Hong Kong is transforming into an 'international financial centre with Chinese characteristics', Democrat leader Martin Lee Chu-ming has warned.
Mr Lee said government intervention in the markets had sent a dangerous signal to overseas investors.
'You are welcome to these markets of ours only if you buy, but you are not welcome if you sell, particularly selling short in a major way.
'Are we therefore an international financial centre with Chinese characteristics?' he asked on RTHK's Letter to Hong Kong yesterday.
The outspoken legislator also doubted if Tung Chee-hwa would go ahead with the fight against speculators without Beijing approval.
'Can anyone believe C. H. Tung would have dared to approve of this decision without express endorsement from Beijing, nay without having been told to do so?' He cautioned that Hong Kong would follow Malaysia in being shunned by foreign investors.
But Executive Councillor Henry Tang Ying-yen said intervention and subsequent loophole-plugging measures were in the public interest.