PACIFIC REPORT : Controversy Flies Over New Airport in Hong Kong : Public Works: Critics say it is a boondoggle of secret planning and murky financing.

To get to Hong Kong’s congested Kai Tak International Airport, it’s best to approach from the west, take a right at Kowloon Tsai Park, and thread through the cluster of spindly high-rise apartments off Prince Edward Road.

Then prepare for a tummy-floating touchdown, because these directions aren’t for the cab driver--they’re for the pilot.

About 18 million passengers a year are enjoying the thrill of abrupt landings at Kai Tak, which, besides being cramped into the center of a very dense cityscape, is the sole airport serving this booming British colony. Local authorities predict that it will exceed capacity in three years and have hatched ambitious plans to replace it before Hong Kong reverts to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.

But the story of Hong Kong’s new airport--a massive undertaking with a total price tag estimated between $16 billion and $33 billion, counting related infrastructure--goes beyond an edifice-complex among the proud colonial administrators who will be packing soon.

Critics say it is a boondoggle of secret planning and murky financing that suggests a poor prognosis for democracy in Hong Kong’s uncertain future. Even some supporters of the plan concede that its execution, following a dispute with Beijing and a controversial Sino-British settlement in July, marks the actual beginning of Chinese political rule here, six years early.

The new airport is one of the planet’s largest public works projects in the decade ahead, drawing tenders from giant construction companies in Asia, Europe and the United States in a contract bidding war that climaxes early next year. It is designed to be a transportation hub for the economic dynamo of southern China, with an ultimate capacity to serve 80 million passengers a year.

It will, publicists explain, not only play a critical role in regional growth, but also maintain Hong Kong’s status as the premier gateway to trade and investment in China and inspire confidence in the ability of this plucky capitalist enclave to thrive under the control of the people who brought you the Tian An Men Square massacre.

To Wang Liang-Huew, however, the new airport is a symbol of rigid bureaucracy and a bad omen for Hong Kong after 1997.

“From the very beginning, the Hong Kong government was so arrogant and cocky they didn’t feel they had to consult anybody about their airport plans, not Beijing and not even the Hong Kong people,” said Liang-Huew, a University of Hong Kong professor who heads a group of local scholars challenging the site selection and the high cost of the airport. “But it’s the Hong Kong people who are ultimately going to have to pay for this.”

Few residents would argue against the need for an airport, including Liang-Huew, who is a U.S.-educated specialist on urban transportation systems. But the site, on an islet called Chek Lap Kok off rural Lantau Island, west of Victoria Harbor, was chosen without a single public hearing.

Access by rail and highway involves building one the of the world’s longest suspension bridges, which will consume 134,000 metric tons of steel. The bridge package could cost more than $2 billion, according to watchdog Liang-Huew and his Hong Kong Study Group for Infrastructure Development

Chek Lap Kok’s rugged terrain and a number of small mountains in the vicinity will be dynamited and flattened for landfill--85 cubic meters of rock, or the area of a football field rising 20 miles high. Nearly that much sand for the landfill will be a dredged out from the bottom of the harbor, but not until a layer of toxic waste can be removed and buried elsewhere.

The government has so far declined to reveal how it expects to finance the 10 major infrastructure projects, including the bridge, that it hopes to rush to completion before the 1997 deadline.

There has been vague talk of private sector loans and investment, but few details and no deals disclosed, arousing speculation that an onerous tax burden will be imposed on the Hong Kong residents who, true to colonial tradition, played no part in the decision.

Angry rebels have not dumped containers of British tea into the harbor. But members of a citizens’ oversight panel, the Airport Consultative Committee, aired their bitterness when they met for the first time last month. Their chief complaint was that planners did not provide enough data to review.

“They may be concerned that they don’t know what’s going on, but it’s not because anybody is being intentionally secretive,” said Richard Allen, chief executive of the Provisional Airport Authority, charged with drawing up the master plan. “We didn’t want to confuse them with details.”

