Hong Kong Made Death Record: Designed by the British Government of Hong Kong, strangulated by chaebols, ended today

Author | Baiyu Young Master

Editor | Zhou Dahammer

original first release | Golden Horn Finance (F-Jinjiao)

Before the first killing mission, the Mid-Autumn Festival stole a police station (police department) ordered by Rongshao Use a point 38 revolver.

came home, he put on his headphones, put the music to the loudest, and raised his pistol to dance to relax. In between, he used a gun to "poke" a whole piece of mooncake like a tuk ("poke" in Cantonese) and ate it. He couldn't hear the crazy beating or cry for help outside the door.

This is a scene from the movie "Made in Hong Kong" directed by Chen Guo, released in 1997. The opening shot of the movie was shot from a chain of wire fences outside the stadium, indicating that the characters have been in a state of being restricted and living in an invisible cage. On the surface,

has nothing to do with the literal "Made in Hong Kong" movie. It is about the tragic life of the youth of the bottom in Hong Kong during the Mid-Autumn Festival. The phrase "Die when you are young will always be young." It has exhausted the depression and despair of the youth of that era.

Many people say that this is the best youth film in Hong Kong, which is realistic enough. Later, Guo Jingming's inland literature that revealed the petty bourgeoisie's worship and delicacy, as well as the sadness of youth and pain literature, was not at the same level.

Xu Guanjie's "Made in Hong Kong" song released in 1990, the interpretation of "Made in Hong Kong" has a completely opposite background to Chen Guo's movies. The lyrics of

are sung like this, "High-speed road area to all good wild Hong Kong manufacturing... Hong Kong is so good everywhere to build a promising future, the wind blows and the wind blows to create a beautiful together!", a perfect interpretation of the sentence in Hong Kong TV The classic ad slogan "Life is full of hope, I will create it before routing".

are all "Made in Hong Kong". The release date of music and film is 7 years away, but it presents the opposite "Made in Hong Kong".

made in Hong Kong, it is a song, a movie, and a time that has been covered with dust.

made in Hong Kong, from the 1940s and 1950s, it took 30 years to prosper, and then from the 1980s, there was almost no relocation. In the Pearl River Delta, it experienced scouring and reshuffle. In 2020, when the epidemic was raging, Hong Kong was shocked. Hong Kong's manufacturing exists in name only, and even masks cannot be manufactured.

Made in Hong Kong, where did it go?

We review the history of "Made in Hong Kong" from the rise, prosperity, and gradual decline, and we will find that everything today has been written down decades ago.

chaebols, compradors, the British, the Hong Kong government, large real estate developers... After all forces are divided, torn and conflicted, after completing the mission of resettling the refugees from war, Hong Kong's manufacturing industry is nothing but insignificant old and decadent.

After experiencing prosperity and struggling, going north to the Pearl River Delta, and the fall of the Cyber ​​City, Hong Kong manufacturing has existed just like the young people in this land, but before they had time to grow, they were strangled by the shadows of the big roots of this land.

ended today

September 25, 2020, the world is no longer made in Hong Kong.

According to the requirements of the United States Customs, from this day onwards, goods exported from Hong Kong to the United States must be marked with the origin of "China" instead of the "Made in Hong Kong" label.

On August 11, the US Customs issued an announcement: "Hong Kong no longer enjoys a high degree of autonomy, and therefore no longer guarantees that it will continue to enjoy special treatment different from China." In other words, goods manufactured in Hong Kong and exported to the United States will no longer be able to bear the "Made in Hong Kong" label, but must be marked as "China".

Both the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government and the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed strong opposition to this.

This matter has little impact, but it is of great significance.

Hong Kong has always had its own independent tariff status, and it can also affix its own "Made in Hong Kong" label of origin. In the final analysis, the United States wants to put pressure on China and Hong Kong by denying Hong Kong's independent tariff status in its trade with Hong Kong.

Hong Kong still has not escaped the fate of becoming a pawn in the game between China and the United States.

said that it had "not a big impact" because the products originally made in Hong Kong and exported under the label "Made in Hong Kong" accounted for less than 1% of the total economy of Hong Kong. Among them, even fewer are exported to the United States. Regardless of how other countries impose sanctions and restrictions on the trade of products labeled "Made in Hong Kong", it does not matter to Hong Kong's overall economy. Z3z

Director of Hong Kong Commerce and Economic Development Bureau Yau Tenghua revealed that the total value of "Made in Hong Kong" goods exported from Hong Kong to the United States in 2019 was approximately HK$3.7 billion, accounting for less than 0.1% of Hong Kong’s total exports. The affected industries include food, jewelry, and medicine. , Aluminum, etc., are not extensive.

However, when the United States took action on this ground, Hong Kong has since lost its independent tariff status, and it has also brought an end to the fact that Hong Kong manufacturing, which has long since ended, is completely over.

Seeing the news, many people have questions. Is there a manufacturing industry in Hong Kong?

not only has, but also the manufacturing industry has had a glorious time in Hong Kong. The label "Made in Hong Kong" is a historical product left over from that glorious time, and it is a glorious medal in this land. However, no matter how dazzling this medal is, it will eventually be dimmed due to some inescapable forces. This is the fate of Hong Kong manufacturing, and even Hong Kong as a whole. Such a fate was doomed decades ago. The

medal can now only be installed in the Museum of History-in June 2020, the Hong Kong Museum of History organized an exhibition on Hong Kong manufacturing.

