Businesses, Natives Hold Fast to Hope for Hong Kong

Eunice Gong sat in front of her TV and watched as the Union Jack was lowered and the Red Star raised in Hong Kong. And her eyes welled tears.

She fears what Hong Kong might become. She is nostalgic about what her country has been. But she says returning Hong Kong to China was the right thing to do.

“I feel kind of lost,” she said from her Oxnard home Monday morning, some 10 years after leaving her homeland to attend school in the United States. “I feel part of me is being taken away. It will still take awhile to get over it and accept the reality.”

Indeed, from Ventura County’s Chinese community to those reliant on Pacific Rim trade for their livelihoods, the Hong Kong hand-over was met Monday with equal parts hope and concern.

Hope as the doors open to new markets in mainland China, 1 billion people strong.

Concern that long-held social freedoms will give way to religious persecution and censored speech.

“It’s kind of scary,” said Cheuk-Wa Wong, a Moorpark College student from Hong Kong sent to the U.S. 2 1/2 years ago by her parents, who feared what might happen when Monday’s hand-over came.

“All those guns,” the 20-year-old said, referring to China’s quickly installed military presence. “Do they really need that?”

The British have ruled Hong Kong since 1842 following China’s first defeat in the Opium Wars. China failed in its attempt to stop the British from importing opium into the country to balance the trade market.

In short, said Edward Tseng, associate dean of international education at Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, China lost the war fighting for a just cause.

“This is the end of a humiliating episode in China’s history,” the 63-year-old Hong Kong native said.

Tseng believes the new Chinese-appointed legislature will preserve the capitalist system in Hong Kong. But he worries that political freedoms will be lost and that the business corruption widespread in mainland China will seep into Hong Kong.

Still, area businesses remain bullish on the former British colony.

Camarillo-based Harris-Dracon Corp. has been doing business in China and Hong Kong for 20 years. Rather than shying away from China, Harris-Dracon’s vice president for international sales said, the company has come out to greet it.

In fact, said Gabe Hernandez, the telecommunications-equipment builder already has plans to expand its facilities in China and Hong Kong. And the firm is confident the corporation’s investments are safe.

“Hong Kong is China’s gateway to the world,” he said. “It’s in their best interest to use what Hong Kong has rather than destroy it.”

China now has one of the fastest-growing economies in history, and few doubt that in the next century the land once known for its Great Wall, Forbidden City and the costly Cultural Revolution will become an economic powerhouse on par with Japan and the United States.

Business leaders in Ventura County are watching closely.

The relinquishment of Hong Kong control to China coincides with the Port of Heuneme’s plans for expansion. Although the bulk of the port’s Pacific Rim trade has long rested in automobiles, heavy machinery and local citrus crops heading to and from South America and Japan, port officials are taking a more long-term view.

They say if long-held trade barriers on exports to China are lifted, it could mean a boon for local exporters and economic development efforts in Ventura County as shipping lanes to China open up.

“If you just look at the amount of people in the [People’s Republic of China], the sky’s the limit,” said Kam Quarles, manager of marketing and trade zone services for the Port of Hueneme. “China is not exactly a shipping giant, but they are certainly a giant in the Pacific Rim, and once they start to gear up and trade with us, the sky’s the limit.”

Oxnard Harbor Commissioner Mike Plisky said port clients have been trying for years to make shipping inroads into China.

“In talking with our current customers and potential new customers,” Plisky said, “they see a potential avalanche of business in China if they can ever get in there.”

Meanwhile, Hong Kong and Chinese natives say, 150 years of humiliation have ended.

Hong Kong people can now reestablish ties to their ancestry, said Margaret Mak, a Hong Kong native living in Oxnard.

“They have an identity,” Mak said. “They will be Chinese. This is one thing they will be proud of.”

But China’s troubled past still haunts some local Hong Kong natives.

“Even though the Chinese government [guarantees] nothing will change in 50 years, their word is no guarantee,” Gong said. “But I think basically, if you keep your mouth shut and don’t say anything against them and you don’t do anything against them, you will be OK.”

Correspondents Coll Metcalfe, Regina Hong, David Greenberg and David R. Baker contributed to this story.