Hong Kong's eternal regret: Leung Kam-sung was forced to step down due to the early purchase of a car, which resulted in the inability of Hong Kong's economy to transform. Rising interest rates will definitely hit the stock market. In addition, in the early 1990s, the British con

Hong Kong’s eternal regret: Leung Kam-song was forced to step down due to the early purchase of a car, resulting in the inability of Hong Kong’s economy to transform

On July 1, 1997, Hong Kong officially returned to China. Tung Chee-hwa, the son of shipping king Dong Haoyun , became the first chief executive. But soon, the storm in Southeast Asia hit Hong Kong, and a battle to defend Hong Kong's finance began.

In 1997, Soros shorted the baht in Thailand and won a huge victory, setting the entire Southeast Asian economy back several years overnight. Soros then set his sights on Hong Kong, the international financial center.

Beginning in the second half of 1997, the international financial giants headed by Soros began to make plans. They simultaneously took action in Hong Kong's foreign exchange market, stock market and futures. They bought large quantities of 3-month and 6-month Hong Kong dollar futures, and then Quick short selling forced Hong Kong to raise interest rates. Ultimately their goal is to profit from the futures market.

Rising interest rates will definitely hit the stock market. In addition, in the early 1990s, the British continued to carry out large-scale construction projects in Hong Kong, which overheated Hong Kong's economy. Before 1997, both the property market and the stock market reached a very high position.

At that time, Hong Kong adopted a linked exchange rate system, and this was where Soros targeted it. Soros seized the entire loophole in Thailand and successfully defeated Thailand. The linked exchange rate is to peg the Hong Kong dollar to the US dollar and keep the exchange rate unchanged.

Soros in Thailand shorted the Thai baht in large quantities, eventually forcing Thailand to abandon the linked exchange rate, thus earning a huge price difference. However, Hong Kong is not Thailand. At that time, Hong Kong’s foreign exchange reserves were the third in the world, second only to Japan and Mainland China. Hong Kong has the strength to fight Soros decisively, but the problem is that Hong Kong has always pursued a liberal economic strategy and has never intervened in the market.

At that time, Soros made three consecutive attacks and won a great victory in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority had no choice but to keep raising interest rates, which resulted in a sharp fall in the stock market. Soros also made huge profits in the futures market.

On August 5, 1998, the decisive battle quietly began. On this day, Soros and others shorted more than 20 billion Hong Kong dollars in one day. After gaining support from Beijing, Tung Chee-hwa decided to launch a rescue operation and fight Soros and others. Hong Kong uses its foreign exchange reserves to absorb them all and maintain bank interest rates at a slightly higher level.

One day later, Soros refused to give up and sold more than 20 billion Hong Kong dollars again. This time, Hong Kong continued to accept the order. Soros ran out of ideas for a while. However, Soros soon made a comeback. On the 7th, most of the blue chip stocks released their interim results, but the results were not satisfactory. So Soros seized the opportunity and began to short the stock market, causing the stock market to plummet. Hang Seng Index fell 3%.

In the following days, Soros continued to sell Hong Kong dollars and stocks. Although Hong Kong fully accepted the Hong Kong dollar, the Hang Seng Index still fell to a low of 6,600 points.

htmlOn August 14, Hong Kong decided to officially enter the stock market and futures market to fight against Soros and others and go bankrupt. Then the two sides kept going back and forth, and on the 28th, the real decisive battle came. Because this is the settlement day of the August contract of Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index.

As soon as the market opened, 3.9 billion was traded within 5 minutes, and it exceeded 10 billion in half an hour. By the time the market closed in the morning, the transaction volume had exceeded 40 billion. Finally, when the market closed in the afternoon, the Hang Seng Index was pushed up to 7829 points, which was more than 1,000 points higher than on the 13th.

Soros and others returned in defeat.

However, after this battle, Tung Chee-hwa also deeply felt the weakness of Hong Kong's economy and the rarity of talents. So in 2001, Tung Chee Hwa personally invited Liang Jinsong, Chairman of JPMorgan Chase Bank Asia Pacific, to serve as Hong Kong Financial Secretary. Dong Liang's combination gave Hong Kong hope of transformation.

Liang Jinsong is not only a famous number one scholar in Hong Kong, but also studied under Dong Haoyun. Liang Jinsong later joined Citibank in the United States and became the top leader of Citibank Hong Kong. Later, Citibank invited Liang Jinsong to become the global vice president in the United States. This was the highest position a Chinese could hold in a U.S. bank at that time, with an annual salary of up to HK$23 million. Such a position is the dream of almost all financial professionals.

