INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE

Monday, November 11, 1996

A VIEW FROM HONG KONG: CHINA MUST CHANGE

By Alan Friedman and Jonathan Gage

HONG KONG - Martin Lee, the leader of Hong Kong's democracy movement,

has vowed to broaden his campaign to include a push for human rights

and democracy across the People's Republic of China as it takes control of this colony next year. "China must change," Mr. Lee said, contending that Beijing planned to impose "draconian and repressive laws" on Hong Kong.

"In the long term, China will have to change and be more democratic," said the chairman of the United Democrats of Hong Kong and one of Beijing's most outspoken critics. Mr. Lee spoke on the eve of a trip

to London that he described as his last chance to win support from Britain. He said he would ask the British Parliament this week to

declare Beijing in breach of the 1984 treaty governing the handover

of the colony to China in 1997.

The request, he said, was aimed at forcing Prime Minister John Major

to honor a recent promise to take formal action against Beijing if

any violation of the treaty were found to have occurred.

"Here in Hong Kong what we are fighting for is a large cage," said

Mr. Lee, who stressed he had no great expectations that the government

of Mr. Major would support him. Instead, he said, he hoped to receive

enough backing in Parliament to maintain pressure on Beijing.

"There will be a cage here all right," he said, "but while there is

an opportunity, let us try and get more elbow room."

In London meetings that begin Monday with Foreign Secretary Malcolm Labour Party leader, Tony Blair, and with members of Parliament, Mr.

Lee said he would cite three separate breaches of the 1984 accord

between Britain and China.

The most egregious violation, he said, was Beijing's plan to appoint

a provisional legislature by Christmas - seven months before the scheduled handover. The unelected assembly, he warned, would immediately begin preparing "anti-subversion" laws limiting freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. Beijing has repeatedly denied breaching the handover treaty. Speaking in his offices at the Legislative Council building here, Mr. Lee compared himself with Wang Dan, the Chinese dissident who was convicted by a Beijing court Oct.30 of plotting against the government.

Mr. Lee pushed a motion in the Hong Kong legislature last week that condemns the treatment of Mr. Wang, a former student protester and survivor of the 1989 army crackdown on prodemocracy demonstrators who had held rallies in Tiananmen Square.

"Wang Dan didn't write words as strong as the ones I write, and he got 11 years of jail," Mr. Lee said.

"If he got 11 years of prison, then under the new laws that Beijing is planning here, I would get 130 years."

Mr. Lee said Beijing's alleged violations of the Hong Kong handover treaty were an issue involving the United States and other countries as well as Britain. He called on the Clinton administration to apply pressure on Beijing, warning Washington that its own interests would be at risk elsewhere if China failed to live up to its international treaty obligations.

"If the international community lets China set up a provisional legislature, that is a clear breach of the Joint Declaration of 1984," he said "and if they can get away with this then what else might they violate? The United States also has an interest in seeing China carry out its international obligations."