Last week when Hong Kong Chief Executive, Tung Chee-hwa, rubbed shoulders with the movers and shakers in the US capital and preached the good news about post-takeover Hong Kong, I was in California telling concerned groups and the news media that the situation was far from rosy.
In his numerous meetings with business and political leaders which culminated in a half-hour session at the White House with President Bill Clinton on September 12, Mr Tung attempted to line up support for the Special Administrative Region government and ease fears that it may drastically curb civil liberties.
In spite of his strenuous efforts to assure everyone on Capitol Hill and in the Clinton administration that the Hong Kong people 'are doing just fine' and the three branches of the SAR government are 'functioning very normally', he encountered considerable scepticism and criticism.
In particular, he was repeatedly pressed to explain why Hong Kong was changing its electoral system in such a way that the number of pro-democracy legislators to be elected would be reduced.
President Clinton expressed his disappointment over Mr Tung's decision to roll back the democratic reforms of the last years of British colonial rule. Mr Clinton said the US would be watching events in Hong Kong very closely but did not specify any particular action that it might take.
In contrast, several senators, including Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms, who had a 10-minute frosty meeting with Mr Tung, introduced a resolution calling for the changes in Hong Kong's election laws to be submitted to a referendum.
Mr Tung defiantly brushed aside demands to immediately establish universal suffrage throughout the former British colony. 'We in Hong Kong care very much about democracy, but it is not the monopoly of the United States or any other Western nation. We will go forward in our own way,' he told reporters.