Word: li
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...second day of the new year, and Ronald Li, reputed to be the third richest man in Hong Kong, was still sleeping, when four officers of the government's special anticorruption unit suddenly turned up at his home on the colony's fashionable Shouson Hill. After rousing Li, the former chairman of the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong, the officers thoroughly searched his luxurious three-story house. Then they led away the 58-year-old billionaire, who had hurriedly donned a turtleneck sweater and sports jacket. At the same time, other government squads were arresting two of Li's closest...
...arrests created an instant sensation in the highly charged financial community of Hong Kong. Not only did the authorities collar one of the colony's most celebrated tycoons, they also added fuel to the controversy that has engulfed the Hong Kong Stock Exchange ever since Li shut it down for four days during the global financial crash last October. At a stormy news ! conference held when trading resumed, the contentious Li argued that he had given investors a chance to calm down. But his action had the opposite effect: it created a pent-up pressure to sell. After the exchange...
...suspected that the exchange was closed in a desperate effort to minimize members' losses. If that is true, the strategy did not work. Had the government not jumped in with $512 million in emergency loans, 39 of the 250 stock-index futures dealers might have failed. A brokerage that Li controlled took a terrible beating during the crash. As stock values plummeted, Li's personal fortune, estimated at $2 billion, may have dropped to $1.3 billion...
Nowhere did the chaos of Black Monday strike harder than in the tiny Asian entrepot. When the Hang Seng index dived 11% within hours on that day, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange simply vaporized, and Exchange Chairman Ronald Li closed it down for four days. When trading reopened last Monday, the value of shares plummeted an additional 33%, to about $50 billion, wiping out a year's gains. "This is not a stock market," said a furious Hong Kong local moneyman. "This is a poorly run casino...
Nepotism looms especially large as China prepares to name a new generation of leaders. Those moving up on the fast track include Li Tieying, 50, a likely Politburo member whose father was a Communist Party founder, and Ye Xuanping, 62, the governor of Guangdong province and son of the late Marshal Ye Jianying. Their defenders argue that such leaders should not be barred from advancement merely because they happen to be well connected. "An unqualified person should not be appointed simply because his father is a high official," says Tianjin Mayor Li Ruihuan. "Nor should one be denied promotion simply...