Editorials
Thursday, July 9, 1998

$20 billion Hong Kong
airport has shaky start

ONE year ago, Britain returned Hong Kong to China. This week Hong Kong's very expensive new airport opened. The transition from colonial to Chinese rule went much more smoothly than the opening of Chek Lap Kok airport.

The $20 billion airport, built on a man-made island, replaced the old, overcrowded Kai Tak airport, famed for its frightening landings. Since the new airport was opened Monday by the government of Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa, passengers have suffered delays in baggage handling and flight information. Some complained they had to wait an hour or more to get off their planes after they arrived.

After two days of confusion, passenger services improved yesterday but computer problems forced air cargo handlers to extend a shipping embargo. Merchants complained that fresh flowers, fruits, vegetables and seafood were arriving late and spoiled. Seafood wholesalers and retailers said they were facing the loss of half their sales.

Hong Kong's news media were sharply critical. Editorials questioned whether airport officials had rushed the opening of the airport and in the process damaged Hong Kong's reputation.

The city has long needed a new airport. Kai Tak handled 28 million passengers a year but was forced to turn away many flights for lack of space on its single runway. The new airport is designed to handle 35 million passengers, and after a second runway is completed in October capacity could increase to 85 million.

The colonial government conceived the new airport to create confidence and jobs in Hong Kong after the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, which produced an exodus to the port city. The project was opposed by China, which charged that it was a ploy to drain Hong Kong's finances before the turnover. London and Beijing finally resolved their dispute over financing in 1995, but the political delays were costly.

As it has turned out, Chek Lap Kok airport opened in the midst of Asia's worst economic downturn in decades, which will make it harder to pay off the huge project. Hong Kong itself has seen its tourism business plunge since the turnover last July and its astronomical real estate prices have dropped. However, the city's role as the trading and financial entry-point to the Chinese economy seems certain to continue.

The new airport was badly needed. Despite the dreadful timing of the opening and the initial foulups, it should soon begin to prove its worth as Hong Kong and all of East Asia resume their growth in the 21st century.

Secret Service secrecy

SECRET Service agents must watch over the president closely to assure his safety. However, the argument that forcing agents to testify about their observations of the president's activities would somehow expose the president to danger suggests a degree of intimacy that should not exist. Thus, a three-judge federal appeals panel has decided that Secret Service agents, like other law-enforcement officers, should be required to answer questions aimed at determining the truth of allegations regarding the president's actions.

Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr has sought testimony from Secret Service agents who might have information about the past relationship of President Clinton and former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. If they do, their testimony could have a bearing on whether Clinton lied about the relationship.

The Secret Service, which sought the privileged status, maintained that forcing the agents to testify would motivate presidents to keep the agents at a distance to protect their privacy, risking future assassinations. However, the agents' value is greatest in public settings, where the chief executive is most vulnerable to attack. It is hard to imagine a president trying to distance himself from the agents under that circumstance.

Mutual trust is necessary between the president and his guards, but that trust should be of a professional nature. A guarantee of confidentiality regarding activities that are relevant to a criminal investigation would be inappropriate for a law-enforcement officer. The agents' job is to protect the president from violent attacks, not from his own behavior.

Aboriginal rights

ABORIGINAL leaders are seething over the Australian Parliament's passage of a bill to restrict Aboriginal land rights, but it may have been the right decision. The action averted a snap election over the issue that could have handed the balance of power to an anti-Aboriginal, anti-Asian party.

The government drafted the bill in response to a 1996 court ruling that Aboriginal land titles could coexist with pastoral leases. This gave Aborigines rights to access, negotiation over land use and compensation where native title rights were diminished due to development.

The bill provides that where the interests of native title holders and pastoral leaseholders conflict, the right of the leaseholders will prevail. It also leaves it to state governments to handle disputes between native title holders and pastoral leaseholders.

Prime Minister John Howard said that combined with earlier laws the bill still left 80 percent of Australia open to native title claims. The measure, he said, resolves "one of the most difficult socio-legal issues that Australia has ever faced."

In recent years Australia has tried to right the wrongs done in the past to the Aborigines, but a balancing of conflicting rights was inevitable. The Aborigines would fare worse if the One Nation party gained power.

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Published by Liberty Newspapers Limited Partnership

Rupert E. Phillips, CEO

John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher

David Shapiro, Managing Editor

Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor

Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors

A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor