Hong Kong has to remember that the American media and Congress are not as interested in the future of the 6.5 million people in Hong Kong as in the 1,200 million in China. The destiny of Hong Kongers will not affect the destiny of America or the world. But the 1,200 million Chinese in China -- likely to become 1,500 million by the year 2030 -- will determine the balance of forces in the world.

In a similar way, Americans are not criticizing Singapore because they are concerned about democracy and human rights. Whether Singapore succeeds or fails as a multi-racial community in Southeast Asia makes little difference to the future of America. Their real interest is what [the U.S.-based human rights group] Freedom House has stated, that Singapore sets the wrong example for China, showing China that it can maintain social discipline and order with high economic growth, but without becoming an American-style democracy.

So also, it is not Taiwan and [its] 21 million [people] the U.S. is primarily concerned about. Americans have openly stated that the example that Taiwan sets for China is the real value of Taiwan. The American media uses Taiwan democratization as a reason why undemocratic China should not control Taiwan, and why America should help Taiwan stay separate.

The people of Hong Kong should never be confused over how to safeguard their own interests. They will hear many voices cheering them on to fight China for more democracy. Each time they hear this, they should remember what one of Hong Kong's longest serving governors, Lord MacLehose, said in 1992: "The power, reasonable expectations and rights of the Chinese government can be disregarded only at the peril of Hong Kong."

They should ask themselves this simple question: When the chips are down, where will these media and interest groups be? Will they be in Hong Kong to face the music? Or will they continue to pursue their own agenda, which is to contain and punish China, in order to slow or abort its growth into a big power?

If I were a Hong Kong person and I have decided to stay on, the options I would consider practical and realistic are, first, carry on with my business to make a lot of money as China grows uninterruptedly, which will happen if the U.S. does not embargo China. . . . If my children decide to go into politics, I would advise them to concentrate not merely on Hong Kong affairs but on Hong Kong as part of China . . . helping China become a stable, modern, open society with the rule of law. Whether China will be a democracy like the West or have its own form of pluralism and representative government, I would leave time and circumstance to decide.

Hong Kong should watch carefully what all of China's neighbors in Asia are doing. None of them are about to join the frontline of forces trying to advance democracy in Hong Kong or China. Instead, all are quietly studying developments among the Big Three in the Asia-Pacific -- the U.S., Japan and China -- and carefully adjusting and positioning themselves.

-- Excerpted from Singapore Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew's address to the Pacific Rim Forum

I have long been an optimist about Hong Kong's future. The desire of its people to constantly improve themselves will never dwindle. This attitude will be supported by the "one country, two systems" concept. China shares the perception that Hong Kong must remain a top performer in finance, investment and trade. Two-thirds of foreign firms with regional headquarters in Hong Kong established such operations after 1985 -- that is, after the return to China was already decided. Overseas investors continue to be highly confident about Hong Kong.

We cannot talk about Asia in the 21st century without thinking of China. It will increase its importance politically and economically. The relationship between China and other countries will strongly affect not only Asia but the whole world. China will go through great changes. Though many difficulties lie ahead, its reforms and Open Door policy cannot be reversed any longer.

-- Kaifu Toshiki, former Japanese prime minister, at the Pacific Rim Forum

What you have had in Hong Kong is government of big business, by big business and for big business. China doesn't want that to change. But the pressure from professionals and the better educated will be for more involvement in the political process. That will be the interesting story in Hong Kong.

For the next few years China is going to be on its best behavior. . . . There are a number of people in Kong Kong going overboard in bowing, kowtowing, tugging their forelocks in an attempt to ingratiate themselves with Beijing. This is a concern. Another concern is people wrapping themselves in the flag and playing to a U.S. audience.

-- Burton Levin, former American consul general in Hong Kong, at the Freedom Forum

Because the humiliation of the Opium War was to the entire race, the return of Hong Kong to China is not only a political event, but also a spiritual event for all Chinese. The Nanjing Treaty [ceding Hong Kong to Britain] began a long period of decline for China which created a swirl of wars and revolutions in Asia. The return of Hong Kong to China symbolizes a new beginning for Asia, with ramifications no less far-reaching.