In the article "Hong Kong Dock is Empty", we discussed the history of Hong Kong's more than 200 years of port opening. In China, Britain, China, Japan, and China, the duckweed in the ocean is constantly being pulled and torn by different forces. I have written about Hong Kong’s important position as a transit point for trade between China and the rest of the world. This status has given Hong Kong a window of development for decades. Since 2018, Sino-US trade frictions have continued, and Hong Kong has not been very peaceful.

However, the experience of Hong Kong is not entirely an external influence.

The opportunity not to be swayed by global economic turmoil and trade frictions, to take a completely less constrained and less passive path, to fight for an unshakable position in the world industry chain, was abruptly missed by Hong Kong. Up.

When we look back, the history of "Made in Hong Kong" from the rise, prosperity, and gradual decline, we will find that everything that happened today on Hong Kong soil has already been answered in 1980, which is nothing special.

is like the fifteenth year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty. From the surface of the water, there are no big waves in this year. However, the tearing, turbulence, distortion, and disintegration that happened here later can be seen from it.

Hong Kong made a choice that year.

There is a price to choose. The right to choose is controlled by those who live in the villas on the top of the mountain, and those who do not have the right to choose under the mountain become the price.

Made in Hong Kong Made in Hong Kong

In 1971, the movie "Big Brother Tangshan" became popular all over the world after its release.

In the movie, Bruce Lee wears a white kung fu sweater with three buttons, which is the "Arbor shirt" among the Hong Kong population. With the popularity of movies and Bruce Lee, the same kung fu sweaters became popular in the European and American markets. They were expensive and hard to find.

Bruce Lee is a representative of the golden age of Hong Kong kung fu movies, and "Arbor bottom shirt", Is one of the representative products of the golden age of manufacturing in Hong Kong.

From 1931 to 1949, Hong Kong was the best "typhoon shelter" for talents, capital, and even industries. All kinds of people boarded Hong Kong Island from various piers in Hong Kong to construct the background of Hong Kong. Among all the immigrants of

, the Shanghai immigrants had the deepest impact on Hong Kong. At that time, most of the spirit, spirit, spirit, and soul of Shanghai followed ships across the ocean and landed ashore from the dock. Talent, labor, technology, capital, production machinery and even factory orders can all be moved from Shanghai.

Hong Kong has obtained a solid manufacturing development foundation without any effort.

You must know that before 1949, the industrial output value of the city of Shanghai accounted for one-third of the national total. The textile industry is the industry with the largest scale and the highest output value in Shanghai. As a result, Hong Kong also has the foundation for the development of the textile industry.

The starting point of Hong Kong's manufacturing industry is high enough.

Especially after the fall of Shanghai at the Battle of Songhu in 1937, the situation was even better. At that time, Shanghai Shenxin, the largest textile factory in China, moved the raw yarn and machinery to Hong Kong and opened the Dayuan, Nanyang and Weilun yarn factories. ; Chen Tinghua founded Nan Fung Textile in Tsuen Wan; Zhao Anzhong established Jiafeng Textile Factory; Cha Jimin founded New Territories Textile Factory...

The rapid rise of manufacturing is partly due to the resettlement of refugees.

Beginning in 1937, a large number of mixed people have poured into Hong Kong, and they need to make ends meet. A large number of people who have not found a livelihood are slowly turning to gangs, causing trouble. The forward Xin Ngong An and Ge Zhaohuang's 14K were established in Hong Kong during the Civil War.

During the years when manufacturing in Hong Kong became prosperous, there were five waves of population influx into Hong Kong in 57, 62, 72, and 78 respectively. The reasons for each wave were different, but they were constantly given to Hong Kong. Supplements cheap labor.

A large number of refugees and refugees from Hong Kong gathered in slums like the Kowloon Walled City.

The Kowloon Walled City was the most evil place in Hong Kong at that time. The "three no matter" zone that the police did not dare to enter even during the day, the paradise for pornography, gambling and drugs, was called the "devil's cave on earth." Many Hong Kong bandit movies are sourced from here. For example, the prototype of the pig cage walled in the movie "Kung Fu" by Stephen Chow is here.

After World War II, Hong Kong was returned to the British government of Hong Kong. In order to prevent these refugees and gangs from making trouble, the British Hong Kong government at the time lowered the rent of industrial land below the interest rate and encouraged entrepreneurs who still had capital to open factories and recruit workers quickly.

The industrial base from Shanghai and policy stimulus helped Hong Kong's manufacturing industry to develop rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s. The international environment of

at that time was also favorable, calling for manufacturing in Hong Kong.

After the war, great powers such as Europe, America and Japan were greatly injured, and materials were over-consumed. At the same time, it is also facing the problems of labor-intensive industrial transfer and industrial transformation and upgrading. The United States once imposed an economic blockade on Hong Kong briefly because of the Chinese mainland, but soon restored Hong Kong’s free trade and allowed Hong Kong-made products to enter the United States. In order to fill the demand for light industrial products in the United States; at the same time, Southeast Asian countries all have a short process of self-closing and restricting international trade after World War II...

