Hong Kong’s plan to offer free coronavirus tests to all residents has become swept up in the festering political debate dividing the city, where many remain deeply skeptical of both local leaders and China.
Billed as a benevolent public health initiative made possible with Chinese help, the city-wide tests are set to start on Tuesday in an attempt to stamp out the third wave of infections that have swept through the densely populated financial hub.
But the involvement of doctors and businesses from the mainland has sent the rumor mills into overdrive and compounded fears of Beijing’s surveillance state, while many health experts in the city have questioned the efficacy of a mass testing program.
On the authoritarian mainland, biometric data forms a crucial part of China’s vast security dragnet and many Hong Kongers fear mass testing will lead to widespread DNA collection — something local authorities have strenuously denied.
The furor is the latest illustration of the polarisation in Hong Kong as Beijing clamps down on its critics after months of huge, often violent, and ultimately unsuccessful pro-democracy protests last year.
“Public trust in Hong Kong’s government has been hovering at all-time lows for many months,” Dixon Sing, a political expert at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology told AFP.
China’s involvement in the testing scheme, he added, “simply intensifies that distrust among the majority of the population”.
