The most significant event in the global capital markets of 1994 was the collapse of the Mexican peso, which triggered a financial tsunami that engulfed all of South America. In fact, it was also in 1994 that there was another financial event that profoundly changed the world pattern for the next two decades.

On New Year's Day in 1994, the Chinese-People's Bank of China officially launched a new round of exchange rate reform, and the dual-track exchange rate, which had been implemented for more than 10 years, the official exchange rate of RMB and the foreign exchange adjustment price, began to be officially unified on this day.

After the merger, the new official exchange rate of the renminbi against the US dollar will be implemented according to the adjustment rate of the previous day. In other words, the renminbi jumped from 5.7 to 8.72 against the US dollar all of a sudden, which is equivalent to a rigid depreciation of 33%. Since then, China, the country with the world's largest population, has embarked on a journey to become the "world's factory".

In the analysis and study of the Asian financial crisis by many economists in later generations, the rapid depreciation of the renminbi from 1991 to 1994 was regarded as one of the important factors that triggered the Asian financial crisis.

A country of 1.2 billion people is transitioning to an export-led economy through rapid currency devaluation. The huge competitive advantage brought by its own huge size is simply incomparable to Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and other small Southeast Asian countries.

A large amount of international capital that was originally planning to build new factories in Southeast Asia has been attracted by China, a new and huge value depression, and has turned north. The only remaining international capital is those who want to speculate in the short term, but because of China's strict capital controls, they have no way to enter the international capital.

Hong Kong, which is only across the river from the mainland, is also clearly feeling the competitive pressure brought about by the depreciation of the renminbi, and more and more Hong Kong electronics companies are beginning to consider moving to the mainland, where production costs are lower. And this trend became even more unstoppable after Batumi announced its dissolution on April 1.

The full name of Batumi is called the "Paris Coordinating Committee", which is a review organization established by the United States in 1949 in order to impose technical restrictions and trade embargoes on socialist countries, and many Western countries. With the drastic changes in Eastern Europe and the collapse of the Soviet-Union Union, the main mission of Batumi also came to an end.

Although the dissolution of Batumi does not mean that the restrictions on China in Europe and the United States have completely disappeared, at least they have been greatly relaxed compared to before. For example, the latest model of the ERM series processor of the Oriental Research Institute was originally unable to enter the Chinese market under the restrictions of Batumi.

This resulted in a large number of the latest models of personal computers, which could not be assembled in factories within China. The foundry responsible for assembling the computers for iKang can only place these orders in a local factory in Hong Kong.

It is important to know that the wage level in Hong Kong is much higher than that in the mainland, and if the business can be transferred to the factories in the mainland, it can undoubtedly greatly reduce the operating costs of these OEM enterprises. Therefore, in the next three to five years, Hong Kong's electronics industry will gradually shift to the mainland, where production costs are lower, just like the textile, clothing, and toy industries ten years ago.

Fortunately, a new round of industrial transfer has just begun, and Hong Kong still has a window period of about five to eight years to cultivate new core industries and carry out the upgrading and transformation of the economic structure. However, most ordinary Hong Kong people obviously don't pay attention to such a high-level proposition as the industrial pattern.

This year, the most hotly discussed question is where to choose to buy a house!

In another time and space, the Hong Kong property market has ushered in a six-year crazy wave since 1992. It wasn't until Soros attacked the Hong Kong dollar in 98 that the bubble in Hong Kong's property market burst all at once.

At this time and space, because of the appearance of Li Xuan, Hong Kong's economic data in all aspects is better than before, and it stands to reason that property prices should rise even more. However, this is not the case, and in another time and space, Hong Kong's property prices soared in the 90s, on the one hand, because the relevant documents signed by China and the UK limited the annual land supply during the transition period, which to some extent led to an imbalance between supply and demand.

On the other hand, the Asian economy gave birth to the "Asian Tigers" in the 70s, and the "Asian Tigers" began to appear in the 80s, and their excellent performance attracted a large amount of international capital. As one of the most important financial centers in Asia, Hong Kong has been flooded with foreign capital throughout the 90s.

The entry of these international capitals into the stock market and property market has rapidly pushed up the overall asset price level in Hong Kong. Therefore, in another time and space, even if the last Hong Kong Governor Chris Patten continued to make trouble, the entire political climate of Hong Kong before the handover was clouded, and it failed to cause economic turmoil in Hong Kong as it did in the 80s.

Now, the last governor of Hong Kong, with the active intervention of Li Xuan, has changed from the hawkish Patten to the dovish Mak Ruobin. Diplomat-turned-Mak is not as ambitious as Patten, who wants to use Hong Kong as a platform to accumulate political capital for himself to return to London, and his biggest idea is to achieve a smooth transition of power in Hong Kong.

