China, a reference to the political movements that have swept the Arab world.
