Hong Kong ambiguous about China dissidents

HONG KONG, China (Reuters) — For a couple of days around this time every year, thousands of Hong Kong residents demonstrate for more democracy in the territory and in China, and for Beijing to come clean on the Tiananmen massacre of 1989.

The rest of the year, such calls take a back seat to commerce with mainland China, the world's fastest-growing economy.

Protesters sing a song on June in Hong Kong, remembering the violent 1989 crackdown in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

But the city of 7 million people that Britain handed back to China a decade ago remains a hive of dissent. Along with its neighbor, the former Portuguese-run enclave of Macau, it is one of two places under Chinese rule allowed such freedoms.

A handful of well-known Chinese dissidents call Hong Kong home, several magazines writing on a range of politically taboo topics in China are published here, and the Falun Gong spiritual movement, which is banned on the mainland, thrives.

Hong Kong enjoys a high degree of autonomy from the mainland but there are murky lines that cannot be crossed, and the highest-profile exiled Chinese dissidents are denied entry.

Among the few high-profile Chinese dissidents living in the city are labor activist Han Dongfang, a major player in the Tiananmen pro-democracy demonstrations, and human rights activist Frank Lu, also a 1989 veteran.

"If I had been living abroad for the last 14 to 15 years and I tried to enter Hong Kong now, I don't think I would be allowed in," Han said.

Han was jailed for nearly two years after the Tiananmen crackdown in which hundreds, perhaps thousands, were killed, and he contracted tuberculosis. Issued a visa to get treatment in the United States upon release, he was banished to Hong Kong in 1993 after being forcibly expelled from China upon his return.

"There's really no other comparable case," Han said.