The deal had the print of a Hong Kong billionaire nicknamed “Superman” for his Empire building. One of the companies of the Tycoon, which has run two ports in the Panama Canal for years, was pushed into a broader confrontation between China and the United States.
So the billionaire, Li Ka-Shing, got out of the shooting line by winning a $ 19 billion deal to sell the company to a group of deep American investors.
Or it seemed like that.
The leaders of China are now threatening to stop Mr Li and the company he checks, CK Hutchison, to see the deal, and accuses the congulation of the betraying of Beijing.
The Face-Off test how far Xi Jinping, China's skill, is willing to perform his control over the business community in Hong Kong.
A former British colony, Hong Kong was brought back to China in 1997 with the promise of Beijing that it would usually leave the city to rule itself, so that it could remain a bridge to China, but could retain a system of freewheeling capitalism. Mr Li, as a Chinese entrepreneur who tapped investors in the West to build a empire that included real estate, shipping and telecommunications, embodied that distinction.
The potential intervention of Beijing in the port agreement between CK Hutchison and a group led by BlackRock is now in danger, prominent financiers and business leaders in Hong Kong. It can also be the Golden Goose of Mr. Destroy XI at a crucial moment for the Chinese economy.
After taking losses in four of the last five years, the stock market of Hong Kong is on fire – a sign of enthusiasm for the Chinese economy. Chinese companies choose Hong Kong above London or New York to list their shares. It offers Mr. XI a boasting point: since President Trump's inauguration on January 20, the S&P 500 has fallen by around 5 percent, while the stock market of Hong Kong has risen by more than 20 percent.
Lawyers and legal experts generally believe that the authorities in Hong Kong or Beijing will be reluctant to stop the deal – and it is not clear that they can do a lot. But only the possibility has set Hong Kong on sharply. Beijing and the proxies in the media have retained an almost daily drumbeat of criticism.
Comments last week in Ta Kung Pao, a newspaper owned by the Chinese government, called the agreement between CK Hutchison and Blackrock “seeking profit and unjust” and a matter of “national security”. The government agency in Beijing that supervises Hong Kong's policy has returned the comments on its website. On Tuesday, Hong Kong, John Lee, stacked to say that the deal required 'serious attention'.
Hu Xijin, a former editor of the Communist Party Tabloid Global Times, said CK Hutchison “must first be calm and coordinate with the national interests of China.”
Any attempt by Hong Kong or Beijing to stop the deal would be extraordinary. Chinese companies often have to request permission from supervisors to relocate their money from mainland China. CK Hutchison has ports worldwide, also in China, but none of the 43 ports that are part of the BlackRock deal in China. The shares of CK Hutchison are not mentioned on the mainland of China.
CK Hutchison refused to comment. Blackrock did not respond to a request for comment.
Victor Li, the chairman of CK Hutchison (and son of Li Ka-Shing), said on Thursday in a statement in a profit release that the environment could be “both volatile and unpredictable” for the companies of CK Hutchison this year.
The contempt and warnings that have been picked up at CK Hutchison is reminiscent of “criticism in cultural revolution style” that will deter foreign investors, said Lew Mong-Hung, a former Chinese political adviser.
“Who would dare to come to Hong Kong?” said Mr. Lew, a former financial professional. “If you do not obey, you do not want to make a political sacrifice and do not want to be a political tool, you will be criticized and prosecuted. Who will come to invest?”
Chan King Cheung, a professor in the media ethics at Hong Kong Baptist University and a former editor -in -chief of the Hong Kong Economic Journal, wrote this week in a newspaper in Hong Kong that the increasing intervention is being played by Bezijing in the business community of the City of the city manufacturers.
The attention that Beijing has drawn the Panama Canal Agreement was just another example that must be '' big 'entrepreneurs patriots, “Mr. Chan wrote. “It has been proven that the days that companies in Hong Kong considered issues that are purely based on economic or commercial interests,” he added.
The care among business leaders cuts in the heart of the question with which Hong Kong is confronted: are its companies free to make their own business decisions, or should they consider the wider national interests of China, just like Chinese mainland of the mainland?
For many, the answer will determine whether Hong Kong can still work separately from the rest of China. The autonomy of Hong Kong in free speech and civil society has already been eroded after the closure of local media; The arrest of Jimmy Lai, a newspaper publisher in Hong Kong; And the arrests and tests of dozens of pro-democracy leaders.
“It is one thing to go to Jimmy Lai and Apple every day, but something else to go after 'Superman' KS Li and his companies, the most successful international activities that HK has ever produced,” said Mark L. Clifford, a former board member of the next digital and president of the Freedom Commission in Hong Kong.
For Beijing and its supporters, the Trump government has already thwarted politicized business transactions, invested investments and imposed rates in the name of national security. In an advisory article, Mr. Hu, the former Chinese tabloid editor, argued that former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. This also did this when his administration stopped a deal between the Japanese Nippon Steel and US Steel.
Beijing has reason to worry, he added. The Trump administration “wants to use the ports to charge extra costs to Chinese ships arriving in the port and affect Chinese shipbuilding and the shipping industry.”
Others argued that the conviction of China of CK Hutchison for so -called not acting in the national interests of China has effectively ratified Mr. Trump's original claim that the company was controlled by China.
“The reaction of China to the deal implicitly admits that the point of the Trump government that controls large ports, here only the Panamakanaal, is a security threat to the United States,” said Lester Ross, the partner responsible for the law firm of the Wilmer Hale law firm.
“It can also bring the business community of Hong Kong as a whole even tighter under the thumb of Beijing.”
