WITH just seven weeks to go before China recovers Hong Kong, Martin Lee contemplates a future where the rule of law is undermined, the press muzzled, democracy stifled, corruption rife, and he himself possibly in prison.
It's little wonder that the leader of the Democratic Party - the biggest in the territory - is regarded by Beijing as a trouble-maker. But many business leaders in Hong Kong also wish he would keep quiet rather than give the impression the lights will go out on July 1st.
Mr Lee reserves some of his most scathing criticisms and dire warnings for local tycoons, whom he accuses of appeasing China.
In an interview yesterday in his law office, where a model Statue of Liberty from the US National Endowment for Democracy dominates an array of freedom awards, the 58-year-old lawyer accused business leaders of ignoring the threat to Hong Kong's freedoms while hedging their bets about the future.
"The big business people don't tell you that virtually every tycoon in Hong Kong has a foreign passport and that over 60 per cent of our public companies have already moved their legal domicile away from Hong Kong," he said.
"They say it's quite all right for the Chinese government, through Mr Tung Chee-hwa, our Chief Executive-designate, to take away some of our people's freedoms, the rights of association, the rights of demonstration, because we tycoons never demonstrate anyway, and "It will not happen to me."
But it was business people who were at risk, said the lawyer, who has become internationally known as Hong Kong's champion of democratic freedoms. "People always expect me to get into trouble with the Chinese government," he said. But he was free, while Hong Kong businessmen were in prison in China.
"For what? Nothing. They were just minding their business."
The Democratic Party leader claimed the Hong Kong government had files on 20 such businessmen. In a typical case, an American buyer refused to pay for defective Chinese foods secured through a Hong Kong middleman, who was then jailed in China by police who had been bribed to force him to pay up.
In one extreme case, James Peng, a Chinese-Australian, had been given 18 years' jail on the basis of a law passed retrospectively at the behest of a well-connected Chinese partner with whom he had fallen out.
The "pervasive" corruption in China will come to Hong Kong in the form of the sons of top Communist Party officials looking for special treatment, unless there is the rule of law, he said.
And that is the heart of the matter for Mr Lee. Hong Kong enjoyed freedoms because it was ultimately subject to an elected government in Britain and had an independent judiciary. Countries like Ireland enjoyed the rule of law because they had an independent judiciary applying the laws passed by an elected legislature which could be forced out of office.
HOWEVER, in Hong Kong the provisional legislature which will take over on July 1st had no democratic mandate.
Moreover the Basic Law, the future constitution of Hong Kong, was being interpreted by Beijing, where there was no elected government, and not the Hong Kong Supreme Court.
"That's why I see trouble ahead," he said, citing the example of Weimar Germany, where judges were made "instruments of injustice" when Hitler changed the laws.
He claimed the provisional legislature would pass laws to restrict freedom and that a new electoral law for a promised assembly in 1988 would be rigged to ensure that only 12 to 14 seats would go to "the whole democratic camp".
It is hard to imagine Mr Lee, the owner of a Jaguar saloon and an apartment in the elite Mid-Level district, discarding his pin-stripe suit for a pro-democracy T-shirt and white headband, as he did when he led demonstrations after the 1989 crackdown in Tiananmen Square.
He will be on the streets again demonstrating this year - and next - on the June 4th anniversary of Tiananmen Square.
His party has not decided if it would stage a demonstration on July 1st against the dissolution of the elected Legislative Council. Under amendments introduced by China it would for the first time need police permission. If it did not get it, it could be fined.
"But my people, 1 know them, they are not going to pay a fine so they are going to have to be put in prison," he said. "And that could well happen very soon.
They will soon challenge in the courts the legality of measures passed by the provisional legislature for Mr Tung's signature on July 1st.
Mr Lee praised the incoming Chief Executive as a good man, but compromised by the fact that if he defended Hong Kong, Beijing could say, "Are you forgetting we put you there?" and replace him. He also said three of his 10-member cabinet were members of the Chinese Communist Party, which is illegal in Hong Kong. "Everyone knows that."
China was now moving to ban foreign funding of political parties because he had just raised HK$2.5 million (£200,000) abroad from overseas Chinese, he claimed.
Beijing also put pressure on the media to take a pro-Beijing line through the threat of loss of advertising by big China concerns in Hong Kong. Also most newspaper owners had business in China. Of 50 newspapers, only Apple Daily and the Hong Kong Economic Journal remained free".
Many business leaders are secretly pleased with his challenge to China, he believed. "They can't say these things as China would disapprove, so we're doing it for them. They all benefit, including the tycoons, if there is a level playing field."
The son of a Kuomintang general who was educated by Irish Jesuits, Mr Lee supports the return of Hong Kong to China and wishes it a successful future.
"But I see so many problems ahead that I am not happy in my heart," he said. "All we can do is hope for the best and prepare for the worst.