Hong Kong’s Richest Man Is Losing Friends in China and the West
- Li Ka-shing finds it harder than ever to keep both sides happy
- CK empire a test case for how firms deal with the new Cold War
Li Ka-shing
Photographer: Calvin Sit/Bloomberg
To some he is the “Cockroach King,” accused of being a closet supporter of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement and a traitor to China. To others — namely the Trump administration and its allies — he is a Chinese Communist Party loyalist who can’t be trusted with critical infrastructure.
Li Ka-shing, who built Hong Kong’s biggest fortune by straddling the divide between China and the West, is now finding it harder than ever to keep both sides happy. As Beijing spars with western governments on everything from Hong Kong to trade and the coronavirus, the 91-year-old billionaire’s business empire has become an important test case for whether international companies can navigate what many are calling a new Cold War.