The South China Morning Post reported (January 29) that Li Chunsheng, head of the Guangdong Provincial Public Security Department, disclosed that President Xi Jinping will visit Macau later this year for the 20th anniversary of the city’s reunification with China. He announced that provincial authorities have rolled out eight operation plans to strike “illegal activities” threatening the nation’s political security. Li Chunsheng also disclosed that a communication centre for police forces in the “Greater Bay Area” would be set up on the islet of Qiao in Zhuhai by October, which would handle the security details and operational command for Xi’s trip. He said “In October, a Greater Bay Area police communication centre will be set up in Zhuhai.” “[Xi] will come and join the celebrations for the 20th anniversary in Macau, where he will deliver an important speech.” Speaking at a meeting in Guangzhou, where dozens of officials from the city of Maoming discussed the annual report delivered by the provincial governor Ma Xingrui, Li gave a stern warning on a series of threats to China’s political security in 2019. He indirectly cited a number of anniversaries, including that of the crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989.Li was speaking hours after Ma said the province would team up with Hong Kong and Macau this year to build joint laboratories to study cutting-edge technologies needed by local industries. Li Chunsheng, who has headed the Guangdong Provincial Public Security Department for six years, said “We must resolutely defend the country’s political security. Among all types of security, the political security is the most prominent and its two essential parts are the security of our socialist system and the security of the Chinese Communist Party’s regime.” He said to defend the security of the party that centres around Xi and to defend the socialist path were the top priorities for public security authorities in 2019, which he described as “a politically significant year”. “It’s the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, it’s the 20th anniversary of Macau’s handover, and of course, it’s the anniversary of a series of incidents, which took place 20, 30 and 10 years ago,” Li Chunsheng said. “The hostile forces inside China have long marked this year as an important time to implement their plan – which is a vain attempt – to overthrow our system.” Li Chunsheng said Guangdong’s provincial party chief Li Xi had recently organised a special meeting and rolled out eight operation plans to strike “illegal activities that will jeopardise political security”, including strengthening control over universities, the social sciences sector, and the internet. Asked by the Post on the sidelines of the meeting whether Guangdong police would more severely crack down on people who tried to get rid of the internet blockage in mainland China, Li Chunsheng said the police would be targeting the “hostile forces” and “illegal activities that will threaten our system, society and public security”. “It’s not contradicting the integration [with Hong Kong and Macau]”.
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