NOT SO LONG ago, there was a general consensus that the secret of Hong Kong's free-market success lay in the Government not interfering in matters that should be more properly left to the private sector to resolve.
Admittedly, the heyday of that belief was in the days when Hong Kong was still a British colony. And it has long since ceased to be true of the property market, which has been subject to official meddling for many decades.
But, even after the 1997 handover, the SAR administration professed strong support for preserving this long-standing policy of non-intervention.
Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa insisted there would be no change, when questioned about it after his first Policy Address. And Chief Secretary for Administration Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, while still financial secretary, made stirring speeches about the dangers of meddling in private-sector matters.
But such rhetoric has not been matched by reality. Instead, recent years have seen a steady erosion of those principles. From its joint venture with Pacific Century CyberWorks to construct a Cyberport in Pokfulam for (now-ailing) hi-tech companies to the pumping of $22.45 billion of taxpayers' money - when land and other related costs are taken in account - into building a Disney theme park on Lantau Island, the Government has begun to get heavily involved in projects in the past left to the private sector.
And the August 1998 share-buying spree, in which the previously non-interventionist Mr Tsang was forced to buy $118 billion in stocks in order to protect the Hong Kong dollar against a speculative attack, initially left the Government as one of the largest shareholders in some of Hong Kong's biggest companies.
Now, the events of recent days have delivered perhaps the final blow to any continuing pretence of adherence to past principles. For Mr Tung has repeatedly shown himself ready to meddle in strictly commercial matters, perhaps to boost his dismal popularity ratings with the public ahead of the widely-anticipated announcement of his decision to run for a second term as Chief Executive.