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China, Britain

deadlocked over HK

HONG KONG: China and Britain, after months of wrangling over Hong Kong's infant democratic institutions, are now deadlocked over arrangements for the 1997 transfer of sovereignty to Beijing, politicians said on Tuesday.

"The reality is that cooperation between the British and Chinese governments on the transition, particularly of the legislature, broke down, and we have to face that fact," Tsang Yok-sing, a pro-China politician, told a radio discussion panel.

Tsang's rival and one of communist-ruled Beijing's opponents in Hong Kong, Democratic Party leader Martin Lee, said China was shutting its ears to views it did not want to hear.

Tsang, chairman of the pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong, said Britain -- especially Hong Kong Governor Chris Patten -- was blocking a smooth handover.

He blamed the British for an impasse in arrangements for a transitional legislature and scolded London for refusing to recognise a China-appointed Preparatory Committee which is crafting the post-1997 government under Beijing's guidance.

Sino-British relations over Hong Kong have deteriorated dramatically as Beijing unveiled moves recently to crimp democracy and erase any vestige of British influence once China raises its red flag over the territory on July 1, 1997.

On that day the booming capitalist enclave with a population of 6.3 million people will become China's Special Administrative Region (SAR), ending a century and a half of colonial rule.

Lee and Tsang, a leading pro-China voice and a member of the Preparatory Committee, were not alone in seeing a deadlock. It was confirmed by Britain's minister for Hong Kong, Jeremy Hanley, during a visit to Vietnam, a Hong Kong newspaper said.

Hanley said China and Britain were deadlocked over what kind of ceremony to hold next year. Other Hong Kong newspapers have said that China plans to humiliate Britain by sidelining it on the day of the handover.

Martin Lee said that despite a drive by China's top Hong Kong policy-maker, Lu Ping, to tap local views this week, Beijing was deaf to opinions that did not suit it.

"I think Lu Ping and other Chinese leaders will listen ultimately to what they want to hear. It's as simple as that," said Lee, whose party was the most popular in 1995 elections.

Lee singled out China's order to the Preparatory Committee to abolish the elected legislature, Legco, as a sign that China planned to wield communist-style control in Hong Kong despite Beijing's promise of high autonomy in the territory after 1997.

"The only reason is that this Legco cannot be controlled by Beijing, so they don't want this Legco to continue.

"They want to get rid of it and have it replaced by a legislature which Beijing feels comfortable with because it can control it," Lee said.

"My party members will never accept the precondition to accept the provisional legislature. What consultation is this?

"It's like saying to somebody, you are going to prison, nothing will change that, but I'd like to hear how you'd like to be taken to prison. By car, by bus, by bicycle? This is crazy. It is wasting the people of Hong Kong's time," Lee said.

Anxiety has risen in Hong Kong amid quarrels between the British and Chinese over Beijing's plan to appoint a rubber stamp legislature of its own, to extract a loyalty pledge from the civil service, to control the territory's budget and to impose "patriotism" lessons on children in Hong Kong schools.

Reflecting nervousness about the future, some 200,000 people applied for British overseas citizens' passports last month, a hedge against trouble when China takes over.-Reuter