Desperate to retain access to Chinese financial markets, HSBC is kneeling at Beijing’s feet.
Sadly for the British banking giant, it’s learning that the communist leash comes with few treats.
That’s surely to the disappointment of HSBC’s top ranks. After all, just last week, they offered their unashamed support for Beijing’s new Hong Kong security law. An overt breach of the Sino-British treaty, that law will subjugate Hongkongers’ freedom under the Chinese Communist Party. The fact that a major Western company would be so willing to shred democratic values to maintain its financial interests is quite striking. Indeed, HSBC’s action here makes the pathetic response of U.S. banks to Beijing’s new law look angelic by comparison.
But HSBC isn’t backing off; it’s doubling down. In a new memo obtained by Bloomberg, Greg Guyett, HSBC’s co-CEO of global banking and markets, reinforces the company’s support for Chinese authoritarianism. “We respect and support laws and regulations,” Guyett said, “that will enable Hong Kong to recover and rebuild the economy and, at the same time, maintain the principle of one country, two systems.”
Guyett is full of it. He knows the new law is a formalization of the end to “one country, two systems.” He just doesn’t care. For HSBC, morality walks and money talks. But if the bank thinks its appeasement of tyranny will earn favor from Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Politburo, it has much to learn.
Take what Beijing’s preeminent Western-policymaker-focused propaganda outlet said on Tuesday.
With a typically blunt title, the Global Times warned that “Meng’s case could be turning point for HSBC in China.” It warned that “if it turns out that HSBC has been cooperating with the U.S., in Meng’s case, it would be understandable that its image would bear an indelible stain and likely that its Chinese business would take a hit.”
China is referring here to arguments made this week by Meng Wanzhou’s defense team. Meng, a top Huawei telecommunications/signals intelligence service executive, is resisting extradition from Canada to the United States. And Meng’s defense team says that HSBC has been deceptive in helping U.S. authorities with their case against her.
And Beijing wants HSBC to know it’s not playing around. The Global Times continues, “Given its reliance on Chinese profits, it will be a life-or-death test for HSBC. And whether or not the bank can overcome its dilemma will really test the political wisdom of its management.” It concludes, “We don’t want to see such a big bank hit hard for political reasons, but companies need to pay for the choices they have made.”
LOL.
Lesson: There’s no such thing as a partial Chinese puppet. There’s only a Chinese puppet. Beijing is letting HSBC know that if it wants to retain the treat of financial access, it better be a good poodle. Not just some of the time, all of the time. And always without qualification.
HSBC customers should be wary. As the bank continues to advance its feudal relationship with the Chinese Communist Party, we can be confident where things will end up. As with Huawei users, HSBC customers around the world might one day, not so far away, find that Beijing has access to all their details.
