My remarks last week about acting Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen's credentials as a free marketeer stirred a mix of emotions. Some readers saw that, although endorsing Mr Tsang's actions in 1998 in defence of free-market principles, I suggested he may have lost that zest, citing the West Kowloon cultural hub as an example.
One declared that the solution to Hong Kong's 1998 financial crisis would have been for the Monetary Authority to have devised a less vulnerable framework for the Hong Kong dollar peg beforehand. Hindsight is wonderful. However, when faced with a crisis, those in the front line must cope with reality, not just wring their hands in regret at not having anticipated it. In fact, the deficiencies of the framework (which has since been amended) had been far from self-evident; otherwise it would not have taken 15 years for such a crisis to happen.
Another view was that the 1998 stock market intervention was conducted more at the behest of Hong Kong's tycoons - smarting from the erosion of their wealth - than in the interests of preserving fair markets. It is almost impossible to disprove such an allegation to the satisfaction of those intent on believing it, since it seems certain that Hong Kong's business elite did indeed lobby the government to act to arrest the deteriorating situation. However, the government took the action which it judged best for Hong Kong as a whole. Since this also happened to especially please the tycoons, it is predictable that some people should cry foul.
Such suspicions are also fuelled by the fact that, since 1997, business interests have been more firmly embedded in government than ever before (they were already close enough), and certain decisions - such as Cyberport and the cultural hub - and omissions - the stalling on a competition law - have plainly been influenced by the tycoons.
But decisions on economic policy will always sail close to business interests, and so risk generating rumour and suspicion. Some measures - perhaps the majority - will be favourable to business. This does not necessarily make them wrong, or corrupt, even if they do reflect lobbying.
On reflection, the tycoons are perhaps their own worst enemies. They pontificate imperiously on all manner of economic and political matters, often egged on by the media, and with a certain disdain for the public at large. This engenders some antipathy, to the point where there is a danger of anything involving them being seen as a legitimate target for accusations of collusion or favours.