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NY Times, Oct. 1, 2019
China Plays ‘Fight the Landlord’ to Tame Hong Kong
By Li Yuan
“Fight the Landlord” is one of the most popular card games in China. The
name comes from the 1950s, when the Chinese Communist Party confiscated
property from landowners, often violently, in the name of the masses. As
many as two million people were killed.
China’s state-controlled media is playing a new game of “Fight the
Landlord,” and its target is one of the biggest landlords in the world:
the 91-year-old Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing. Hong Kong’s summer of
protests stems mainly from sky-high housing costs, China’s media argues,
and Mr. Li and other local real estate tycoons should be held responsible.
“In the current chaotic situation in Hong Kong, many young people are
venting their dissatisfaction with high housing prices and expensive
rents at the government,” said an official commentary by the party’s
Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, which oversees China’s
police and courts. “They’re probably blaming the wrong target.”
The return of “Fight the Landlord” lays bare the Communist Party’s
shifting attitudes toward the business world. Hong Kong’s property
tycoons were once big beneficiaries of an unspoken pact between Beijing
and business: They could wheel and deal as they liked, so long as they
helped China achieve its economic dreams and left the politics to the
Communist Party.
Today, as the party tightens its grip over daily Chinese life, business
has become another tool for control. Business leaders who aren’t
sufficiently loyal can suddenly find themselves at risk.
And in Hong Kong, where companies operate under a different set of laws
but still depend on the mainland for their profits, China’s state media
is increasingly willing to threaten or humiliate any business leader who
stands in the way.
The party’s growing reach raises questions about the future of people
like Mr. Li — and, by extension, of all of Hong Kong. Mr. Li was a
consummate player of the old game, cultivating ties with Beijing’s most
powerful leaders even as he increased his wealth. But under Xi Jinping,
China’s top leader, the party has demanded absolute loyalty, eliminating
some of the gray areas where business in Hong Kong once stood.
“One of the biggest characteristics of Mr. Xi’s ruling style is that
he’s not interested in uniting different interest groups,” said Leung
Man-tao, a Hong Kong writer and commentator who has big followings in
both the mainland and Hong Kong. “He can’t see the value of gray areas.
He wants absolute loyalty.”
In the mainland, the party has taken a direct role in how some of
China’s biggest and most successful companies do business.
This past summer, Chinese officials met with the country’s two most
powerful internet tycoons, Jack Ma of Alibaba and Pony Ma of Tencent, to
talk about deeper cooperation between state-owned enterprises and the
tech giants. Just two years ago, their companies plowed billions of
dollars into backing one state-owned telecommunications company.
In September, officials in the Chinese city of Hangzhou said they would
appoint a government representative to serve as a liaison in the top
offices of companies based there, including Alibaba. They said the goal
was to improve coordination between government and business.
Businesspeople who don’t get on board risk becoming targets.
Wang Gongquan, a billionaire venture capitalist who advocated more
liberal political and social policies, was detained in September 2013
and jailed for five months. Ren Zhiqiang, a property developer, found
his social media accounts deleted when he used them to criticize the
party’s tightening control over discourse and is no longer allowed to
leave the country.
Since the protests began, Beijing has taken a more direct role in Hong
Kong. State-controlled media has castigated Cathay Pacific and other
employers whose workers joined the protests. Beijing has urged
representatives from nearly 100 of China’s biggest state-run companies
to step up investment and assert more control of companies in Hong Kong,
according to Reuters.
Now the government is taking on Hong Kong’s property developers, a group
that has long sought to stay in Beijing’s good graces. Hong Kong’s
largest pro-Beijing political party in September called on the city
government to take back land from property developers to build
affordable housing. Some property companies have said they would turn
over some plots, though Mr. Li has not made his plans public.
Beijing’s accusations against Mr. Li and the other real estate tycoons
aren’t groundless. The cozy relationship between the Hong Kong
government and wealthy property developers has long drawn criticism from
experts who say it worsens housing affordability.
But Beijing’s heavy-handed ways aren’t likely to solve the problem.
Mainland cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen rank among the
world’s most expensive housing markets despite state control. Those
efforts also aren’t likely to satisfy the demonstrators, who are trying
to defend their individual rights against Beijing’s growing sway over
the city. Giving Beijing a bigger role in Hong Kong’s economy goes
against the goal.
Through his foundation, Mr. Li has called the accusations against him
“unwarranted,” and said he hoped that all parties would seek dialogue
instead of inciting conflicts. His representative didn’t respond to a
request for comment.
Chinese media has been less specifically aggressive with Victor Li, one
of Mr. Li’s sons, who now runs the day-to-day operations of the Li
empire. Richard Li, another son with his own property and
telecommunications investments, took out ads opposing Hong Kong
independence after the Chinese online community accused one of his
companies of supporting a pro-independence pop singer.
Mr. Li’s career spans decades, and offers a glimpse at how the Communist
Party’s view of business has changed over the years. He arrived in Hong
Kong as a poor refugee fleeing Japanese forces during World War II. From
that modest background, Mr. Li made a fortune through real estate,
ports, telecommunications and utilities, earning the nickname “Superman”
from admiring Hong Kongers.
Politically, Mr. Li’s instincts have long been strong. China’s state
media lauded Mr. Li as a “patriot” for his philanthropic work in the
mainland.
He met frequently with past Chinese leaders who were eager to show they
supported the emerging class of Chinese business leaders. Deng Xiaoping,
China’s paramount leader in the 1980s, held two one-on-one meetings with
Mr. Li. Deng’s successor, Jiang Zemin, stayed at Mr. Li’s Harbor Grand
Kowloon hotel during his three visits to the territory and had meals
with him. Mr. Li has also met with Mr. Xi, when the future Chinese
leader was a provincial official.
But Mr. Li in recent years has shown an independent streak just as the
Communist Party began seeking greater control.
His company started selling off assets in the mainland and Hong Kong in
2013 as the property market became more uncertain. State media portrayed
his retreat as lack of confidence in China’s economy. Two years later, a
Chinese think tank controlled by state media published an article,
headlined “Don’t Let Li Ka-shing Get Away With It,” that argued that Mr.
Li should shoulder more social responsibility by helping the poor since
he had made so much money in China through his political connections.
Mr. Li then issued a three-page statement saying he wasn’t withdrawing
from China.
Mr. Li has also demonstrated some political independence. He didn’t
support the 2012 candidate whom Beijing picked for Hong Kong’s top
leader. During the 2014 Umbrella Movement, a Xinhua News Agency article
criticized him for not being “clear whether or not he agreed with the
appeals of the protesters.”
During the latest round of protests, state media has again portrayed Mr.
Li as ambivalent. It criticized the tone of newspaper ads he bought that
called for peace on Hong Kong’s streets.
Then in September, at a Buddhist event in Hong Kong, Mr. Li said: “We
hope the young people can take the big picture into consideration. For
those at the helm, we hope they can give the masters of our future a way
out.” A full-throated denunciation of the protesters it was not.
“If they can turn against Li Ka-shing so easily,” Mr. Chen said, “one
can imagine what could happen to the rest of us.”
Li Yuan writes The New New World column for The New York Times, which
focuses on the intersection of technology, business and politics in
China and across Asia. @liyuan6
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