1997年国会听证会
情报和安全

STATEMENT OF ALAN G. RINGGOLD DEPUTY ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION BEFORE THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE ON EAST ASIAN AND PACIFIC AFFAIRS HEARING ON U.S. LAW ENFORCEMENT INTERESTS IN HONG KONG APRIL 10, 1997 Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak on the FBI's current and future relationship with the authorities of Hong Kong. I am the FBI official responsible for overseeing FBI Law Enforcement relations with all foreign governments, both abroad through our Legal Attaches, and here in the United States through the variety of representatives of police and security services. We currently have an office in Hong Kong within the U.S. Consulate, staffed by two Special Agents and one support person. Hong Kong is annually among the overseas offices of the FBI with the highest case load of investigative matters. At this time our office there is regional in nature, also conducting our liaison with China, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. An element of our planned expansion oversees which was approved by the Congress in 1996 is to establish offices in the PRC and India to allow for more comprehensive and realistic interaction with those countries. The existing relationship between the FBI and the Royal Hong Kong Police is excellent, crucial to us, and extremely active, and has been for numerous years. As a police service, the Royal Hong Kong Police are very professional, very competent, and very cooperative with the FBI. Our work with them currently runs the entire gamut of criminal matters for which we are investigatively responsible, with emphasis on white collar crime, organized crime and fugitives. We are able to ask our Hong Kong colleagues to perform very sophisticated law enforcement tasks for us, such as surveillances, seizures, arrests and interrogations, and they perform admirably. They are a quality partner in the fight against Asian Organized Crime, providing us with excellent information on criminal activities which affect both of our countries. As an agency they are very dedicated to the issue of Asian Organized Crime, and we have enjoyed the fruits of that dedication in arrests and convictions of criminals, the sharing of voluminous intelligence information, and the regular comparing of the institutional knowledge of the Hong bong Police and the FBI. In short, the relationship with Hong Kong has been among the best we have in the world. As I have noted, the Royal Hong Kong Police have been an effective, committed and interested partner for us in our combat of Asian organized crime. Within the last several years Hong Kong has seen a major escalation of organized criminal activity with a nexus to the PRC. Their assessment and ours is that reversion will intensify the activity of the criminal triads and other groups between Hong Kong and mainland China. Our relationship with the PRC in combating the organized criminal groups has seen some successes, but we are unable at present to fully assess the long term worth of our liaison in this priority investigative category. Our domestic investigations show clearly a rapid development of Asian Organized Crime groups in the United States, with evidence of their activity now in at least 16 of our states. To combat this increasing criminality, it is absolutely crucial that we retain a viable and effective law enforcement partner in Hong Kong and in China. That is and will remain our liaison goal in the Hong Kong/China region. In anticipation of the reversion, we are working hard to enhance our relationships with the Chinese authorities. From Hong Kong, our office has had a relationship with the Ministry of Public Security, and the Procuratorate in the PRC. These relationships have been somewhat productive, allowing for an exchange of information on organized crime and on fugitives. We have arranged for arrests in the United States for the Chinese authorities, and they have assisted us similarly in China. In fact, the Chinese arrested a Chinese national fugitive from U.S. justice in China. We recently hosted a delegation of Chinese police and magistrates in New York, where they were acquiring our evidence as a means of furthering their prosecution of the fugitive within Chinese courts. The assessment of our office in Hong Kong and of the managers of our Asian Organized Crime program are that the relationship with the PRC law enforcement agencies has the potential of growing into a very meaningful one. Success in future Asian organized crime investigations will hinge on our ability to obtain information from partner services in the region. Our relationship with the Chinese to date in this discipline has shown some promise and some successes, and we look forward to continued cooperation in Hong Kong as one way to achieve our goal's of advancing effective and quality law enforcement. The U.S. Department of State, the American Embassy in Beijing, the Department of Justice, and the Congress have all approved the establishment of a joint FBI/DEA office in Beijing. When the U.S. Embassy in Beijing formally approached the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs to obtain their concurrence for this office opening, the answer was "not at this time." All of the efforts of our government to date to move that issue forward have failed. This is naturally causing the FBI to evaluate its overall relationship with the police services in the PRC, and we are consulting with other U.S. Government agencies to decide upon a course of action for continued cooperation and liaison in the immediate and long-term future. It is extremely clear to us that only through an on-going dialogue between the FBI and Chinese officials, will the quality of contact with Chinese law enforcement authorities continue with greater and greater importance as the mobility of Asian organized criminals increases. Our understanding of the probable situation in Hong Kong after reversion comes to us from our Legal Attache in Hong Kong and from other sources in the region. None of the input we have received is conclusive, simply because the Chinese have been relatively unspecific in their projection of the liaison situation. In the Sino-British Joint Declaration and the 1990 Basic Law, the Chinese have forecast that there will be no changes in the relationship between Hong Kong and the remainder of the world. The assertion has been that it will be business as usual in Hong Kong. Under present circumstances we have to assume that this means that we will continue to deal with the Hong Kong Police on Hong Kong-specific issues, and that we are expected to continue our liaison with the Beijing central authorities from Hong Kong as well. Obviously as our relationship grows with the Chinese services we will be increasingly concerned about the efficiency of dealing solely from Hong Kong. We consider the extradition treaty which was recently signed between the U.S. and Hong Kong an excellent sign. It is our hope that this treaty will be effective, because we have numerous occasions to ask the Hong Kong authorities for the arrest and extradition of fugitives from the territory. A feature of our current relationship with the Hong Kong authorities is fluidity, with quick and innovative responses on a police to police basis. It is paramount to our law enforcement efforts that this remain the manner of interaction with Hong Kong. We will obviously have to monitor this, and we will be prepared to adjust the nature of our law enforcement cooperation should circumstances so dictate. In a word, our liaison efforts with Hong Kong and the PRC are extremely important to us. It is our fervent hope that we will be able to make those relationships grow in a manner which would allow us to successfully address the issues of that region, which are growing in number and in complexity. Our commitment is to work closely with the services of the region so as to be able to meet our obligations in the area. I would be very happy to answer any questions the panel might have concerning the FBI's assessment or plans. (end text)