Hong Kong

"In Hong Kong, you are your job," says Eugene Sullivan."Hong Kong is the most perfect capitalist environment that I've ever been able to live in," says Peter Borer.Mr. Sullivan is executive director of the Hong Kong TouristAssociation. Mr. Borer is vice president of the Peninsula Group, a Hong Kong-based corporation employing 4,500 people and comprising six luxury hotels worldwide, real estate, food manufacturers, air catering, tourist attractions, fast-food restaurants and more.These tourist-industry people decline to discuss the politics of Hong Kong, but they're happy to talk business.

HONG KONG -- At Wong Tai Sin's temple, set among Hong Kong's rugged mountains and shabby housing blocks, the worried come for advice. Have they made a good choice in marriage? Why has father gone blind? What will happen to them after China takes over the British colony in just 30 months?The last question has become a popular one, say the soothsayers who work the temple grounds. Communicating through divination sticks, Wong Tai Sin -- Hong Kong's most popular god -- gave his answer:Make your money now, and when you end up in someone else's domain, lie low and keep your mouth shut.

PARIS -- Hong Kong's Sept. 17th vote for democracy -- in the first free election in Hong Kong history -- was a blow to Beijing and a rebuke to London, the capitals in charge of Hong Kong's future.China's rulers were humiliated. They had exercised great pressure on Hong Kong's population of six million to elect Beijing's friends and agents to a new legislature charged with governing the colony until its scheduled takeover by China from Britain in July 1997.This is a free legislature, set up by Chris Patten, a controversial British reformist governor-general, who has gone against much British as well as Chinese opposition in giving the people of Hong Kong a truly democratic voice in their affairs -- even if only for the next 22 months.

This was taken in July 2006 during a family vacation to Asia. We were at the top of Victoria Peak on Hong Kong Island as a storm came down. We watched the clouds drop over the city, and a minute after this picture was taken, the sky opened up and we were stuck under an awning for the next 20 minutes. Mary C. Allan Bel Air

HONG KONG -- Britain and China yesterday made public the texts of secret diplomatic exchanges on the subject of Hong Kong elections, each side trying to prove it was in the right in a bitter dispute over political changes in this British colony before it reverts to China in 1997.Beijing asserted that the documents showed that a confidential deal had been reached on key elements in the next legislative election in Hong Kong in 1995.But Hong Kong's governor, Christopher Patten, who has proposed a series of changes to broaden the voter base of the 1995 elections, said the 50-page exchange proved just the opposite -- that no deal had been made.

HONG KONG -- Are economic-powerhouse citistates destined to eclipse nation states in the 21st century If so, Hong Kong poses a fascinating test case. Next year on July 1, China assumes sovereign power over this pulsating, globally connected city of 6 million. Will Hong Kong's vigor and investment power be quashed?The prevalent theory is: It's up to China. If the power brokers in Beijing step too heavily, revoke too many of the economic and personal liberties Hong Kong enjoys, they'll trigger free-market panic and cripple a powerful economy.

BEIJING -- After more than a year of negotiations with Britain, China announced yesterday that it will support the building of a new, much-needed airport in Hong Kong, ending a stalemate that had deeply undermined confidence in the colony's financial and political future.But the price of the breakthrough was a major British concession, an agreement giving China a strong say in Hong Kong's financial affairs before the scheduled return of the colony to Chinese rule in 1997. These pre-1997 powers were not provided to China in the original, 1984 Sino-British agreement to return Hong Kong.

BEIJING -- A Beijing-backed newspaper in Hong Kong has accused him of dressing up as "the god of democracy," and that is a telling reflection of the frosty reception the colony's new British governor likely will receive on his first visit here today.Democracy's the problem. Chris Patten, Hong Kong's 28th and probably last British governor before it reverts to Chinese rule in 1997, wants the colony to have more self-rule. China is infuriated by the idea.The 48-year-old Mr. Patten was expected to shake up the staid pattern set by the long line of reserved diplomats who preceded him.Having crafted the British Conservative Party's surprising election win last spring, he blew into the colony 15 weeks ago with the reputation of being a politician's politician.

BEIJING -- Hong Kong Governor Chris Patten leaves here today the same as he arrived three days ago: at loggerheads with Chinese officials over his proposals for expanding democracy in the British colony prior to its 1997 takeover by China.After almost 12 hours of meetings with Chinese officials, Mr. Patten last night reported no progress in selling them on his plans to increase the number of elected members of Hong Kong's legislature in the colony's 1995 elections, its last before Chinese rule.

HONG KONG -- The freest economy on the face of the globe -- that's how the right-leaning Heritage Foundation ranks Hong Kong. Indeed, any supply-sider would approve the territory's 15 percent personal flat-rate income tax, minimal business regulation, low social welfare spending.But there's another reason Hong Kong enjoys one of the most dynamic economies the world has ever seen. It's investment: investment in decent housing and entire new towns for its people; investment in mass transit, tunnels and roadways; investment in gargantuan port facilities; in new tourist facilities; in railway lines strengthening the transit routes into the Chinese mainland.