World Notes HONG KONG

Since the brutal Chinese crackdown in Tiananmen Square, many in Hong Kong have concluded that they would rather be anywhere else when Beijing assumes control of the crown colony in 1997. But Britain has slammed the door, saying it has no room for the colony's 3.25 million British subjects. And while the well educated and well off have found the promise of a warm embrace in other Western countries, Hong Kong's working class has felt trapped. So last week, when Singapore announced that it would admit 25,000 white- and blue-collar workers over the next eight years, lines instantly began to form outside the city-state's visa offices in downtown Hong Kong.

By opening time Tuesday, an estimated 10,000 people snaked twice around the block. Some 10,000 applications were handed out in just 90 minutes, and 6,000 more were mailed the next day; several recipients then tried to sell the forms on the street. Singapore is hardly a stranger to the presence of authoritarian government. Even so, Gordon Seow, Singapore's commissioner in Hong Kong, said, "Maybe now Beijing will really see how much it has scared people here."