Chinese President Hu Jintao arrived in Hong Kong Friday where he will oversee the swearing-in of Hong Kong's embattled leader on Sunday, stepping beyond his comfort zone of staid one-party rule in Beijing into a former British colony used to scandal and raucous protest.
Hong Kong is a liberal, global financial centre agitating for full democracy in 2017, making it both an asset and a potentially dangerous precedent for China where people are becoming increasingly intolerant of rights abuses and curtailed freedoms.
China had been hoping for a smooth transition of power from outgoing Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang to his Beijing-backed successor, Leung Chun-ying, but a series of scandals that has infuriated the public, and undermined the government's reputation as clean and honest, makes that unlikely.
