China’s top office on Hong Kong affairs has reposted an attack on CK Hutchison’s decision to sell its Panama Canal ports, amplifying a Beijing-backed newspaper’s warnings for the Li Ka-shing-owned conglomerate to “think twice” about which side it stands on.
CK Hutchison Holdings is owned by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing. File photo: Supplied.
The commentary reposted by the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on its website on Thursday was originally published in Chinese state-backed newspaper Ta Kung Pao. It cited criticism – purportedly by netizens – saying that the sale was an act of “spineless grovelling” which neglected national interests and “betrayed and sold out all Chinese people.”
The article was also shared by Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong.
The Chinese-language commentary read: “In the face of such a major event, the companies concerned should think twice about the nature of the issue and what is at stake, and think carefully about what position and which side it should stand on.”
The piece was published about a week after CK Hutchison said it would sell its stake in the Panama ports to a consortium led by US asset management giant BlackRock amid pressure from US President Donald Trump.
CK Hutchison’s stocks slid 6 per cent on Friday following the state media commentary. Its shares gained more than 22 percent last Wednesday after it announced the BlackRock sale.
Key waterway
In its press release announcing the sale last week, Hutchison’s Co-Managing Director Frank Sixt said: “I would like to stress that the transaction is purely commercial in nature and wholly unrelated to recent political news reports concerning the Panama Ports.”
Ta Kung Pao. File photo: Lea Mok/HKFP
China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian said following the announcement of the sale last week that the ministry supported Hong Kong companies in doing business overseas but “opposed any abuse of coercion and pressuring in international trade and economic relations.”
The sale was hailed by Trump, who had earlier said that his administration will “reclaim” the maritime trade waterway from what it said was Chinese ownership, amid trade tensions between Washington and Beijing.
Reuters reported on Thursday that the Trump administration had asked the Pentagon for “credible military options” to ensure US access to the Panama Canal.
The author of the Ta Kung Pao article slammed Hutchison for the BlackRock deal, saying it would serve the strategic interests of the US.
“After the Panama Canal has been ‘Americanised’ and ‘politicised’, the US will definitely use it for political purposes and implement its own political agenda, and China’s shipping and trade here will certainly be subject to the US,” the author wrote.
The Panama Canal. Photo: MaxPixel.com.
The US succeeding in its goals would also undermine Hong Kong’s status as an international logistics and trade port, the article read.
“Obviously, Trump and the US have not regarded this deal as an ‘ordinary business practice’ at all. They have directly interfered and manipulated it brazenly and unscrupulously, and have used it to push for [its] global hegemony,” it said.
