Sunday 16 June 2019

Al Jazeera Panel on Hong Kong Protests

Includes Emily Lau, with a backdrop featuring the HSBC building in Hong Kong Central. See Jack Ma's Tyranny What is at stake here is Hong Kong's judiciary. See Hong Kong 21 Years Ago and British Empire in China.


At 13 mins 5 secs there's an interesting slip by Al Jazeera. Einar Tangen, economic advisor to the Chinese Government, is shown as being located in Nottingham! But listen to his diatribe starting at 11 mins 15 seconds.

It is not only Hong Kong residents who would be affected. From Bill Binney on Surveillance:
This FT report is interesting. It includes the US Envoy complaining about the Chinese government's lack of cooperation in arresting Snowden in Hong Kong. He is apparently unaware of the fact that Hong Kong has a different legal system to mainland China.

On Hong Kong law


And on HSBC, see Wikipedia:
According to Bloomberg, "HSBC is one of world's strongest banks by some measures". When HM Treasury required all UK banks to increase their capital in October 2007, the group transferred £750 million to London within hours, and announced that it had just lent £4 billion to other UK banks.
.... 
In March 2009, it announced that it had made US$9.3 billion of profit in 2008 and announced a £12.5 billion (US$17.7 billion; HK$138 billion) rights issue to enable it to buy other banks that were struggling to survive. However, uncertainty over the rights issue's implications for institutional investors caused volatility in the Hong Kong stock market: on 9 March 2009 HSBC's share price fell 24.14%, with 12 million shares sold in the last few seconds of trading.
But London was just a temporary move. Hong Kong is in HSBC's DNA, apparently. See this FT story Case for HSBC to move HQ to Hong Kong looks stronger than ever:
It is more than three years since Europe’s largest bank by assets completed a review of where it should base its global head office, which resulted in the lender sticking with London rather than moving to Hong Kong.  However, it would be wrong to interpret that decision as the last word on the matter. Several executives, past and present, have said they still expected the bank to move back to the place where The Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank was founded in 1865. “It is in their DNA,” says one.
See also SCMP's Yonden Lhatoo on Hong Kong Housing Crisis.

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