WATCH: In Conversation with Benedict Rogers. New episode with Sir Malcolm Rifkind.

It was our privilege to have Sir Malcolm Rifkind as a guest in the last episode of this interview series of 2020. Sir Malcolm served as the United Kingdom's Foreign Secretary during the last two years before the handover of Hong Kong to China, and as Defence Secretary before that. He served in the Cabinets of both Margaret Thatcher and John Major, and is a patron of Hong Kong Watch.

In the episode, Sir Malcolm shared his reflections on this tumultuous year for the world, in particular for Hong Kong and for China’s relations with the world, with a host of issues that have come to the surface including the pandemic, the rise of the wolf-warrior diplomacy, increasing indications of a genocide of the Uyghurs, and the growing concerns about Huawei.  

We hear Sir Malcolm’s views on the geopolitical implications of what the Chinese regime has done in Hong Kong in the last 12 months in three areas – implications for Taiwan, the international rules based order and the breaking of an international treaty, and for turning one of Asia’s most open and freest cities and an important financial centre into something very different.

Sir Malcolm also shared his views on several other matters including; US foreign policy towards China under a new president-elect, Hong Kong’s future as one of the key global financial hubs now being threatened by the CCP regime, and what will China possibly face both internally and externally after turning all of its Asian neighbours hostile to the actions of Xi Jinping, but are working together in a unprecedented way with Australia, the United States and Europe.

In regard to the recent cases in which HSBC froze the bank accounts of now-exiled Hong Kong lawmaker Ted Hui and his family members and church Pastor Roy Chan and his wife and church, Sir Malcolm said that the behaviour of HSBC is pathetic and craven and “have now been subject to pressure by the CCP to block accounts and do other things which increasingly make them simply a pawn of the Chinese government”. He also said that it will be noticed by investors and the finance community as all part of the “very, very, sad erosion of Hong Kong’s financial significance”.

Last but not least, Sir Malcolm shared his thoughts on the prospect for Hong Kong’s recovery, and how liberalisation in China is presumably contingent on a change in the current leadership.