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.