However viewed, the three-day visit to London this month by the secretary for financial services and the treasury, Christopher Hui Ching-yu, was groundbreaking. It was Hong Kong’s first ministerial-level visit to the United Kingdom in three years, and many doors opened to him. His trip demonstrated the determination of the chief executive, John Lee Ka-chiu, to share the Hong Kong success story. It also reflected the willingness of Britain’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, to improve the UK-China relationship.
Once, however, it became known that Hui was to visit the UK, anti-China elements mobilized. A member of Parliament, Stewart McDonald, from the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, an offshoot of Hong Kong Watch, the notorious propaganda outfit, said he was “deeply concerned” that Hui had been invited to speak at the Innovate Finance Global Summit in London, as it was “an attempt to whitewash human rights abuses in Hong Kong”.
As for Hong Kong Watch’s policy director, Sam Goodman, he called on Innovate Finance “to consider revoking Mr Hui’s invitation”, but nobody was fooled.
Although there were fears that anti-China fanatics might try to sabotage the visit, these were unfounded. The vile attack upon the then-secretary for justice, Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah, when she visited London in 2019 is still fresh in everybody’s memory, not least because black-clad thugs beat her to the ground, injuring her arm, and necessitating hospitalization. However, while several individuals attempted to intercept a car believed to be carrying Hui in Princes Street near the Guildhall, the summit venue, his visit was virtually incident-free.
Although, prior to the summit, people were urged by the “Hong Kong Political Prisoners Concern Group” to rally at the Guildhall in protest at Hui’s presence, the turnout was risible. Only a handful of protesters appeared, clad in their trademark black garb and balaclavas, and they were almost outnumbered by the speakers. They flaunted various banners, with one reading “Fight With Hong Kong” and another “Hong Kong Independence”, and Hong Kong is clearly fortunate to have seen the back of such rabble.
One speaker, Megan Khoo, from the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, declared it was “absolutely ludicrous” that Hui was allowed to speak at the summit and called on Sunak to revoke his invitation to the UK. As for Benedict Rogers, the serial fantasist behind Hong Kong Watch, he was clearly embarrassed by the pathetic turnout. He sought, albeit to no avail, to breathe some life into the damp squib by calling on Sunak to “sanction” Hui and “press” the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government to release MPF funds to British National (Overseas) visa holders seeking UK citizenship.
By all accounts, Hui’s contribution to the finance summit was well-received, as was his speech to the Hong Kong Association, which promotes business and trade between Hong Kong and the UK and has over 80 corporate members, including banks, global enterprises and the China-Britain Business Council. He explained that Hong Kong is located in the heart of Asia, is a vibrant business center, has connectivity with the Chinese mainland, enjoys digitized financial services, and prioritizes ESG (environmental, social and governance). As Hong Kong and London are both leading financial centers, he said, they “have plenty of opportunities to cooperate and thrive together”.
When Hui briefed Asia House, a think tank, on green and sustainable finance development in Hong Kong, he said that to achieve the targets of a 50 percent reduction in carbon emissions before 2035 and carbon neutrality before 2050, the HKSAR government is working in concert with financial regulators and the industry through a multipronged strategy. He explained that Hong Kong is “a very active market, with total green and sustainable debt (including both bonds and loans) issued in Hong Kong increasing by over 40 percent from 2021 to US$80.5 billion in 2022”. Indeed, by the end of 2022, there were “177 ESG funds authorized by our regulator with total assets under management of US$142 billion”.
The high point of Hui’s visit undoubtedly came on April 18, when he held bilateral meetings with three government ministers and exchanged views on issues that were described as being of “mutual concern”, including commerce. This, not surprisingly, upset the anti-China lobby, and even the US-based Hong Kong Democracy Council — which was founded by the Washington puppet and national security suspect Samuel Chu Muk-man, and maintains close links with Hong Kong Watch — muscled in on the act. This was presumably at the invitation of Hong Kong Watch, with which it is closely associated, and it claimed to be “disappointed” with the three ministers, given that Hui represented a government that was “oppressing our people”. Nobody, however, was listening, as Hong Kong Watch, to its evident frustration, already knew.