The biggest challenge to Hong Kong is to resist the temptation to take sides in social upheavals on the mainland, which will inevitably accompany the tremendous economic changes occurring in China.

-- George Yeo Yong Boon, Minister of Information and the Arts, Singapore

I have cared about Hong Kong since I was a boy. My uncle, an air force pilot, was hired just after the war by a little venture called Cathay Pacific Airways. For some years he wrote to me, his first-born nephew, in a simple, striking way about the sights and sounds, the bustle and energy of the Hong Kong he loved.

I think the moves to democratize Hong Kong came too late. But, however little and late, more democracy is always worth having. All that is necessary now is that Beijing honor its promise of "one country, two systems." China is a great power, but as President Clinton said recently, what matters is "how the Chinese define their greatness." I hope that in relation to Hong Kong, China defines it with grace, moderation, intelligence and a greatness of spirit.

-- Gareth Evans, deputy opposition leader and former foreign minister of Australia

Hong Kong's goals in the 21st century are pretty much the same as in the last half of the 20th century. In the future, the goal is the transfer of regional services. Hong Kong is 92% services. . . . There is a serious structural problem. People want to move toward democracy. The British created an economy that cannot be maintained in a democratic political system. Half of the people live in overcrowded housing which would be considered unacceptable to people in the United States. The low tax system has been maintained at the cost of incredibly high housing prices. The average Hong Kong person pays the world's highest taxes -- it is called rent. And it is not because there is not enough land.

-- William Overholt, author of China: The Next Economic Superpower, at the Pacific Rim Forum

Construction of infrastructure and basic industries needs trillions of renminbi. As an intermediary for foreign bank loans, Hong Kong will become more important. Industrial cooperation will increase. As Hong Kong adjusts its industrial structure, the mainland's human resources and products in high technology can be used to speed up the transition.

China's western region will provide Hong Kong with new investment space. The 10 provinces in the west account for 56% of China's land and 26% of its population. The region has rich agricultural and hydropower resources. To narrow the economic gap between east and west, the Chinese government has decided to speed up development in the west. This decision includes encouraging investments from coastal regions and foreign investors.

-- Liu Shibai, leading Chinese economist, at the Pacific Rim Forum

In the early 1980s, three issues regarding Hong Kong were put to [Chinese] government leaders. How is sovereignty to be reverted to China? Is Hong Kong's capitalist economy of any use to China's socialist modernization? How to define its culture? The first was solved by the principle of "one country, two systems." The economic issue was clarified: anything that enhances national strength, develops productive forces or elevates the people's livelihood is encouraged and adopted.

Culture is more complex. The mainstream is highlighted by healthy elements of capitalist society: rule of law, efficiency, civic freedoms, clean government, etc. Literature has emerged with Hong Kong characteristics. Is Hong Kong trying to create a pluralistic culture? At least, she is cultivating her own. So are we. Our problem is how to inherit and develop our legacy while absorbing the best of other cultures? The new Chinese culture is in the making. Hong Kong has much to offer.

-- Zhang Zhilian, Beijing University historian, at the Pacific Rim Forum

Why is Hong Kong so special and important? To whom is it important after the handover? China's struggle to modernize has met with both failures and successes. Hong Kong is that open and public stage on which continuous changes have taken place. Its people are but part of the vanguard of change for all Chinese. What Hong Kong people do may even be precursors to greater changes to come for the Chinese in China.

[Since War World II,] two contrasting Hong Kong groups have illustrated the challenges of the new modernity that most Chinese now face. The first group consists of those who, whether locally born or immigrant mainlanders, identified with China and accepted its past efforts at modernizing as their starting point. The second is represented by those who recognized the limits of tradition, and looked more openly outward to broaden Chinese horizons.

The thousands, even millions, who charged into an unknown future in Hong Kong, with moderns to the left of them and moderns to the right of them, have completed their historic and heroic task. The Hong Kong Chinese are now modern not necessarily in the way the West had expected, nor in the way their mainland countrymen might have wanted. But Hong Kong is now the only part of China that has achieved this [modernization] without major interruptions. No other comparably modern Chinese community exists. The Hong Kong Chinese seem now ready for the last act, in which they offer their own blend of modernity to all Chinese who might want it.

