Hong Kong Trek Won’t Make Cox a Happy Camper

WASHINGTON — By week’s end, Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) will have crossed 10 time zones to witness a ceremony in which he finds no joy. Cox sees no reason to celebrate the Chinese government’s retaking of Hong Kong.

A longtime critic of China’s human rights violations, military aggression and trade practices, Cox worries about Hong Kong’s future. Despite his opposition to the historic changeover of governments, Cox will attend China’s big bash, although reluctantly.

The Republican congressman is leading a congressional delegation to Hong Kong’s new convention center on Victoria Harbor, where at midnight June 30 world leaders will watch China resume its sovereignty over Hong Kong.

But in a symbolic gesture of his own resistance to the Chinese takeover--155 years after Hong Kong was ceded to the British government--Cox will join Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair in a walkout just as Hong Kong’s elected legislature is officially replaced by the Chinese-appointed government.

Why even bother to show up?

“Because it is important for the People’s Republic of China to understand that the world is watching,” Cox said, adding that the delegation’s presence won’t be in support of the Chinese government, but to underscore “concern” in the United States.

“Never in history has a free society been handed to a communist country by prearrangement,” Cox explained. “And the reason that reasonable-minded men and women are entering into it is that there’s hope against hope that the communist government in Beijing can be taken at its word [to allow Hong Kong its autonomy].”

Cox’s doubts about Hong Kong’s future intensified recently when China’s handpicked legislature for Hong Kong voted to curb citizens’ civil liberties, including the right of assembly.

The restriction of political rights was foreshadowed by China’s use of the military during the transition period, Cox observed.

“The military general who is currently presiding over the British forces in Hong Kong will be replaced by five Chinese generals, a not-too-subtle increase in the kind of military we can expect,” he added.

Cox’s role and that of the congressional delegation will be overshadowed by the presence of many heads of state, most of whom will not boycott the swearing in of the new Hong Kong legislature.

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But the event demonstrates one more way in which the Orange County congressman is increasing his profile on matters involving China.

Earlier this year, Cox, chairman of the GOP Policy Committee, joined other congressional leaders including House Speaker Newt Gingrich in meetings in Beijing with Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Chinese Premier Li Peng. It was Peng who ordered the violent massacre of Tiananmen Square protesters in June 1989.

The House leaders also met with the current and future heads of Hong Kong’s legislature.

On this trip, the congressional delegation will meet with pro-democracy leaders, including members of Hong Kong’s ousted government, which in 1995 became the first entirely elected legislature.

Other members of Congress who are scheduled to travel to Hong Kong include Reps. Jennifer Dunn (R-Wash.), Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), Thomas J. Manton (D-N.Y.), Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) and John Porter (R-Ill.).

It remains unclear whether all the members of the delegation will leave the hall with Cox before the new legislature is sworn in. But all seem to share reservations about Hong Kong’s future under Chinese rule.

Kaptur said she will view the historic event “with hopefulness, but with some underpinning of uncertainty.”

“I want to closely follow this transition to Chinese sovereignty down the road to see if Hong Kong’s experience has a positive effect on the mainland,” Kaptur said, instead of Hong Kong losing its autonomy under Chinese control.

She added that she had not yet decided whether to join Cox in the walkout before the new legislature is sworn in.

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The division within the delegation over China will come to the forefront this week, when the House takes up President Clinton’s request to extend for another year China’s trade status as a most favored nation. The designation grants to China the same low tariffs that are enjoyed by most other nations.

The two Washington state lawmakers, Dunn and McDermott, favor a continuation of the special trade designation for China. A major reason they support normal relations with China is economic: Washington is the most trade-dependent state in the country, and China is its third-largest trading partner.

The trade issue is what drives Cox’s efforts to place restrictions on China’s trade status.

Last year, he won support for a compromise resolution that continued the trade policy with China for one year while congressional committees developed a comprehensive policy toward the communist regime.

But the resolution was nonbinding, and the legislative hearings were not held.

As the House vote nears, Cox concedes that there are not enough votes in the House or the Senate to revoke normal trade relations with China.

Instead, he will try to add conditions to the trade agreement, such as denying the special status to commercial businesses linked to the People’s Liberation Army.

His intent, he said, is to keep China in check as it takes over control of Hong Kong.

“The most likely outcome is not a repeat of Tiananmen Square,” Cox said, adding that the threat posed by China is not as much about communism as it is about “corruption.”

“We can expect that over time, different capital will move into Hong Kong while presumably at the same time, the more traditional kinds of business people will move out,” Cox predicted. The new businesses, he added, will be those “that are comfortable being able to pay government officials for business. . . . That’s the threat.”