Similarly, when the rubber-stamp Hong Kong Legislative Council met recently to approve an initial $1.1-billion appropriation for the airport fund, the United Democrats--who won all but four of the 18 seats up for democratic election in September--abstained to protest the lack of financial information. The money never risked being rejected because the Legislature’s remaining 42 seats are still appointed by government and business interests.

“Even today, I have not been given sufficient data to make a considered view that we must have an airport, and that we must have it there,” said Martin Lee, chairman of the United Democrats and the leading advocate of pre-1997 democratization in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong unveiled its first master plan for Chek Lap Kok a year before Beijing and London negotiated the 1984 accord on Hong Kong’s future, but the scheme was put on hold for financial reasons. Then, after six years of silence, Hong Kong Gov. Sir David Wilson resurrected the project with great fanfare two years ago.

China was not pleased. Beijing authorities accused Hong Kong of violating the terms of the 1984 Sino-British pact, which requires “consultation” on major decisions affecting Hong Kong’s affairs after 1997. China complained that it would be left to foot the bill for the airport once the free-spending British sailed back home.

London endured some rough negotiations before caving in to the Chinese demands that Beijing be given veto power over any single item of airport-related debt exceeding $650 million, and that Hong Kong must retain at least $3.25 billion in fiscal reserves when the colony is given back in 1997. In essence, China won the right to be consulted on just about any major issue in Hong Kong affairs.

“China will be able to influence many decisions in Hong Kong, beginning now,” said Lee, the democracy leader who was branded “confrontational” by the Chinese during the September election. “That’s a high price to pay for this airport.”

Meanwhile, after two years of political uncertainty, private lenders remain reluctant to expose themselves to airport financing when China’s fiscal accountability is at best unpredictable.

“It looks like a giant junk bond,” said William Overholt, executive director of Bankers Trust Co. in Hong Kong.

To lighten the burden of fiscal expenditures and debt, airport authorities are expecting the consortia of construction engineering and steel companies bidding on contracts will make their own financing arrangements, possibly privatizing parts of the infrastructure package for an initial period.

The costly Tsing Ma suspension bridge is a likely target for such financing, and indeed, two of the three international consortia on the short list for this project include units of Japan’s Kumagai-gumi, an aggressive construction giant that pioneered self-financing in public works and large private development projects the 1980s.

Although San Francisco-based Bechtel won a key consulting contract to help the government organize and manage the morass of 10 core infrastructure projects, American firms are not big contenders for a piece of the action.

“It’s just one of those projects where American contractors don’t show up,” said Henry D. Townsend, a senior vice president for Bechtel and consultant project manager for Chek Lap Kok.

Financing is less a problem for the Japanese construction industry, a target of U.S. criticism in recent years for colluding to shut foreigners out of Japan while making steady inroads in the U.S. market. It’s widely assumed in Hong Kong that major Japanese contractors conducted their usual dango , or “consultation,” among themselves, eliminating real competition by agreeing beforehand what kind of bids they would place in Hong Kong.

No evidence has emerged to support this contention, but it is conspicuous that Kumagai-gumi of Japan is bidding against its affiliate, Kumagai Hong Kong, for the suspension bridge contract. A Kumagai-led group won the advanced works contract and is on the short list to bid on the overall site preparation.

“One of the favorite games in this city is to discuss Japanese conspiracies,” said Thomas L. Boam, senior commercial officer at the U.S. Consulate. “It’s the theory du jour, and it always depends on who won and who lost.”

Accusations of corruption are not being leveled at the Hong Kong government, which has an excellent reputation for being clean on public works and for building major infrastructure projects on time and within budget.

But in an environment of China jitters, economic uncertainty and frustrated democracy--which can only intensify as the clock ticks toward 1997--the new airport at Chek Lap Kok may become a symbol of popular disenfranchisement.

“When you keep people in the dark, they get suspicious,” said Liang-Huew, the airport critic. “If people had the right to participate from the start it wouldn’t have come to this, but instead we have arrogant civil servants who are not accountable. That’s what Hong Kong’s dilemma is all about.”

Times correspondent Christine Courtney contributed to this article.

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