TO GET A sense of how Hong Kong’s magnates and China’s Communist Party have coexisted, consider Tung Chee-hwa. When his family shipping concern, Orient Overseas Container Line , faced bankruptcy in the mid-1980s, a Chinese state-owned bank swooped in to bail it out. Mr Tung became the territory’s chief executive after Britain handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997, until protests pushed him out of office in 2005. In 2017 he cashed out of OOCL through a $6.
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.
The security crackdown presents a more direct threat to the tycoons’ commercial interests. When Cathay Pacific did not condemn protesters in 2019, Chinese state media said the airline would “pay a painful price”. Cathay staff were later reportedly harassed by Chinese authorities and flights were unnecessarily delayed at mainland airports.
Bye-bye One Country Two Systems...wait, I forget, it’s already One System just pretending to be Two!
hong kong actually needs a bit more communism and less billionaire land monopolies..
These Hong Kong tycoons simply forget one fundamental issue: they’re dealing with Communists who won’t give way to capitalism, not to mention it’s paranoid dictator Xi sitting at the other end of the table. Look at how Jack Ma ended up now.
But Hong Kong is no longer the safe city it once was.
kerokero_HKer Hongkonger & our friends are under HumanitarianCrisis now :( Pls dont give up HK in this big crisis, HKer not surrender! Still fighting for justice, HumanRight & democracy! Dear world, StandWithHK! SOSHK FreeHK save12hkyouth HongKongNeedsHelp
Residence, surrounding facilities, say transport, malls, markets, parking lots, etc., belong to large companies. The price of small shops can’t be compared w/ chain stores. Self-operated restaurants can’t afford expensive rent. Hong Kong people can only work for large companies.
Can we go somewhere today?