However, the Americans put forward a condition. Liang Jinsong must give up his Chinese nationality and become an American nationality. Liang Jinsong decisively refused, saying that he would be Chinese all his life. After

, Liang Jinsong went to the smaller JP Morgan Chase , with an annual salary of 20 million, which was 3 million less than Citibank . However, after Tung Chee Hwa found Leung Kam Sung, he immediately agreed, and the annual salary as Financial Secretary was even lower, only 2.45 million.

However, Liang Jinsong did not regret it. He said that everything he had was given by Hong Kong, and he must come out and do something for Hong Kong. In fact, Liang Jinsong only did something.

Liang Jinsong actively promoted reforms as soon as he came to power. After Leung Kam-sung came to power, he was actually faced with a mess. At that time, Hong Kong's economy was developed, but the foreign power was strong but the middle was weak, with negative assets and a fiscal deficit as high as 70 billion.

also has the sequelae left by the financial crisis and , which also need to be solved by Liang Jinsong.

Liang Jinsong proposed many tricks. The first is to cut the salary of civil servants, the second is to slash the public budget, and the third is to reform taxes and fees.

years later, a movie " Chill " was filmed in Hong Kong, which alluded to these things. Li Wenbin's son said that Liu Jiahui had a financial background and only knew how to cut budgets and make the books look good, which demoralized the frontline staff. The two sides seem to be competing for an assault vehicle, but they are actually competing for the position of police commissioner.

If you connect the movie with reality again. The assault vehicle in the movie was the nanny car that Liang Jinsong later purchased in real life. Because of this car, Liang Jinsong, who had outstanding political achievements, unfortunately resigned.

If Liang is Liu, then Lu behind him is Dong, then who is Li? It's natural. Like Li in the movie, they are both hawkish characters.

Leung Kam-sung’s series of reforms have allowed Hong Kong’s economy to begin to pick up. During Liang Jinsong's tenure, Hong Kong's GDP1 GDP2 totaled more than 3 trillion from 2001 to 2003. In addition, Hong Kong's property market has also been steadily declining. Coupled with Dong's 85,000, Cyberport and other plans, Hong Kong's transformation seems to be successful.

However, Liang Jinsong’s reforms will ultimately involve the interests of many people, especially the real estate sector. The sharp fall in property prices has made the land that developers have hoarded for many years become worthless. So these people took advantage of the innocence of Hong Kong people and asked them to attack Liang Jinsong. Those who spent generations of hard work to buy a house before 1997 saw the price drop and their life's hard work ruined, so they all stood up and scolded Liang Jinsong.

At this time, Liang Jinsong promoted the reform of the automobile tax, and he accidentally made a mistake. Because his wife Fu Mingxia gave birth to a child, Liang Jinsong bought a nanny car himself. The car was purchased just before the tax reform. Those who were interested attacked Liang Jinsong for seeking personal gain with power and evading taxes.

Liang Jinsong continued to apologize and explain, and also donated several times the amount of funds to charities, but he still could not calm these voices. Someone clearly had to force him to step down.

" Chill 2", if Liu Jiahui steps down, then his backstage Lu will have to step down, and the people behind Li Wenbin will also take over. In the end, Lau Ka Fai won.

Unfortunately, in reality, Liang Jinsong lost. Liang Jinsong was forced to resign. After Zeng came to power, all reforms stopped and everything returned to the way it was before. The Hong Kong property market began to rise steadily, starting a bull market that lasted for more than ten years.

Nowadays, a house in Hong Kong can easily cost tens of millions per square meter, and can easily cost hundreds of thousands per square meter. Even luxury homes in Repulse Bay have increased to more than one million per square meter. Let alone ordinary people, even the middle-level local companies cannot afford to buy them.

More importantly, after Leung Kam-song stepped down, Hong Kong's economic transformation also stopped, and various beneficial plans eventually failed.

Now more than ten years have passed, Liang Jinsong has returned to the business world and became the president of Nan Fung Group . His career is still successful, even more successful than before. However, Hong Kong is still Hong Kong, the economy still relies on real estate and finance, and technological innovation is still almost zero.

Missing Leung Kam-song can be said to be Hong Kong’s biggest regret. An eternal regret.