December 10, 2002

SOME DARE CALL IT TREASON

By Tom Plate

Is Hong Kong doing a Beijing makeover?

(C) 2002 Asia Pacific Media Network

LOS ANGELES -- For Asia in general, China is a titanic question mark. Will its rapidly expanding economy propel it to greatness as a mature 21st-century regional and world power? Or will its gnarly and often unpleasant internal political processes cause it to metastasize into the biggest and ugliest bully on its block?

For the optimists among us, certainly Hong Kong so far has been a positive case in point. Grumpily and gracelessly handed over to Beijing by London in 1997 after a long and trying tenure under British colonial thumb, this glamorous and teeming territory has handled its new Chinese boss well. Though frustratingly inaccessible to Hong Kong's voracious news media, its chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa, a genuinely nice man, has skillfully walked a tightrope between Beijing and Hong Kong. And Beijing, for its part, has fulfilled its promise of general noninterference. In fact, for the last few years, Hong Kong's real headache hasn't been those rascally Reds on the mainland but the relentless red-ink sea splashed across the dreary regional economy.

But for those who are political pessimists about China, things occasionally happen in Hong Kong that do greatly unnerve. The latest is the effort by the government to craft a new local law defining treason and laying out a raft of chilling penalties. The drafts so far have been alarming, expansive and at the same time vague. They could be read to seem more conjured up by Beijing control-freaks than by free-spirited free-marketeers in Hong Kong.

The law proposes to re-define the meaning of "state secret" with an unnecessarily sweeping extension of power to the government. People found guilty of subversion or treason could conceivably be jailed for life. Other penalties are harsh; and the government's discretion would be enormous.

Predictably, the territory' news media is appalled by the proposal, but in one sense that's no big deal. Generally (and generally delightfully), Hong Kong's news media is to moderation and composure what alternative rock music is to Bach. But even the usually cool internationally respected business community is alarmed, too. "We don't want to see any erosion of the legal system or of any of the institutions that have made Hong Kong a regional financial center," says Frank Martin, the otherwise un-alarmist head of the American Chamber of Commerce there.

Worse yet, questions are now being raised by a legendary Hong Kong figure named Anson Chan Fang On-sang. She is the former head of Hong Kong's civil service, but her years of toiling for her beloved country left an indelible impression on the minds of not only her countrymen but on much of the world's Cantonese-speaking diaspora, especially here on the West Coast, from Seattle to San Francisco to Los Angeles.

Chan, a diminutive figure with a long shadow, recently parted ways with Tung Chee-hwa -- but she did so in a characteristically graceful manner. She is no backbiter or second-guesser or self-promoter like some of the government's high-profile critics. So when she recently spoke out, people were listening intently. Her fear is that the local government is moving too swiftly with its proposed "anti-subversion" legislation. The mere fact that people are so alarmed, she suggests, is reason for caution. She worries that a law poorly drafted and clumsily executed could unleash a bitter Manchurian wind on the warm and open Hong Kong environment. Sensibly, she urges a slowing down of the whole drafting and approval process.

Why in the world should a Hong Kong internal-security law wind up making the place feel more like Beijing? And why should anyone outside of Hong Kong care?

Asia should care because a vibrant Hong Kong has long been part of its rich historical tradition. An Asia without a free-wheeling Hong Kong would be like a potentially raucous dinner party with nothing present but elegant place settings. China should care -- enormously -- because if Hong Kong closes inward into a tight, security over-conscious island, China inevitably will be blamed by the West for the change. And the United States should care because Hong Kong will remain, for the foreseeable future, an invaluable port of call, regional listening post and world city.

Hong Kong, listen to Anson: This is a big step; look carefully before you leap; a black hole of treason legislation can lead mindlessly in the direction of a latter-day gulag. You do not want that.

The following weekly column has just appeared in the Honolulu Advertiser, The South China Morning Post and The Straits Times of Singapore. The author, Tom Plate, is a regular columnist at these three papers. The column also appears in other world newspapers, including The San Francisco Chronicle, The Seattle Times, The Japan Times and The Korea Times. Email him at: tplate@ucla.edu.

For publication and reprint rights, contact the author directly or John Simpson (john.simpson@latsi.com) of the Los Angeles Times Syndicate International.

Previous Columns:

Analyze This: Why Is Japan Such A Basket Case? (December 3, 2002)

Making A Monkey Out Of Los Angeles (November 26, 2002)

A Flex of Soft Power By Mr Microsoft Himself (November 19, 2002)

Bush Won, Saddam Lost -- What Else? (November 12, 2002)

(C) 2002 Asia Pacific Media Network