AP: Critics: Global conference shows Hong Kong more like China

05/10/2001

HONG KONG (AP) - Hong Kong and China delivered a glitzy sales pitch to the corporations globalizing the planet, but ended up with an unintended side effect.

Hong Kong's response to protests at a global economic conference this week led critics to conclude the former British colony is becoming more like mainland China in many of the wrong ways.

Ever since Hong Kong reverted to Chinese sovereignty in July 1997, it has been governed under an arrangement dubbed "one country, two systems" that is intended to preserve Hong Kong's capitalist ways and Western-style freedoms.

Protests by the meditation [group] Falun Gong - outlawed in mainland China but legal in Hong Kong - during Chinese President Jiang Zemin's visit had been seen as a crucial test for the strength of those freedoms.

The authorities tolerated quite a few demonstrations outside the Fortune Global Forum that was wrapping up Thursday, but police tightly controlled the numbers of activists and kept them well away from dignitaries who also included former President Clinton.

More worrisome, critics say, were claims by the Falun Gong meditation [group] that more than 100 of its followers from overseas were stopped at the airport after apparently being blacklisted.

"They've turned us into another Chinese city," said opposition lawmaker Cyd Ho.

Ho is well familiar with China's policies of exclusion. As a Hong Kong Chinese, she should be allowed to travel freely to the mainland but has been barred.

Hong Kong officials insisted none of the people kept away over the past few days, including American, British, Australian and Taiwanese citizens, were blocked over their affiliation with Falun Gong.

Hong Kong's No. 2 official Donald Tsang said the territory excludes "certain undesirable elements." Pressed to explain, Tsang said he was referring to "all sort of things. They are international criminals, they are terrorists. They are all kinds of people."

Critics called his explanation implausible.

"Falun Gong is definitely not terrorists," Ho said. "As long as they were not spotted with dangerous goods or ammunition, they should be let in."

Falun Gong and human rights activists said Hong Kong's government, led by unpopular Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa, was tilting too much toward China's hardline approach against Falun Gong. Tung was favored by Beijing to run Hong Kong after Britain left, and some observers suggest Jiang's presence this week indicated China wants Tung to seek a second term.

"Under Jiang's pressure, it is clear that the suppression methods used in mainland China have been extended to Hong Kong," Falun Gong spokesman Kan Hung-cheung said.

Taiwan attacked the detention of 46 Taiwanese at the airport, using language similar to that it trots out in frequent criticism of the lack of freedom and democracy in rival China. U.S., British and Australian officials sought an explanation for why their citizens were stopped by immigration officers.

"Hong Kong is not an independent city anymore," said Theresa Chu, one Taiwanese follower who made it through customs and got to demonstrate.

Hong Kong rolled out massive security while Jiang was here, deploying 3,000 police officers compared to the 2,000 that were on duty during the handover ceremony nearly four years ago.

It slowed traffic in this normally fast-paced financial hub - angering Hong Kong residents who are learning that any time ranking officials from Beijing are in town, security will be stepped up and cars and buses will be delayed.

Speaking to the Fortune forum, Jiang insisted Hong Kong remains free and the government system is working.

Although there may have been much to criticize the past few days, opposition leader Martin Lee of the Democratic Party said Hong Kong's response proved that citizens still enjoy rights that would be unheard of on the mainland.

Police may have been oversensitive, but the protests mostly went on, Lee said. "People wouldn't have been allowed to do this in mainland China," Lee said.

Others remained worried.

"In order to please President Jiang, they suppress people's freedom to demonstrate," said Szeto Wah, a pro-democracy lawmaker and activist. "The mask of 'one country, two systems' has been torn down."