Rifkind, who served as the United kingdom's cabinet minister under former prime ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major for 18 continuous years, sums up his career in his autobiography Power and Pragmatism. [Photo by NICK J.B. MOORE/CHINA DAILY]

The autobiography of Sir Malcom Rifkind, former UK foreign secretary, recounts the negotiations up to the return of Hong Kong to China on June 30, 1997. Andrew Moody reports.

Sir Malcolm Rifkind, Hon UK foreign secretary in the run up to the Hong Kong handover 20 years ago this year, says he was going to choose a title for his autobiography that might have chimed with Chinese notions of longevity and respect for the elderly.

"My first draft title for the book, which my publishers were amused by but not particularly impressed with, was My Early Life: The First Seventy Years, which a Chinese audience would have appreciated," he says.

"We are told the lifespan is going to be a lot more than it would have been once upon a time, but this was seen as slightly frivolous."

The title eventually chosen was Power and Pragmatism, concepts that perhaps best sum up the career of the respected Scottish politician who served as a cabinet minister under former prime ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major for 18 continuous years, a feat (shared with other three of his ministerial colleagues) not achieved since the 1820s.

Rifkind, who was speaking in the lounge of the Intercontinental London Park Lane Hotel in Mayfair, says that a pragmatic politician differs from a conviction politician in that they do not feel guilty adapting their positions to circumstances.

"The pragmatist is much more relaxed about it. It doesn't mean the pragmatist has no convictions but if you are dealing with a problem and your previous conceptual or philosophical preference does not add up, it is OK to ask, what else would work?"