Hong Kong Leaders Look to U.S. to Ease China’s Grip

After China reclaims control of Hong Kong next year, British Gov. Chris Patten will be back in London. Democracy leader Martin Lee says he fears he may be in prison. Both are visiting Washington to make sure the United States keeps a watchful eye on the city even if they cannot.

With Britain increasingly being shut out by Beijing as the July 1, 1997, hand-over approaches, local leaders are looking toward the United States--which has not only the influence to sway Beijing but the economic interests at stake to justify a role--to ensure that China sticks to its promises to safeguard the freewheeling and open way of life in this British colony.

“I think that Hong Kong represents the sort of Asia that America wants to see: open markets and open minds and ideas,” Patten said Friday before leaving on a lobbying tour of Canada and the United States to “keep Hong Kong on the radar screen.”

Washington may be in a receptive mood. Hong Kong’s stability is an issue both Democrats and Republicans can embrace--the thought of Communist China threatening to undo Hong Kong’s democratic reforms after it takes control strikes an American chord. In 1992, Congress passed the U.S.-Hong Kong Act, which requires the State Department to monitor not only the process of the hand-over but also the state of Hong Kong’s political and economic autonomy after 1997.

Ironically, Lee and Patten may have to temper the enthusiasm of some members of Congress, reminding them that any proposals to levy sanctions against China if Hong Kong’s basic rights are threatened will hurt Hong Kong too because the economies are intertwined.

U.S. interests in Hong Kong have been primarily economic: The 36,000 Americans living and doing business here outnumber residents from Britain. Hong Kong is the United States’ 13th-largest trading partner, with investments here valued at $12 billion. American companies in the colony employ about 250,000 workers--nearly one-tenth of the work force.

But economic interests are becoming more and more political. Any political crisis not only could rupture Hong Kong’s prosperity--it could damage Hong Kong as a model of democracy and free markets in Asia.

In a report to Congress this spring, the State Department supported the continuation of Hong Kong’s democratically elected Legislative Council and urged China not to carry out its threat to abolish it.

“We have seen a very strong, perhaps even heavy, hand” in Hong Kong recently, a Western diplomat here said Friday. “My greatest fear is if China does what comes naturally, which is to control everything . . . they could try to over-control the political side of the transition.”

Diplomats say China recognizes the U.S. interest in Hong Kong. In meetings between Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen, “the first topic Qian brought up was Hong Kong,” an official close to the talks said.

At the same time, in another politically sensitive issue, Beijing repeatedly warned the United States not to interfere in China’s relations with Taiwan, which it considers part of Chinese territory.

The same message about keeping a distance from China’s internal affairs is echoed in Hong Kong by Chinese officials and Beijing-backed newspapers in the territory.

One potential clash over Hong Kong could be the issue of consular protection for those who remain as permanent residents in Hong Kong. Beijing has said that foreign passport holders who wish to stay in the territory after the hand-over must renounce their consular protection.

But diplomats in Hong Kong say that no matter what a local government may say, the United States would never forswear its responsibilities for U.S. passport holders, even if they held additional travel documents. “A citizen is a citizen is a citizen,” one diplomat said.

Such firm pronouncements could undermine China’s position and anger Beijing.

“Clearly, if [Washington] goes too far, [China] will respond much more strongly,” one Western diplomat said.