I have quickly gone through the recent interesting exchanges between Chuck
and Peter and also Ken's message. I must one day invite all of you to
Hong Kong and then we can have another interesting discussion on these
topics :-)
With some pressing work deadlines to meet here, I can only be very brief
now; but nevertheless would like to offer some perspectives
from the other side of the Pacific Ocean:
(1) Business interests have never been really concerned with human rights;
they have a very bad record on this; the important business interests in
Hong Kong, whether local Chinese or foreign, Western, are the first to
kowtow to whoever is going to be in power. This is common sense to us
here in HK.
(2) The U.S. itself is perceived here as someone who makes use of the
human rights issue to negotiate with China over economic deals; the U.S.
is not perceived as genuinely concerned about human rights issues in Asia,
but as using these issues as assets
to bargain for their own economic advantages as
China is emerging as an economic giant in Asia and in the world in the
next century, threatening the U.S' hegemony.
People in HK, Taiwan, and Japan generally do not think the U.S is
concerned with anything other than its own economic and political
hegemony in the world.
The above may not be music to your ears; but I think they pretty much
reflect the sentiments of people in this part of the world.
Best wishes,
Angel
-------------
Angel Lin, Ph.D.
Dept of English
City University of Hong Kong
e-mail: enangel who-is-at cityu.edu.hk