Hong Kong Hand-Over Old in Form, New in Risks

Presiding over the steady decline of a once-magnificent empire, the British have perfected the art of graceful withdrawal.

Beginning with the granting of independence to India, the “jewel in the crown,” in 1947, the British have departed--usually with great style and decorum--from more than 30 colonies, including Malaysia, Ghana, Jamaica, Malawi, Kenya, Malta, Guyana and Zimbabwe.

In each case, the goodbye ritual followed a more-or-less predictable script: The military band breaks into a stirring rendition of “Beating Retreat.” A uniformed member of the royal family presides over a hand-over ceremony. Political authority is transferred to a new national government, often headed by someone the British had jailed for sedition during colonial rule.

But Hong Kong, which passes from British to Chinese sovereignty at midnight tonight (9 a.m. Los Angeles time), is different in several key--and potentially troublesome--aspects. The band has already played “Beating Retreat.” Prince Charles is here representing the royal family. But otherwise the colony-to-independence script does not apply.

“Elsewhere,” outgoing British Gov. Chris Patten wrote in his final testament on British rule here, “the dependent became independent, if not always so free as they had been when they were unfree. In Hong Kong, a free city becomes part of a country with its own notion of what freedom means, albeit garlanded with guarantees that its liberties will endure.”

The Hong Kong case has no precedent. For the first time in its years of empire shedding, Britain is turning a colonial possession over to another sovereign state--not to a new national independence government. Moreover, it is returning a population of 6.3 million people, most of whom have no offer of asylum or protection if the conditions of the exchange break down, to a country most of them fled as refugees from communism and political terror.

The Beijing government describes the hand-over as “repatriation” of national territory to the Chinese motherland. To Chinese leaders, it is the rectification of a century and a half of “humiliation,” a shameful testimony to China’s inability to protect its territory.

But the Hong Kong they are receiving bears almost no resemblance to the barren, rocky island they ceded to the British after the first Opium War, which lasted from 1839 to 1842. Using a term that Hong Kong’s remarkably successful traders might appreciate, the “value added” includes a functioning civil society, freedom of speech and the press, a respected judiciary and one of the world’s richest capitalist economies.

The vehicle to maintain these added values--a document known as the Basic Law--is based on the untested concept, more a slogan really, of “one country, two systems” fashioned by the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping to facilitate Hong Kong’s return.

Under this device, the Communist government in Beijing has promised to leave Hong Kong alone, except for matters of national security, for 50 years. Hong Kong is to remain “capitalist” and take on the status of a special administrative region. China is to remain “socialist” and stay out of Hong Kong’s hair.

As the writer Ian Buruma pointed out in a recent essay on the return of Hong Kong: “Socialism is the last thing China says it wants to see in Hong Kong. Indeed, the mini-constitution, or Basic Law, rules it out: ‘The socialist system shall not be practiced in Hong Kong.’ ”

The Basic Law also guarantees freedom of speech, freedom of the press and other civil rights. But the language in which they are guaranteed is much the same as that found in the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China. Critics ask, logically, that if these rights are not observed in China, then why should anyone believe they will be kept in Hong Kong?

In fact, the whole hand-over mechanism requires an enormous leap of faith on the part of Hong Kong’s people. So far, at least, it is a leap that most Hong Kong residents and most foreign governments appear ready to make, albeit with some reservations.

“Hong Kong returning to China is the right thing,” said Ho Man-kwang, 44, manager of a dried seafood and health food shop in the working-class Mong Kok district of Kowloon, across Hong Kong Harbor from Hong Kong Island. “Hong Kong’s success is due to its freedom. If the Chinese government handles things well here, it will be good for the future of China. But if China tries to rule Hong Kong like it does the mainland, there will be big problems.”

Asked at a news conference about his confidence in the “one country, two systems” arrangement, President Clinton responded in much the same fashion.

“We do not want to assume the bad faith of the Chinese,” Clinton said. “I think that would be an error. Obviously we don’t know exactly what will happen, but we have all committed to work with the British to try to continue to insist on and preserve the integrity of the ’84 agreement [setting the terms of Hong Kong’s return].”

How China handles its enriched prodigal possession will be one of its biggest tests since its creation as the People’s Republic in 1949. It will also be a measure of how far China has come toward full membership in the community of nations. In the longer term, it has implications for a possible reunification of China and Taiwan.

China’s friends, including former Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, have been urging Beijing to keep its cool as Hong Kong residents test the limits of the new arrangement.

“A successful Hong Kong will be a major plus for China worldwide when it presses Taiwan for peaceful national reunification,” Lee said in a speech here last week. “On the contrary, if the formula turns out wrong and sours, China will have to contemplate the use of force, which carries damaging consequences.”

