Jiang to attend HK handover

By Harvey Stockwin

HONG KONG (JP): Seventeen days before Hong Kong formally becomes part of China, full details of the handover ceremony have yet to be agreed between the Britain and China.

But now that it has been decided that Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) secretary-general Jiang Zemin and Prime Minister Li Peng will both join Foreign Minister Qian Qichen in attending the handover ceremony straddling midnight on June 30, while British Prime Minister Tony Blair will also attend together with Prince Charles and Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, the way ought to be open for speedier Sino-British agreement.

These developments mask the fact that for at least twelve months and possibly longer, Britain and China have been at loggerheads over the ceremonial way in which Britain departs and China assumes sovereignty.

While everywhere else in the former British Empire there was little if any difficulty in arranging the ceremony for the British exit, here it has involved extended haggling. Unlike all former colonies, Hong Kong was not enjoying self-determination prior to becoming independent. Rather it was an entity being handed over from one sovereign power to another.

Essentially the Sino-British wrangling was born of two very different perspectives. Britain naturally took pride in what it had achieved in making Hong Kong a great international city. To the contrary, China took absolutely no pride in the thought that any part of China had been under foreigners' control for 156 years.

All along the CCP stress regarding Hong Kong has been on anti- colonialism, focussing on the means used to grab Hong Kong in the first place, rather than Hong Kong's towering growth, literally and figuratively, into a commercial, business, and financial center.

Given this background, it has not been easy for top CCP leaders to agree to come to accept back what, in their eyes, should not have been stolen in the first place.

Until now, the leading CCP figure scheduled to be at the handover ceremony was Foreign Minister Qian Qichen. President Jiang was expected to attend only on July 1 -- after Hong Kong was once again Chinese territory, and had ceased to be British.

Undoubtedly one reason for Jiang and Prime Minister Li deciding to come is China's stress on the "achievement" of the repossession of Hong Kong. Within China, the highly controlled press can be counted upon to go on concealing what has been achieved in Hong Kong while it was a British colony.

Most certainly another major reason is the looming advent of the CCP's 15th Party Congress in the autumn, following the death of paramount leader Deng Xiaoping earlier this year. Jiang and Li will both want to use a great "success" in Hong Kong to strengthen their respective leadership credentials, prior to the allocation of party posts. Surprisingly, the third-ranking CCP cadre, National People's Congress chairman Qiao Shi is not also included in the handover delegation, even though the NPC is the body responsible for the laws that will govern Hong Kong's return to the motherland.

The Chinese decision quickly ended speculation whether or not Prime Minister Tony Blair would also come to the handover ceremony, as Blair used the new Prime Ministerial question time format in the House of Commons to indicate that he would attend. The British delegation will also be headed by Prince Charles and the Foreign Minister Robin Cook. Prince Charles, as the monarch's representative, and the last British Governor of Hong Kong Chris Patten are both scheduled to leave Hong Kong at midnight June 30th on the last major voyage of the royal yacht Brittania, before it is decommissioned.

The problem for Blair remains the fact that the Chinese have scheduled, just after midnight, a swearing-in ceremony, not merely for the new Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative region (HKSAR), but also for their controversial, newly appointed Legislative Council which will replace the Legislative Council fully elected for a four-year term in 1995. The British have all along opposed the replacement of the elected body. Naturally Blair is reluctant to endorse the unelected body at the last moment, and has indicated that he will not attend the July 1 swearing-in ceremony. Earlier, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had already announced that she will not attend this part of the festivities.

Indonesian and other ASEAN officials due to attend the post- midnight ceremony, which may include several Foreign Ministers, along with the diplomatic representatives of many other nations, are effectively being used, by China, to try and legitimize the dissolution of Hong Kong's first fully elected democratic assembly.