Human, capital, technology, labor, policies, international environment and other factors are all Hong Kong, which possesses it, has naturally become a destination for labor-intensive industry transfer.

At that time, Chen Ruiqiu, a native of Dongguan, founded Changjiang Garment in Changsha Bay, Sham Shui Po. A few years later, the "Doctor" shirts of Changjiang Garment were sold well in Southeast Asia. Later, because Bruce Lee swept overseas, the price of the Arbor bottoms was about 10 yuan in the 1940s and 1950s, which was equivalent to the monthly salary of ordinary workers at that time, but the products were still selling well.

By 1960, Hong Kong’s yarn production companyThe volume reached 500,000 spindles, which was 80 times that of 1947. At the same time, the textile industry became the largest manufacturing industry in Hong Kong this year, and the number of spinning mills exceeded 10,000. With the developed textile industry, the clothing industry related to it has also developed rapidly.

spinning and clothing industries are industries with relatively low technical thresholds, and there are a large number of people who have left their homes in Hong Kong who need to live, so many small-scale handmade family workshops have been formed.

The other main business of these small family workshops is "wearing plastic flowers". In Cantonese, it is called "pin plastic flowers"-go to the plastic injection molding factory to get some flower branches, plastic leaves, plastic flower pieces, plastic flower cores, etc. Go home for overall assembly.

With the application and promotion of plastic technology, Hong Kong's plastic products industry has also begun to flourish. Many of today's rich families are closely related to this industry. For example, Li Ka-shing is a home made up of plastic flowers.

Li Ka-shing’s plastic flower factory

relied on a large amount of funding from his father-in-law. Li Ka-shing rented a 100 square meter warehouse in Shau Kei Wan and founded the Yangtze River Plastic Factory. At that time, flowers were relatively expensive decorations, so plastic flowers were generally used instead of flowers. Plastic flowers had a very large market.

Later, Jiaohua slowly became a swear word in Cantonese. From a manufacturing activity into a daily term, it can be seen that the matter of "wearing plastic flowers" has a universal and profound impact on this area.

In the mid-1960s, almost all plastic flowers in the world were MADE IN HK. Changjiang Plastic Factory has become the world's largest manufacturer of plastic flowers, and Li Ka-shing is known as the "king of plastic flowers."

Later, Li Ka-shing went higher than Hong Kong's plastic flowers, and was hailed as the embodiment of the spirit of "under the Lion Rock" and became the idol of generations of young people in Hong Kong. The fact is that Li Ka-shing may have struggled under the Lion Rock, but he will live on the mountain after all.

After the wave of plastic flowers passed, many plastic factories began to switch to plastic toys. In the 1980s, Hong Kong surpassed Japan, Germany and the United States to become the world's major exporter of toys. Among them, the most famous toy is the broccoli doll, which has become a global toy like the Barbie doll produced in Japan. On Christmas Day in 1983, Hong Kong produced 200,000 broccoli dolls every week. In the second year, 20 million broccoli dolls made in Hong Kong sold out, setting a record in the history of toy manufacturing in the world at that time.

Faced with a huge market, Hong Kong's manufacturing industry had no worries about sales at that time: the United States, Britain, European countries, Japan, Southeast Asia, the Mainland, and locals in Hong Kong all had demand for products made in Hong Kong. These market demands supported Hong Kong. Manufacturing industry.

In the two decades from the early 1950s to the early 1970s, Hong Kong’s GDP grew at a compound annual rate of 10.5%, and the value of Hong Kong’s exports grew at a compound annual rate of 15.1%. In the late 1940s, there were less than 1,000 registered manufacturing companies in Hong Kong. By 1970, there were more than 25,000 companies.

In the early years, Hong Kong relied on the opium trade to make a fortune, the pillar industry in transit trade, and shipbuilding was once the largest local manufacturing industry. In 1959, the export value of Hong Kong's locally-made products exceeded the value of re-export trade. In the second year, Hong Kong's largest manufacturing industry changed from shipbuilding to textile industry, and the era of "Made in Hong Kong" really came.

has been a city of re-export trade for a hundred years, and Hong Kong has become a light industrial city in just 20 years.

Hong Kong developed labor-intensive industries earlier than South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan, which were later called the "Four Little Dragons of Asia", about 5-15 years earlier. Originally, there was a big first-mover advantage-when the textile industry became Hong Kong's largest manufacturing industry, six years before the founding of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew was far from establishing an export-oriented development strategy.

As the other three little dragons have also begun to undertake labor-intensive industrial transfers, they have begun to establish an export-oriented economic development route, and Hong Kong's competitive pressure has increased.

19From 1970 to 1979, although the advantages of Hong Kong manufacturing continued, the four little dragons were doing low-threshold businesses such as textiles, plastic manufacturing, clothing, toys, and paint, and the advantages of Hong Kong manufacturing gradually disappeared.

The gradual rise of the global electronics industry has allowed Hong Kong manufacturing to spend another decade of prosperity. The electronics industry is in its infancy at this time, and countries have no trade protection policies.

After losing to the Three Little Dragons in the three pillar industries of textiles, clothing, and toys, Hong Kong manufacturing still maintains the appearance of prosperity relying on electronics manufacturing.

