4 - The Mainlandization of Business Monopolies

Summary

Chapter Four looks at how Hong Kong’s local business elite and foreign businesses were gradually squeezed out from center stage of the financial market in Hong Kong by Chinese companies and the business elite. While local tycoons worked closely with the CCP to defend the city’s undemocratic status quo and advance their business interests on the mainland, they valued the legal and institutional autonomy of Hong Kong as safeguards of their wealth. Chinese tycoons with Hong Kong residency, some of whom are publicly known as CCP members, also value such autonomy and legal protection of their private wealth, though many see themselves as caretakers of Beijing’s interests in Hong Kong. The business elites’ contradictory character manifests itself amidst the fight over the extradition bill, when many local and mainland Chinese tycoons explicitly or implicitly acted against the bill. The US-China trade war that began in 2017 superimposed on the elite conflict in Hong Kong and cast a shadow on the offshore financial role of Hong Kong.