Executive Council convenor and New People's Party chairwoman Regina Ip on Wednesday said her party had fruitful exchanges with British government officials, think tanks and business leaders during a recent visit to the UK. "The key takeaways are that they are very interested in Hong Kong's development – in particular the development of our financial markets, our family offices, our connectivity schemes with mainland China, [and] the Greater Bay Area development," Ip told reporters after leading a delegation to London. She also said in response to questions from some UK media outlets about the national security laws in Hong Kong, her delegation assured them that the provisions are on par with British laws, and that press freedom is alive and well in Hong Kong. "We explained to them our two national security laws actually only affected a very small number of people. All the trials were conducted openly in full transparency, and nobody has been able to point any finger at the quality of the judgements," she said. On US president-elect Donald Trump possibly naming Marco Rubio as secretary of state and how this could affect the SAR, Ip said she hopes the Florida senator would visit Hong Kong to clear up "misunderstandings". Rubio sponsored the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019 to sanction SAR and central government officials, drawing condemnation from Beijing. "I hope he will actually visit Hong Kong to see the true situation in Hong Kong, and not just listen to a small minority of Hong Kong people who have a twisted view of One Country, Two Systems," Ip said.