In the past 10 years, Hong Kong’s electronic processing plants increased from 230 to 1,300. At that time, the high-tech product BB CALL (pager) was booming in Hong Kong, and the export of electronic products increased from HK$1 billion to HK$13.4 billion. It has become Hong Kong's second largest manufacturing industry after the garment industry.

textiles, plastics, garments and other industries are still in volume, the electronics industry is developing rapidly, and Hong Kong manufacturing has ushered in the most brilliant 10 years. A number of "big kings" took advantage of the wave, such as leather king Tian Jiabing, belt king Zeng Xianzi, rice cooker king Meng Minwei, steel king Pang Dingyuan...

Among all exported products, Hong Kong-made products accounted for from From 10% in 1947 to 69% in 1970, more than half of the exported products have the brand of "Made in Hong Kong".

In 1970, Hong Kong's manufacturing industry accounted for 30.9% of GDP. 30.9%, remember this ratio, this is the peak in the history of Hong Kong's manufacturing industry.

In the same year, the proportion of products made in Hong Kong reached the peak of the total export products. In the following decades, the proportion of products made in Hong Kong never exceeded 69%.

made in Hong Kong took 30 years to grow out of nothing, and it was shattered overnight.

lost in 1980

In July 1978, the mainland began to allow some provinces and cities to develop foreign processing and assembly services. Half a month after the

document was issued, a Hong Kong boss holding a model handbag came to Dongguan Taiping Garment Factory and asked to make an identical product. Later, this became the first processing company in Dongguan's records.

has a lot of records about the "first Hong Kong-funded cooperative establishment of a factory". It doesn't really matter whether the Xiangzhou Wool Spinning Factory in Zhuhai, the Large Garment Factory in Shunde or the Taiping Handbag Factory is the first factory.

At the end of 1978, the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee was held. The Pearl River Delta region near Hong Kong has become the preferred gold nugget for Hong Kong manufacturing businessmen. Leather, hardware, textiles, and plastic processing have all come to the mainland to build factories.

Konka, Midea, Longford Footwear, and later these companies starting from the Pearl River Delta to the world, are inseparable from Hong Kong businessmen. Of course, among these Hong Kong companies in the manufacturing industry, there was also Li Zhiying, the owner of Giordano, who quit the clothing industry and founded Next Weekly and Apple Daily.

In 1979, the Guangdong Overseas Chinese Farm Management Bureau and a Hong Kong company jointly established Guangming Overseas Chinese Electronics Factory, the predecessor of Konka TV.

Hong Kong companies take advantage of Hong Kong as an overseas trade window to accept product orders and serve as a "show shop" for foreign trade, while the Pearl River Delta has sufficient and low-cost labor to process, assemble and manufacture products, acting as a "factory". "Front shop, back factory", seamless cooperation.

Actually, there is no difficulty in what Hong Kong businessmen do. What Hong Kong businessmen initially brought from Hong Kong were light industries with extremely low technology barriers. As long as you have a bit of capital, you can do it if you find an order. Culturally, Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta have the same cultural roots and interact a lot. As long as Hong Kong businessmen have a little capital, anyone can do this kind of joint venture business. The status of Hong Kong people has given them one foot on the duty-free port and the other enjoying the advantages of tax concessions and low labor rent.

As long as you go north for 1 kilometer and do the things you have done before at a very low cost, you can make money more easily.The hard work is lost to cheap labor in the Mainland, and the costs and risks can be earned back from the preferential tax subsidies in the Mainland.

The flexible mode of low labor and rent, preferential taxation, and "three to one subsidy" in the Mainland has accelerated the transfer of Hong Kong's manufacturing industry to the Mainland.

By the early 1980s, Hong Kong small business owners built tens of thousands of factories in the Mainland. Tens of millions of "workers" and "workers" from the Mainland have swarmed into the Pearl River Delta, starting the trend of population movement in the past 30 years.

left to Hong Kong, more of the positions of company management, sales, and finance. The signs of hollowing out the manufacturing industry are beginning to appear. The share of Hong Kong's local manufacturing industry dropped rapidly. From 1979 to 1982, the share of the manufacturing industry fell by 6 percentage points.

GDP is rising continuously.

In 1985, Hong Kong’s GDP increased by 59% over five years ago, creating another economic miracle. Hong Kong's re-export trade exceeds the proportion of export manufacturing, and Hong Kong's economic pillar has become the re-export trade industry before 1959. This year, the Mainland once again became Hong Kong's largest trading partner.

, on the surface, are all exports, but re-export trade is a business service belonging to the tertiary industry, while export manufacturing is a real secondary industry. There is a big difference between the two.

re-export trade has spurred all related industries such as transportation, trade, retail, tourism, etc., freeing up hands and having money, Hong Kong's entertainment industry has begun to move towards a golden age, leaving behind a lost "Made in Hong Kong" .

lost in 1980.

In 1979, the second oil crisis broke out, global economic recession, trade conflicts and protectionism rose. In the first five years of the 1980s, all countries in the world except the United States were plagued by the oil crisis.

On the road of labor-intensive industries and export trade-oriented economic strategies, the four Asian dragons can see the ceiling as soon as they look up, so South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan have entered the stage of industrial upgrading and transformation.

