In three and a half years, Hong Kong, a British colony for more than 150 years, will revert to the People's Republic of China. A major entrepot for China, it is also an embarrassing rebuttal to those Asian leaders who argue that democracy and a free press are incompatible with local values and traditions. Conventional wisdom has it that China will never kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. But the control of information vital to any totalitarian or authoritarian regime, particularly one that is faltering, has become an obsession with China's political leadership

In Hong Kong there is increasing concern about China's attempts, both open and covert, to intimidate the local press. Many of the major international media conglomerates are taking a long-term view that China's economic prosperity will lead to political reform. Rupert Murdoch, however, recently sold the majority of his shares in The South China Morning Post, Hong Kong's "establishment" English-language daily. While the paper was a cash cow for his empire, Murdoch is said to have considered it a political liability, in part because of its tough-minded coverage of China. The purchaser was Robert Kuok, a pro-China billionaire businessman with no previous publishing experience.

While Murdoch's sale of the Post last summer struck many observers as prudent, his subsequent purchase of Star TV, Asia's principal satellite television network, seemed asking for trouble. The network's previous owner was Li Kashing, one of the world's richest men (according to Forbes and Fortune lists), who got his start selling plastic flowers in Hong Kong in the 1950s and who was looked upon favorably by the bureaucrats in Beijing, not only because he was Chinese but also because of his heavy investments in the People's Republic and his generous charitable contributions.

Murdoch, on the other hand, was viewed with mistrust by a number of Asian governments whose leaders are deeply worried by the largely unrestricted growth of Western programming in the skies overhead. The Chinese people, bored to death with state-run programming, had taken enthusiastically to Star TV, which offered MTV, BBC news, and a wealth of uncensored Western and Chinese movies. Murdoch's acquisition of the network alerted China's leaders to the need to regulate a medium that provided so much "culturally inappropriate" information and entertainment. New regulations restricting the sale or installation of a private satellite dish are expected to take effect in April.

Apart from this threat to his anticipated China market, Murdoch faces stiff competition from heavyweight media conglomerates that are leasing transponders on at least three new satellites being launched in Asian skies to take advantage of the prosperity of the region's burgeoning middle classes.

All this competition, together with a rapidly evolving communications technology, is good news for those who advocate the free flow of information, bad news for governments that seek to control it. Some of the new satellites, like AsiaSat II, are said to be so powerful that programs can be received on an antenna that is only eighteen inches long. Malaysia and Singapore -- which ban private ownership of satellite dishes -- are going to have a hard time tracking down eighteen-inch receiving antennas.

Print is easier to control. Hong Kong's print press -- comprising at least fortyfive daily and weekly newspapers and hundreds of magazines -- is already facing serious threats. Perhaps the most worrisome is growing self-censorship in the colony's Chinese-language press.

Daisy Li Yuet Wah, chairman of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, which has about 500 members, minced no words when she told a World Press Freedom Conference in October that arrests by China of several Hong Kong journalists were clearly intended to intimidate the local press.

"Under the Communist regime . . . ," Li said, "all news media are the mouthpiece of the party. Their function is to serve the party, instead of acting as a watchdog on behalf of the people. A journalist's normal practice of gathering information would be equated with espionage. . . . Beijing has never forgiven the Hong Kong media for their forthright reporting of the 1989 prodemocracy protests. . . . This mentality on the part of Communist officials casts a long shadow over freedom of the press in Hong Kong after 1997."

Hong Kong Chinese journalists, lacking authentic British citizenship, are unprotected when they report from China. Xi Yang, a top reporter for Ming Pao, often referred to as The New York Times of Hong Kong's Chinese-language press, was recently detained by Chinese authorities who have denied him access to his family and refused to allow him to see a lawyer. He was arrested on charges of "espionage regarding state banking secrets."

A little over a year ago, China detained Hong Kong journalist Leung Wai Man. She was released only after signing a forced confession, and has been barred from entry into China for two years. Her news source, a mainland journalist, was jailed for life for alleged participation in leaking an advance copy of a keynote speech by the Chinese president, Jiang Zemin.

Meanwhile, pressure is also growing on Hong Kong newspaper proprietors "to ensure that they are not seen to be anti-Beijing," according to Li of the Hong Kong Journalists Association. "Many would like to extend their market to China."

Like Li, Emily Lau, a member of Hong Kong's Legislative Council, or Legco, and a former staff member at the Far Eastern Economic Review, is worried about the continued viability of a free press. Lau, who heads the Information Policy Panel of Legco, recently met with two groups, one representing newspaper proprietors, the other representing senior news executives. Both groups asked Legco to ask the Hong Kong government to ask the Chinese government "not to purge and persecute Hong Kong journalists in 1997."

Britain's colonial government in Hong Kong, despite recent passage of a "bill of rights law," has a number of extraordinary discretionary powers, including ordinances and statutes that can be used to impose censorship and the tight control of information. These powers are rarely used, but when they are, the reason usually is to avoid giving offense to China. (Movies can be censored on political grounds, for example.) People like Daisy Li and Emily Lau are concerned that, unless the Hong Kong government repeals or revises some of these laws, the Chinese communists will use them to control freedom of expression in all manifestations.

Another worry is that the Basic Law -- a document laboriously drafted by representatives of China, with the participation of a panel of leading Hong Kong citizens -- provides ample latitude for the Chinese communists to violate the principle of "one country, two systems." This concept was supposedly enshrined in the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984, the main document under which Hong Kong is to revert to China. The Basic Law, intended as the "constitution" for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, as the territory will be known after 1997, contains a number of worrisome provisions. These have been made more worrisome by the bellicose attitude China has adopted since Britain sent a skilled, tough, and libertarian politician, Chris Patten, out to be governor.

Last fall, a former Chinese communist editor active in the dissident movement spoke at some length at Princeton about the various methods used by the communists to "neutralize" or trivialize the press in Hong Kong. One paper targeted by the communists is Ming Pao, which had the audacity to publish two secret letters from the Bank of China (communist) in Hong Kong to affiliated banks that contained blacklists of newspapers -- including Ming Pao -- that should be denied advertising. And two magazines noted for their informed political coverage of China and Hong Kong have recently been taken over by local businessmen with close ties to the mainland. Observers fear that it won't be long before both publications start to tone down their sharp political coverage.

Meanwhile, a new, upscale Englishlanguage daily -- Eastern Express -- is scheduled to appear at the end of January. The publisher is Oriental Daily, Hong Kong's largest-circulation Chinese-language paper, with a circulation of more than 400,000, lots of money, and state-of-the art presses. That the launching of a new paper is occurring at this time and place in Hong Kong's history is remarkable.

The editor of Eastern Express is Stephen Vines, a respected British journalist who has been a correspondent for The Observer and The Guardian and who was, until recently, president of the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents Club. Eastern Express has recruited twenty-five of the most highly regarded members of the South China Morning Post staff, as well as top advertising sales people. Other staff members are being taken from Dow Jones's Far Eastern Economic Review.

In a town where a single day's horsetrack betting can involve as much as $ 100 million, the new newspaper, which is expected to be fairly fearless in its China coverage, is seen as another real horse race. Only three and a half years remain until the Chinese communists take over. But in Hong Kong returns on investment are staggeringly rapid and high by Western standards. In a colony that has thrived on taking smart risks, the betting is that the new paper will return its initial investment before July 1, 1997.

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