London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Oct 01, 2025

Hong Kong’s tycoons come under scrutiny amid protests

The fortunes of a handful of rich families highlight yawning equality gap in city
For Hong Kong’s tycoons, it was almost as if the good old days had returned. Late last year, as protests raged on the streets of Hong Kong, companies controlled by five of the territory’s seven richest families competed for the biggest plot of land ever put up for auction in the territory.

All the bids were at the lower end of the government’s valuation range and Hong Kong’s biggest developer, Sun Hung Kai Properties, walked away with the prize for HK$42.23bn ($5.4bn).

If calm does eventually return to a city rocked by months of often violent pro-democracy protests — and prices rise — SHKP, controlled by 90-year-old matriarch Kwong Siu-hing, will make a huge profit from the residential and commercial development.

This would have seemed a remote prospect for Hong Kong’s richest families just a few months ago, as they scrambled to avoid blame for the escalating crisis. In the early phases of the protest movement, Hong Kong and Chinese officials sought to characterise it as an economic phenomenon, sparked by sky-high property prices and stark social inequality.

Li Ka-shing, the city’s richest man, was accused in an article posted by China’s Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission on its official WeChat account of “condoning crime” after he called on authorities to offer an olive branch to the protesters.

The scrutiny of the tycoons and their heirs threatened to upend a capitalist paradise. For decades, Mr Li, Ms Kwong and their peers and heirs have profited from controlling a range of official or de facto monopolies in sectors such as property and retail. The companies regularly churn out massive dividends that — like capital gains in Hong Kong — are not taxed.

When the former UK colony came under Chinese sovereignty in 1997, Hong Kong’s new Communist rulers did not disrupt the tycoons’ cosy existences. All that Beijing wanted was that the territory be governed by “patriots”. “We don’t demand that they be in favour of China’s socialist system,” Deng Xiaoping, then China’s paramount leader, said. “We only ask them to love the motherland and Hong Kong.”

This laissez-faire approach had dramatic social consequences, especially after the global financial crisis ushered in a decade of quantitative easing and low interest rates. Hong Kong maintains its own dollar-linked currency, forcing it to follow the US Federal Reserve’s interest rate adjustments in lock-step.

“Thanks to QE, asset prices exploded,” said one senior Hong Kong government official, who asked not to be identified.

But there has been no serious effort to tax their earnings. “Capital gain and inheritance taxes would affect the entire business sector,” the official added. “It’s not just about four or five families. If you’re not careful, you can kiss Hong Kong’s wealth management industry goodbye.”

At the same time, it became harder for people to get on the property ladder. As a result, Hong Kong, with a population of 7.4m, is one of the most unequal societies on the planet. Its Gini coefficient, at 0.539, is comparable to those of Zambia, the Comoro Islands and Guatemala. London, by contrast, has a Gini coefficient of 0.41, with 0 representing perfect equality and 1 perfect inequality.

Housing is a particular challenge. Hong Kong has an average per capita residential space of just 172 sq ft, according to the Asia Global Institute at the University of Hong Kong, compared with 387 sq ft in Shanghai. About 45 per cent of Hong Kong’s 7.4m residents live in small and poor-standard public housing, with long waits for those hoping to get a subsidised flat. Median home prices in the private market are more than 20 times median household incomes.

“The whole system needs to change,” said one senior Hong Kong government adviser. “The government’s laissez faire policies have looked after the haves and people who owned property made a fortune. But the have-nots have been totally isolated.”

In September, Chinese state media outlets criticised Hong Kong’s tycoons for the lack of affordable housing in the territory. In response to the criticism, Adrian Cheng — whose late grandfather founded New World Development, a ports, property and retail conglomerate — announced that the group would gift 3m square feet of land to the government and charitable groups for subsidised housing developments. “We are very concerned about [Hong Kong’s] housing problem,” Mr Cheng said at the time.

In the wake of New World’s announcement, rival groups including Mr Li’s CK Asset Holdings and Lee Shau-kee’s Henderson Land either signalled their willingness to make similar land grants or ramp up their charitable activities. Mr Li’s charitable foundation also announced HK$1bn ($129m) in grants for small business owners affected by the protests.

Such gestures appear to have initially helped defuse the criticism. Pressure from Beijing on the tycoons began to abate after a new wave of violent protests in early October, which continued through mid-November and flared up again over the Christmas holiday.

In response, Chinese officials emphasised the importance of “patriotism” in the territory and a cessation in the violence over any examination into the socio-economic causes of the unrest, which they now routinely blame instead on “hostile foreign forces”.

But for the territory’s richest families, the respite may not be a permanent one.

On December 23, Beijing’s de facto embassy in Hong Kong, the Central Liaison Office, emphasised the need to “face the flaws and shortcomings of Hong Kong’s governing system” and “resolve the deep-seated conflicts and problems that have accumulated in society”. A fortnight later Luo Huining, a Chinese Communist party heavyweight with a reputation for getting to the root of difficult problems, was appointed as the office’s new director.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
Nvidia Pledges Up to $100 Billion Investment in OpenAI to Power Massive AI Data Center Build-Out
U.S. Signals ‘Large and Forceful’ Support for Argentina Amid Market Turmoil
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
Vietnam Faces Up to $25 Billion Export Loss as U.S. Tariffs Bite
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Indonesia Court Upholds Military Law Amid Concerns Over Expanded Civilian Role
Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch Join Trump-Backed Bid to Take Over TikTok
Trump and Musk Reunite Publicly for First Time Since Fallout at Kirk Memorial
Vietnam Closes 86 Million Untouched Bank Accounts Over Biometric ID Rules
×