Singapore, which was 15 years behind Hong Kong in manufacturing, under the intervention of the Lee Kuan Yew government, embarked on a road completely different from that of Hong Kong-using a policy of non-freedom ("active and direct intervention") to promote transformation and proposed " Automated, mechanized, and computerized "production", and "established a software development center and a computer manufacturing center."

Taiwan has formulated the "Ten-Year Economic Development Plan" to promote the development of eight industries including energy, high-tech industry, information, automation, bioengineering, television technology, food, and medicine. In 1980, Hsinchu Science Industrial Park was completed. In the wave of information industry, Taiwan has found its place in the future because of this industrial upgrade.

Among the four little dragons, South Korea has the largest volume. At this time, the South Korean government led the "Semiconductor Industry Support/Incubation/Revitalization Plan." In 1982, Samsung established a semiconductor research and development laboratory to develop 64K memory.

is Hong Kong alone, which simply moved the manufacturing industry to the Mainland, but made more and easier money. After all, for Hong Kong and manufacturing Hong Kong businessmen, investing in the Mainland to build factories is a faster and easier business.

It must be explained that the famous families in Hong Kong did not participate in this wave of manufacturing shifts.

In the early 1980s, several big families had not yet controlled the lifeblood of Hong Kong. The British Hong Kong government was the "master" of this land and the root of Hong Kong's failure to transform its manufacturing industry.

At that time, the United Kingdom was already a global economic hegemon. For this piece of land to be returned to China sooner or later, for a colony, the British Hong Kong government did not have the enthusiasm for industrial upgrading and reform. The British and then Financial Secretary Xia Dingji Words can only intervene under "extremely significant adverse effects."

In other words, only renting land, selling quotas, and controlling public utilities can provide timelyThe British Hong Kong government has the enthusiasm to intervene only when the UK brings benefits. Anyway, it won’t be many years since the colonization, and there is no tax revenue. It is better to rent out land and sell export quotas to make money.

This is the key to Hong Kong's later development into a chaebol country like "The City of the Li Family".

Britain’s attitude of letting Hong Kong fend for itself was later interpreted as the so-called "free economy" policy. Some people believed that these policies gave Hong Kong businessmen room for development, which created Hong Kong’s status as a free trade port and Hong Kong. Economic legend.

As for the long-term economic issues such as the transformation and upgrading of manufacturing industry and industrial development, the British Hong Kong government has also explored amid public opinion, but in the end, Hong Kong missed the wave of information technology industry development. The relationship between Hong Kong and Britain makes this result inevitable. Since

is only temporarily in charge of Hong Kong, there is no legitimate reason to require Hong Kong businessmen to pay taxes to the United Kingdom. Many of Hong Kong’s taxes can only be used for local urban livelihood construction. Hong Kong businessmen have very low tax burdens and loose control. Until the reunification, Hong Kong had only 8 years of fiscal deficits in 50 years, and the rest had large surpluses. The special factor of

made Hong Kong's corporate income tax much lower than the other three little dragons in the same period. At that time, Korean corporate income tax was higher than 50%; Singapore and Taiwan were around 40%, while Hong Kong's corporate income tax was only about 16%.

This is also an important reason why Hong Kong became a tax avoidance, money laundering paradise and a low-tariff free trade port in Asia.

Based on special historical reasons and distinctive taxation policies, Hong Kong has become an enclave of the "free market", attracting a large number of internationally renowned companies to invest in Hong Kong, attracting a large amount of capital and talents, making Hong Kong a global financial The center and trade center lay the foundation.

After the Opium War in the 19th century, after the British formally seized Hong Kong Island, they declared all the land to be owned by the British royal family. The way for the government to obtain profit was to auction the lease of the land within a certain time limit. Land lease is the main non-tax revenue of the British Hong Kong government.

In addition, the UK stipulates that British-owned enterprises should directly contribute tax to the UK. Therefore, the Hong Kong and British government has jointly controlled the seven ocean banks from the United Kingdom, Jardine, Wheelock, Hutchison, Swire, HSBC, Standard Chartered, Kadoorie, and Inch Group. The most valuable assets in Hong Kong-land, quota rights and public utilities.

quota means that the government uses its power to delimit certain franchise rights, export volume, and the right to establish radio and television stations. In the early years, the British Hong Kong government even sold drug sales concessions and grain and oil sales concessions.

Hong Kong's garment industry is the largest manufacturing industry, but the four major garment industry families at the time were mainly relying on selling export rights to get rich. And other conscientiously producing garment factories have worked hard for 30 years and no one else has made much profit by selling export quotas.

public utilities are industries like hydropower, transportation, oil, gas, high-speed communication ports. Although there is no huge profit, the profit is moderate, and it is the "cash cow" that everyone yearns for.

A long time ago, several big British banks almost divided up all the valuable lots in Hong Kong. For example, Jardine Matheson, which was the first to enter Hong Kong and was mainly engaged in the opium trade, occupied a large amount of land near the Wharf. Later, its main business was real estate, shipping, construction and retail; while Wheelock operated oil tankers. After the tanker business contracted, Main business is real estate.

