HK spies relocate to Taipei, Macao, Seoul and Jakarta

HK spies relocate to Taipei, Macao, Seoul and Jakarta

By Edward Neilan

TOKYO (JP): Spies are said to be leaving Hong Kong in droves
ahead of the July 1 handover of the British Colony to Chinese
rule.

They are relocating to Taipei, Macao (which reverts to Chinese
rule from Portuguese control in 1999), Seoul, Jakarta and Tokyo.
Those cities will henceforth be competing for the mantle long
held by Hong Kong of "Spy capital of Asia".

After all, what self-respecting spy, trained in the dark arts
of a eavesdropping, intelligence analysis, reading other people's
mail and writing with invisible ink, could possibly contribute
anything original on the handover marking the end of 156-years of
British control of Hong Kong? The event already has a confirmed
guest list of thousands headed by Chinese President Jiang Zemin,
Chinese Premier Li Peng, Britain's Prince Charles, and U.S.
Secretary of State Madeline Albright.

"Exclusive" information will be hard to come by for your
ordinary spy, who must compete with the likes of CNN, other
television networks, and an estimated 6,000 journalists of every
stripe.

The event may be the ultimate "photo opportunity" of the
century. A ceremony in the Chinese capital of Beijing hours after
the handover in Hong Kong itself will be less glossy but highly
symbolic.

International spy agencies, by their nature, are not in the
habit of releasing information about staffing levels. But in
recent weeks there have been news items about the U.S. Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) cutting back in Asia for budget
reasons, the once-feared Russian KGB reducing its size by two-
thirds and the Japanese intelligence services being merged and
streamlined from three separate units into one.

Hong Kong is not used to being relegated to an "also-ran"
status in the spy category. The wry joke at the bar of the Hong
Kong Foreign Correspondents' Club currently that Bangkok is
offering tax incentives for relocating spies and other "China
watchers" is balanced by the rejoinder that "Bangkok has too much
traffic, making tailing `the usual suspects'" all that more
difficult.

Nigel Watt, a former director of Hong Kong's Government
Information Services, once quipped that if many more electronic
listening devices were placed on Hong Kong territory, the island
might sink into the South China Sea from the sheer weight.

The advent of the cellular telephone and e-mail have lessened
that particular burden but some intelligence operatives complain
that these days in Hong Kong pocket telephone and beeper (pager)
frequencies are often dominated by Happy Valley race course
bookmakers and their clients.

Hong Kong spy lore was described in the novel The Honorable
Schoolboy, by John Le Carre, who drew on real-life personalities
such as The Times of London correspondent Richard Hughes as
character for his book. Australian Hughes, later a columnist for
the Far Eastern Economic Review, had been a boxer and for a while
manager of Tokyo's Foreign Correspondent's club. His son, also a
journalist, wrote in a book a few years ago that his colorful
father had done a bit of spying in his day.

During the Vietnam War, American correspondents based in Hong
Kong were frequently asked by their desks back home to track
which U.S. Seventh Fleet vessels would be in Hong Kong during a
given week on R&R (rest and recreation). This would help indicate
patterns of bombing missions and other operations in Vietnam.

But inquiries to the American Consulate General in Hong Kong
-- an institution that is larger than most U.S. embassies abroad,
because of its role in "observing" China -- would routinely
answer "We do not have that information on ship movements" or "No
comment."

But a quick trip to the Wanchai hostess bar district would
provide the sought-after intelligence. Blackboards outside
establishments with names such as "Suzie Wong Bar" and "San
Francisco Club" would proclaim "Welcome officers and crew, U.S.S.
Midway, U.S.S. Blue Ridge, U.S.S. Henderson and other escort
vessels."

Tailor shops, awaiting fittings from measurements faxed or
mailed by sailors in advance, also would invariably know the
dates which ships would be in port.

China and the U.S. recently signed an agreement to continue
port calls but other things have changed: custom-tailored suits
are no longer a bargain in Hong Kong and tiny Wanchai bars have
been relocated as glitzy and pricey cabarets.

The writer is a freelance journalist based in Tokyo.