Wang Zhimin loses job as liaison office chief

Wang Zhimin had been in the position since September 2017. File photo: RTHK

Luo Huining is the new director of the liaison office. Photo courtesy of the Shanxi People's Congress

The director of Beijing's liaison office in Hong Kong, Wang Zhimin, has been removed from his post, according to Xinhua News Agency.



He is being replaced by Luo Huining, who had been made a deputy head of the National People's Congress Financial and Economic Affairs Committee just a week ago.



Luo was Communist Party secretary of Shanxi province between 2016 and November last year.



The 65-year-old from Yiwu, in Zhejiang province, has no experience of dealing with Hong Kong affairs. He spent almost 30 years with the Anhui provincial government.



Luo became a member of the Communist Party's Central Committee in 2012.



The liaison office has in recent months been accused of seriously misjudging the situation in Hong Kong, with the unrest that broke out last June catching Beijing by surprise.



In November, the Reuters News Agency reported that Beijing had set up a crisis centre in Shenzhen to monitor Hong Kong events and that it was considering sacking Wang.



Reuters had quoted a mainland official as saying that the liaison office had been "mingling with the rich people and mainland elites in the city and isolated itself from the people".



Wang had been head of the liaison office since September 2017.



It was his third stint in Hong Kong. In 1992, he was assigned to Xinhua News Agency's office, which before the handover served as Beijing's defacto consulate in the city.



In 2006, Wang was made a deputy secretary general of the liaison office and was later promoted to deputy director. He later moved back to Beijing, and served as director of the liaison office in Macau for around a year before returning to Hong Kong.