Having met the minister of state in the Department for Business and Trade, Lord (Dominic) Johnson, Hui also visited the economic secretary to the treasury, Andrew Griffith. As protocol requires, he was taken to see the minister of state (Indo-Pacific) of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, who subsequently tweeted about the meeting for reasons not hard to fathom.
In January, Trevelyan was briefly in the news when, apparently reluctantly, she met with Jimmy Lai Chee-ying’s “international legal team” led by Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC. She had drawn the short straw after two successive foreign secretaries, as well as Sunak, declined to meet Gallagher, who wanted to discuss “potential ways to secure Mr Lai’s release”. Although she made some comforting noises to Gallagher, and pointed out that Lai had been receiving support from the British government “for some time”, Trevelyan offered her nothing of substance, and nor could she, given that Lai is currently facing judicial proceedings in Hong Kong.
In her tweet, Trevelyan referenced her discussions with Hui on issues of “mutual interest”, adding, as a sop to the UK’s noisy anti-China lobby, that matters of “disagreement” also featured. These included “Jimmy Lai”, the “NSL 47”, the need to “protect rights & freedoms of all Hong Kongers”, and allowing “early withdrawal of their pensions for BN(O)’s.”
Trevelyan clearly was just going through the motions in order to keep the likes of Gallagher, Rogers and McDonald off her back. As she must have known, Lai has been convicted of serious criminal offenses, including fraud, and is facing trial for endangering national security, and there is no way the Hong Kong government, which respects judicial independence, can interfere with the criminal justice system. As the trial of the “NSL 47” is ongoing, with 31 of the accused having already pleaded guilty to national security offenses, it is no more open to the Hong Kong government to intervene than it is for the UK government to interfere with its own judicial proceedings.
As the rights and freedoms of Hong Kong residents are protected under the Basic Law, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Hong Kong Bill of Rights, Hui presumably assured Trevelyan that her concerns were illusory. And, since the UK’s decision to provide what it calls a “pathway to citizenship” to BN(O) passport holders (by issuing visas) is a direct violation of the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984, Trevelyan cannot have been surprised that it is not a legitimate means of unlocking MPF accounts in Hong Kong.
Although Hui is a trailblazer, it must be hoped that ministers from Hong Kong and the UK will liaise more closely from now on in the interests of their people, and that this will include reciprocal ministerial visits. While nobody can ever forget how — to keep the US happy — the likes of Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Dominic Raab shamefully failed to stand with Hong Kong in 2019-20, when anti-China forces tried to wreck the “one country, two systems” policy, they are now all on the ministerial scrapheap and it is time, as Sunak seemingly appreciates, to turn over a new leaf.
After all, Portugal maintained good relations with China after Macao’s reunification in 1999, and everybody has benefited. When the chief executive of Macao, Ho Iat-seng, visited Lisbon earlier this month, Portugal’s foreign minister, Joao Gomes Cravinho, said conditions were right for relations between the two places to prosper, and this is an object lesson for the UK. On April 21, moreover, when Ho met the president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, he was awarded the country’s prestigious Grand Cross of the Order of Infante D. Henrique, a symbolic affirmation of the ties between the two places.
It is high time for the UK to mend its fences with Hong Kong, not least because they both have much in common, and Hui’s visit was a big step in the right direction. Whereas Sunak, post-Brexit, is promoting “Global Britain”, John Lee is pursuing his own global vision for Hong Kong. If, as it claims, the UK wants to walk tall again on the world stage, it should be investing heavily in better relations between East and West, and what better place to start than Hong Kong.
The author is a senior counsel and law professor, and was previously the director of public prosecutions of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.