Currently, all arrivals must spend at least a week in hotel quarantine and comply with frequent testing orders, provide faecal samples for babies and fill out multiple forms.

Adults and children in the Asian financial hub, which retains some of the world's toughest Covid precautions, are required to have at least three coronavirus vaccine shots.

With more than US$300 billion in liabilities, Evergrande, once China's top-selling developer has been at the centre of the crisis and its debt restructuring plan is seen as a possible template for others.

Some foreign governments and lawyers have criticised the new security law for being too vague and coercive, warning that it puts Hong Kong's legal independence at risk.

Hong Kong has reported more than 1.2 million coronavirus infections and around 9,400 deaths, according to government statistics.

Travelling to Hong Kong will still pose a challenge as the city holds on to its mandatory seven-day hotel quarantine for all arrivals.

Hong Kong, which has some of the most stringent travel restrictions in the world outside mainland China, has reported daily case tolls of around 2,000 infections in the past week.

Most people in Chinese-claimed Taiwan have shown no interest in being run by Beijing, and the government has repeatedly rejected China's offer of 'one country, two systems' to rule the island, as with Hong Kong and Macau.

Talent, corporations and conventions have left in droves for places such as Singapore and Dubai, fed up with more than three years of turbulence, starting with anti-government protests in 2019.

The coastal province of Guangdong, China's most populous province with about 126 million people, was this month inundated with rain that brought flooding as summer thunderstorms lashed China's south.

Among the highlights at the museum, which comprises nine galleries, are paintings from the Tang and Song dynasties.

Jumbo floating restaurant, a once famed but financially struggling Hong Kong tourist attraction, sank in the South China Sea after being towed away from the city, its parent company says.