for as long as it takes. and, temperatures in japan are at the highest in nearly 150 years. now fears the electricity grid could be overwhelmed. hong kong is marking 25 years since britain handed over control of the territory to china. xijinping, china s president, has been in the city to celebrate the event. this was the scene at the railway station as mr xi arrived. he was greeted by the outgoing chief executive carrie lam, who he credits for stopping what he called chaos and violence in the territory. her time in office saw the erosion of civil liberties and the crushing of huge pro democracy protests. speaking ahead of the anniversary, the british prime minister, borisjohnson, accused beijing of failing to meet the commitments it made in 1997 to respect hong kong s freedoms. on the 25th anniversary of the handover, we simply cannot avoid the fact that, for some time now, beijing has been failing to comply with its obligations. it is a state of affairs that threatens bot
scientists in scotland have produced a sheep called dolly that was cloned in a laboratory using a cell from another sheep. for the first time in 20 years, russian and american spacecraft have docked in orbit at the start of a new era of cooperation in space. tennis balls thwack cheering and applause challenger powered past the bishop rock lighthouse at almost 50 knots, shattering a record that had stood for 3h years, and there was no hiding the sheer elation of richard branson and his crew. this is bbc news. the latest headlines: hong kong is marking 25 years since the handover of the former british colony. chinese president xijinping is attending the inauguration of the new chief executive.
let s stay with that and return to events in hong kong. for a better insight into what xi jinping s visit today spells for the city and for some of china s neighbours, let s turn to ho fung hung, a professor of political economy at thejohn hopkins university in baltimore. professor, thank you so much forjoining us. what do we take from xijinping s visit forjoining us. what do we take from xi jinping s visit to hong kong. what does it tell us about china s level of control over the territory and also beijing s contentment with that level of control? it s the 25th year anniversary of the hong kong handover and it s an important landmark and also, after the uprising in 2019 and the national security law in 2020, xijinping is very much interested in showing that now, hong kong is back to stability and beijing has full
unprecedented not only in hong kong but even in local leaders in chinese province and cities, to have somebody having a security background to be the leader of the local area shows that they are still anxious about the possibility of resistance flaring up, which is possible very well, in the long run, so they will definitely double down in increasing the control of hong kong so that hong kong people and also revamping the universities, high schools, school curriculum to make sure that people are ontologically falling in line. we are seeing here pictures of the ceremonies taking place in the ceremonies taking place in the conference centre there in hong kong, the civil dignitary xijinping in attendance hong kong, the civil dignitary xi jinping in attendance as well. in the last few hours we have heard comments from the british prime minister boris johnson and british secretary liz truss in reference to the fact that china must continue to uphold the commitments it made back in 1997. 25
to be after the inauguration ceremony, we would be likely to hear more insight on what beijing wants hong kong wants to do, along the line of patriots to rule hong kong. because hong kong is tied to the one country, two systems principle and the way of ruling, it is very likely he ll be talking about taiwan as well but we will have to wait and see until the specs. a rather generic expectation you would say, i m what he may be speaking about in 30 minutes time. , , , time. this is president xi jinping s time. this is president xi jinping s first time. this is president xi jinping s first visit - time. this is president xi jinping s first visit and i time. this is president xi jinping s first visit and it | jinping s first visit and it has been carrie lam s previously but what can we expect from john lee and his time in office?