Summit Chiefs Caution China on Hong Kong

DENVER — The United States and seven other major powers issued a veiled warning Sunday to China on its future treatment of Hong Kong as they ended a summit here that will be remembered for its open-arms inclusion of Russia, the West’s former enemy.

The nations’ eight leaders also tackled an agenda that resulted in agreements to work more closely in combating AIDS and other infectious diseases, fight international organized crime, salvage peacekeeping efforts in Bosnia-Herzegovina and push for job growth.

“I think the most significant thing we did here was to commit ourselves to a growth strategy that would include not only our own countries but other countries around the world,” President Clinton, who served as host of the gathering, said at a news conference Sunday. The effort, he said, will “be pursued while improving, not undermining, the environment. And that’s quite significant.”

Still, the Summit of the Eight failed to resolve a dispute between the United States and Western Europe over reduction of the greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming and climate change. And a U.S.-led initiative to nurture free enterprise in Africa met a chilly reception from European nations led by France, which retains links to its former African colonies.

“We will pursue our own efforts” to help Africa, declared Jacques Santer, president of the European Commission.

In Sunday’s official communique, the leaders served up a pointed reminder of China’s past promises to respect human rights and democracy in Hong Kong.

While recognizing “the historic nature” of Hong Kong’s July 1 reversion to Chinese control, summit members also said they “take serious note” of China’s commitments to preserve democracy in the British colony.

The commitments are embodied in a joint declaration China signed with Britain in 1984 and a separate measure from 1990.

Asked what the summit nations would do if China failed to comply, Clinton declined to respond. Still, he took the opportunity to urge Beijing to respect not only the economic laws of the territory but the distinctive culture of its society.

“I think what we want to do,” the president said, “is to encourage the Chinese to remember that they have a unique . . . place now that is reverting to their sovereignty and that part of the fabric of what makes Hong Kong work is not just open markets and industrious people and a haven of hope for people who flee the lack of opportunity and often oppression elsewhere, but a lively and open society. And it needs to be maintained, and I hope that it will be.”

German Chancellor Helmut Kohl said that any Chinese attempt to curtail democratic institutions in Hong Kong would carry enormous risks for Beijing.

“World opinion will be watching very carefully that China upholds its treaty obligations,” he said. “If it doesn’t, China’s reputation as a fair, reliable treaty partner will be lost. That would mean losing face, which is extremely important. I don’t believe that will happen.”

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Even as summit veterans applauded the mostly cooperative atmosphere at the gathering here, they pointed to a long and meandering agenda that merely reinforced predictions that the Rocky Mountain get-together would be “a mile high and an inch deep.”

The official communique, for example, included everything from a human cloning restriction to a warning about the spread of deserts to a call for reform of the United Nations. It also discussed the economic challenges of globalization; concerns about burgeoning populations of the elderly; safe use of nuclear energy; and joint efforts against illegal drugs and terrorism.

It was an agenda that some leaders definitely do not want to repeat.

“Next year, there will only be two issues on the agenda, both of them very relevant--jobs and crime,” promised British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is scheduled to host the 1998 gathering in Birmingham, England.

This year, the Group of 7--the United States, Canada, Britain, Japan, France, Germany and Italy--allowed Russia into almost all the meetings, adding a new political dimension to the gathering.

Despite some initial reservations about the presence of a nation still deeply involved in the transition to a free-market economy, Russia’s involvement was largely applauded.

“We believe we are stronger because we now have Russia as a partner,” Clinton said. “As long as Russia keeps moving as it is under President [Boris N.] Yeltsin, and those reformers and the people of Russia keep supporting the direction they have, I think that you’ll see more and more good things ahead.”

In an otherwise amicable summit, U.S. disagreements with its European allies on their efforts to establish targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and how best to assist the poorest nations of sub-Saharan Africa constituted rare sour notes.

Kohl was among the most outspoken leaders on both issues.

At a news conference, he dismissed the discussion on Africa as “partly positive, partly catastrophic.” At one point, the chancellor sarcastically welcomed America’s “discovery of Africa” and then complained that a U.S. proposal to spur trade between African nations and the West made little sense when the borders between neighboring African nations remain closed.

At least in part, European anger was a matter of hurt pride that the U.S. seemed to be dominating the agenda in a region with historically strong European ties. A European Union official complained that the level of European aid to sub-Saharan Africa last year was five times that of the United States.

European frustration was equally strong at the U.S. refusal to accept specific targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, including carbon dioxide.

Santer issued a formal statement expressing his disappointment, but French President Jacques Chirac was less diplomatic.

“The Americans are great polluters,” he said. “Each American emits three times as much carbon dioxide as any Frenchman.”