Almost a year ago, HSBC made a very important decision. After much speculation, the board announced last February it had opted not to shift its headquarters back to Hong Kong from London.
The Asia-focused bank also revealed it was ending the practice of reviewing the location for its headquarters every three years. In other words, the decision was final.
Listed among its reasons was the United Kingdom's "internationally respected regulatory framework and legal system."
Not mentioned were the doubts surrounding Hong Kong's own legal system and its autonomy under the "One Country, Two Systems" framework. This framework had been put in place when Britain handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997 and was meant to ensure the former colony could run its own affairs for at least the next fifty years.
However, between October and December, 2015, in the months leading up to the HSBC board decision, five booksellers went missing. Two of them carried foreign passports and they were all linked to a well-known publisher of political gossip books banned in China. Their bizarre disappearance and re-emergence on the mainland, in the custody of Chinese authorities, sent alarm bells ringing in board rooms and government departments around the world.
Was Hong Kong safe any more? Who was really in control?
Those alarm bells have been set off again this week by the mystery surrounding the whereabouts of Chinese-born billionaire Xiao Jianhua. It started with a report on New York-based website Mingjing News, which said that an unnamed billionaire had been detained by mainland security officers on Friday night, the eve of Chinese New Year, when everything was shut down.
Mr Xiao's Tomorrow Group then issued two statements on the social media platform, We Chat, which have since been removed. They were reportedly written by Mr Xiao, who claims to be a Canadian citizen and a permanent resident of Hong Kong, and said he was "undergoing medical treatment overseas." "It's not true that I've been abducted and taken back to the mainland," one of the statements said. "All is good."
This was reiterated in a full-page advertisement in the Chinese language Ming Pao newspaper in Hong Kong on Wednesday. At the same time, both The Financial Times and the New York Times, citing unnamed sources close to the investigation, said Mr Xiao was indeed being held on the mainland after being taken from his apartment at the Four Seasons Hotel in Hong Kong and spirited across the border.
Shut down
China's censors, meanwhile, did their best to shut down the story. Instructions from the propaganda department were given to all media, including platforms such as We Chat and Weibo, to "find and delete information on the Tomorrow Group and Xiao Jianhua," according to an American-based web site China Digital Times, which regularly reports on censorship in China.
Mr Xiao's Tomorrow Group invests across the real estate, coal mining and insurance sectors. The billionaire is a financier who has been linked to Beijing's top leaders including the family of Xi Jinping and is worth US$6 billion, according to the Hurun Rich List. He may be assisting with a corruption investigation and like in the case of Fosun International Chairman Guo Guangchang in December 2015, emerge a free man, after a brief but puzzling disappearance. The booksellers were less fortunate. Gui Minhai remains in custody, while his four associates were held for months on the mainland before being released.
Whatever happens, concerns about the extent of Beijing's control over Hong Kong and the ability of its security authorities to act freely within the city have been raised yet again. No doubt cases like this will factor into management decisions on whether to base staff and operations in the city. Hong Kong's appeal as a financial centre, close to China but operating under the rule-of-law, has been further tarnished.
