On Jan 21, 2025, an extraordinary meeting took place at the United Kingdom’s Foreign Office in London. The Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, and one of his subordinates, the Indo-Pacific minister, Catherine West, welcomed four Hong Kong exiles currently living in the UK. However, the meeting was anything but benign.
The four individuals were national security suspects, believed by the Hong Kong authorities to be guilty of “continuing to commit offenses under the Hong Kong National Security Law” (NSL). They were part of a group of six who, on Dec 24, were accused of betraying China and harming the interests of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region by inciting secession and colluding with foreign forces to endanger national security.
After the Hong Kong courts issued the arrest warrants, a bounty of HK$1 million ($128,411) was placed on the heads of each. It beggared belief, therefore, that Lammy and West should have given them the time of day. They belonged in a court of law, not a ministerial suite.
The four fugitives — Chung Kim-wah (a political activist), Tony Chung Hon-lam (former convenor of Studentlocalism), Carmen Lau Ka-man (an “advocacy associate” for the infamous US-based Hong Kong Democracy Council) and Chloe Cheung Hei-ching (a UK campaigner for Mark Clifford’s no less sinister Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong (CFHK) Foundation, also US-based) — cannot have believed their luck, although they were dissatisfied with the meeting’s outcome.
According to West, she wanted to reassure the fugitives that, despite the gravity of the charges they faced, “the safety of the UK’s Hong Kong community is a priority”, and that attempts to hold them to account were “unacceptable”. If the foursome concluded from this that they could use the UK as a base to do whatever they wanted to endanger Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” policy and harm China, nobody could blame them.
As both Lammy and West, on their recent visits to China, indicated their wish to improve Anglo-Chinese relations, their reception of anti-China individuals who are wanted by the Hong Kong police was bizarre (and smacked of “Perfidious Albion”). It was contemptuous of what the prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, told President Xi Jinping when they met at the G20 summit on Nov 18 (Starmer said he wanted relations between the two countries to be “consistent, durable, respectful”).
It was little wonder that China’s ambassador in London, Zheng Zeguang, hit the roof. He condemned “blatant interference in the rule of law in Hong Kong and in China’s internal affairs”. He described as “despicable” the harboring of the criminal fugitives — and who can blame him?
Indeed, if the shoe had been on the other foot, and fugitive Britons who had sought to subvert the UK and violated its National Security Act 2023 had been given sanctuary in China, Lammy would naturally have been incensed. If, moreover, the Chinese foreign ministry in Beijing had also red-carpeted them, he would have been outraged. Therefore, his hosting of the fugitives was not only insensitive but also a calculated insult to China, if not a deliberately hostile move.
Not surprisingly, the fugitives milked the event for all it was worth. For example, Lau (who was once the deputy secretary general of the now-disbanded Civic Party, which advocated punitive US sanctions against Hong Kong in 2019-20) informed Radio Free Asia (RFA) that they had told Lammy that the British government should take “practical actions” to let the HKSAR government know that its actions had “consequences”.
Starmer assured Xi he wanted “a strong UK-China relationship”, and he must show he is genuine. If he does, China will undoubtedly respond in kind. However, if he wants to be taken seriously, his government must stop speaking with a forked tongue, show appropriate respect, and uphold the comity of nations
These included sanctions on Hong Kong officials, prosecutors and judges (including judges who are British nationals) involved in national security cases, and reviewing the status of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London (both causes close to CFHK’s heart). Lau also wanted the Foreign Office’s forthcoming six-monthly report on Hong Kong to be beefed up (meaning she hoped it would be even more venomous than usual).
However, things did not go entirely to plan. Lau frankly acknowledged that “the British government did not seem to be willing to take these tough measures”. Its responses lacked substance and were simply “diplomatic rhetoric”.
Moreover, Lammy’s heart did not appear to be in the meeting, and observers sensed he was simply going through the motions. Although the meeting lasted an hour, Chung Kim-wah told RFA that Lammy only put in a token appearance halfway through (staying 15 minutes), and that his attitude was “perfunctory” (he thought Lammy was “just there to take pictures”). He felt the meeting was just a “show”, intended to demonstrate the Labour government’s concern at a time when it was being accused of being pro-China and facing parliamentary criticism.
However, according to Lau, West took the meeting more seriously and stayed for most of it, although she was unwilling to concede any of the points raised.
It appeared, therefore, that Lammy and West were half-hearted at best, and the reasons are not hard to find. Once the six arrest warrants were issued on Dec 24 (increasing the overall number of NSL fugitive arrest warrants to 19), the fugitives’ allies sprang to their defense. On Jan 7, the British Parliament held an urgent debate in which the anti-China lobby, led by Priti Patel, the Conservative Party’s shadow foreign secretary, urged West (covering for Lammy) to take a tougher stance against Beijing.
In an attempt to placate the ideologues, West called on Beijing “to repeal the National Security Law, including its extraterritorial reach” and to stop pursuing people who were “seeking to exercise their basic rights” (a surprising choice of words for individuals plotting to destabilize China).
However, they refused to be appeased. One of their number, Mark Sewards, even called on West to protect the UK-based fugitives from “transnational repression”. In a coordinated move, he singled out the situation of the CFHK’s Chloe Cheung.
In response, Cheung issued a statement thanking Sewards “for standing up for me and my fellow Hong Kongers”. She said that if the British government “really wants to show solidarity with us”, West (or a colleague) “should immediately invite me and other UK-based bountied individuals for a meeting so they can better understand and respond to the transnational repression and threats we face”.
Right on cue, West, with Lammy’s agreement, arranged a meeting.
Although pathetic, Lammy and West clearly reasoned that the best way to defuse the parliamentary pressures was to meet the fugitives, say some nice things, but concede nothing of substance, and so it proved.
Moreover, as veteran politicians, Lammy and West would have needed no reminding that the last Conservative government, headed by Rishi Sunak, gave the right to vote to over 140,000 BN(O) passport holders, hoping it would help to keep it in power. Although Sunak still lost last year’s general election, the BN(O) vote can have a big impact in constituencies where the majorities are small (as in many Labour-held seats). The current Labour government, like its predecessor, reasons there are votes to be had in pandering to Hong Kong’s criminal fugitives, which helps explain Lammy’s ill-judged meeting with the foursome.
However, although Lammy and West can play their cynical political games till the cows come home, it will have no impact (as they undoubtedly appreciate). Like the UK, Hong Kong will continue to defend itself from those who wish it harm and endanger national security, no matter where they are based. If the British government really wants better relations with China, it should ensure that suspected criminals cannot operate with impunity on British soil, let alone strut the corridors of power.
At their meeting, Starmer assured Xi he wanted “a strong UK-China relationship”, and he must show he is genuine. If he does, China will undoubtedly respond in kind. However, if he wants to be taken seriously, his government must stop speaking with a forked tongue, show appropriate respect, and uphold the comity of nations.
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.
