For Chinese president Hu Jintao, Hong Kong is a headache that just won't go away. Last summer, when half a million people took to the streets to protest Hong Kong's unpopular Beijing-appointed chief- executive, Tung Chee-Hwa, and his plan to ram through tough new security laws, Hu and the Chinese leadership suffered an embarrassing reversal: Tung backed down, the first time in China's history that the government gave in to people power. To defuse tensions, Beijing introduced measures aimed at boosting the territory's economy, which was then ravaged by the SARS outbreak and the aftermath of a property bubble.
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