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But others doubt Beijing’s ability to keep its hands off the golden goose or to manage the territory’s delicate public relations. They cite Beijing’s insensitive plan to deploy 4,000 People’s Liberation Army troops by “land, sea and air” in Hong Kong only six hours after China takes possession of the territory, a deployment criticized by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on Sunday as “not a good beginning.” Also, countries that operate under some form of split sovereignty are not usually happy places.

“It is not necessarily a concept with a very happy history,” Patten, the British governor, said when asked about “one country, two systems” during a radio call-in program last week. “But there are some examples, I think, if you go back far enough where it has worked very well. You could argue in a way that the accommodation between Scotland and England 250 years ago had provided ‘one country, two systems’ and had done it pretty successfully.”

But the difficulty in maintaining the split lines of authority has already been obvious in the days leading up the official hand-over ceremony tonight. Protocol--seating arrangements, arrivals and departures--and dual Chinese and Hong Kong security apparatuses have created a logistic nightmare.

The 4,000 guests--Hong Kong’s political and business elite--invited to the official hand-over banquet tonight complain that security rules will make them virtual prisoners inside the Convention Center site of the hand-over ceremony until the wee hours Tuesday morning.

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Meanwhile, China has complicated matters by insisting that British rule in Hong Kong not overlap even one second after midnight June 30.

Perhaps one of the most negotiated moments in Britain’s colonial history--what will happen when the clock strikes 12--has been the subject of weeks of bickering. The British wanted to finish lowering their flag to the last bar of “God Save the Queen” as the last seconds of empire here expire. The Chinese worried that the hum of British baritones and crash of cymbals might linger into the beginning of their first second of sovereignty.

The compromise: The sacred midnight moment is bounded by five seconds of silence on each side.

Times staff writer Maggie Farley contributed to this report.

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Hand-Over Highlights

Hong Kong will revert to Chinese sovereignty at midnight tonight, or 9 a.m. Los Angeles time. Here are key events of the process. All times are Pacific Daylight Time.

TODAY

8:30 a.m.

Official handover ceremony at Convention Center, attended by Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Premier Li Peng. Short speeches by Prince Charles of Britain and Chinese representative.

9 a.m. (midnight in Hong Kong)

Union Jack and Hong Kong’s colonial flag lowered.

9:01 a.m.

Chinese national anthem played and China’s flag and new flag of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region raised. Prince Charles and British Gov. Chris Patten and military commander depart Hong Kong on royal yacht Britannia.

10:30-11:15 a.m.

Incoming government sworn in at Convention Center.

7-8:30 p.m.

New government holds celebration at Convention Center. Concert, sound-and-light show.

8:30 p.m.

10,000 homing pigeons released at stadium in New Territories to fly to different provinces in China.

TUESDAY

6-7 a.m.

Boat parade and fireworks display.

TV Coverage

Formal handover ceremony: Coverage begins at 8 a.m. today and will be televised by ABC, CNN, MSNBC, Fox SCI and the International Channel. CBS will begin coverage at 9 a.m., when ceremony occurs.

Preliminary festivities: CNN and MSNBC will have live coverage beginning for several hours before ceremony. KSCI-TV Channel 18 begins will carry a broadcast produced in Mandarin.

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Hong Kong’s Basic Law at a Glance

The Basic Law, promulgated by Beijing in 1990 to serve as Hong Kong’s post-colonial constitution, will take effect at midnight tonight Hong Kong Time, when the territory becomes a special administrative region (SAR) of China. Key provisions include:

* The Hong Kong SAR will exercise a high degree of autonomy and enjoy executive, legislative and independent judicial power.

* The socialist system shall not be practiced in Hong Kong and the previous capitalist system and way of life shall remain unchanged for 50 years.

* No Chinese province, autonomous region, municipality or government department may interfere in internal Hong Kong SAR affairs.

* Hong Kong people will govern Hong Kong.

* The Hong Kong SAR will be led by a chief executive who will be selected through elections or consultations held locally.

* A Legislative Council of 60 members will be formed through elections. Indirect elections will gradually be phased out, and the entire chamber will be directly elected by 2007.

* The Hong Kong SAR will issue its own passports.

* The residents of the Hong Kong SAR will enjoy freedom of speech, movement and religion.

* The Hong Kong SAR courts shall have jurisdiction over all cases except acts of state such as defense and foreign affairs.

* The Hong Kong SAR will enact its own laws to prohibit treason, secession, sedition or subversion against the central government.

* The existing system of British common law shall be maintained in the Hong Kong SAR.

* The highest court is the Hong Kong SAR Court of Final Appeal.

* The Chinese garrison will not interfere with Hong Kong SAR affairs.

* In addition to Chinese, English may also be used as an official language by the executive, legislature and judiciary.

Source: Reuters