UK should stand up for Hong Kong's high degree of autonomy
6 March 2015
The UK must stand up for the principles enshrined in the Sino-British Joint Declaration, says the Foreign Affairs Committee in its report, published today, scrutinising UK-Hong Kong relations 30 years after the signing of the agreement.
- Report: The UK's relations with Hong Kong: 30 years after the Joint Declaration
- Report: The UK's relations with Hong Kong: 30 years after the Joint Declaration (PDF 643 KB)
- Inquiry: The UK's relations with Hong Kong: 30 years after the Joint Declaration
- Foreign Affairs Committee
Chairman of the Committee, Rt Hon Sir Richard Ottaway MP, says:
"18 years since the handover of sovereignty, Hong Kong remains a vibrant city and one of the best places in the world to do business. It is an important partner for the UK in China and in Asia as a whole. The key to this stability and prosperity is the high degree of autonomy that Hong Kong was promised in the Joint Declaration. But we are concerned that this high degree of autonomy is coming under pressure, and the FCO needs to take a clear stand.
A troubling pattern has begun to emerge: from last year’s State Council White Paper, to the restrictive electoral proposals for 2017, to reports of press freedom under attack. The fact that China banned our Committee from visiting Hong Kong in connection with this inquiry is also indicative of this trend. We remain profoundly disappointed with the UK Government’s mild response to that unprecedented act, and we think the FCO should be clearer in stating its expectations for Hong Kong’s political and constitutional future."
The report finds that the overall bilateral relationship between the UK and Hong Kong remains strong, especially in relation to economic and trade affairs. In developing its plans to improve UK-Chinese economic relations, the UK Government should continue to take account of the special importance of Hong Kong as an economic partner in its own right.
The Committee welcomes the UK Government’s commitment to monitoring the implementation of the Joint Declaration, and its repeated insistence on the UK’s legal right and moral obligation to ensure that the treaty is upheld. But the FCO’s six-monthly reports on Hong Kong, which are meant to indicate the UK’s position on developments, fall some way short. People in Beijing, Hong Kong and elsewhere look to the reports to ascertain the UK’s views on Hong Kong, and the reports should express those views more clearly.
This is especially true on the subject of political and constitutional reform, which in 2014 prompted mass protests that drew worldwide attention to Hong Kong. The Committee welcomes the commitment of the Chinese National People’s Congress to introducing universal suffrage for the election of Hong Kong’s Chief Executive in 2017, but considers the nomination process for candidates to be unduly restrictive. As a co-signatory of the Joint Declaration the UK can and should take an unambiguous position on its expectations for constitutional reform, and the Committee warns that the FCO’s lack of clarity on this issue may damage the UK’s reputation in Hong Kong.