Closeness to power has characterised the entrepot’s business elites for decades. The relationship hinged on the “high-land-price policy”, an informal agreement to constrict the supply of land and guarantee high returns for bosses and the state alike. Taxes on property and property developers generated 45% of government revenues between 1970 and 1996 for the colonial authorities. Post-colonial ones benefited from it, too.
Ronnie Chan, Hang Lung’s outspoken chairman, summed up the rapport in his group’s latest annual report: “I see no incentive for Beijing to hurt us.” But Beijing’s incentives appear to be changing. The Communist Party is reducing the tycoons’ influence on the election committees which select the territory’s political leaders, where business clans were allotted strong representation after the handover in 1997.
Hong Kong’s government insists the reform will make elections fairer. One pro-Beijing businessman says this assertion—absurd on its face since the changes bar pro-democracy candidates—hints at the authorities’ desire to shift the balance of power away from the business lobby. Mr Li’s businesses, which span ports, telecoms and much else besides, have escaped chiefly because he has been diversifying his holdings away from Hong Kong and mainland China. Others got Beijing’s message. Swire, Jardine Matheson and many big developers backed the nationalsecurity law last year.
So why is Sothebys settling in HK? The tycoons have kids and these are the next-gen art buyers. But if daddy is being targeted then what? Bare, bland walls?
No it’s a transfer system from private enterprise to CCP communists. Shades of Jack Ma.
I'm not crying about capitalists losing land and properties. Too bad it's China which does it and not USA.