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March 19, 2004

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Hong Kong's richest man, Li Ka-Shing, has shown himself to be a great magician. Firstly he sells whatever he can to help pay for his big gamble on 3G phones. It cost him HK$9.7 billion this year (that's US$1.25 billion) with more losses to come. Sounds like a good bet so far. But he still needs something to push that news off the front page. So why not be like a Hearst and make news yourself? Just latch on to the latest topic and throw in your 2 cents worth, even if it is in contrast to what you said last year.

Billionaire Li Ka-shing has rejected suggestions for universal suffrage in 2007-2008, saying that political reform should be gradual. Li, speaking to reporters at Hutchison Whampoa's results briefing yesterday, said he believes most Hong Kong people are patriotic but warned against using the issue of patriotism to build a platform for election gain.

``Hong Kong can't withstand any major shock and can't handle big volatilities, political reform must be step-by-step,'' Li said. ``Step-by-step doesn't mean it's 2007-08.''

This compares nicely to what he said in August last year after the 500,000 person march.
"Half a million people marched with good order and without causing any problems. Hong Kong should be very proud.
Oh, I get it. Hong Kong is good at big marches, so we should just stay focussed on that for the next thirty years. That's what he means by "step-by-step". But democracy is bad for business. Just look at all those unsuccessful businesses in America, Europe and Australia. And I bet you can't tell me how much Hutchison lost on 3G now can you?

The three card shuffle. Oldest one in the book.

 posted by Simon on 03.19.04 at 09:32 AM in the




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Comments:

His name is Ka-shing?

:)

 posted by: Pixy Misa on 03.22.04 at 07:30 AM [permalink]




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