Another Tiananmen square in Hong Kong?

By Jonathan Power

LONDON (JP): Will there be another Tiananmen Square massacre?

It looks more and more likely inside the heart of China's most important business city. The explosion will send the world's financial system into spasms. The money that has poured into China the last decade will stampede for the exit. Thousands of western companies, from Boeing in America to Ericsson in Sweden, who have put their eggs into the Chinese basket, will be rocked off their perch. The massive Chinese economy, the third largest in the world, will be punctured by an enormous hole and the sucking sound we'll hear will be the financial and business giants of Asia, Europe and America fighting to get their breath. I'm talking about Hong Kong, due to be incorporated back into China in June, 1997. It is fashionable to write off Hong Kong as nothing more than one of the world's remarkable, if not the most remarkable, business centers where people are too busy making money to dwell on politics. Turn-outs in elections tends to be low, and serious street protests rare. But this is to badly distort what is an exceedingly complex and sophisticated political organism. Hong Kong may not have the political participation rates of most European countries in terms of poll numbers or of India, Malaysia and Singapore, but it compares favorably with the U.S. There are large numbers of people, although you can characterize them as a minority, i.e., less than 50 percent_who take their politics quite seriously. They value living in Asia's most politically free culture, have welcomed the franchise-widening reforms of Governor Chris Patten and are, indeed, pushing him before the Union Jack is furled to do more insuring that a Court of Final Appeal is in place with its complement of independent foreign judges, and that a Human Rights Commission is up and running. Are these people, immensely articulate in the political arena, highly literate performers in Hong Kong's rather good press, going to suddenly lie low when China takes over, and starts throwing its weight around? I don't think so. Moreover, Hong Kong has more than its fair share of well-educated youths who, when the worm turns, will turn sharply as they did when they took to the streets to protest Tiananmen Square itself.

Every year that passes produces more of these potential street cadres as education widens its net and as horizons are stretched as the atmosphere of Hong Kong politics becomes charged by its date with destiny. If mainland Chinese students were prepared to risk their lives when freedoms they'd never had were declared no longer discussable, how much more determined will the young people of Hong Kong be when the freedoms they do have are simply dumped? For this is Beijing's new vow: to tear up the solemn clauses on the sanctity of the existence of the Hong Kong legislature, written into the Chinese-British joint Declaration of 1984, which laid down the terms on which Hong Kong will be returned by Britain to China. The British, under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, much less the people of Hong Kong, would never have gone along with China on Hong Kong's return if Beijing had not promised Hong Kong citizens the right to govern themselves with autonomy in all matters except defense and foreign affairs. It's relatively quiet in Hong Kong now and if you want to make the case that nothing will happen when things get tough in 1997, other than that people with money may slide away to settle in the U.S. and Canada, you can make it. But politics is a strange creature that often only comes to the boil at the eleventh hour, if not later. And there has to be a triggering event that breaks into the humdrum of daily life. The moment after June 30, 1997, that Beijing promulgates a decree dissolving the legislature and muzzling the press in Hong Kong, I believe it will happen. There's only two years left to persuade Beijing that if they go ahead with their declared intentions they will destroy, not only the goose that lays the golden eggs, but all its previous offspring who have already migrated to the mainland. Beijing needs to be reminded of the practical life: not only does the Hong Kong engine power the whole of the massive economic transformation of southern China, it is the single most important source of capital and expertise for China as a whole. China's own self-interest is the heart of the matter. China can be made to understand the stakes. That became obvious when it bit the bullet and shut its mouth after it became clear that Governor Patten would not be dissuaded from widening the franchise. It had threatened total non-cooperation in the affairs of the colony if he went ahead. Now Beijing's back, talking and doing deals with the British administration again, although with new warnings for the two years hence. The world must tell China in no uncertain terms what will inevitably happen if they make good on their threat. There will be chaos in Hong Kong. Economic confidence will evaporate overnight. Business must tell them this. Washington and Tokyo must tell them. It's only just over two years for Beijing to get the message, and in that short time a lot of ears have to be bent.