U.S. Poised to Pitch In on Revival of Asian Economies, Clinton Vows

HONG KONG —  On the last leg of his triumphal tour of China, President Clinton said today that the United States stands ready to help Asian nations get their economies on track.

“The United States will do all we can to help any Asian country to work itself back to financial health,” the president told an audience of business and community leaders in this once-swaggering regional trading capital, humbled in the last year by the Asian financial crisis.

“Stable growth everywhere in the world is the best prescription for stable growth in America,” he said.

Clinton, the first sitting U.S. president to visit here, also discussed regional economics at Government House--the former home for British colonial governors--at a dinner Thursday night. Clinton expressed optimism about Asia’s long-term prospects at the session, hosted by Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa.

Tung told Clinton that America must act to ensure Japan’s stability, which he termed essential for Asia’s recovery and the health of the global economy. “In these aspects, we are looking toward you for your continued strong leadership, which you alone can provide,” Tung said.

During his speech today, the final one of his trip before returning to the U.S., the president once again pressed, in still stronger terms, the themes of freedom and the right to dissent that he had sounded in Beijing and Shanghai over the past week, in which he has had unprecedented media exposure before the Chinese people.

“Political freedom, support for human rights . . . are morally right,” Clinton told the Hong Kong audience. And he promised that the American people “will stand by the people of Indonesia” in their efforts to open up their political system.

“Some worry that strong voices and the rising tide of dissent can pull nations apart,” Clinton said. “I fundamentally disagree.” He said freedom and democracy “are the birthrights of all people.”

Before Clinton’s dinner Thursday with the Hong Kong chief executive, White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry said the president planned to nudge Tung to expand the partial democracy that now exists in this former British colony.

In his formal remarks, Clinton called Hong Kong a model for the rest of China to emulate. “With its democracy . . . and vibrant economy, [Hong Kong] provides the kind of inspiration for what could be the long-term future for the rest of the People’s Republic of China,” Clinton said.

Tung, the shipping magnate and investment millionaire handpicked by the Beijing regime to head what it calls the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, has seen the fortunes of one of Asia’s richest cities drop dramatically a year into his term. When Tung took office on July 1 last year, the Hang Seng index, key indicator of the stock exchange here, was cresting, but has since dropped almost half its value.

Hong Kong’s financial doldrums, including a precipitous drop in the territory’s property market, have replaced fears of political intervention by the Beijing leadership as the major concern of Hong Kong’s 6.3 million people.

“The current biggest issue is clearly the economy,” Hong Kong legislator Emily Lau said. “Hong Kong citizens are very concerned about every aspect of the economy.”

Politically speaking, the U.S. government has been pleased with the way the transition has gone here from British to Chinese rule, a senior Clinton administration official traveling with the president said.

He said the administration’s fears before the changeover--concerns about losses of political or economic freedoms by residents here--had not been borne out. “By and large, it [Hong Kong] is the dog that didn’t bark last year,” the U.S. official said. He praised Tung, saying he is “impressive. . . . He’s not a radical.”

A year ago, such a positive assessment was not so predictable. When China took over last summer, it disbanded the 60-member democratically elected Legislative Council, a gift of the British in the waning years of their mostly autocratic rule.

But in elections this May, Hong Kong residents turned out in record numbers to show support for electoral democracy. Opposition democrats won roughly 60% of the vote. But because of the limited democratic system installed by Beijing, they garnered only 20 of the 60 legislative seats.

This morning, Clinton made it clear that the U.S. isn’t satisfied with the still-restricted political system China has set up in Hong Kong.

“I look forward to the day when the people of Hong Kong enjoy the rights and responsibilities of full democracy,” he said in his speech. He noted, however, that “the world was impressed with the turnout” in the May elections.

Democratic opposition leader Martin Lee, a Hong Kong lawyer, celebrated the popular mandate Thursday when he and the other council members took their oaths of office in an emotional ceremony.

“In the early hours of July 1 last year, we vowed ‘We shall return,’ ” Lee, head of the Democratic Party, which won the largest number of votes in the May elections, told reporters. “Today, with the help of the Hong Kong people, you have elected us. Most of us are able to fulfill our promise.”

But the first act of the new legislature Thursday was to reelect Rita Fan, a strong supporter of Beijing, as president of the body.

Clinton met with Lee and other members of the political opposition here today.

Clinton originally declined to hold a separate discussion with Lee. But the administration reversed itself this week and said Clinton would talk one on one with Lee before meeting with the group of opposition leaders. The administration seems to have been taken aback by complaints in recent days that Clinton’s meeting with Lee would not be photographed or televised.

“The bar keeps being raised,” the senior administration official said. “First, it was, ‘Why aren’t you [Clinton and his aides] meeting with Martin Lee?’ Then, it was, ‘Why aren’t you meeting him alone?’ Now, it’s ‘Why isn’t the meeting being televised?’ ”

Still, this official said, “The fact that the president is meeting with Martin Lee sends a message the president wants to make.”

Earlier, Clinton spent most of Thursday in the Chinese tourist mecca of Guilin, where he delivered an important environmental message and took a boat ride up the famous Li River, marveling at the towering limestone outcroppings that line the picturesque river’s banks.

While he was busy touring, the Chinese government officially praised his visit. “Thanks to the efforts of both sides,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Tang Guoqiang announced, “the U.S.-China summit was a full success.”

The Guilin tourist excursion was added to the presidential agenda mainly to give time for senior Chinese officials, including Chinese President Jiang Zemin, to get clear of Hong Kong before the huge White House entourage arrived.

The Chinese leadership--amid protests about its role in the 1989 crackdown in Tiananmen Square and its failure to grant more rights to more Chinese--was here Wednesday and Thursday to mark the first anniversary of Hong Kong’s hand-over to China after more than a century and a half under British colonial rule.

U.S. and Chinese officials had decided that they did not want the anniversary ceremonies and the presidential visit here to overlap, fearing that the American leader would distract from the festivities tied to the hand-over anniversary.

In fact, the arrival of Air Force One at Hong Kong’s new $20-billion Chek Lap Kok airport--a facility the Beijing regime had initially bitterly opposed building because of its massive cost--came only hours after Jiang had participated in its formal dedication and boarded his Air China Boeing 747 for the return to Beijing.

Thus, the Chinese president was on the first plane to take off from the newly dedicated airport, which features the world’s largest passenger terminal; Clinton’s aircraft was among the first to land there.

Times staff writers Tyler Marshall and Jim Mann contributed to this report. To hear Times correspondents’ audio reports from China, updated daily on The Times’ Web site, go to: http://arstechnica.netblogpro.com/china.

* POST-BRITISH HONG KONG: The Times revisits post-colonial Hong Kong a year after return to Chinese rule. A5