Jake's View | Li Keqiang well advised to keep foreign wise men at bay

Beijing has for the first time established an advisory council of multinational heavyweights to help the leadership keep a finger on the pulse of major corporations in vital industries.

I remember when Tung Chee-hwa did this as Hong Kong's first chief executive not too long after taking office. It was his big idea for gathering big thoughts on Hong Kong. He wouldn't otherwise have had many, I gather.

I can't remember who all these people were as, aside from Rupert Murdoch, they were mostly pretty forgettable. But they all came and sat down at a big table and agreed that water is wet, the pope is a Catholic and the sun rises in the East. Oh, and sets in the West, too.

Then they all went home again and the local wolf pack (reptiles, scandal-mongering journalists, call them what you will) zeroed in on the cost to the public purse of the first-class air tickets to fly them here. It's a matter dear to journalist hearts - corporate chieftains wallow in luxury while journalism is at best a waystop en route to the poorhouse.

Ah-Tung said he would do it again, but I don't think he ever did or, if he did, no one took any notice. We got that one right.

Premier Li Keqiang will get no more from his own advisory council. A troop of businessmen from Europe and America will troop in, most of them top businessmen in their enterprises only in the sense that Britain's Queen Elizabeth is the top in hers.