Foreign Affairs Committee (Hong Kong Visit)

Malcolm Rifkind Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind (Kensington) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Sir Richard Ottaway), the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Central to the concern that the House is expressing is the question of whether the United Kingdom can reasonably be accused of interfering in the internal affairs of China. I was privileged to serve as Foreign Secretary for the final two years of British sovereignty over Hong Kong and I was personally involved in the final stages of the negotiations. If the Committee had been trying to comment on matters that were irrelevant to either the joint declaration or the Basic Law, there could be a legitimate complaint that those were the internal affairs of China. However, the question of the franchise in Hong Kong goes to the very heart of the joint declaration and the Basic Law.

The Chairman of the Committee was entirely correct to say that it is patently absurd to suggest that the right—in fact, the obligation—of the United Kingdom Government to take an interest in the fulfilment of the commitments expired when sovereignty transferred to Hong Kong. Only 17 years have passed in the 50-year commitment by the Chinese Government to fulfil those obligations. That commitment was part of an international agreement reached with Her Majesty’s Government, and it is an obligation, not just an entitlement, for the British Government and the Committees of this House to monitor these matters and to express their views on them.

I genuinely believe that the Chinese Government have done themselves a disservice by taking this step. They have demonstrated not their strength but their weakness. The idea that vetoing the issue of visas would resolve the issue was simply wrong. I understand that the Committee is, quite rightly, going to continue its work, and all that has happened is that this action has created some very adverse publicity for the Chinese Government, which could easily have been avoided. They should have welcomed the Foreign Affairs Committee and used the visit as an opportunity to put forward their point of view. They could have explained that, under their own proposals, there would be a mass franchise. They could also have explained the justification for their belief that the selection of candidates should be under their control.

As to whether the Chinese Government would have persuaded the Committee, we cannot say one way or the other, but that is how they should have operated. They have done themselves a disservice in a much wider sense than simply the implications for Hong Kong, because part of the reason for the original commitment by Deng Xiaoping to two systems in one country was not just to find a solution to the issue of Hong Kong; infinitely more important to Chinese policy and Chinese national aspirations is whether Taiwan will one day agree to rejoin the motherland. Central to the Chinese Government’s position ever since Deng Xiaoping has been an attempt to reassure the people and the Government of Taiwan—now a democratic Government with a pluralist system and the rule of law—that their way of life would not be endangered by some agreement at some stage to peacefully join with China under the People’s Republic. The controversies that are convulsing Hong Kong at the moment do enormous damage to the credibility of the Chinese Government’s ability to put forward that argument. They should realise that, and it is astonishing that they still persist in the policy that we are debating.

Central to these issues is not just the question of democracy in Hong Kong, but the rule of law, which is not just about the number of political parties, the candidates or free elections. We all understand what the rule of law means. A fascinating speech was made by the current leader of China and a policy was implemented by the National People’s Congress just a few weeks ago, when the Chinese Government declared that the priority objective for the immediate future was the rule of law in China—but they described it in a specific way. They said that China would be utterly committed to the rule of law “with Chinese characteristics”. That is an interesting qualification. I recall the days of the Soviet Union, when people referred to “people’s democracies” and we knew that the addition of “people’s” was in practice a negation of the democracy itself. Once people start having to qualify democracy, it is an excuse to try to justify ignoring it. So when China is now committed to the rule of law “with Chinese characteristics”, it is worth asking what the characteristics are.

I have a reason to think I know what those characteristics mean and I wish to share it briefly with the House. When I was Foreign Secretary, one of my obligations was to have a series of negotiations with the then Chinese Foreign Minister, Qian Qichen, about the handover of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic. I vividly remember one meeting in Beijing when I said to him that what was important to the people of Hong Kong when they became part of China was not simply that they would have elections, a pluralist political system and so on, important though that was, but that they would also continue to enjoy the rule of law. I knew what I meant by that, as this House would, but I have never forgotten his response, which was, “Please don’t worry, Mr Rifkind. We in China also believe in the rule of law. In China, the people must obey the law.” I had to point out to him that when we and the people of Hong Kong talked about the rule of law, we were talking not just about the people obeying the law, but about the Government obeying the law—the Government had to be acting under the law and there had to be an independent legal and judicial system. Manifestly, the then Chinese Foreign Minister not only did not agree with me, but had not the faintest idea what I was saying; he could not understand that distinction, and we see that elsewhere; we see it in Putin’s Russia at the moment. The view is that Governments make laws and therefore, if they do not like them, they can either ignore them or change them with impunity, and that is a very serious matter.

It is now 17 years since the transition. I think we have to acknowledge that in many fundamental respects Hong Kong remains very different from China. Compared with the rest of the People’s Republic, it is an open and relatively free society, and we should commend the Chinese Government for the extent to which they have carried out not only much of the letter of the commitment, but a significant amount of its spirit. If they had not done so, Hong Kong would not be the open society that it still remains today. But this House, like the world as a whole, is conscious that these distinctions are being eroded, and in the short term the situation is rather grim if the Chinese Government are determined to nibble away wherever they can at the freedoms that the people of Hong Kong enjoy and are entitled to continue to enjoy.

In the medium to longer term, the difference between Hong Kong and the rest of China will erode, but not in the direction that the current Chinese Government would like; it will not be by Hong Kong becoming more like China, but in the longer term by China becoming more like Hong Kong. Already the pressures within China for a more open and more pluralist system, and for some choice in the election of its leaders, are becoming very significant. To be fair, the Chinese Government have already experimented in some local elections with allowing more than one candidate and a real element of choice, albeit in a very restricted way.

The final point I make is simply that the Chinese Government’s current assumption about pluralism, democracy and the rule of law is that they are western values, not Chinese ones. The evidence that discounts that, showing it to be worthless as an argument, is not what happens in the west; it is found by looking at the transformation of Taiwan, at Hong Kong and, to a significant degree, at Singapore—all Chinese communities that not only talk about democracy, but practise it. They practise pluralism and have independent judicial systems, and that clearly corresponds to the wishes of the people they govern. So we are talking about universal values, and the Chairman and members of the Foreign Affairs Committee have done a great service, not just to this House, but to Hong Kong and to China as a whole, by opening up this debate in the way that we are able to do today.