By A.M. Rosenthal - The New York Times

Dec. 5, 1995 HONG KONG - At midnight on June 30, 1997, Hong Kong passes to rule by Communist China. But for a particularly important elite group on the island the future is just about here, arriving more swiftly every day. The members of this elite are moving forward just as swiftly to meet it.

These are the men whose power comes from the old fortunes and new business dynasties that under the British turned Hong Kong into a money mine. They believe that their commercial holdings will survive and grow in the rising Chinese empire as well as they did in the British empire that will vanish when its flag is lowered here that midnight.

The money elite knows that political freedom and democracy will swiftly dwindle under Beijing and one day disappear. A central reality in Hong Kong's life is that the new rulers do not try to hide that.

The tycoons have examined the implications of Beijing's warnings - lectures to the press about patriotism, interference in the budget of the island, a plan for a Chinese-run ``shadow'' government to be put in place before the 1997 turnover.

They have decided that economically they can live without democracy, ``discounting'' it as a bottom-line item. Pilgrimages to Beijing have become part of doing business.

But other groups in Hong Kong are not rushing to meet the Chinese future.

They fear, for themselves and their families, the approaching destruction by Beijing of whatever democratic bulwarks the colonial British administration will have hurriedly erected by the time it gets out.

These are the people who have committed themselves to political freedom - intellectuals, union leaders, teachers, journalists, and most of the elected representatives of the six million people of Hong Kong.

They know that the only real bulwark for the protection of their political freedom would be the attention and action of the rest of China's major trading partners.

But these groups know from Western submission to Chinese Communist suppression of their own people, the occupation of Tibet and threats to Taiwan that the democracies will not be shields for Hong Kong.

For these believers in democracy the worst news recently was something that did not happen when the imprisoned Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng was suddenly accused of trying to overthrow the whole Chinese government, which could bring life imprisonment.

What did not happen was Western outrage. Nothing more emerged than limp expressions of regret. What did happen? When world leaders met with Wei's chief warden, President Jiang Zemin of China, they treated him with the fawning attention that has become their habit.

Who will be Hong Kong's Wei one day? Sometimes I heard that asked. What will the reaction of the democracies be? I did not give an answer to that when it was put to me. But I know what it will be - limp regret.

I held back because it seemed callous to dismiss hope when I talked with good men like Martin Lee, the opposition leader, and Christopher Patten, the British governor. Both of them struggle in their own ways to keep some hope alive in Hong Kong.

Lee represents the people of the island and will stay on. He is at odds often with the governor, who represents a dead empire and will go home the day the flag goes down.

But both say the British should have given passports to live in Britain to the three million Hong Kong residents entitled to them. Neither the British Conservatives nor the Labor Party would touch it.

China has signed declarations promising Hong Kong freedoms not permitted to the billion Chinese who will be their fellow citizens. I've met nobody who believes Beijing will long pay attention to those declarations.

China will land troops in Hong Kong the day it takes over. Foreign journalists have already booked all available hotel rooms for the sight.

Hong Kong's people can have only one possible protection against oppression - economic and political retaliation by the West. And that they will not get, any more than did survivors of Tiananmen.

Beijing has already minted gold commemorative coins to mark the 1997 turnover. They are engraved with the gates of Tiananmen Square. That is a message.