by Richard Ingham

HONG KONG, Jan 24 (AFP) - A political rift that is already a source of anxiety about stability in Hong Kong is set to widen this weekend when a Beijing-appointed legislature that Beijing set up for the territory takes its first faltering steps.

Loathed by Hong Kong's pro-democracy camp, condemned by Governor Chris Patten, the United States and Britain, the Provisional Legislature is having to meet on Chinese soil to avert the threat of legal action and street protests.

It is expected to name a president, the first move towards a likely series of regular meetings that its critics say could bulldoze away Hong Kong's liberal policing laws and weaken a legal shield protecting human rights.

Patten on Thursday derided the assembly as a puppet but one whose antics could cause chaos in Hong Kong after it reverts to Chinese rule on July 1 after more than 156 years under the Uion Jack.

After branding the Provisional Legislature "a rather exotic debating society which meets on occasional Saturday mornings in Shenzhen," he warned that its members could plunge Hong Kong into "a terrible legal muddle" when it becomes a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China.

"It would mean, inevitably, that the early months of the SAR government would be dominated by battles fought out in Hong Kong's courtrooms. I can't for the life of me think how that is thought to be for the good of Hong Kong's stability and prosperity," Patten said.

China set up the Provisional Legislature on December 21, culminating a long series of warnings that it would not tolerate the Legislative Council (LegCo) that emerged from Patten's pro-democracy crusade of 1992.

Its 60 seats are dominated by Beijing loyalists, mainly drawn from the ranks of the business community, the Liberal Party and the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB), Thirty-four of them are also current members of LegCo, a defection that has crippled hopes by the Democratic Party, hated by Beijing, to erect a containment wall around the contested assembly.

On Sunday, Democratic Party leader Martin Lee makes an eight-country, 14-day swing of Europe, his most ambitious tour of that continent, in a bid to drum up support for his beleaguered party.

Lee, in an interview with AFP Wednesday, said he was worried that world leaders would place the Hong Kong's democracy camp in the same mental basket as Taiwan and Tibet.

These are issues, he pointed out, that government chiefs inevitably skirt as they spell friction with Beiing.

"I want to tell as many people in the world as possible what's happening to Hong Kong today and what is likely to happen to Hong Kong tomorrow," he said.

"I have gone to some countries where I have not been given an opportunity to meet with the president or the prime minister, and quietly been told, 'Well the Dalai Lama was here recently and he was given a meeting, so the prime minister doesn't want to see you, Mr. Lee, so soon afterwards'."

Lee's trip will take him to Strasbourg, where he will meet members of the Council of Europe and the European Parliament, to Brussels, for talks with the European Commission, and to the Hague, for a meeting at the International Court of Justice.

Other meetings have been scheduled with legislators in Bonn, Paris, Oslo, Stockholm, Rome and London.

"He is concentrating on legislatures," said Lee's press spokesperson, Minky Worden. "They're elected and they don't have to be muzzled. The parliaments of the world will defend this elected legislature."