‘A betrayal’: Beijing office on Hong Kong runs scathing attack on Hutchison’s Panama deal

Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing’s company CK Hutchison Holdings, which recently sold its Panama Canal ports, should think twice about which side it wants to stand with, according to a scathing newspaper commentary posted by Beijing’s top office for the city’s affairs on its website.

Citing criticisms calling the deal a “betrayal of all Chinese people”, the commentary was first published by pro-Beijing publication Ta Kung Pao and shared in full by Beijing’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on its official website on Thursday night.

The move prompted immediate speculation on whether the blistering attack on Hutchison reflected the central government’s thinking and was an indirect way to pile pressure on the company to relook the transaction.

CK Hutchison Holdings, which had come under pressure for months after Donald Trump won his re-election to the White House and demanded that the Panama Canal be freed from what he saw as Chinese control, dropped a bombshell earlier this month by announcing it was selling all its port stakes, except for those in China.

This amounted to 80 per cent of the Hutchison Port Group, a subsidiary that owns 43 container ports in 23 countries, including a 90 per cent stake in the Balboa and Cristobal docks at either end of the Panama Canal.

In a congressional address last week, US President Donald Trump hailed the deal led by American investment firm BlackRock after repeatedly expressing his desire to take control of the canal since January, arguing that Hutchison’s role enabled Beijing to profit and presented a threat to the country’s security and commercial interests.