【Second Opinion】Selling out on Stage (Mark Simon)
在福布斯論壇上,恒隆地產主席陳啟宗指中、西方發展模式不一,中國不適合全面套入西方的制度。
This week at the Hong Kong Convention Centre the FORBES Global CEO conference is underway. The American embarrassment is former Forbes owner Steve Forbes clapping like a trained seal as he shoe shines pro-China CEO's and local Hong Kong tycoons. Hong Kong's shame is actually just hosting the conference.
This is not an intellectual event. If we drank each time a wise point was raised we would die of thirst.
Thus far it has been reported that Hang Lung Chairman Ronnie Chan shared his well known views on freedom, apparently we in Hong Kong have a bit too much of it. A New York Times reporter tweeted out that in another talk mentions of the western press being unfair to China were met with applause. And of course Steve Forbes will host an exclusive private dinner for elites, those who can pay, with Carrie Lam, as guest.
It's like the German-American friendship conference of 1936, except with Chinese food. The ability of the conference to look away is staggering. China would not be upset by anything said at this conference thus far.
Hong Kong locked up the students and is dragging their professors off to jail, but hey, why let any of this get in the way of a sycophants mash up with good food?
Now as an American I am ashamed of Forbes and his band of pirates who sell Asian tycoons on the notion a speaking gig at the conference is magic PR fairy dust that makes their abhorrent views acceptable in polite society.
But for Hong Kong people, the conference is transparency. We get to see Ronnie Chan and his ilk as they are, content to stifle democracy, ignore human, and gloss over hard economic issues. I hope someone plays the video at their kids weddings.