Learned wisdom or playing to the crowd on East-West divide
Ronnie Chan Chichung, the loquacious chairman of Hang Lung Properties, has been treating us to more of his wit and wisdom.
In a column in the Financial Times recently, he wrote that the West should stop preaching to the East. The main reason for this he says is that the Western economic model has failed because of its inherent conflicts of interest and the West has therefore lost its moral authority - so much so that that authority is now on a par with the developing East. After more in this vein the property developer-sage ends by posing the less than earth-shattering question: 'How can we make this new world order better and safer?'
Our first thought is that Chan (left) should stick to developing property. Our second is that he could try building smaller and better buildings, more environmentally friendly and so on. But of course there is a catch - he won't be able to make the billions he's made in the past.
As for pontificating about moral authority, he's a fine one to talk after his experience on the audit committee of Enron Corp when it collapsed wiping out billions of dollars in employee pension benefits. But Chan always likes to have it both ways and plays to galleries in the East and West when it suits.
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