REAR WINDOW
Eric Ellis, Hong Kong
06/30/1997
GONG BUSTERS
The biggest noise heard in Hong Kong this week is neither the rattling of China nor the rehearsals for the dual fireworks spectaculars marking the transfer tonight and tomorrow.
No, it's the sound of sucking. US presidential pretender Ross Perot said he could hear the noise of jobs being squeezed from the US to Mexico. Hong Kong's version is more sycophantic, and more audible. With the exception of ongoing Financial Secretary, the perennially bow-tied Sir Donald Tsang, Hong Kong's good and great are falling over themselves in their haste to throw off their colonial baubles before Beijing notices them.
Standing first in line is the ubiquitous S.Y. "Oh you shouldn't have" Chung, who was a past master at forelock-tugging to Her Majesty as a long-standing member of the colonial Executive Council.
S.Y. has his hand out for the replacement gongs Hong Kong's "governor-in-waiting" Tung Chee-hwa founded this week for the new era. Instead of knighthoods comes the Grand Bauhinia Medal, for those who have fostered "a love for the motherland" and "shown concern about and support for China's accomplishments".
S.Y. will soon get one to parade at cocktail parties, as will casino tycoon Henry Fok, the man who rescued Tung's struggling shipping empire with communist cash in the mid-1980s, a deal that helped turn Hong Kong's new ruler into a committed patriot.
GLOWING RED CHIPS
On the subject of fostering love for the motherland, Rear Window's gong goes to the cadres who run red chips like China Everbright, China Merchants and Beijing Enterprises.
Everbright has risen 757 per cent since January 1 (35 per cent on Friday alone), China Merchants 608 per cent and Beijing Enterprises tripled in value the day it went public last month. The Hang Seng Index closed its last day of trading under the Poms at a record 15,196.79 points.
They probably qualify for China's highest honour as well: the Order of the Precious Tripod.
FAR FROM SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE
In the midst of the pomp, circumstance and traditional share ramping marking the end of June in Hong Kong, at least a few people in the pressure cooker have maintained a sense of humour, if not politically correct decorum.
Like millions of Hongkongers, the feisty media-to-ragtrade tycoon Jimmy "Giordano" Lai was alarmed at rumours that the invasion force streaming across the border in the first hours of Chinese sovereignty over Honkers tomorrow would include the very same armoured personnel carriers used by the People's Liberation Army to mow down Beijing's Tiananmen Square protesters in 1989.
Lai did what any normal media proprietor might suggest of his editors -send someone out to test local reaction.
The PLA garrison deployed in Hong Kong will be famously underpaid - its senior commander will earn the monthly salary of a Filipina housemaid and his charges little more than a feed at an average Hong Kong restaurant - a marked contrast to Britain's "squaddies" who could be found much of the time in Stanley's pubs defending the contents of a John Smith or two or three, er, thousand.
In an inspired assignment, Easyfinder magazine sent two reporters out in PLA uniform and no money into a teeming Kowloon rush hour to try to panhandle their fare back to barracks.
Hong Kong people are notoriously ill-spirited. The phony soldiers walked back to the office.
STAR ECLIPSED
Rupert Murdoch is in Hong Kong to pay his respects to the new license regulators of his Star TV. But he will need special PLA clearance if he actually wants to check in on Gary Davey and see how many millions Star has lost this week in his, thus far, losing bid to dominate Asia's airwaves.
That's not because Rupert has dropped another clanger like the one in 1993. He said then that satellite TV was bringing an end to tyranny and totalitarianism of regimes like, well, like China's, a remark that Star's accountants could quite justifiably blame for the lashing of red ink over their books.
Star's offices in Hong Kong are situated smack next to the Li Ka-shing-owned hotel to be used by China's President Jiang Zemin and his entourage when he steps foot for the first time tonight in China's lastest acquisition.
Chinese overreaction at any potential security threat to Jiang and Premier Li Peng has led to an over-the-top cordon sanitaire thrown right around the Hung Hom complex where Star is located.
Employees grumble they can't get anywhere near the place without some security goon jumping on for the correct passes and ID.
MOGULS GALORE
Rupert Murdoch is not the only Australian media luminary in town for the Big Event.
Quite apart from the 8,400-strong working media, of whom about 160 are Australian, people like Kerry Stokes, Cameron O'Reilly, Jamie Packer and Lachlan and Rupert Murdoch have made it to official guest lists.
Indeed, being here for the handover seems a pro-China corporate prerequisite, just in case anyone asks during a particularly delicate negotiation to enter the fabled 1.3 billion market five years down the track.
Joining the Australian contingent will be the CEOs and directors of General Motors, Ford, Dow Chemical, IBM, British Airways, Toyota, Boeing, Sumitomo, ABB, Siemens, Volswagen, etc, etc, etc.
MOB APPEAL
Meanwhile, down to the serious stuff: what's getting bottoms on seats ahead of the changeover? China's propaganda would have one believe all of Hong Kong, nay the world, is flocking to see The Opium Wars, a dramatisation of the battles that led to the ceding of Hong Kong to Britain in 1841.
Alas for Xinhua's spin doctors and their clumsy attempts to engender "love for the motherland", the lines that snaked around Hong Kong's movie theatres at the weekend were for another blockbuster.
The film? The Lost World, the setting perhaps not quite what Spielberg had in mind.
NOT DOWN TO EARTH
While it is technically correct President Jiang Zemin will set foot in Hong Kong for the handover tonight, to local pedants who think these things are important, it's a moot point. Jiang will get on a PLA launch in Shenzhen tonight and motor down the Pearl River into Hong Kong to dock at the Harbour Plaza hotel. From there, he will be spirited across the harbour to the Convention Centre for the ceremony and then back to the Harbour Plaza and then back to Shenzhen. But at no time will Jiang actually set foot on Hong Kong soil, much less mix it with the hoi polloi. Everywhere the presidential foot treads will