Swire Pacific was originally engaged in shipping and trading. At that time, its main business had become real estate and shipping. Later, Cathay Pacific became an industry of Swire Pacific; HSBC and Standard Chartered monopolized Hong Kong’s financial industry; Kadoorie’s main real estate and hotels, Power company, etc.; Inchage operates car sales and docks in Hong Kong.

During the 30 years of vigorous development of Hong Kong’s manufacturing industry, the British Hong Kong government and the seven major ocean companies monopolized and controlled the three most profitable industries: finance, public utilities, and real estate. This basically determined the trend of Hong Kong in the next few decades. .

went up and down. Under the guidance of the British Hong Kong government and foreign companies, Hong Kong businessmen preferred finance, real estate,Industries such as public utilities are lacking in interest in manufacturing upgrades.

After accumulating original capital in other industries, Hong Kong businessmen have almost made strides to enter the real estate industry. In 1955, Fok Yingdong developed the "sale of uncompleted flats" sales method on the Chan Palace Building. Li Ka-shing went a step further and invented the concept of "shared area" to pass the cost onto the buyers. At that time, Hong Kong businessmen who came to build factories in the Mainland also made money and went back to Hong Kong to grab uncompleted properties.

In the process of real estate development, Yingdong Huo pioneered the creation of the model of real estate writing instructions and mortgage purchases, which made the entire housing transaction process standardized, protected the interests of both buyers and sellers, promoted the development of the industry, and also made housing demand. People can leverage financial leverage to allow some capable people to live and work in advance.

In contrast, Li Ka-shing's "shared area" model can allow real estate developers to make more money, but it also appears to be speculative.

Getting back to business, in the 1980s, real estate developers had begun to dominate the rich list all year round. In the 1982 "Forbes" list, among the 141 people with a wealth of US$1 billion in the world, 6 are in Hong Kong, and their main businesses are real estate.

Following the road of "free economy", most of the Hong Kong businessmen who had worked hard in the manufacturing industry have embarked on another path, turning from entrepreneurs to capitalists. No one wants to spend money and bother about industrial upgrading. How to get more land and how to control more cash cows is the problem they are trying hard to drill.

In 1984, the "Sino-British Joint Communiqué" was issued, and China decided to take back Hong Kong.

Before the Hong Kong British government and the British Foreign Bank withdrew, they needed to find the "receiver" of assets. Everyone is coveting the assets controlled by the British Foreign Bank, but the British must choose an "obedient".

In that famous Wharf acquisition battle, Li Ka-shing, Bao Yugang and were also optimistic about the Jardine's listed company Wharf. The British feel distressed. In the end, Li Ka-shing completed Bao Yugang, and with the help of HSBC, he helped Bao Yugang swallow the wharf. Bao Yugang later helped Li Ka-shing to develop a small scale. In 1980, he obtained the integrated business of terminal container, retail and real estate. Group Hutchison Group. Later, the Hutchison Whampoa Group acquired Wheelock, one of the four largest foreign firms in Hong Kong.

In 1981, the well-respected Li Ka-shing became Hong Kong's first British-owned foreign-owned Chinese executive. The name "Superman" comes from this.

In 1985, Bao Yugang successfully controlled the Wharf which has Harbour City, Star Ferry, and Hong Kong Tram, and obtained the land in prime locations on Hong Kong Island.

Relying on the help of foreign banks and the British Hong Kong government, several big families took over all their public utilities, real estate, financial and other assets in Hong Kong. Whether it is the city of the Li family or the port of the Bao family, anyway, the fate of Hong Kong is held in the hands of several big families.

Therefore, later in Hong Kong, a few big families will control the public utilities in Hong Kong. Every kilowatt of electricity is used, Hong Kong people are paying taxes to Li Ka-shing.

In 1982, Eastern Shipping had a debt of 20 billion. Dong Haoyun, the "ship king" who had always adhered to the shipping industry, died of illness. Bao Yugang, also known as the "ship king", had the best scenery on the top of the mountain.

After entering the mainland, these big families in Hong Kong are doing the same business, and they like to work in real estate, finance and public utilities.

Shanghai’s official information shows that the number of Hong Kong companies investing in the real estate and construction industry has risen from 5 in 1990 to 327 in 1994, second only to 379 in the commerce and service industry, and “most of the mega projects with over 100 million US dollars are real estate investment "By 1995, half of the real estate projects in Lujiazui Financial and Trade Zone came from Sino-foreign joint ventures and wholly foreign-owned enterprises. Of the 37 projects in which foreign investors participate, 2/3 are Sino-Hong Kong joint ventures or wholly-owned Hong Kong.

We are familiar with Hong Kong companies hoarding and speculating land at low prices, but this is just one of their methods. Whether these people really develop and construct, history will record the truth.

In 1978, Li Ka-shing was invited to Beijing to observe the National Day ceremony. Soon after, when Yuan Geng invited Li Ka-shing and other Hong Kong businessmen to inspect the Yantian Port in Shenzhen, Li Ka-shing asked, can Hong Kong businessmen also buy shares? Yuan Geng did not answer.

During the 15 years from 1978 to 1993, Li Ka-shing has been on the sidelines, and there has been little investment in the Mainland. It was not until 1993 that Hutchison Whampoa was allowed to buy shares in Shenzhen Yantian Port, and it really began to invest heavily in the Mainland. Soon, he and Yantian Port jointly injected capital into the Wutongshan Tunnel and established a tunnel company to collect high tolls.

