Let a Thousand Headlines Bloom

Like a longshot bet? Here’s one for you.

When the elegant Anson Chan, Hong Kong’s top civil servant, visited Los Angeles last month, she was at pains to paint her Chinese government counterparts in a favorable light. Like many Hong Kongers--though very far from all--she is wagering that next July, Beijing will take over with kid gloves rather than iron fists. If she is right and the Chinese do handle this with unaccustomed aplomb, the warm and soothing ripples for world peace and international trade will be felt all the way from the halls of the world’s parliaments to the shores of the Long Beach-Los Angeles Harbor.

Of course Chief Secretary Chan’s own political ambitions probably would be best-served by the kid-gloves outcome. But if Vegas oddsmakers were to put this hugely consequential national handoff on their morning line, they would probably list “uneventful transition” at long odds.

Anxieties in the territory are high. On the key issue of continued press freedom, for instance, 84% of the territory’s reporters, according to one survey conducted by the Hong Kong Journalists’ Assn., believe it will head south as the keys are turned over to the new masters. After all, in recent years Beijing has expelled journalists, jailed at least one for alleged spying, shuttered up a small south China newspaper with Hong Kong ties and even tried to repress the broadcast in Hong Kong of a BBC documentary about Mao Tse-tung.

The truth is that until the Deng Xiaoping succession struggle is resolved, no one can be sure that the mainly reassuring Chinese officials with whom Chan deals now will be in power next July.

To this, Chinese officials themselves say: Wait, don’t prejudge us. American journalists chatting with Chinese officials these days can bet their bottom Mao jacket that the one lecture they won’t be able to avoid for long is how the Western press never gives China a break.

OK, Beijing, hold on to your Little Red Books: You’re about to get your break today. I’m going to defend you. Sure it’s a tough job, but somebody in Western imperialist media circles has to do it.

A year from now, will the Hong Kong press more resemble mainland China’s dreary press than its own? Right now, it’s an amazing circus of no less than 59 newspapers and 675 periodicals for a population of just 6.2 million. And everyone knows that when it comes to accepting press criticism graciously, Beijing is practically the George Steinbrenner of nations.

No wonder that whenever a Beijing official opens his or her mouth, Hong Kong cringes. When one official suggested that Beijing would have a hard time accepting media advocacy of independence for Taiwan--which, to be fair, would be for the Chinese sort of like an American newspaper campaigning for the return of California and Texas to Mexico--the local press went bonkers. The Chinese have also insisted that the territory’s official TV station provide air time for Beijing to broadcast its views. And then the Beijing-based China Daily, an English-language paper, began making plans to publish in Hong Kong. Shivers over Hong Kong Harbor.

But so what? Beijing airing its views over government airwaves is quite a different dish from pulling the plug on the station. And why shouldn’t Hong Kong have a pro-Beijing English-language paper? There are two pro-Beijing Chinese-language papers now but none in English. It would offer a voice that should be heard. One local wag even found a way to joke about it: “If Beijing declares martial law in Hong Kong, there has to be at least one English paper to say, ‘Citizens Welcome People’s Liberation Army.’ ”

The issue isn’t whether Beijing should have a voice (of course it should) but whether it should be the only voice (of course it shouldn’t). Beijing is clever enough to realize that allowing Hong Kong’s press a long and feisty life after takeover would prove a stroke of public-relations genius. It would engender positive stories from around the world, especially since major Western media organizations have bureaus in Hong Kong. Beijing is far better off accepting the inevitable (and perhaps even sometimes unfair) slings and arrows of a truly free and diverse Hong Kong press than enduring the colossal international pillorying that will follow if they smother the media.

Of course, Beijing might try to transform Hong Kong into a Singapore: booming economy, wimpy press. But Hong Kong isn’t uptight Singapore, and it’s free-spirited Hong Kong producing the wealth that’s the apple of Beijing’s eye. Why mess with success? Beijing is said to be worried about press freedoms spilling over to the mainland. Well, they haven’t yet, so what’s the harm in letting the Hong Kong press continue to have its fun?

Dear Beijing: Surprise the world and let a thousand headlines bloom. That will send the message that you are a self-confident world power that can be relied on to honor international agreements and tolerate a measure of dissent without having to wail like a spoiled movie star. Indeed, of all the possible moves you could make, letting the Hong Kong press be the Hong Kong press would be nothing less than a diplomatic triumph.

Fool that I am, I’m betting that’s exactly what will happen. Make me a winner, Beijing.