Yahoo Finance China opportunities ‘too big to ignore’ despite 'challenges', says HSBC chairman
The chairman of HSBC has said that its business opportunities in China are “too big to ignore” in a defiant response to critics who claim the bank has bowed to the Communist regime during a brutal crackdown in Hong Kong.
Mark Tucker vowed to continue a shift towards Asia in which the lender is increasingly focused on making a profit from the emerging Chinese middle class.
HSBC drew condemnation across the West last year when it backed a controversial security law allowing the state to imprison pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong. The bank has since frozen activists' accounts and Noel Quinn, its chief executive, has said it could abandon its own staff if they are arrested for protesting.
Speaking to an audience in Hong Kong, Mr Tucker said: “We’re moving to a new status quo in Sino-US relations. The interconnectivity is pretty powerful, and I don’t think it will get to a point where sides will need to be chosen.”
“We - and - I have great confidence in Hong Kong and its future. We are fully aware of the challenges and will continue our pivot to Asia.”
A HSBC spokesman declined to expand on the comments, which were recorded in a video obtained by Bloomberg.
It come months after HSBC, which makes most of its profits in mainland China and Hong Kong, outlined plans to expand its business in Asia in an attempt to boost returns.
This week it agreed to buy insurer Axa’s Singapore arm in a $575m (£415m) takeover that marks its biggest deal since 2012.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong's security law continues to have a major impact on the former British colony. Last month, five people were arrested under charges of sedition for publishing children’s books about sheep getting into scuffles with wolves, with police claiming the wolves who chase the sheep in the stories are a thinly disguised allusion to the Chinese crackdown.
HSBC has been attacked not only for supporting the law but also for freezing some pro-democracy activists’ bank accounts. Last month a group of 20 MPs demanded HSBC unfreeze the accounts of a prominent exiled Hong Kong pro-democracy activist, Ted Hui.
In June, the bank - which promotes itself in the UK through a marketing campaign that trumpets Britain's open society, under the slogan "we are not an island" - promoted its top executive in Asia, Peter Wong, to chairman of HSBC Asia Pacific and adviser to Mr Tucker and chief executive Noel Quinn.
Mr Wong broke years of political neutrality by signing a petition in favour of the security law last year. The legislation was seen as the moment when China ended its "one country, two systems" approach under which Hong Kongers had been allowed freedoms not permitted on the mainland.
Rival bank Standard Chartered also backed the rule changes. Earlier this month its boss, Bill Winters, said the bank was showing staff how to “stay out of trouble” under the new laws.
Echoing his counterpart at HSBC, he reiterated that the bank had to adapt to the laws in the countries where it operated.
China is a key market for HSBC, which was founded in Hong Kong in 1865 to support international trade between China and Europe.
