IT is to be hoped that Hongkong Bank's shocking experience with Irish Republican Army terrorism over the weekend is not to be repeated here. It is unlikely to lead to many Hongkong companies stepping up security. The bank does not seem to have been specifically targeted by the IRA. Although it is early days in the investigation, the target seems to have been the National Westminster Bank and the British financial system as a whole. A news agency yesterday quoted an unnamed head of a foreign-owned City investment house as saying the bombing was a threat to London's position as a financial centre. ''The City's got a transport system that can't get our people to work properly, we've had the stock exchange's disaster with [computer system] Taurus, capacity at Lloyd's is down 50 per cent and now we have the IRA demonstrating that they can come in at any time and blow us up,'' he said. Sadly, Hongkong Bank has met violence in the country it has chosen as its place of incorporation, following its takeover of Midland Bank. The group was based in the bombed building long before the shift in domicile, but one of the perceived advantages of the new holding company structure based in London was the greater security it offered shareholders before the 1997 transfer of sovereignty. Hongkong companies have been largely spared the worry and expense of protecting themselves from terrorism in most of its forms. Besides isolated spates of bombings and kidnapping, usually during waves of unrest on the mainland such as the Cultural Revolution, the corporate atmosphere is usually one of quiet achievement. There is little security at most buildings in Central. Hongkong Bank, in particular, can have little control over the people who pass beneath its headquarters, given its open-plan design. This attitude is reflected at government level: the governor makes no attempt to hide his movements and government offices are for the most part accessible. The situation north of the border is quite different. China might not have the equivalent of an IRA, but it has something potentially as disruptive - a legion of ambitious rural dwellers, particularly in the south, whose desire for affluence and territory erupts in provincial warfare from time to time. Kidnapping is fairly widespread on the mainland but, as in Hongkong, most cases are settled quietly and not reported. The threat of being kidnapped or attacked has so unnerved many business executives that they insist that their secretaries are trained to handle weapons and in martial arts. Yesterday's China Daily carried pictures of dagger-wielding women bodyguards trained by the People's Liberation Army. With the transfer of sovereignty only four years away, many of China's law and order problems are expected to spread to the territory. The banks are feeling the pinch already, with increases in armed robberies, many of which are believed to involve former mainland security personnel. The images of Chinese soldiers shooting down their compatriots in Tiananmen Square have not been forgotten in Hongkong, but the sight of the devastated Hongkong Bank office in London is a reminder that every country has its problems. _ CHRIS CHAPEL
