Xi Jinping’s visit to Hong Kong featured unprecedented security measures, including extremely tightened security controls, the Liaoning aircraft carrier’s visit to Hong Kong, and a last-minute decision on which hotel to use. Apple Daily commented that this is due to the Communist Party’s fierce in-fighting.
“The threat to Xi’s safety is, for sure, not from Hong Kong demonstrators, the non-existent Hong Kong separatists, or the overseas extreme religious or separatist forces. Rather, it is from the Communist Party’s power struggle.”
Reason one, for over a month, Liao Xiaobo had been diagnosed with late term liver cancer. The government had successfully hidden the information for so long but then let it leak two days before Xi’s visit to Hong Kong. It was similar to a setup for Hu Jintao when he visited Hong Kong in 2012.
Reason two was that the Xi had plans A and B for two hotels to stay at. It was not until the last minute that they decided to change hotels, creating great chaos for the media and the Hong Kong police. “This arrangement showed a distrust of the internal population rather than the outside people.” “This made people want to link to Li Keqiang’s visit to Beijing University in April where the officials sent divers to search the lake at the university and used a special car to deliver food to Li when he dined at the cafeteria.”
“This arrangement let the outside world realize that the Communist Party’s power struggle has come to the point of life or death for its leaders.”
Source: Apple Daily, July 1, 2017.
http://hk.apple.nextmedia.com/news/art/20170701/20074884