Article from The Economist: Hong Kong and dissidents.

One country, two systems.
Except when China doesn't like it.

EVEN those who are routinely cynical about Hong Kong's supposed autonomy from China were surprised this week when officials at Hong Kong's airport refused entry to a Chinese-born American citizen and put him on the next flight out. The unlucky visitor, Harry Wu, is no friend of officialdom in Beijing - he became famous for exposing China's exploitation of prison labour, for which, in 1995, the regime convicted him of “spying for Taiwan” and expelled him. But that is supposed to be beside the point. Mr Wu had already paid several visits to Hong Kong, both before and after its return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. And in any case, Hong Kong, at least in theory, runs an independent and apolitical immigration policy.

Moreover, Hong Kong had appeared only last year to set a precedent for letting Mr Wu in, when it allowed another Chinese-born American whom the Chinese had sentenced and kicked out for “spying for Taiwan”, Li Shaomin, to return to Hong Kong. Mr Li, a professor of marketing at a local university, has never quite felt at ease again in Hong Kong since, and has decided to move back to America in June. Hong Kong has also let in others on China's black list: also this week, Huang Beiling, a dissident and poet better known under his pen name, Bei Ling, flew in from America to be reunited with his brother.

Still, on other recent occasions, Hong Kong's government has seemed suitably eager to accommodate China's sensitivities at its passport controls. Most notably, it refused entry last year to a number of visitors who were arriving to participate in a conference organised by Falun Gong, a spiritual movement that the government in Beijing considers an [slanderous term omitted] and persecutes ruthlessly on the mainland, but which is entirely legal in Hong Kong.

One of the many who are concerned about these signs of meddling by China's government is James To, a member of an opposition party and chairman of the security panel in Hong Kong's toothless pseudo-legislature. Hong Kong's government usually cites unspecified security reasons as well as “the overall interest of Hong Kong” for its controversial decisions, and Mr To has been asking how this interest is defined repeatedly and in vain.

The American consulate in Hong Kong, for its part, includes “freedom of association” in its definition of the territories interests, and was quick this week to issue a statement of concern. Hong Kong's government hates having to defend itself on what it usually claims as the city's forte (freedom). Still, however Hong Kong's “interests” are defined; alienating the government in Beijing is clearly not what its administration sees as in its interests.

This is why it is putting up little resistance to pressure from China for an amendment to Hong Kong's constitution (Article 23, now in draft form) which would outlaw all sorts of activities as ”subversive” to the motherland. Specifically, Article 23 would prohibit the linking of domestic and foreign political structures. This could easily be interpreted to extend to Hong Kong's Falun Gong network. Or to Harry Wu, who this week was coming to discuss sharing office space with a local human-rights activist. Or, for that matter, to almost anybody else.

Apr 18th 2002 HONG KONG
From The Economist print edition http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1090103