An exiled Chinese who won the Nobel literature prize plans to visit Hong Kong next week, while pro-Beijing figures say it would be best if he avoids politics to prevent any repeats of the controversy surrounding a recent Falun Gong meeting.
Critics fear Hong Kong's freedoms are again under threat, and some observers argue it is impossible to separate the political elements from Gao Xingjian's (
"Hong Kong is a financial and trading center, not a political center, not an anti-China political base," said Xu Simin (
"There is no reason to object to him if he is coming here to talk about writing, but if he would accuse the Chinese government of oppressing him, that would be wrong," Xu said. "That would embarrass the Hong Kong government."
"If we invite people who will attack China, such as controversial figures like the Falun Gong leader, the Dalai Lama, and if they have a mission or political motive, that would be trouble for us," said Ma Lik, secretary general of Hong Kong's biggest pro-Beijing political party, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong. Ma also is a local representative of the mainland National People's Congress.
But Hong Kong retains free speech guarantees -- a holdover from British colonial days -- and such comments stir outrage among China critics and pro-democracy campaigners.
"Can you ask a writer to share his literary experience but only to share the technique and not the content?" asked Han Dongfang, a Hong Kong based Chinese dissident persecuted after the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement.
Gao once burned his writings to keep them from falling into the wrong hands during Mao Zedong's (
He fled China in 1987 and renounced his Communist Party membership after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 and he has vowed never to return to China. He now lives in Paris.
His play Fugitives was set against the background of the Tiananmen slayings in Beijing. China's government has declared him "persona non grata" and banned many of his works.
Hong Kong found itself at the center of a debate over free expression two weeks ago, after the territory's Leisure and Cultural Services Department allowed the Falun Gong meditation sect, which is outlawed by Beijing as an "evil cult," to hold an international conference inside Hong Kong City Hall.
Pro-Beijing news media harshly attacked the Hong Kong government as being too lax on Falun Gong.
Gao says art and freedom are his priorities and he disavows any political interests.
But the Leisure and Cultural Services Department recently retreated from a statement made in October by director Paul Leung -- that Gao would be invited to a local literature festival this year.
The department insists politics played no role. Human rights activists disagree.
Beijing calls much of Gao's work too radical, and when Gao last year became the first Chinese to win a Nobel literature prize, the Foreign Ministry characterized the award as a political maneuver.
"There is obviously political pressure," said Andrew Cheng, the opposition Democratic Party's spokesman for cultural affairs. "The Hong Kong government wouldn't have the guts to invite Gao."
Joseph Cheng, a political scientist at City University, one of the organizers of Gao's visit which begins on Monday, said snubbing such a prominent figure is "not a very healthy or encouraging phenomenon."
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