Two years after Hong Kong was shaken by political turmoil, influential businessman Michael Kadoorie believes the government needs to do more to address the concerns of younger people.
The chairman of electricity supplier CLP Holdings and Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels, which owns and runs the luxury Peninsula group of properties, remains confident about the city’s prospects despite the challenges brought by major political changes and the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
“Young people have a great future here, but they have their worries; they have, for one reason or another, been given a lot of information, much of it false,” said the 79-year-old billionaire, one of Hong Kong’s richest men.
In an interview with the Post on Tuesday to mark CLP’s 120th anniversary, he said the lack of dialogue between the government and younger Hongkongers was “rather sad”.
“I encourage dialogue, because with dialogue you find a pathway so you can bring people together,” he said.
Hong Kong-born Kadoorie is the third generation of an Iraqi-Jewish family that first arrived in the city 140 years ago and thrived in the power supply and hotel businesses, as well as operating the iconic Peak Tram service.
Ranked by Forbes as Hong Kong’s 11th wealthiest person, with a US$7.5 billion (HK$58.2 billion) fortune, Kadoorie has said he intends to keep working for as long as he can.
Also with him at the interview was his only son and heir-apparent Philip, 29, the youngest of his three children and currently a non-executive director of CLP and Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels, and a director of the family’s privately owned helicopter service.
‘Many who leave will return’
In 2019, Hong Kong sank into unprecedented political turmoil after the introduction of a bill that would have allowed the rendition of fugitives to mainland China sparked protests that grew into an anti-government movement and became violent even after the unpopular draft legislation was withdrawn.
The months of protests and their effect on tourism took their toll on the economy and left Hong Kong society divided, with many young people among the protesters.
As the protests worsened in August 2019, Kadoorie ran a full-page open letter in the Post voicing his concern for the city’s youth, calling for a stop to the violence and saying there was a need to create hope for the younger generation.
Last June, Beijing imposed a national security law with far-reaching implications, leading to the arrest of dozens of activists and opposition politicians. Beijing has also introduced a major overhaul of the city’s electoral systems.
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While the elder Kadoorie called for more dialogue between the government and younger Hongkongers, his son said some underlying issues of social discontent needed to be dealt with.
“We have all seen the issues of Hong Kong – rising property prices, rising costs of living, the long work week, not enough pay, not enough fun at the end of the day, not enough time to have something for yourself,” Philip Kadoorie said.
“Family is so important in Hong Kong. A young person starts working, he wants to improve the living conditions of his parents’ life. After you pay your rent, after you pay your CLP bill, after you pay for your parents … what do you have for yourself? Is it enough in a place like Hong Kong when everything is so expensive? That becomes an issue.”
Philip Kadoorie said it was hard when the government “sometimes loses sight of how difficult today is for the individual”, adding that Hongkongers became violent in 2019 in order to be heard.
CLP is one of the city’s largest employers, with about 4,300, or just over half, of its 8,060-person global workforce based in Hong Kong as of the end of last year. Its workforce in the city remained more or less the same through the past year.
At the height of the pandemic, the group’s flagship CLP Power created 60 one-year internships for fresh university graduates for the first time.
Human capital firm Randstad Hong Kong added CLP Power to its “global hall of fame” in 2019 after it was rated the most attractive employer three times in surveys done over the preceding five years.
However the Kadoories’ hotel and hospitality business worldwide was hit hard when the pandemic brought international travel and tourism to a standstill, with lay-offs and furloughs shrinking its workforce by 25 per cent, to about 5,600 at the end of last year.
The Covid-19 outbreak last year halted the protests. Then, in June, came the national security law, which bans secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreigners to interfere in Hong Kong affairs.
Although the law has been attacked by Britain, the United States and other Western countries for trampling on the development of democracy in the city, the Kadoories said they support it.
Michael Kadoorie said: “The rules are to ensure stability, and to ensure a place of work, a place where people can live in peace and have their freedoms, and travel freely, as they could before Covid.”
Citing the 140 years of British colonial rule before Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997, he said some of the rules today were no different from the period of “benevolent autocracy” before the handover.
Recent political changes have sparked a wave of migration, and Philip Kadoorie revealed that many of his friends were among those who had left.
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But he expected many to return, which was what happened after previous waves of migration in 1997 and following riots in the city in 1967.
“People always come back,” he said. “They need a bit of reassurance, they need to dip their toes out of Hong Kong to regain perspective.”
But, he added: “Hong Kong needs to improve, so that people can rebuild their trust in it.”
‘Look to the Greater Bay Area’
Michael Kadoorie said he believed there were opportunities aplenty in the Greater Bay Area, Beijing’s ambitious plan to turn Hong Kong, Macau and nine cities in Guangdong into a high-technology economic powerhouse to rival Silicon Valley in California.
His own CLP will focus on investing in the Greater Bay Area, and will encourage younger Hongkongers to make the most of the potential there while continuing to live in the city.
The larger of Hong Kong’s two electricity suppliers, CLP has interests in nuclear plants in Yangjiang and Daya Bay in Guangdong province, as well as wind and solar projects.
It intends to invest more in battery storage facilities for solar and wind power, nuclear power and clean fuel hydrogen in the bay area, Michael Kadoorie said.
The company also has a key part to play in Hong Kong’s decarbonisation plan, with Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor setting 2050 as the target for achieving carbon neutrality, a decade earlier than China.
While Lam is due to reveal her detailed plans in the middle of this year, CLP and the other electricity supplier – Hong Kong Electric – must work with the government to meet the decarbonisation targets.
Michael Kadoorie said he hoped CLP and the government would be able to work out some of the details involved. With no estimates yet on what it would cost, he said the government needed to strike a balance between affordability and meeting targets.
“It takes two to tango,” he said.