-- Wang Gungwu, director of the East Asian Institute, Singapore, and former University of Hong Kong vice chancellor, at the Pacific Rim Forum

On his legacy: Nobody should underestimate the astonishing stability in Hong Kong in the last five years. We had arguments with China and we've been going through two transitions -- the transition to Chinese sovereignty and the transition from being a closed colonial society with a manufacturing base to a big international city with a knowledge and service-based economy. We've gone through the transition without any of the political turbulence or upset you've seen in other Asian countries. Would we have had this stability if we had to spend the last five years explaining to people why promises about civil liberties, democracy, were for the birds?

On the civil service: The community here has a very keen sense of the extent to which the civil service, the police and the judiciary are their shield against that dark tangled world of corruption. Therefore they invest the integrity of the civil service with considerable political significance. Mr. Tung's best decision [Tung Chee Hwa, Hong Kong's new chief executive] has been to keep senior civil servants in place.

On the economy: What has happened in Hong Kong is that we've exported lower valued-added jobs but retained the higher-value functions in Hong Kong. It is a naive argument to suggest that government has to intervene in order to secure a given percentage of manufacturing. Government here has been pretty good at doing the things that are essential for business: a stable macroeconomic policy, low taxes, increasing investment in education, training and retraining, infrastructure. I just hope that the SAR [Special Administrative Region] government will be as light-handed as we have been.

On government intervention in business: That is several steps down the road toward the sort of endemically corrupt societies we see elsewhere in the region. . . . Hong Kong doesn't want to start worrying that it doesn't spend the same proportion of GDP on research and development as Singapore or Taiwan. If we want to attract high-technology investment, then the most important thing for us to be able to demonstrate is that we've got a well-educated workforce and that our strategic trade controls are reliable, that we can still be treated as a separate economy from China. But getting the government into that lamentable game of backing winners -- if firms are potentially winners, they won't have any trouble finding money in that market out there. I feel quite strongly about that.

On changing policies: Perhaps inevitably at this stage of the transition there's more emphasis on change and less emphasis on continuity. The system here works. It's a damn successful place, it's a great city and it's in great shape. Why tinker with it?

On the future: What happens here goes right to the heart of so many things which are going to be important for China and the rest of the world. Why? Everybody is going to be looking at China's behavior in Hong Kong as a sort of test of how it is going to behave generally on the international stage. The 8,000-plus journalists here who get on planes next week to return home will be turning their backs on one hell of a good story.

ALTHOUGH HONG KONG'S STATUS AS A BRITISH COLONY ENDED on July 1, its importance as an intermediary in cross-strait relations will continue to grow. We believe that the preservation of free, stable, prosperous and democratic Hong Kong will depend not only on Beijing's sincerity in keeping its promise to allow for a "Hong Kong governed by Hong Kong people" and a "high degree of autonomy," but also on the active efforts of the people of Hong Kong to protect and promote their own rights and interests.

To ensure that all manner of exchanges between Taiwan and Hong Kong will continue, the government of the Republic of China [ROC, Taiwan] has promulgated the Statute Governing Relations With Hong Kong and Macau and other related measures to serve as the legal basis for future relations. We have indicated on many occasions that the ROC's agencies in Hong Kong will remain after July 1. Furthermore, plans have been completed to set up a Hong Kong Affairs Bureau to enhance services provided to Hong Kong's people.

However, our policies are based on the premise that Hong Kong will retain not only its free-market economy but also a high degree of autonomy. The question of how the mainland authorities, with their socialist, one-party dictatorship, will implement their "one country, two systems" formula in Hong Kong has yet to be answered. Whether the future Hong Kong-Taiwan relationship will emerge as a litmus test for cross-straits relations or merely be sacrificed to appease a dictatorial Beijing is an issue that must be considered carefully and pragmatically by Taipei, Hong Kong and Beijing.

