China | Weekend profile

Hong Kong’s richest man is caught between China and America

Li Ka-shing’s ports on the Panama canal have drawn fire from Donald Trump

Li Ka-shing
Photograph: Getty Images

TO HONG KONGERS, Li Ka-shing is a 97-year-old “Superman”, the tycoon who can turn any crisis into a business opportunity. To pro-Beijing media in the city he is the “Cockroach King”, a traitor who spurns his “patriotic” duties. And Donald Trump seems to consider him an agent of Chinese imperialism: a facilitator for the “soldiers” who are “lovingly, but illegally, operating the Panama Canal”, the American president insists.

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