Hong Kong aligns its diplomacy with Beijing, cuts school exchanges with Japan
The Special Autonomous Region halted cultural initiatives following a diplomatic row between China and Japan. Chief Executive John Lee reiterated the need to support the central government's position. Although Hong Kongers have not scrapped trips to Japan, US President and Xi Jinping were caught up by the tensions today.
Hong Kong (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Hong Kong authorities cancelled several cultural events and exchange programmes with Japan due to tensions between Beijing and Tokyo.
The crisis was triggered by a series of statements by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who hinted at the possibility of Japanese military action in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan.
In Hong Kong, Chief Executive John Lee, speaking at a seminar held this morning to promote the message of the Fourth Plenum of the Communist Party of China, insisted that the Special Autonomous Region has to work in full harmony with Beijing.
For him, Prime Minister Takaichi's words “significantly worsened the atmosphere for Sino-Japanese exchanges” and “hurt the feelings of the Chinese people”.
Reiterating its support for China’s foreign policy, Hong Kong’s Education Bureau also pulled out of the Japan-East Asia Network of Exchange for Students and Youths (JENESYS), a Japanese programme designed to promote exchanges between Asian students. Hong Kong joined it in 2008, and teachers and students were scheduled to travel to Japan next month.
The Bureau justified the decision by the need to "protect the safety" of participants, citing an alleged increase in attacks against Chinese nationals in Japan. The Japanese Foreign Ministry dismissed the claim, stating that there is no evidence of an increase in crimes against Chinese citizens.
In Japan, however, the situation is not much different; the governor of Tottori Prefecture, for example, cancelled a study trip to Hong Kong.
Meetings like this morning's, in which Lee was accompanied by figures sent by Beijing to promote its political propaganda, were rare before the imposition of the national security law in June 2020. Since then, Hong Kong has been gradually absorbed into mainland China.
Hong Kong residents, however, do not seem to be paying much attention to such political propaganda; travel agencies, for example, have not reported any cancellations, and trade between Japan and Hong Kong has not been impacted (at least for now).
Hong Kong remains the world's second-largest importer of Japanese agricultural and food products, a market that in the first nine months of the year reached 162 billion yen, just over a billion dollars.
Still, Sino-Japanese relations have not yet recovered; if anything, the crisis has further deepened.
US President Donald Trump today had a telephone conversation with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, after which he described relations with China as “very solid”. On the Truth Social platform, he did not mention any discussion about Taiwan with Xi.
Conversely, Xi reportedly told Trump that "Taiwan's return to China" is a central to Beijing's global vision of the post-World War II world order, i.e. central to maintaining peace.
Taiwan's premier, Cho Jung-tai, begs to differ, saying that "return" is not an option for the island's 23 million inhabitants.
Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi later said that Trump had contacted her after he spoke to Xi.
“We then exchanged a wide range of views on strengthening the Japan-US alliance, as well as on the situation and various challenges facing the Indo-Pacific region,” Takaichi said at the press conference.
“President Trump mentioned that he and I are extremely good friends, and that he would be delighted to receive a call from me at any time,” she added. “As these are diplomatic exchanges, I will refrain from going into further detail about the contents of the discussion”.
For Xi, it is important that the United States rein in its allies.
.png)
11/10/2025 14:58
26/10/2024 14:42
22/09/2025 16:35