It is our sincere hope that the mainland authorities will be able to fulfill their promises to the people of Hong Kong. At the same time, we also recognize that the freedom, democracy and the rule of law enjoyed in Hong Kong contrast sharply with the rule by fiat and communist dictatorship which exists in the mainland. No matter how Beijing boasts of the "brilliant" design of its "one country, two systems" policy, its attempt to impose this formula on cross-strait relations would be futile.

The Republic of China was established as a sovereign state in 1912, and it has remained a sovereign state for the more than 85 years since. We are a globally recognized economic power administered by our own central government. Our leaders are democratically elected. We have a comprehensive and independent judicial system, engage in our own diplomatic relations, and maintain solid defense capabilities. The government and the people of the Republic of China will never allow the mainland authorities to downgrade our status to that of a local government under a "one country, two systems" framework and thereby incorporate Taiwan into a system under Beijing's control.

The return of Hong Kong to the Chinese people not only marks the end of British colonial rule, but also opens a new chapter in the ongoing development of exchanges and cooperation between Taiwan, Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland. The world has entered an age in which all nations are striving towards peace, democracy and development.

At this crucial juncture, we must establish new ways of thinking and develop new rules of conduct. Even more, we must uphold the principles of reciprocity and mutual benefit and work together to build a more positive, interactive and constructive relationship. Only in this way will all three areas -- Taiwan, Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland -- be able to emerge as winners.

-- Chang King-yuh is the chairman of Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council

THE BASIC LAW ASSURES A HIGH DEGREE OF AUTONOMY for Hong Kong after July 1, 1997. That legal document is much better than past arrangements between London and Hong Kong. There is no use talking about "one country, two economic systems"; the Chinese and Hong Kong economic systems have already converged. What we talk about today is "one country, two jurisdictions" or two customs territories. That is something to watch.

For the time being, there is no sign that our legal system will converge with the Chinese one in the near future. Hong Kong will continue to enjoy an independent status in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, the World Trade Organization and other social, economic and educational institutions. If one day China tells Hong Kong you have to leave a certain organization, this is possibly a signal that there is a problem with "one country, two systems."

There are reasons to believe that Beijing will most likely honor its promises and give us a high degree of autonomy. I can give you three important ones. The first is culture. Hong Kong became a great world trader under British rule. If in the coming three to five years, Hong Kong goes downhill, how will China face the world? Now that is a straight question of face rather than international pressure. Beijing is keener than anyone else to maintain Hong Kong's stability and prosperity after 1997.

Second is geopolitics: Beijing's desire to maintain stability and prosperity in Hong Kong is driven more by Southeast Asian countries. The most important factor in the minds of the Chinese government in terms of security in the region is ASEAN. In Southeast Asia there are millions of Chinese. ASEAN has been very much in the mind of China in assuring the future of Hong Kong, because if they do something to Hong Kong, it will have wide implications in ASEAN countries.

Reunification [with Taiwan] would remain possible if it works in Hong Kong. But reunification is even secondary. The primary consideration in the Taiwan question this time is the United States. If China is going to do anything drastic to Hong Kong, it will be a perfect excuse for the Americans to increase their presence in the region, which is the last thing the Chinese want to see. To minimize the involvement of the U.S. in the region, it is very important to maintain the stability and prosperity in Hong Kong.

Third, Hong Kong in the last 15 years has been an important entrepot for China. But look at the statistics and you will see the importance has been declining. Sixty-five percent of foreign investment in China comes from Hong Kong. But within that 65% there is, for example, Malaysian and American investment in China via Hong Kong. Hong Kong itself is not such an important investor. Thirty years ago, it was an important source of foreign exchange for China. Not any more.

What is important [to China] about Hong Kong is not "the goose laying the golden eggs" as such, but its expertise in building economic and financial institutions. There is no substitute in the foreseeable future for Hong Kong's role in capital and financial-market regulations, establishing macroeconomic monetary tools, open market operations, etc.

In institution-building, cultural affinity is a key factor. That is why Hong Kong can help China to a much greater extent than experts from the West. A case in point is the setting up of an elaborate system of capital market regulation in China with the advice and assistance of Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission.

-- Professor Edward Chen, an economist and a former member of Hong Kong's ruling Executive Council, spoke at the Pacific Rim Forum