Hillary Rodham Clinton was in Hong Kong last week. If you blinked, you missed her. Seriously. And if you didn’t blink, maybe you should have done. Her speech at the Island Shangri-La hotel hardly touched on the issues that people in Hong Kong want to discuss – particularly how the hell the USA and China are going to work together as the biggest global economic giants.

So why didn’t the US Secretary of State delve into these hot topics? Simple. She wasn’t asked to. She fielded no questions from a packed ballroom of movers and shakers (including members of the American Chamber of Commerce and the Asia Society) – and she certainly wasn’t put to the test by the media because we had already been quarantined into a separate room to watch the performance via videolink. 

In this journalist’s view, that’s appalling. So let’s put her all-too-brief visit into perspective. The USA is having a tough time of it at home, financially. There’s trouble a-brewing. The country is trying to avert debt default and, like so many other Western countries this year, the people are getting angry. Then there’s the action overseas – principally the rapidly growing economic strength of China which presents an almost insurmountable challenge to the USA’s status as top dog. The States has tough decisions ahead. 

A lot to talk about, surely, if you’re the official mouthpiece for American foreign policy. 

But, tactically speaking, you’re not going to talk about these sensitive issues if you’re not pressed into it. Literally. Give Clinton her dues – she did say she was confident lawmakers would reach a deal to avert a debt default at home. And she did say Hong Kong was a “perfect example of what can be done” but she barely mentioned China as a whole and how the USA intends to work with Beijing over the coming years. Instead, she waxed lyrical about South Korea. Hmmm. The relevance to Hong Kong still eludes me…

None of this would have happened if she had given the media just a little bit of her precious time to quiz her, as politicians, business leaders and diplomats do when they grace another country with their presence. Surely this high profile visit demanded that. But no, we were herded like cattle into a side-room to watch the speech. We could have done that in the office. In fact, we would rather have done that in the office. Clinton did urge Asia to adopt “open, free, transparent and fair” competition. She said the ‘transparency’ principle included freedom of the press. In my book that means giving the press a chance to ask the questions that matter. How will the USA economically work alongside China in the most effective way? How will both countries work together on green issues? How will the USA reduce consumerism while also urging China – and other emerging Asian nations – to do the same? Surely this is what Hong Kong wants to know. But we were the ones pressganged into silence.

At the Hong Kong Book Fair last month I asked Dr David Starkey, esteemed British historian, how important it is to meet the press when you travel half way round the world for an event. Starkey may not hold the same significance as Clinton, but he clearly understands the importance of the role of the media in society. 

He told me the press and the well-known names who people want to read about are “in it together”. Famous dignitaries, he said, should ‘of course’ meet the journalists of the country they are visiting. If someone who has made a living out of looking into the past understands that, it’s a shame one of the world’s most important and forward-looking women didn’t get it when she touched down (oh-so-briefly) in the fragrant harbour.

Matt Fleming