DATE: Tuesday, July 1, 1997                 TAG: 9707010016

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B10  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial 

                                            LENGTH:   31 lines

HONG KONG: ERA ENDS IN A GAMBLE

If the post colonial era began when the British relinquished control of India in 1947, the farewell to Hong Kong 50 years later is a kind of finale. There have been success stories and tragic failures in Africa and Asia as the European wave of power and control has receded.

So far, the peaceful return of Hong Kong to Chinese rule has been a success in the sense of a peaceful and orderly transition. But even those in Hong Kong who were anxious to see the last of the British have qualms.

The Chinese have pledged to leave Hong Kong esesentially unchanged for 50 years, as a bastion of democratic capitalism. And, more to the point, as the goose that has laid the golden eggs, an essential connection to the West and a fabulously successful nexus of finance and trade.

But the Chinese appreciation for free institutions is suspect. The memory of Tiananmen Square is fresh. Already, it is clear that Hong Kong will be governed in part, at least temporarily, by several unelected representatives - a disquieting oxymoron. Already, there's been talk of tightening controls on speech and press. And the arrival of Red Army troops in armored personnel carriers is, if nothing else, hardly an example of inspired public relations.

It seems certain Hong Kong will be at least marginally less free under Chinese rule. The hoped for trade-off is a mainland China influenced by Hong Kong's example to gradually permit more freedoms. But it is only a hope, that pragmatic necessity will persuade the Chinese to allow what ideology has prevented.

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