LEVEL 1 - 1 OF 13 STORIES                            

                      Copyright 1997 Bergen Record Corp.  
                                   The Record

                      June 29, 1997; SUNDAY; ALL EDITIONS

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A20

LENGTH: 332 words

HEADLINE: HAND-OVER CELEBRATED AT A WASHINGTON RALLY

SOURCE: Wire services

BYLINE: The Associated Press

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

 BODY:
   The coming hand-over of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China
was celebrated Saturday by a long paper dragon, huge red PRC flags, and
marchers vastly outnumbering protesters who chanted"Free China ...

                           The Record, June 29, 1997                            
                                                                                
   Free Hong Kong... Down with the Communist Party!" A half-mile parade of
nearly 3,000 Chinese, Chinese-Americans, and
their friends crossed the National Mall to a festival by restaurants and
other Chinatown businesses marking the expiration at midnight Monday of
Britain's rule over Hong Kong.

    The event produced perhaps the largest mass of starred, red Chinese
flags seen in the capital. Confrontation with barely a dozen
anti-communist activists was limited to chants, much picture-taking, and
some taunts and passing of leaflets and anti-Beijing petitions.

   The demonstrators organized by the U.S.-based  Party  for  Freedom and 
  Democracy in China  wore black armbands. They displayed a painting of a
student confronting a tank at Beijing's 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre
and signs asking,"What is there to celebrate? Since Oct. 1, 1949, over
36,950,000 Chinese people have died from persecution."

   "This is not a celebration of a communist takeover, it is a
celebration of the end of unequal treaties,"said martial arts master
Tai Yim, who operates Kung Fu centers in Washington's suburbs.


                           The Record, June 29, 1997                            
                                                                                
   About 60 of his students, mostly non-Chinese, took turns manning
the twisting, 30-foot dragon in the parade and a pair of equally
ferocious imitation lions.

   Yim was referring to 19th century treaties ending the Opium Wars and
making Hong Kong a British colony that expire Monday under the 1984
Sino-British Joint Declaration.

    Parade sponsors also emphasized the historical. Without mentioning
communism, their announcement recalled the American Revolution against
British colonialism and commented that"China has survived and
progressed... although we would like to see more advancement in
democracy and government of law."

LANGUAGE: English

LOAD-DATE: June 30, 1997