Beijing has put forward a plan to develop western China and urgently needs foreign investment. In the days before formally assuming his new post as the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR)'s new Chief Secretary for Administration, Donald Tsang (曾蔭權) showed his loyalty to the party by planning and organizing the biggest business delegation in Hong Kong history, which marched to western China with much fanfare on May 20, after Tsang took office.
This business delegation was composed of 282 people, including the chief representatives of 70 enterprises. Among them were Thomas and Raymond Kwok (
Just as the delegation was about to leave, some of the tycoons leaked the news that they weren't going to complete the trip. Chief Secretary Tsang tried exhaustively to convince the delegates to finish what they had begun, even saying that those who finished the trip would be presented with gifts from private donors. But when it was postulated that the gifts indicated might only be a "kiss" or handshake from Tsang, in the end it was difficult to even get the trip started, let alone finished. All the way up until the delegation's departure, the authorities in charge were unwilling to reveal just how many people were participating. Li Ka-shing's youngest son, Pacific Century CyberWorks (PCCW,
Of course, the authorities did everything they could to boost the morale of their wealthy would-be benefactors. In Beijing, during the second stop on the "go west" trail, the group was received by Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji (
In order to welcome the go-west delegation, Shaanxi, Sichuan and Xinjiang provinces prepared 527 investment projects, worth 170 billion yuan. By the end of the visit, however, cooperative agreements and letters of intent for only 25 projects, with a total value of 2.2 billion yuan, had been signed. That only 4.7 percent of the targeted projects were signed was pitiful enough, but the fact that this accounted for merely 1.2 percent of the intended investment amount was positively pathetic. Of the investments, Kung Yu-sum's Chinachem Group (
However, the fact that Hong Kong's growth rate has dropped significantly (6.9 percent in the fourth quarter of last year to 2.5 percent in the first quarter of this year) and unemployment has consistently stayed above 4 percent, has people worried that the Hong Kong economy will experience a "hollowing out." Thus, the issue of whether or not to "go west" is a contentious one. Although Hong Kong is "part of China," the situation is not all that different from Taiwan. It is evident that this economic predicatment does not necessarily have anything to do with the "one China" or "two Chinas" issues. Still, Hong Kong businessmen are not so naive as Taiwanese politicians in their understanding of China.
Paul Lin is a political commentator currently based in New York.
Translated by Scudder Smith
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