---

英國經濟權威的金融時報爆料，中國公司今年向外募資了6470億美元，佔亞洲美金總募資
額的75%，而且絕大多數是透過香港的金融市場進行。

如果香港金融市場因為中國解放軍介入香港而崩潰，可能造成中國企業資金短缺，跟香港
一起崩潰。

底下是金融時報的原文及翻譯:
Hong Kong: what next for China’s halfway house?

作為中國與國際社會接軌的中途之家(*註1)，香港的未來?

註1:中途之家是罪犯離開監獄融入法治社會待的地方，暗喻中國仍未融入法治社會


Any military intervention by Beijing would threaten the role the city plays in
 opening China’s economy to the world

北京只要對香港採取任何軍事干預，都會危及香港作為中國對國際開放經貿的中介腳色


Don Weinland, Joseph Leahy and Henny Sender in Hong Kong AUGUST 3, 2019

Don Weinland、Joseph Leahy及Henny Sender，在香港 2019/8/3


As Hong Kong police clashed with protesters last Sunday, firing tear gas and r
ubber bullets into a crowd in the central business district, chief executive C
arrie Lam was at a very different event across the city. She was guest of hono
ur at a youth summer camp organised by China’s People’s Liberation Army.




Ms Lam’s host was Major General Chen Daoxiang, a senior Chinese officer in Ho
ng Kong who used another public event on Wednesday — the celebration of the 9
2nd anniversary of the creation of the PLA — to deliver a clear message: the
world’s largest army was prepared to put down the protest movement in the cit
y should China’s President Xi Jinping give the order.




“Violent protests” were “absolutely impermissible”, he said. At the same t
ime, the PLA released a video showing his men engaging in riot prevention and
anti-terrorist training.

「暴力抗爭是絕對不被允許的」陳道祥說道。同時，人民解放軍也在網路上放上影片，展
示解放軍應對暴力衝突的預防舉措，以及反恐訓練。


The comments have raised what once would have seemed an unthinkable spectre: t
hat the city could face its own version of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown
 on pro-democracy supporters in Beijing.

越來越多的評論指出，香港的命運可能正朝過去從未預料到的結局邁進：香港可能面對如
同1989年天安門事變，解放軍在北京鎮壓支持民主的群眾。


Hong Kong, however, is very much not Beijing. Ever since China began its econo
mic reforms in the late 1970s — and especially since the handover when it was
 returned by the UK to Chinese control — Hong Kong has been a vital conduit t
o the rest of the world.




China’s acceptance of the “one country, two systems” formula, by which Chin
a guaranteed Hong Kong 50 years of political and legal autonomy after the 1997
 handover, has been an important part of its claim to be a reliable internatio
nal partner. It is central to Beijing’s aspirations to eventually take back c
ontrol over Taiwan, which it regards as a renegade province.




Hong Kong has provided a forum to bring together businesses and investors from
 very different systems who might not otherwise trust each other. For wealthy
Chinese with worries about political events at home, it has also been an essen
tial bolt-hole.




Military intervention — even if that is still just a vague threat — would sh
atter the essential role Hong Kong has played as a business and investment hal
fway house.

然而，如果中國真的動用軍事力量介入香港，即使只是模糊地威脅，都將摧毀香港到目前
為止作為對中國進行商業與投資的中途之家的重要角色。


“If China wants to mix with the outside world, it needs Hong Kong to do that
because capital cannot move freely outside of China,” says Terence Chong, the
 executive director of the Lau Chor Tak Institute of Global Economics and Fina
nce at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. “You still don’t have an alterna
tive.”




Yet despite the economic and political risks, some sort of crackdown remains p
ossible — both because of the reluctance of Chinese president Xi Jinping to b
e seen backing down in the face of protesters, and because it is not clear wha
t concessions would be necessary to end the demonstrations.




The protest movement that started as opposition to an extradition bill to allo
w Hong Kong to send criminal suspects to China for trial has turned into a pop
ular revolt. Even though Ms Lam has shelved the bill, the protesters have expa
nded their demands to include direct elections for the chief executive and the
 Hong Kong legislature.




As the protesters have dug in, the government has taken an increasingly hardli
ne approach. This week, it charged 44 people arrested over the weekend with ri
oting, which carries sentences of up to 10 years in prison. Meanwhile, police
have yet to charge the gangs filmed attacking protesters and passers-by while
they were returning home on the city’s commuter railway in the outlying distr
ict of Yuen Long earlier in July.




There is no sign of the movement losing steam. Civil servants were the latest
group to join in, holding their own demonstration on Friday. This has put the
onus back on Beijing to either offer a compromise, to calm the situation, or t
o escalate it.




“It looks like a vicious cycle and whatever silver lining there might be has
to come from Beijing,” says Willy Lam, a China expert at the Chinese Universi
ty of Hong Kong. “But we don’t see Xi Jinping adopting conciliatory measures
 because he is an arch-conservative and he likes to show a tough guy image.”




As Beijing weighs its options, the headline figures suggest that Hong Kong has
 become less important. When the UK handed back control in 1997, the Hong Kong
 economy was equivalent to 18 per cent of the mainland’s gross domestic produ
ct. Now it accounts for less than 3 per cent of China’s economy.




But those numbers disguise the role that the city still plays. In order to rai
se funding in US dollars, Chinese companies lean heavily on Hong Kong’s finan
cial markets — markets which are rooted in the city’s independent legal syst
em based on English Common Law.

但這些數字並沒有真實地呈現香港在中國市場扮演的角色。中國公司為了籌集美元資金，
仍嚴重依賴香港的金融市場─香港金融市場仍是遵循英國普通法的獨立法律體系。


Without the legal framework, China’s legion of state and privately owned comp
anies could struggle to continue to raise war chests of US dollars in the city
, while Hong Kong’s status as a safe base for those companies to invest overs
eas could also be threatened.

