Malcolm Rifkind gets rough ride in Hong Kong

By Diane Stormont

HONG KONG (Reuter): British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind's weekend visit to Hong Kong was short but not particularly sweet.

His message was simple.

Britain, he promised the six million people of Hong Kong, would stand fast by its last Asian outpost before and beyond the handover to China.

But with just 19 weeks to go until the British colony is delivered to China at midnight on June 30, the message from Hong Kong politicians was clear: Britain is irrelevant.

Only eight of Hong Kong's 60 legislators turned up for a meeting on Sunday that had been hastily rescheduled so that Rifkind could return early to London for a key parliamentary debate.

The largest pro-Beijing party did not bother to send a representative.

Rifkind repeatedly hit out at skeptics who argued that Britain was impotent in the face of China's plans for Hong Kong, which have pitted the territory's pro-Beijing and pro-democracy camps against each other and prompted acrimonious exchanges.

Beijing's plans to dissolve the elected legislature and replace it with a interim provisional chamber have sparked outrage in the British colony and forceful objections from London, but China has already set up the shadow chamber.

Its further proposals to repeal or amend a list of 25 Hong Kong laws and ordinances, including parts of its Bill of Rights, have provoked U.S. President Bill Clinton to express concern.

Britain summoned the Chinese ambassador in order to lodge a protest, and Rifkind pursued the issue in a meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Qian Qichen, in Singapore last week.

Britain would "maintain maximum pressure up till 30 June", Rifkind told a news conference on Sunday night.

Britain, he said, would monitor events in Hong Kong beyond the handover to ensure China lives up to its side of the bargain.

The bargain -- enshrined in the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration -- required Britain to surrender its colony to China. In return, Beijing would ensure that Hong Kong's freedoms and unabashedly capitalist way of life continued for 50 years.

The eyes of the world were watching how China dealt with Hong Kong, Rifkind warned.

China has declared the matter of the provisional legislature and changes to the various ordinances closed.

The British said they would not accept that view and had no intention of letting the matter drop.

"We strongly disagree with them," Rifkind said at the Sunday news conference, but added: "We are not going to reach agreement, it is quite clear on that."

The Foreign Secretary was irked by the response in some quarters.

Rifkind Concedes Defeat, trumpeted a headline in the influential South China Morning Post on Monday.

"I saw that. It's an absurd headline," Rifkind snapped during an interview on Radio Hong Kong.

"Neither have I conceded defeat nor is there any defeat to concede," he said slamming the report as shoddy journalism.

"What do you suggest Britain would have done which would have stopped it (the provisional legislature)?"

Rifkind's brief visit, perhaps his last to Hong Kong before the flag comes down on more than 150 years of British colonial rule, was cut short so he could return early to London for a vote in Parliament on the "mad cow" crisis.

A loss could trigger a vote of no confidence in the ruling Conservative Party, which is lagging badly in the polls.