HONG KONG'S NEXT RULER DRAW LINE ON DISSENT

by Keith B. Richburg

Washington Post Sservice - The International Herald Tribune

Tuesday, May 6, 1997

Tung Chee-hwa, who as chief executive will run this territory after July 1, on Monday defended his plans to place new restrictions on political parties and on the right to stage demonstrations as necessary to prevent Hong Kong from sliding into the kind of social problems and breakdown of order that plagued the United States in the 1960s. Mr. Tung also laid out in greater detail than before his view of what types of public protests will be prohibited under his administration, warning that any rallies advocating independence for Tibet, Taiwan or Hong Kong would be proscribed. In an interview with American and British journalists, Mr. Tung said Hong Kong was still "a very peaceful society" and "a very law-abiding society." But, he added, "the most important thing is to make sure it stays that way." "I lived in America during the '60s," Mr. Tung said. "I saw what happened with the slow erosion of authority, and the society became less orderly than is desirable." He said he certainly did not want to see this hap

pen in Hong Kong. Asked whether he thought Hong Kong had already become too liberal in its laws, he replied, "I think if we are not careful, we are moving slowly in that direction." Mr. Tung insisted that he was concerned only the welfare of Hong Kong's 6.5 million residents, and that it was his responsibility to keep the territory free from any internal instability or meddling by outsiders, be they foreign political parties using cash to manipulate local politics, or intelligence agencies op-erating here, like the Central Intelligence Agency, Britain's MI-6 or Taiwanese spies. He said he was "going to take a look at what needs to be done" about foreign espionage in Hong Kong, after seeing reports in Chinese-language newspapers. about foreign intelligence agents operating here. He said that it would fall to his administration to ferret out foreign spies, and that China's ubiquitous Public Security Bureau would have no role to play in the territory after July 1. Mr. Tung said that he had no interest in trying

to "stifle people from demonstrating," and that public protests - which now occur on an almost daily basis on issues ranging from protection of illegal immigrants to the curtailment of civil liberties - had now become "part of our culture." But he also made clear that the right to demonstrate would face new restrictions if the protests ever touched on areas considered sensitive to mainland China and on questions of China's territorial integrity. He said such restrictions were necessary because China's history of defeat and humiliation at the hands of foreign powers gave its people "a historic burden" on issues of sovereignty. "If, there is a demonstration on, let's say, Tibetan independence, it will be something we will be looking at very, very seriolsly," he said. Asked whether demonstraions advocating Taiwanese or even Hung Kong independence would be alowed, he replied, "No." "As a Chinese person, I would find it very, very difficult for these demonstrations advocating the independence of these places tak

ing place in Hong Kong," he said. "There is a depth of feeling by the Chinese people on these issues which I hope others will understand and appreciate."He said rules on what demonstration topics weee to be off-limits would be included in the local ordinance covering public protests once his legal team works out the precise language. Under proposals introduced last month, people wishing to stage public rallies would be required to seek police pemiission, and the police would be empowered for the first time to ban rallies if "national security " is threatened. At present, protest organizers are required only to "notify" the police, and senior police officials have said that they are not interested in the content of protest rallies. Those proposed new restrictions have ignited a storm of protest from political parties, legal associations, human-rights groups and others who say they amount to a rollback on a basic freedom: the right to assemble peacefully. But Mr. Tung said Monday that his proposals would be no

more restrictive than rules on the books in other major cities. He also defended his proposal to place new prohibitions against local Hong Kong political parties raising funds abroad - a measure seen here as aimed at thwarting the territory's most popular party, the Democratic Party, which won the largest number of seats in the 1995 elections and which raises cash during forays abroad by the party's leaders.