Last week may have spelled the end of Hong Kong's traditional 'behind-the-scenes' deals between business and government.
The normally low-key Michael Kadoorie, chairman of the CLP Power company, stunned the city in a confrontational speech about the cost of electricity. Bills, he said, would be 'materially' higher in the next three years on the back of an expected 40 per cent increase in costs - costs, he intimated, that would be passed on to consumers.
The warning about higher bills was surprising enough. But more so was the unexpectedly blunt way the usually modest and courteous Kadoorie openly blasted the government for its dithering on policy issues and his warning that the new administration should refrain from meddling in the energy sector. Incoming chief executive Leung Chun-ying has made his views clear that his government will play a 'proactive' role in the market when needed.
Taking a broader view, Kadoorie's unusual outburst may also signal an end of the long-held political culture of 'behind the door' dealings between government and business. But if this is to be a new era of transparency, Leung and his team will be dealt the hot potato of trying to strike a better balance between the public interest and that of business.
Leo Goodstadt, a key political adviser to Hong Kong's last governor, Chris Patten, best described the relationship between business and government in Hong Kong as 'uneasy partners' in his insightful work of the same title published in 2005.
The foundations of British rule in Hong Kong, according to Goodstadt, were 'built on an alliance between the colonialism and the capitalism until almost the very end of the colonial era'. It was well understood that that was one major reason for the British to select many of the community's representatives to the government advisory bodies.