Developers’ cosy ties with politics may explain Hong Kong’s biggest woe: widening income gap in the least affordable city on Earth

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In a series of in-depth articles on the unrest rocking Hong Kong, South China Morning Post goes behind the headlines to look at the underlying issues, current state of affairs, and where it is all heading

In this latest instalment, the Post looks at the cosy ties between Hong Kong’s business elites and politics in the city and in Beijing

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The roots of Hong Kong’s entangled ties between business and politics can be traced to the city’s colonial history. Illustration: SCMP

Peggy Sito,Denise TsangandLam Ka-sing

Published: 7:15am, 2 Sep 2019Updated: 11:52am, 2 Jul 2021

On a sunny morning in early September 2010, Hong Kong’s wealthiest man Li Ka-shing was invited to speak in Shenzhen and was granted an exclusive audience with then Chinese President Hu Jintao.

What was unusual about the episode, held during a commemoration of Shenzhen’s 30th anniversary as the special economic zone to spearhead China’s economic reforms, was that Li was the sole Hongkonger to be received by China’s head of state. He was also the only Hong Kong businessman to speak at Shenzhen’s birthday party, sharing the limelight with three hometown captains of industry: BYD’s Chairman Wang Chuanfu, China Merchant Holdings’ Chairman Fu Yuning and Tencent Holdings’ founder Pony Ma Huateng.

The episode, a capstone of Li’s corporate career, illustrates his apex position where Hong Kong’s business intersects with politics, a status that won him the “Superman” sobriquet for his wheeling-dealing prowess. It also underscores the cosiness between Hong Kong’s tycoons and government – both locally and extending to Beijing – a nexus blamed by many of the city’s street protesters today as the major cause of their woes: one of the developed world’s widest income gaps in the least affordable housing market on earth.

As Hong Kong’s unprecedented outbursts of civic unrest enter their 14th week, the link between business and politics – and its implication for the daily lives of the city’s 7.5 million residents – is coming under increasing scrutiny, while activists, policymakers and academics alike seek to explain the anger that seethes under one of Asia’s most prosperous urban centres.

Chinese President Hu Jintao during an exclusive meeting with Cheung Kong Holdings Limited’s chairman Li Ka-shing on September 6, 2010 during the 30th anniversary commemoration of Shenzhen as a special economic zone. Photo: Xinhua

The roots of Hong Kong’s entangled ties between business and politics can be traced to the city’s colonial history, when hometown business elites were also local community leaders, endorsed and endowed by administrators with influence and leadership roles.

In the city’s first post-colonial administration after 1997, businessmen made up eight of the 11 non-official members of Tung Chee-hwa’s cabinet. The ratio was little changed at 70 per cent under Tung’s successor Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, falling to half during Leung Chun-ying’s term from 2012 to 2017.

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