Was Li Ka-shing pushed to sell Panama ports, or did he jump?

Trump, of course, has propagated the agreement as a personal victory, while China’s response characterizes him as a loss.

This raises question marks for both countries.

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Blackrock and its co-investigations, Global Infrastructure Partners (recently acquired by BlackRock) and Terminal Investment, a Swiss company owned by the CEO APONTE family, are western and private companies.

Hutchison, a conglomerate with interests in ports, infrastructures (including gas pipeline networks in Australia), telecommunications (including a 25 % participation in TPG Telecom) and ownership all over the world, is also apparently a group of private property and commercially guided. The most successful company Hong Kong is considered.

If the agreement is a victory for Trump and the United States, the President of the United States implies – how could Beijing believe – that the Consortium will give priority to the management of ports in the Economic and National Security Interest of the United States compared to those of its investors?

If the agreement is contrary to China’s economic and national security interests, as its response suggests, does this mean that it sees the ownership or control of the Hutchison of ports as in favor of its strategic ambitions?

For the United States – and the other 22 countries that will have to consider the implications of the agreement from their own perspectives – the BlackRock Consortium can be expected to be guided by its commercial considerations.

Trump may want to attack China’s domain on global commercial expedition with enormous increases in the port commissions and the reconstruction of an almost non -existent naval construction industry, but the consortium will be more interested in maximizing returns on a huge investment than in geopolitics. Even in America of Trump, companies (beyond, perhaps, Elon Musk) give priority to the profits above everything else.

For China, the blockage-o attempt to block-the agreement could suggest that it sees the ownership of ports all over the world as an important component of its geopolitical strategy and that its private sector operators (Chinese state-owned companies are also important Portist operators) have been co-opted, or at least they can be forced to cooperate, with the ambitions of Beijing. He would confirm Western suspicions.

The ownership of ports and infrastructures across the world particular within the countries of the “global South”, with which China has constantly built relationships and dependence through its “Belt and Road” initiative-clearly an important part of China’s strategy of influence or control over critical points within the global supply chains and its longer term ambition to underestimate the American global dominance.

Opt the sale of Hutchison, moreover, it presents some domestic risks for Beijing and the Chinese economy.

Since China’s economic growth has slowed down and deflationary threats have emerged, Xi Jinping has moved its position to the private sector, which had previously been subjected to waves of repressions, regulation and intimidation. In February, XI met the main entrepreneurs from China As a sign that they had returned to favor and that he needed them to help turn up the altoes of economic growth of China.

By frustrating the sale of Hutchison it would signal to those entrepreneurs that the support of the state and the freedoms that dangled in front of them of being entrepreneurial and guided by profit have a warning. They and their fortunes would still be subject to the whims of the state.

More specifically, even after the delivery of Hong Kong by the United Kingdom to China in 1997, China has tried to maintain a level of commercial independence for Hong Kong and its status of one of the key centers of the world for finance and trade-if its response to the pro-democracy demonstrations of 2019, the controversial laws on national security, have placed a point of reference to the measure of its tolerance.

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Ordering or forcing them and his family to abandon the sale would send an chilling message to other entrepreneurs of Hong Kong and private companies and potential investors in Hong Kong – and that at a time when foreign investors have, despite a concerted effort by the authorities, flee from continental China.

If Hong Kong must remain a key financial and commercial hub, he cannot send a signal that will intervene in the business of the multinationals, even those built by Hong Kong entrepreneurs.

There is any doubt if China has a lot of ability to intervene, in addition to coercion.

Hutchison has diplomatically maintained the property of its ports on the mainland and Hong Kong and, while his real estate arm has investments on the mainland, has constantly reduced his exposure to major China. Only about 12 % of its revenue is generated in China and Hong Kong, with most of the others flowing from Europe, North America and Australia.

The US19 billion dollars of net cash that would obtain from the sale would be useful, given that it has announced a 7 billion pounds offer ($ 14.5 billion) for the water of the United Kingdom Thames and has also indicated that it will return significant amounts to shareholders.

It would also be timely.

With Trump who is about to accelerate his commercial war with the rest of the world with a new tour of rates, and having clarified that China will face the punitive port and shipping rates for its exports to America, Global Growth and Global Seabo Trade is probably negatively influenced.

For Li Ka -Shing, which has built an empire from its beginning as a manufacturer of plastic flowers, it is a good time to sell – it is allowed.

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