Later, in order to take back the Wutongshan Tunnel, the Shenzhen Municipal Government and the tunnel company launched 38 rounds of arduous negotiations. The reason why the negotiation has been unsuccessful is that the price given by the tunnel company is extremely high, and the price is almost the same as the price of a new tunnel.

You must know that Yantian Port itself is a state-owned enterprise, and it has no stance to ask the Shenzhen government for prices.

Real estate has become the most profitable industry in Hong Kong, and of course there are objective reasons.

Since the 1950s, many people have been living in "cage homes" in Hong Kong due to the rapid population growth.

In the 1970s, the first generation of "baby boomers" grew up, so the housing demand of Hong Kong people expanded dramatically. However, under the alternate control of the British Hong Kong government and several large families, the housing supply and demand problem in Hong Kong has not been resolved.

The "caged people" that have appeared in the 1950s have continued to the present, and have not been resolved during the period. In 1976, a large-scale anti-British operation broke out. For this reason, the British Hong Kong government proposed the "Home Ownership" plan. But it only stays at the oral plan.

In 1992, the movie "The Cage Man" starring Huang Jiaju, the lead singer of the Beyond band, was released. This was Huang Jiaju's last film work. It had the same kind of compassion and thought as his music.

In 2016, there were more than 90,000 subdivided houses in Hong Kong, with more than 200,000 people living in them. So far, the imbalance between housing supply and demand in Hong Kong continues. Coffin-sized sub-district houses and caged homes have been crowded into the hidden coke ovens at the bottom of Hong Kong. 3% of the population lives in cages or coffin houses, and the per capita housing area is less than 2 square meters.

Some people live in mountain top villas and some live in coffin rooms before their lives. They all have a bright future.

Everyone who lives in cages must pay tribute to those who live on the top of the mountain in order to survive. Hong Kong, which is gradually being folded, has increasingly made the bottom people feel cramped and suffocated.

Originally, under the control of the British Hong Kong government, the young people at the bottom of Hong Kong had no way to rise; now, under the control of real estate developers, the people at the bottom of Hong Kong lived in the coffin room before their death. After all, the cemetery is a luxury after death. Product.

Those families who hope that their wealth will always be preserved and increased forever, have long prepared graves for ordinary people. The shadow of

not only swallows young people, but Hong Kong-made can not get out of this shadow.

, the Cyberport, which bears the responsibility of Hong Kong's manufacturing transformation and upgrading, is also being strangled by the joint efforts of those big chaebols.

strangulated future

Hong Kong manufacturing has struggled, but under the shadow of interest groups, it has no chance to survive.

1997, this year, many major events happened in the world. Among them, the most important and the most profound impact on Hong Kong are these two events-the return of Hong Kong and the Asian financial crisis.

On July 1, Dong Haoyun’s eldest son, Tung Chee-hwa, became the first chief executive of Hong Kong.

On July 2, the fuse of the financial crisis that swept across Asia in the following year or two was ignited in Thailand.

also has some unobtrusive little things.

this year, a piece of godOdd "Octopus" appeared in Hong Kong, which is the world's leading electronic payment system that replaces cash. Many years later, WeChat Pay and Alipay have led the global electronic payment coquettish for many years, while Hong Kong is still charging and swiping cards.

In this year, Israel's total high-tech export value was close to 70 billion Hong Kong dollars, accounting for two-thirds of the country's total export value.

Tung Chee-hwa, who just took office, has a beautiful dream of turning Hong Kong into a technological innovation city like Silicon Valley in the United States and Israel. In his policy address, he said: "... From the perspective of adding value... New inventions, new technology applications, and the development of emerging industries are all very important to Hong Kong."

But after all, it can only be a dream.

How to get to Hong Kong will ultimately depend on the meaning of the big families that have taken over the assets of foreign banks and controlled Hong Kong’s food, clothing, housing and transportation, including Dong Haoyun’s old rival, the Bao Yugang family.

The money is in the hands of others, so I have to bow my head and call Dad.

In the case of the chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa defeated Bao Yugang's son-in-law Wu Guangzheng, but still lost to the forces that were shrouded by all the big families.

Li Ka-shing's second son, Li Zekai, also known as "Little Superman", also appeared. In 1999, Li Zekai persuaded the government to develop the Cyberport and exchanged a plan for 24 hectares of land.

Cyberport was originally a cooperative project supported by the government and managed by Li Zekai’s Pacific Century Group. It is hoped that the Cyberport will attract major international IT companies to Hong Kong to establish a technology park. Due to the impact of the Asian financial crisis, the Hong Kong government was unable to provide strong financial support, and the development and operation of the Cyberport did not achieve the expected results and fell into a difficult situation.

Then, the famous scene came.

Li Zekai proposed to develop part of the Cyberport land into a residential project and sell the house to support the development of the Cyberport. The Hong Kong government is short of money and agreed in principle.

After all, land in Hong Kong is the most expensive land, and the most lacking is houses. Therefore, the development of housing can quickly get a large amount of funds. There is nothing wrong with this kind of thinking.

