TNAG-2182-FCO40-3119-Hong-Kong-nationality-international-support-1990 — Page 30

Mr Pattison

Asian Studies Center

Backgrounder

The Heritage Foundation • 214 Massachusetts Avenue, N.E. • Washington, D.C. 20002 • (202) 546-4400 • Telex: 440235

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August 21, 1990

PROTECTING AMERICA'S STAKE IN HONG KONG

It is the 13th largest market for American goods in the world and home to more than $7 billion in American investment. It is a key to American com- merce in the People's Republic of China and the principal financial capital in Southeast Asia. And it is home to 17,700 Americans and over 900 United States businesses.

This is Hong Kong, a British colony preparing to revert to Chinese control on July 1, 1997, but also a vital American cultural and economic outpost. This emphatically was made clear on June 24 when the Hong Kong government announced that the overall planning of the territory's new $16 billion port and airport predominantly would be a U.S. affair. San Francisco-based Inter- national Bechtel Incorporated will manage the overall project. Grenier En- gineering Incorporated of Irving, Texas will design the two-runway Cheklap- kok airport. And the Manhattan merchant bank Morgan Stanley and Com- pany Incorporated will be the project's financial advisor.

Courting America. The airport contract is not the first political perk Hong Kong has dangled before American companies. Last year, it gave Denver- based U.S. West Corporation a $500 million cable-television contract. A main reason for this and other deals with U.S. firms: Hong Kong seeks a continued American presence as it prepares for a very uncertain future. Alarmed by the violent repression of student demonstrators in Beijing a year ago, Hong Kong remains unsure that China will live up to its promises in the Joint Declaration signed with Britain on December 19, 1984, to respect self-rule and capitalism in Hong Kong after the colony reverts to Chinese control. Moreover, London is viewed with great suspicion in Hong Kong. One reason is that Britain is preparing to grant just 225,000 of the colony's 5.7 million residents British citizenship before 1997. This means that only they will be assured of finding safe haven should China begin repressing Hong Kong's freedoms. Said Hong

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of any bill before Congress.

passage

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