The clock is ticking away for Hong Kong, and understandably the city’s residents are growing nervous. But a number of Western observers are contending that a takeover by a huge totalitarian state is nothing to get the shakes about. Richard C. Hottelet, longtime foreign correspondent for CBS, put it this way in the Christian Science Monitor: “The city will, of course, have a Chinese military garrison. On July 1, 1997, an elite unit, the Red First Regiment, will march in, expecting a warm welcome. It has reportedly learned a song, ‘I love you, Hong Kong.’ In early February, Beijing introduced these men to specially invited Hong Kong business leaders and pro-Chinese figures. The troops fixed bayonets, shouting ‘Kill, Kill, Kill.'” Don’t be alarmed, though: “This does not necessarily betoken an oppressive regime.”
No? Somehow, it seems unlikely that the strains of “I Love You, Hong Kong,” warbled by the songbirds of the Red First Regiment, will o’erwhelm the classic, unmistakable, and utterly sincere Communist tones of “Kill, Kill, Kill.”