In 2000, on the eve of the funding of the first phase of the Cyberport project, the top ten real estate developers-Sun Hung Kai Properties, Henderson Land Development, Hang Lung, New World Development, Swire Properties, Wharf and other real estate developers, jointly published the title "Private Land Grant for Cyberport" The article "Wrong Information for the Business Sector" accused the government of allowing Yingke Group to acquire land at low prices in the name of developing information technology.

Land and houses are the most sensitive topics that touch the nerves of all Hong Kong people. At this time, the development and construction of the Cyberport began to be questioned and blocked.

After 2001, the development of the Cyberport stalled. Later, only sporadic news about the completion of supporting real estate projects came out.

Although the Cyberport did not succeed, in the process, the Pacific Century Group took the "Dongfeng" of to the Cyberport and successfully listed on the backdoor. Li Zekai benefited HK$4 billion.

followed by the 2001 technology stock bubble, so that Hong Kong people completely lost the courage to invest and invest in high-tech industries.

Therefore, when Zhang Rujing of SMIC went to Hong Kong for an inspection, Hong Kong people were afraid that he would become the second Li Zekai. They drove him away and drove SMIC to Shanghai by hoarding land at low prices in the name of developing technology. .

Hong Kong people’s science and technology dreams, and Tung Chee-hwa’s political ambitions, fell in vain, and the measures to improve Hong Kong’s housing environment brought him even worse infamy. Z3z

Tung Chee-hwa believes that Hong Kong’s loss of vitality in the wave of technological innovation is directly related to Hong Kong’s high housing costs and living costs, so he increased the supply of land and housing while reforming education and increasing investment in technology. As soon as

took office, he launched the "85,000" plan: no less than 85,000 public and private housing units will be built every year; within ten years, 70% of all households in Hong Kong can buy their own homes; and HandlebarThe average waiting time for public housing has been shortened to three years.

Hong Kong's high housing prices are, in the final analysis, an imbalance between supply and demand. Increasing the supply of land and housing is indeed solving the essential problem. However, as the supply of housing increases, the price drops, which has more directly moved the cakes of several big families than Cyberport.

If Cyberport’s low-cost land acquisition has moved the crumbs around their cakes, the "85 thousand" plan can be said to be taken directly to cut the cakes in the hands of several big families.

Hong Kong became a battlefield of two forces. In the end, Tung Chee-hwa lost completely.

The "Eighty Five Thousand Five" plan was soon implemented, coincided with the financial turmoil and the Hong Kong property market was miserable.

According to reports at the time, there were 600,000 negative equity holders in Hong Kong, with a book loss of 600 billion Hong Kong dollars. Public opinion has counted all this on Tung Chee-hwa, and calls for the abolition of the "eighty-five thousand" target took advantage of the momentum. In 2002, he had to give up.

Until today, many people are still criticizing Tung Chee-hwa’s plan that year.

Actually, the financial turmoil is only an external cause. The real reason is that the assets of Hong Kong people and the wealth of the city are mostly condensed on high housing prices. If housing prices fall, the wealth of urban residents will "evaporate". This is the high housing prices in Hong Kong. The reason that can't drop.

The sentence "House prices cannot fall" is a contradiction that cannot be reconciled between the two classes. Such contradictions have also begun to show signs in China.

Hong Kong has missed the transformation of manufacturing industry, missed the development opportunities of high-end manufacturing industry such as information technology, and has not realized the ambition of "home ownership". Hong Kong's manufacturing industry is closely related to the problems of Hong Kong society.

1980, that was the "15th year of Wanli" in Hong Kong. Everything from the 1990s and beyond is doomed in this year.

Later, Hong Kong can continue to eat the dividends of the opening up of the Mainland, trade, tourism, finance... eat well, sleep well, but no one mentions the manufacturing in Hong Kong again.

At the beginning of this year, because of an epidemic that was more severe than SARS, Hong Kong people were looking for masks and trying to restore local mask production. They remembered the "Made in Hong Kong" that has been in the corner for a long time.

Then they were shocked that Hong Kong could not even produce masks. It seemed that there was really nothing left for Hong Kong manufacturing.

In June, when the epidemic was not so serious, the Hong Kong Museum of History held an industrial exhibition: "Working" is indispensable-Hong Kong industrial legends, trying to find Hong Kong people by displaying a series of classic Hong Kong industrial products and making utensils. Collective memories in those years.

once "Made in Hong Kong" was a daily life for those generations, and it was unforgettable. Therefore, traces of "Made in Hong Kong" can often be seen in Hong Kong movies. In Lin Zhengying's zombie movie, antiques dug out of the soil are made in Hong Kong.

, Hong Kong actor Li Cansen who starred in the Mid-Autumn Festival, also revealed the shooting plan of "Made in Hong Kong 2020" at this time. Behind him, Hong Kong manufacturing businessmen, experts, and the government are also working hard to bring Hong Kong manufacturing back.

But, can the missed ones really come back?

At the end of the movie "Made in Hong Kong", a plane flew away. It was 1997, and the plane flying away was a kind of hint. Then the protagonist Mid-Autumn uttered the famous line: "I hate adults who say they teach you on the one hand, but they hurt you on the other."

Some people can start a new life by flying away, and some people live in the folds of Hong Kong and cannot fly.