JUST IMAGINE for a moment that the United States spy plane's mid-air collision with a Chinese fighter jet - which has provoked such fury from Beijing throughout the past week - had occurred a few hundred kilometres further east.
That instead of being left with no choice but to make an emergency landing at Lingshui military airfield on Hainan Island, the accident had occurred close enough to Hong Kong for the crippled EP-3 surveillance plane instead to limp into Chek Lap Kok.
It is tempting to speculate about what would have happened had this diplomatic hot potato landed in the SAR's lap.
Would armed troops from the People's Liberation Army garrison have headed for Chek Lap Kok and demanded the right to hold the US spy plane and its crew, citing Article 5(4) of the Garrison Law, which gives them jurisdiction over all 'foreign-related military affairs'? After all, there is no doubt this is a matter which falls within China's remit under the Basic Law, not least because every arrival of a US military aircraft requires prior approval from Beijing.
Or would Hong Kong's Secretary for Security Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee - who never seems to miss any chance to burnish her credentials with Beijing - have found some other obscure legal provision to justify holding the aircraft and crew?
Most likely, neither of these extreme scenarios would arise. Holding hostage those involved in an accident is hardly acceptable behaviour in Hong Kong, and the crew, at least, would almost certainly have been quickly allowed to return home to the US. After all, there are limits beyond which even Ms Ip will not go - as shown by the fact that, despite all her ridiculous rhetoric on the issue, she has made no move to ban Falun Gong.
And the PLA, having gone to such lengths to ease fears about its presence by keeping a low profile since the handover, would be unlikely to take a step which would have such a devastating effect on Hong Kong's international image.