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HONG KONG, TESTOSTERONE &
BIRTH OF THE ASIAN CENTURY
PAGE 6 OF 8
| "This glaring dichotomy between overblown expectations and mass reality is the two-headed monster China's leaders wrestle." |
ow that greed has replaced Marxist dogma as China's glorious new
state religion, the PLA, provincial and local governments, countless
government agencies, even party bosses, have become gung-ho
entrepreneurs who shirk the taxes needed to keep the central government
from evaporating in an inflationary spiral. China's actual budget deficit may
never be known--the government simply prints the renminbi it needs,
restrained, if at all, only by its stated but unrealistic goal of full-convertibility
by the year 2000--but is in the $60 billion-range, a staggering 10% of
nominal GNP.
For these reasons, Hong Kong's return is burdened with as many unrealistic hopes and expectations from China's rulers as it is with phantasmagoric anxieties on the part of the western world. Embodying the Asian Century's birth, Hong Kong is the ultimate international Roscharch inkblot. Beijing bosses see a small but mighty engine that might pull China into a seat near the head of the capitalist feast it once maligned. China's new capitalist warlords see a stepping stone out to a larger universe of limitless potential for exploitation and corruption. China's people see the promise of once unimaginable prosperity and restoration of national honor. On the eve of handover, throughout China, monuments go up to mark the heroic occasion. Among the heroes is Lin Zexu, the Qing Dynasty official who burned over a million tons of British opium in 1939 and triggered the disastrous first Opium War and the humiliating Treaty of Nanjing with the loss of Hong Kong Island. "Wash Away a Century of Shame, Joyously Celebrate the Return of Hong Kong," proclaims an exhibition of historic memorabilia.
This potent racial memory evokes in all Chinese--even among the Hong Kong Chinese screaming most loudly against China's authoritarian ways--profound bitterness toward Britain and the west. Every Chinese heart dreams of seeing China reclaim its place as the earth's preeminent nation as in the days when Britian was a Roman frontier and America, a virgin wilderness. One dream alone is more compelling--that of seeing their children well-fed, well-educated and well-placed in society. As for the supposed desire for democracy and political freedom, that's largely a construct of the western media. The more capitalist Asia has become, the more vociferously the west has demanded that Asian nations adopt democratic principles. The huge amount of inertia built into democracies assures a high degree of social stability which is desirable for mature economies like the U.S., Japan and Western Europe. For nations like China, Corea and Singapore bent on quickly leaving behind the ravages of colonial exploitation and institutionalized corruption, structural resistance to rapid social change simply isn't desirable. Asking a nation like China, given its history and economic condition, to democratize its political system is like asking it to give up its economic progress just to give westerners some peace of mind.
Little wonder Beijing bosses and the likes of Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew give short shrift to that kind of talk. They're particularly scornful when such western demands reek of sour-grapes insincerity, as with Chris Patten's foolish incitement to Hong Kong democrats to build a sandcastle democracy to be washed away by the July 1, 1997 Chinese tide.
"Let's not waste time talking about democracy," the blunt-talking former Singapore prime minister told British Prime Minister Tony Blair during a recent London meeting. "There never was any democracy in Hong Kong in the first place!" Lee sneered openly at the efforts of Chris Patten and Martin Lee, the barrister who heads Hong Kong's Democratic Party.
Beijing is anxious to preserve the integrity of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
"Well water cannot disturb river water," he added, quoting an old
Chinese proverb to express China's indifference to Hong Kong-based efforts to
influence Chinese policy. "Well water" refers to Hong Kong, a mere former
colony, while river water refers to sovereign China which directs its own
course. Lee's point is made only regarding the political side of the situation;
he doesn't underestimate the power of a smaller but superior economy to act
as a sparkplug to a larger, less dynamic economy. Beijing bosses don't need
to be reminded that it's the economy, stupid. Departing governor Chris
Patten did annoy and offend China with his incitement to the kinds of
democratic reforms which Britain itself chose not to implement during the
first 150 years of its rule, but the democracy movement he propped up
doesn't worry China.
What China's President Jiang Zemin, Premier Li Peng and
Vice-Premier/ Economics Czar Zhu Rongji do lose sleep over are the
consequences of failing to live up to the starry-eyed expectations engendered
by China's own recent economic progress and raised to fever pitch by the
return of Hong Kong. They're doubly worried because for 25 years Hong
Kong--that beguiling white-armed concubine--played the starring role in
seducing western industry to establish production bases in China. Hong Kong
herself became China's biggest investor by investing U.S. $200 billion--7
times as much as Taiwan, 8 times as much as Singapore and 10 times as
much as the U.S.--and luring tens of billions more in western investments. In
essence, during the past quarter century China and Hong Kong have become
history's most successful international joint venture. Its success has raised
Hong Kong from a colorful tourist trap and sweatshop to a global trading and
financial power and China from a vision of a nightmare future to the leading
engine of global economic growth. In the process China has salted away $94
billion in foreign exchange--as much as Taiwan--while tiny Hong Kong has
built up a staggering $42 billion in foreign exchange reserves.
PAGE 7
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