China has punished Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing after his company sold two ports in the Panama Canal to a US investment giant following pressure from Donald Trump.
Officials in Beijing have told Chinese state-owned businesses to stop doing deals with Mr Li’s CK Hutchison conglomerate, which part-owns the Vodafone and Three network in the UK, amid growing anger over the ports sale to US investment giant BlackRock.
Mr Li’s group struck a $22.8bn (£17.6bn) deal to offload the terminals shortly after Mr Trump, the American president, said the US should “take back” the ports because of growing Chinese influence.
In retaliation, Chinese authorities have effectively blacklisted CK Hutchison and the business interests of the Li family by telling Chinese state-backed firms they will struggle to get regulatory approval for any work involving the group.
China’s order, reported by Bloomberg, could place mounting pressure on CK Hutchison to overturn the BlackRock deal, which will involve offloading 43 other ports in 23 countries across the globe, including Britain’s largest seaport, in Felixstowe, Suffolk.
The sale of the ports to the Americans has put Mr Li, 96, in Beijing’s firing line. He is Hong Kong’s richest man and key business figure in the region. CK Hutchison is also one of Britain’s largest foreign investors, holding stakes in Northumbria Water and the Greene King chain of pubs. It has also been linked to an investment in embattled Thames Water.
BlackRock’s takeover of the Panama Canal ports came shortly after Mr Trump claimed that American ships were being charged excessive fees, saying they were “not treated fairly in any way, shape or form”.
Although CK Hutchison denied the Panama sale was politically motivated, it sparked a furious reaction from the Chinese Communist Party, which sent a senior level delegation to Panama and railed against the move in state-controlled media.
Hong Kong newspaper Ta Kung Pao slammed CK Hutchison’s sale as “a spineless kneeling, profit-seeking and unrighteous act, ignoring national interests and national justice, and betraying and selling out all Chinese people”.
The op-ed suggested that BlackRock may charge “special docking fees” to Chinese ships as it accused the Trump administration of seeking to “suppress China’s development”.
John Lee, the Hong Kong chief executive, later called for extra scrutiny of CK Hutchison’s move as he condemned “the abusive use of coercion or bullying tactics in international, economic and trade relations” by America.
Mr Li and his family are currently the biggest shareholders in CK Hutchison with a roughly 30pc stake in the Caymans Islands-registered conglomerate.
The billionaire started his business career at the age of 22 with the launch of a manufacturing company in 1950 that eventually became the largest supplier of plastic flowers in Asia.
Mr Li later became a major property developer in Hong Kong while at the same time building up a global empire of ports, retail businesses, telecoms firms, utility companies and infrastructure assets.
