I was puzzled by the column from Danny Gittings headlined, 'Property is king despite cyber-talk', which appeared in the South China Morning Post, on June 23.
If I understood him correctly he is saying that one of Hong Kong's leading property developers should voluntarily abstain from property development by taking no part in auctions or land tenders, just because that developer made a general comment, with the best of intentions, about Hong Kong's land prices being too high, thereby affecting the competitiveness of the SAR.
Mr Gittings seems to believe that if Cheung Kong wins a tender it will single-handedly fuel a spiral of high prices in the property market.
It seems to me that it is perfectly all right for Li Ka-shing to express the view, shared by many, that property prices are too high, while at the same time pursuing his business interests in the property market. The US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan expressed a view about share prices being too high, but he did not recommend that the stock exchange should cease trading.
Mr Gittings appears to believe that Cheung Kong cleverly manipulated some of the smartest property dealers in the world by conning them into thinking that it would either not bid or bid low for the Kowloon Tong site.
Out in the real world property developers make their bids primarily on the basis of an assessment of likely returns. The intentions of other bidders are a marginal matter in this process.