While democracy is winning victories in East Bloc countries and the Soviet Union, the Britons expect communism to come to Hong Kong in 1997.
In less than six years, China will regain control and ownership of Hong Kong, which Britain acquired in 1841.Although Hong Kong's 6 million residents are now enjoying a free-market system - their trade business equals one-eighth of the United States' - democracy might soon fade away, said Reg Holloway, British consul general from Los Angeles, Calif.
"Unless they've got a move on (democracy) before the handover," Holloway said, there are no guarantees that China will further economic and social changes like the ones that have recently occurred in the Soviet Union.
"They (the Chinese) were not at all keen (on the idea) that Hong Kong should advance toward democracy."
Besides losing freedom, Hong Kong might also lose some good business opportunities with other nations if the communist system were to abruptly cut off free trade. Utah, for instance, currently exports about $55 million annually to Hong Kong in goods, primarily metals.
Hong Kong, which Holloway said consists of "only 100 square miles of concrete where people live and work," could become an example to other nations.
"It's a powerhouse," Holloway said, considering Hong Kong's size and population. "I think we should sell that system of government, but it's too late, of course."
Hong Kong is the 14th largest market for U.S. products and the 11th largest supplier to the American market, with $30 billion in trade annually.
Holloway, who visited Salt Lake City Friday, has traveled to Hong Kong twice during the past three months. He said Britain in December 1985 negotiated the treaty to return Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty.
In the treaty, China promised to maintain Hong Kong's capitalist system for 50 years after 1997 - that's when a 99-year lease, established between China and Britain in 1898, runs out.
Despite having registered that treaty with the United Nations, Holloway said, no sanctions are provided in case China should violate that promise. Memories of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre are still fresh, he said, and mainland China officials haven't even commented on the actual number of fatalities during the revolt yet.
"So the Peking Chinese have now got just a few years to say that (the massacre) was an aberration," Holloway said.
According to official sources, the handover prompted more than 50,000 Hong Kong residents last year to move to other free countries, such as Canada, Australia and the United States. But only the wealthy and highly skilled workers could afford to do so.
Political questions aside, Hong Kong would like to extend business ties with Utah and other Western states, a representative from the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office told state officials during a U.S. visit in July.
"Hong Kong is not a place for politics," Deputy Director Jack Jick-Chi Chan said. "Hong Kong is a place for business."