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* HSBC top Asia executive signs pro-law petition
* Bank caught between Britain and China on law
* Big business shows support for Beijing
(Adds StanChart)
By Sumeet Chatterjee and Lawrence White
HONG KONG/LONDON, June 3 (Reuters) - HSBC and
Standard Chartered banks gave their backing to China's
imposition of a national security law on Hong Kong on Wednesday
in a break from their usual policy of political neutrality.
HSBC's Asia-Pacific Chief Executive Peter Wong signed a
petition backing the law, the bank said. HSBC "respects and
supports all laws that stabilise Hong Kong's social order," it
said in a post on social media in China.
StanChart later said it believed the law can "help maintain
the long term economic and social stability of Hong Kong".
Both banks are based in Britain but have a significant Asia
focus.
Now Europe's largest bank, HSBC has its origins in Hong
Kong, a British colony until 1997. It has previously avoided
weighing in on the political situation there in recent months,
while facing increased calls in Chinese state media to make its
position clear.
A Hong Kong-based spokeswoman for the bank declined to
comment beyond the contents of the post.
Wong, a member of the Chinese People's Political
Consultative Conference, told the official Xinhua news agency in
an interview published on Wednesday he hoped the law could bring
stability to Hong Kong.
HSBC moved its headquarters to London in 1993, but Hong Kong
is still its biggest market. It has invested billions of dollars
in China to grow its market share in the world's second-largest
economy, and it has become harder for the bank to follow an
apolitical line as it faces criticism from both the pro- and
anti-Beijing camps.
"The U.S. no longer considers Hong Kong autonomous from
China and there are risks that HSBC becomes a political football
after Peter Wong's declaration of support for the new national
security law," Will Howlett, analyst at HSBC shareholder Quilter
Cheviot, said.
Western human rights groups were critical.
"Does HSBC feel compelled to weigh in on other laws in other
countries? We have watched over the past week China clearly
assert pressure on businesses and other actors to show their
support for the law to create the illusion of support," said
Sophie Richardson, China director for U.S.-based Human Rights
Watch.
HSBC was caught up in Hong Kong’s months-long
anti-government protests, with its branches vandalised and
bronze lion statues outside its headquarters defaced during a
protest march on Jan. 1.
Some protesters accused HSBC of being complicit in action by
the authorities against activists trying to raise money to
support protesters, accusations the bank denied.
Some of HSBC's corporate peers have faced retribution from
Beijing for perceived support for the anti-government
protesters. Cathay Pacific Airways last year was
forced to suspend staff involved in the protests, and chief
executive Rupert Hogg and his top deputy resigned in August.
AUTHORITARIAN
Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997 with the
guarantee of freedoms, such as an independent legal system and
right to protest, not enjoyed on the mainland.
The city was rocked by unrest last year by pro-democracy
protesters fearing an erosion of those freedoms by Communist
Party rulers in Beijing. China denies this and accuses the West
of stirring up trouble.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said London would not
walk away from the people of Hong Kong if China imposed the new
law.
Britain has called the law "authoritarian" and said it is in
breach of the "one country, two systems" principle enshrined in
a 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration.
Jardines Group, one of Hong Kong's original foreign trading
houses, published a full-page statement in the pro-Beijing
newspaper, Ta Kung Pao, saying it was important to enact a legal
framework to safeguard the city's national security.
(Reporting by Sumeet Chatterjee and Noah Sin in Hong Kong and
Lawrence White in London, additional reporting by Sinead Cruise
and Iain Withers
Editing by Nick Macfie and Peter Graff and Angus MacSwan)
