On July 1, 1997, Hong Kong was officially returned to the motherland. Dong Chee-hwa, the son of Dong Haoyun, became the first chief executive. But soon, the storm in Southeast Asia blew to Hong Kong, and a financial defense war for Hong Kong began.
In 1997, Soros threw up the Thai baht in Thailand and won a big victory, setting back the economy of Southeast Asia overnight for several years. Soros then set his sights on Hong Kong, the international financial center.
Since the second half of 1997, the international financial giants led by Soros have begun to lay out, and they have simultaneously started to work on Hong Kong's foreign exchange market and stock market and futures index, they bought a large number of 3-month and 6-month Hong Kong dollar futures, and then quickly sold short, forcing Hong Kong to raise interest rates. Ultimately their aim is to profit from the futures market.
In addition, in the early 90s, the British continued to build a lot of construction in Hong Kong, making Hong Kong's economy overheat, and before 97, the property market and the stock market reached a very high position.
At that time, Hong Kong adopted a linked exchange rate system, which is where Soros saw the starting point. Soros in Thailand caught the whole loophole and successfully defeated Thailand. The linked exchange rate is to pegge the Hong Kong dollar to the US dollar and keep the exchange rate unchanged.
In Soros, Thailand, a large number of short-selling Thai baht, which eventually forced Thailand to abandon the linked exchange rate, thus earning a huge price difference. However, Hong Kong is not Thailand, hong Kong's foreign exchange reserves at that time were the third largest in the world, second only to Japan and Chinese mainland. Hong Kong has the strength to fight Soros, but the problem is that Hong Kong has always pursued a free economic strategy and never intervened in the market.
At that time, Soros made three consecutive shocks and won a big victory in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority had no choice but to keep raising interest rates, which led to a sharp drop in the stock market. Soros also said that the market was profitable.
On August 5, 1998, the decisive battle quietly began. On this day, Soros and others threw more than 20 billion Hong Kong dollars in one day. After gaining beijing's support, Tung Chee-hwa decided to carry out a rescue operation and fight a decisive battle with Soros and others. Hong Kong used its foreign exchange reserves to absorb them wholesale and maintain bank interest rates at a small rising level.
A day later, Soros did not hesitate to sell more than 20 billion Hong Kong dollars again, and this time Hong Kong continued to take it all. Soros had no plan for a moment. However, soros soon made a comeback, and by the 7th, most of the blue-chip stocks released interim results, and the results were not satisfactory, so Soros seized the opportunity and began to short the stock market, causing the stock market to fall sharply. The Hang Seng Index tumbled 3%.
In the following days, Soros kept selling Hong Kong dollars and stocks, and although Hong Kong accepted Hong Kong dollars in general, the Hang Seng Index fell to a low of 6600 points.
On August 14, Hong Kong decided to officially enter the stock market and futures market, and confronted Soros and others against the collapse. Then the two sides continued to come and go, and by the 28th, the real armageddon came. Because this is the August contract settlement date for the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong.
As soon as the market opened, 3.9 billion yuan was traded in 5 minutes, 10 billion yuan was exceeded in half an hour, and by the time the market closed in the morning, the turnover had exceeded 40 billion. Finally, by the end of 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 were defeated.
However, after this battle, Tung Chee-hwa also deeply felt the weakness of Hong Kong's economy and the rarity of talents. Therefore, in 2001, Tung Chee-hwa personally invited Leung Kam-sung, Chairman of JPMorgan Chase & Co., Asia Pacific, to the position of Financial Secretary of Hong Kong. Dong Liang's combination gives Hong Kong hope for transformation.
Leung Kam-song is not only a famous champion in Hong Kong, but also studied under Dong Haoyun. Leung later joined Citibank and became the leader of Citi Hong Kong, after which Citibank invited Leung to the United States as a global vice president. This was the highest position that a Chinese person could hold at the Bank of America 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 that Liang Jinsong must renounce his Chinese citizenship and become a U.S. citizen. Liang Jinsong resolutely refused, saying that he had been Chinese all his life.
