OVER the past week, coverage of the long-awaited Sino-British negotiations has focused on an issue many thought was resolved: the so-called through train. Like the expressions ''second stove'' and ''three-legged stool'', the novelty of the through train metaphor wore off long ago.
It is nonetheless important because it concerns whether elected members of the Legislative Council will be permitted to continue to serve in the first legislature of the Special Administrative Region. In fact, the rationale of the current round of Sino-British talks is to ensure that the legislature formed in 1995 will continue, under a different sovereign, until 1999. And if it was not thought necessary for the legislature to continue, why should there be talks at all? The debate about the through train is really about the train's destination. Is it to be democratic or undemocratic? Put another way, is it the Hongkong voters - or Beijing's veto - that will decide who will serve in the first Hongkong Special Administrative Region? The point of democratic elections is that Hongkong people should choose their own representatives, not Beijing's.
Many in the press have suggested that the Chinese negotiators have a trump card: the threat to derail the through train. The impression is that Hongkong is doomed without the through train, and thus the British Government must reach an agreement - any agreement - so that China will allow a through train.
But when we pause to examine the facts, it is evident that the through train arrangement is in reality much more vital to China. The reason is the rather obvious point that the British responsibility to Hongkong ends on June 30, 1997. From then on, Chinaalone must cope with setting up an SAR government capable of maintaining stability and prosperity.
In theory, the first SAR government will be formed on July 1, 1997. In practice, it would be impossible to do so without some workable framework. In the Government, for instance, China must be able to identify key senior civil servants and fill these positions with qualified individuals. However one looks at it, China needs British co-operation - before and after 1997.
China's promise was not to take over Hongkong and make it part of its communist system, but rather to keep it distinct and functioning. The likelihood of an embarrassing inability to run Hongkong's vast bureaucracy means that it would be far better - from China's perspective - for Hongkong to have in place a government and legislature before 1997 that would continue after the British administration has ceased.