Thriving Hong Kong Ignores Death On The Doorstep

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32296, 14 May 1970, Page 8

Thriving Hong Kong Ignores Death On The Doorstep

(ly DAVID BAIRD) HONG KONG. Ten thousand people looked on one day in April as a Chinese youth was denounced for “crimes against the shot. It happened in the State”—then tied up and frontier village of Shum Chun, a few hundred yards from this British colony. From Kwangtung Province tn China come reports, almost daily, of similar executions as the government of Chairman Mao Tse-tung seeks to wipe out potential troublemakers in the wake of the Cultural Revolution. Yet such incidents provoke barely a ripple of interest here. Gunfire rattles along the Shum Chun river border, bloated bodies drift in from Canton, Maoists seize Hong Kong yachts and fishing craft And on the surface, at least no-one turns a hair. For Hong Kong people have learned to live on the edge of a volcano. Sometimes it may be a little uncomfortable, but as long as it is also profitable, few of the colony’s four million inhabitants take the time to worry. Thus runs the philosophy which sustains this unique community, the ultimate ini freewheeling capitalism next door to the world’s biggest Communist nation. Recent events here have demonstrated once again the precariousness of Hong Kong’s position and the phlegmatic attitude of its people. Few have time to ponder the significance of mass

execution reports from China when the local stock market is booming. Few can be i bothered by the plight of ' fleeing refugees when over--1 worked cash registers are i signalling another record year • for Hong Kong's soaring pro- , fits. The rest of the world can ' make love or war: Hong Kong • is busy doing its own thing I —making money. ! Yet only a few miles from I the busy factories of mainland Kowloon and the thunder of pile-drivers heralding more hotels, more apartment blocks, the confronta- • tion of rival ideologies is very real. Along the 18-mile land . boundary which divides Hong ' Kong from China, British • police and soldiers keep a i careful watch on their . counterparts, the soldiers of . the People’s Liberation Army. ! A continuing source of coni flict is the village of Shataukok where the frontier runs • down the main street. Mao , supporters " killed five Hong i Kong policemen there during ;! rioting which shook the . colony in 1967. Villagers can , mingle freely today, but an > ■ English tourist who recently > strayed past a police check- . point was arrested by Chinese >'guards and detained for two /days. ; In March four Communist i militiamen dragged a village > leader across the frontier. On April 13, he was reported to , have been shot after a mass . “people’s trial” for aiding in their flight from t Kwangtung to Hong Kong. I Illegal Immigrants Scores erf people have been ■ executed and hundreds gaoled i after appearing before such : “people's courts” throughout the province in recent ■ months: helping fugitives ; from Mao's China is a major

a i offence against the state.: t Even so, the refugees keep! eicoming. Some are shot down! f j by Chinese guards as they try •-to scale the border fence, or el are picked off as they swim r across the muddy Shum i-'Chun. al But many are successful—- » an estimated 200,000 since g, 1962. They drift into Hong I Kong waters on inflated a i rubber tubes or football i-1 bladders, row across in leaky e 1 sampans or pay racketeers - SHKIOOO (SUSI6S) to be I -Ismuggled in from Macao, the! i-1 tiny Portuguese province 40 F | miles west of here. I So many craft ply the I gI waters around Hong Kong: i that the British authorities! a cannot hope to catch all the r ■ “snakeboats.” as the junks I fl smuggling illegal immigrants! ’•lare called. Control of the i- coastal traffic is doubly diffi-i-1 cult because many junks are s'registered in both Hong Kongi O'and China: they are thus free I? | to transport cargo or fish or g people in Chinese and British e waters. n And this is a further source n of conflict. As a condition for y I fishing in Chinese waters, ■-'Hong Kong craft are required e to sell a quota of their catch o to nearby communes in I China. Also, they may be t: required to attend Mao indoce > trination meetings. In April, n 120 Hong Kong-registered o! junks were seized by the s Chinese for failing to hand g over their quota. A Blind Eye Profits, rather than politics, are the ruling force in local a affairs. Peking turns a blind i eye almost to British i colonialism as long as it can t use Hong Kong to sell its t wares and boost its foreign s exchange. Most Hong Kong r Chinese are concerned with'

. I keeping out of politics and i! staying in business. 11 In August last year, British ■ troops were put on alert ■ when 100 fishermen landed i in the New Territories area i and threatened a marine police base. But their anger ■ had little to do with Mao : thought: they sought, unsuc- ; cessfully, the release of five I of their number who were being held for abducting an ■ oyster-bed worker. Quarrels i over the ownership of the oyster-beds, which are claimbed by both Hong Kong and i Chinese fishermen, have been a source of trouble for many : I years. !i The danger is that these i|quarrels could one day boil Lover into violence which agi- > I tators could spread through--out British territory. !j Hong Kong is as unflurried' ■ by such a prospect as it isl iby the latest - reports of I I bodies floating down the ’ Pearl River from China. Two years ago, more than 1 60 bodies—victims of the Cultural Revolution upheaval ! —were washed ashore. Today, ’ theories on the latest grisly • reminders of ferment in > China range from suggestions 1 that they were executed for 1 “anti-state” offences, or that ! they were former Red Guards ' fleeing from Mao's compul- • sory farm service for young 1 intellectuals. • Either way, Hong Kong I ! stays optimistic and the cash registers keep tinkling—in the Communist-owned stores, too. Death at the border and . violence in Kwangtung canI not stop export figures headl ing higher than 1969’s record i SHKIO.OOO million <SUSI6OO i million). When you’re living : on the edge of a volcano, it i seems, minor “earthquakes” -just don’t matter.—lntrasial i Press Agency.