The Chinese government strongly criticized the planned agreement of the Hong Kong conglomerate to sell ports in Panama and elsewhere to an investment group led by an American asset manager, warned that China would prepare the necessary influence on key transport routes.
Criticism means a sudden shift in Chinese policy towards Panama and the control of naval ports around the world. When President Trump soon after joining office, he was concerned that China had too much power in the Panama Canal, his comments were originally ridiculed by Beijing.
But Kung Pao, Hong Kong’s newspaper owned by the Chinese government and the Communist Party, condemned the planned port transaction. Newspaper comment, published on Thursday, attacked plans Hong Kong Society, CK HutchisonSell ports at both ends of the Panama channel and more than 40 ports elsewhere in the world for $ 19 billion in an investment group led by American giant Blackrock.
The Kung Pao is considered a mouthpiece of Beijing in Hong Kong and was awarded the highest Chinese leader Xi Jinping. But if someone missed it, the Beijing government agency quickly supervised the Hong Kong policy repossed the commentary on your own website.
The comment warned that Trump’s administration threatened to increase tariffs to goods that arrive on Chinese ships in American ports, China must retain the presence in the Panama Canal. The channel has been described as “the main route for Chinese Latin America and the Caribbean”.
If the agreement is completed, the comment claimed: “The United States will certainly use it for political purposes and will support their own political agenda. Chinese transport and trade inevitably subject to the United States. ”
The Kung Pao said that Internet users in China considered the transaction to be “seeking profit and unfair”, added that “all Chinese sell”.
The comment came to the conclusion that companies involved in the planned transaction should “carefully think about what position and side should become.”
The shares of CK Hutchison dropped sharply on Friday in trading with Hong Kong. Hutchison did not respond to phone calls or to e -mail with the search for comments.
Beijing had previously rejected Mr. Trump’s warning of Chinese influence on the Panama Canal. President Trump welcomed the Blackrock agreement.
Ck hutchison is controlled billionaiirei li ka-rockWhom Bloomberg News estimated has a fortune of $ 31 billion. Mr. Li, nicknamed the “Superman” from Hong Kong media after his decades of erroneous timed market movements, has since entered the office since Mr. XI in 2012, constantly deteriorating relations with Beijing.
Li sold many of his investments in real estate in mainland China in the years leading to the Covid-19 pandemic and invested most of the money in Europe. His actions were widely criticized by Chinese nationalists, but it turned out to be wise from a financial point of view. Managed to get out of these investments before starting Chinese housing market crash In 2021, which has been constantly deteriorating since then.
Mr. Li expressed sentiments during Hong Kong Democracy protests In 2019, which were interpreted as sympathetic with protesters and their requirements. The Beijing allies in Hong Kong were also critical of him.
Mr. Li’s disputes with Mr. Xi go back. In the age of 90, long before it was clear that Mr. XI could one day become the best Chinese leader, he was the highest official in Fuzhou, a city in southeast China. Mr. XI stopped the project of Mr. Li and built high -rise buildings in the historic district of Fuzhou.
It was not immediately clear whether China would exceed its criticism of the TA Hutchison agreement, but in the past the Chinese government has intervened in other trade transactions.
Two entrepreneurs of real estate who have sometimes expressed skepticism of government policies, Mr Shiyi and Zhang XinHe agreed in 2021 to sell a control share in his empire Soho China, Blackstone, another investment giant in the United States, for up to $ 3 billion. However, the Chinese government refused to approve the transaction, which then disintegrated.