如果香港沒有獨立的法律框架，中國的國有企業和私營公司都很難繼續在香港募資美元作
為商業戰的資金，而香港作為這些公司在海外投資的安全基地的地位也可能受到威脅。


“I do not see an entirely open capital account, as we know it, being adopted
any time soon on the mainland of China,” says Joseph Yam, former chief execut
ive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the city’s de facto central bank.

香港金融管理局（香港中央銀行）前總裁任志剛（Joseph Yam）表示，「我認為，正如我
們所知，我看不到中國內地可以很快地採用完全開放的資本流通帳戶。」


Hong Kong’s capital markets are now dominated by Chinese corporations, which
accounted for 91 per cent of the $9.4bn raised in initial public offerings thi
s year in the city. In debt capital markets, Chinese companies have borrowed $
647bn in US dollar fundraising, or 75 per cent of all US dollars raised in Asi
a this year. Most of those debt deals are launched in Hong Kong.




There are other signs, however, that Hong Kong’s economic importance is fadin
g. The territory remains dependent on its oligopolistic and overpriced propert
y sector, in which supply is tightly controlled, even as neighbouring Shenzhen
, home to technology giants such as Tencent, has surged ahead to become China
’s Silicon Valley.




Some business leaders believe that the equity markets in Shenzhen and Shanghai
 are realistic contenders to replace Hong Kong as Asia’s top financial centre
 In 2017, before markets became spooked by the trade friction between the US
and China, Hong Kong was only third largest in the world by funds raised in IP
Os — Shanghai and New York were ahead by value.




“In the past there was a long way for Shanghai to catch up. Now [China is in]
 a position to, attract back, and list A-shares,” Laura Cha, chairman of the
Hong Kong exchange concedes, referring to shares listed in the mainland. “Hon
g Kong cannot be complacent.”




The battle between protesters and the government is already hurting Hong Kong
’s economy. Iris Pang, an economist at Dutch bank ING, has lowered her outloo
k for GDP growth for the year from 1.8 per cent to 1 per cent.

示威抗議者與香港政府之間的纏鬥已經傷害了香港的經濟。荷蘭銀行ING的經濟學家Iris
Pang將香港今年GDP的增長前景從1.8％下調至1％。


“The independent legal jurisdiction of Hong Kong is what Hong Kong needs, and
 it’s what China needs,” Ms Pang says. “China will not destroy this aspect
of Hong Kong any time soon.”

「香港獨立的法律管轄權是香港所需要的，也是中國需要的，」Iris Pang說。 「相信中
國不會想要在近期破壞香港這方面的獨立性。 」


As political and economic pressure builds, rifts are starting to appear even a
mong Hong Kong’s tycoon class — which, since the handover, has tended to tak
e Beijing’s side.á

隨著政治和經濟壓力不斷地增加，香港富豪們針對反送中的態度也出現了分歧─自回歸以
來，香港的富豪們多傾向於跟北京站在同一邊。餸


David Li, executive chairman of the city’s last family-owned lender Bank of E
ast Asia, told local media in July that he supported an independent investigat
ion into the actions of the police. In stark contrast, 82-year-old Tung Chee-h
wa, another tycoon and the first chief executive of Hong Kong following the ha
ndover, said on Wednesday foreign forces such as the US and Taiwan had helped
organise the protests. It is a claim often repeated by officials in Beijing.





Business groups and some of the city’s financial bodies are pushing the gover
nment to compromise. The normally conservative Hong Kong General Chamber of Co
mmerce called for the extradition bill to be completely withdrawn, ministers t
o be made accountable for the mishandling of the protests, and an independent
commission of inquiry to probe “the root of the tensions”.




James Tien of the city’s pro-establishment Liberal party, says he believes ju
st the withdrawal of the bill and an inquiry might be enough to satisfy some m
embers of the movement. “If these two issues were addressed, the majority of
people would cool down.” he says.

香港自由黨的James Tien表示，他相信該法案的撤回和調查可能足以滿足反送中運動的一
些成員。「如果這兩個問題得到解決，大多數人都會冷靜下來。」，他說。


Analysts say the rising economic pressures on China, from slowing growth to th
e trade war, mean that Beijing will seek to avoid the nuclear option of a mili
tary intervention in Hong Kong, instead opting for a war of attrition. This wa
s the strategy the government used during the wave of pro-democracy protests i
n 2014, which eventually petered out as the public tired of disruption.




Whatever the outcome, some senior business figures are hoping Hong Kong can mu
ster the same resilience it brought to past crises. “Over the years it has fa
ced a number of difficult circumstances, like the SARS[flu] crisis, Occupy Cen
tral and the global financial crisis,” says Jos Vi鎙ls, chairman at Standard
 Chartered. “And Hong Kong has always survived those crises and come back to
what it knows how to do.”

無論香港最終的命運如何，一些資深的商界人士都希望香港能夠如同過去面臨危機時，擁
有同樣的彈性。渣打銀行董事長Jos Vi鎙ls表示，「多年來，香港曾面臨過許多困境，
例如SARS危機，佔領中環和全球金融危機。」，「香港一直從危機中再度站起，並回到它
知道如何做的事情上。」


原文網址：

https://www.ft.com/content/3c0860a0-b506-11e9-bec9-fdcab53d6959


--
--
※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc), 來自: 223.137.142.231 (臺灣)
※ 文章代碼(AID): #1THiKmE2 (Gossiping)
※ 文章網址: https://www.ptt.cc/bbs/Gossiping/M.1564919088.A.382.html