After that, Liang Jinsong went to the smaller JPMorgan Chase and received an annual salary of 20 million, 3 million less than Citi. However, after Tung Chee-hwa found Leung Kam-song, he immediately agreed, and the annual salary of the financial secretary was even smaller, only 2.45 million.
But Leung Jinsong did not regret it, saying that everything he had was given by Hong Kong, and he had to come out and do something for Hong Kong. In fact, Liang Jinsong only did a little thing.
As soon as Liang Jinsong came to power, he actively promoted reform. After Leung Kam-song came to power, he actually faced a mess, when Hong Kong's economy was developed, but the foreign strong middle cadres, negative assets and fiscal deficits as high as 70 billion. At the same time, there are also the sequelae left by the financial storm, which also needs to be solved by Liang Jinsong.
Liang Jinsong proposed a number of tricks, the first is to reduce the salary of civil servants, the second is to slash the public budget, and the third is to reform taxes and fees.
Years later, Hong Kong made a "Cold War" in which these things are alluded to everywhere. Li Wenbin's son said that Liu Jiahui was from a financial background, only knew how to cut budgets, make the books look good, and demoralize the frontline personnel. The two sides seem to be competing for a stormtrooper, but in fact they are competing for the position of police commissioner.
If you connect the movie to reality again. The stormtrooper in the movie is the nanny car that Liang Jinsong later purchased in reality, and because of this car, Liang Jinsong, who has excellent political performance, eventually stepped down.
If Liang is Liu, then the Lu behind it is Dong, so who is Li? Naturally, it was. Like Lee in the movie, they were all hawkish characters.
A series of reforms by Leung Kam-song have made Hong Kong's economy begin to pick up. During Leung Kam-song's tenure, from 2001 to 2003, Hong Kong's GDP totaled more than 3 trillion yuan, and the Hong Kong property market also fell steadily, only 97% of 35%, with Tung's 85,000, Cyberport and other plans, Hong Kong's transformation seems to be in sight.
However, Liang Jinsong's reform ultimately involves the interests of many people, especially real estate. The collapse in property prices has rendered the land that developers have hoarded for years worthless, so these people take advantage of the ignorance of ordinary Hong Kong people to attack Leung Kam-song. Those who spent generations of hard work before 97 to buy a house, seeing the fall in house prices, their life's work was ruined, and they stood up.
At this time, Liang Jinsong pushed for the reform of the automobile tax system, and he accidentally made a mistake. Because Fu Mingxia gave birth to a child, Liang Jinsong himself bought a nanny car, and this car was purchased just before the tax reform, and those who had the heart attacked Liang Jinsong for using his power for personal gain and evading taxes.
Mr. Leung kept apologizing and explaining, and donated several times more money to charity, but he still couldn't quell the voices. Apparently someone had to force him to step down.
In "Cold War 2", if Liu Jiahui stepped down, then his backstage landing would have to follow the step, and the characters behind Li Wenbin would also follow the position. In the end, Liu Jiahui won.
Unfortunately, in reality, Liang Jinsong lost. Liang Jinsong was forced to resign. After Zeng came to power, all the reforms were suspended, all returned to the previous appearance, and the Hong Kong property market began to rise steadily, beginning a bull market that lasted for more than a decade. Nowadays, Hong Kong houses are often tens of millions of dollars, and ordinary people simply cannot afford to buy them.
More importantly, after Leung Kam-song stepped down, Hong Kong's economic transformation was suspended, and various favorable plans ultimately failed. Now more than ten years later, Leung Kam-song returned to the business world and became the president of Nan Fung Group, his career is still successful, even more successful than before, but Hong Kong is still Hong Kong, the economy still relies on real estate and finance, and scientific and technological innovation is still almost zero.
Missing Leung Kam-song can be said to be the biggest regret in Hong Kong.