British Prime Minister John Major in London, although he led the Conservative Party to win the 92 British general election with difficulty, thus retaining his ruling position. However, many key Conservative Party members or cabinet members, including his friend and Conservative Party Chairman Chris Patten, failed to retain their seats in the election, thus automatically losing their qualifications for the cabinet, which was a big blow to Major.

The huge disagreements within the Conservative Party over European affairs and whether to negotiate with the IRA have made Major's position as party leader even more shaky, so he has no time to care about Hong Kong affairs in far Asia.

Of course, in order to get London to acquiesce to Governor Mak Ruobin's series of propositions conducive to Hong Kong's development and smooth transition, Li Xuan also paid a lot of price to exchange interests.

For example, after a series of transfers of the shares of Aikang held by the opponent, the shareholding of Oriental Holdings has dropped to only 17.5%, which is the only company with a shareholding of less than 25% among all listed companies under the Oriental Group.

Although Oriental Holdings is still the largest shareholder of Aikang, with the addition of new directors and the change of management, Li Xuan's influence on Aikang has greatly declined. Of course, it is not easy for Aikang to completely break away from the Oriental Group system, after all, from the very beginning, including R&D, production, marketing and other aspects of the whole process, it has been deeply integrated with other enterprises of the Oriental Group.

For example, Aikang's first major business, the ABC series of personal computers, whether it is the core processor or the operating system, needs to be provided by other companies in the Eastern Group. What's more, Aikang's global marketing system is realized by relying on the global distribution network of Oriental Commercial Company.

However, since the listing of Aikang, there has always been a voice from both external shareholders and internal management to obtain greater and more independent development authority. Therefore, in recent years, Aikang has gradually established its own independent R&D and sales system, trying to reduce the control of the Eastern Group.

Although Li Xuan felt a little sorry for the Aikang Company, which had begun to drift away, it was actually very worthwhile if he could use it in exchange for control of Hong Kong! After all, Aikang was not the only computer brand in the Oriental system chain, whether it was Lianxiang in China, Hongji in Taiwan, or Lu's in Hong Kong, if Li Xuan made up his mind to support it, he might not be able to replace Aikang.

As one of the most famous enterprises in the Oriental Group, Aikang's parting of ways with the Oriental Group will also give the outside world a misjudgment that the Eastern Group is beginning to decline, which is conducive to Li Xuan's next Taoguang cultivation.

Speaking of Hong Kong's property market, soon after Mak Ruobin became the Governor of Hong Kong in July 92, he immediately put forward a plan for the large-scale development of the New Territories, preparing to spend 10 to 15 years in the western and northern parts of the New Territories to build a new industrial city capable of accommodating 2 million people, making it an economic sub-center in Hong Kong second only to the core area of Hong Kong and Kowloon, and driving the development of the whole Hong Kong through the pattern of flying with two wings.

Because this is a large-scale cross-97 plan, Mak also announced that a deputy governor will be set up from 94 years onwards, and the chief executive will be selected to perform this characteristic post after Hong Kong's return to the motherland.

Mr Tung, the first and last Vice-Governor of Hong Kong, took office on 1 July 1994. In the next three years of his tenure, the promotion of the New Territories Development Plan was one of the most important tasks of the Vice-Governor Tung.

And since Mak Ruobin proposed the New Territories development plan, housing prices in the entire New Territories have begun to rise sharply. To facilitate access to the new airport in the outlying islands of the future New Territories New Town, the New Territories development plan also includes the construction of a seaside bridge connecting Tuen Mun to Lantau Island.

As a result of this major positive news, house prices in Tuen Mun have risen by 25% in less than two years. As the centre of the western New Territories, property prices in Yuen Long have also soared by 20%. It is important to know that the development level of the New Territories West is far behind the development of Hong Kong's city center, but in recent years it has been soaring, with a large number of new properties being listed every year.

According to the normal theory of supply and demand, when there is a large increase in supply, it usually leads to a fall in prices. Therefore, Hong Kong's real estate developers usually have a certain tacit understanding for many years, and they will not rush to smash the market, so that the price plummets and everyone will not make any money.

But in the western New Territories, Li Xuan privately directly made a commitment to several major real estate companies in Hong Kong, and he set up a real estate investment fund to cover the new properties of major real estate developers to ensure that everyone can quickly return funds with reasonable profits.

Therefore, in the face of this situation of making money without losing money, the major real estate developers are naturally speeding up and constantly listing new real estate! However, it is in this situation that the supply of new houses is very sufficient, and the housing prices in the entire New Territories have still risen considerably.

In particular, Fanling, a new town in the northern New Territories, has not been very popular since it was gradually developed in the late 70s because it was too far away from Kowloon and the supporting facilities were too poor in all aspects. But since last year, when a number of new real estate projects were released, there were long queues.

With a large number of investors looking to the New Territories, the central city of Hong Kong and Kowloon, which usually leads the rise in Hong Kong's property market, has begun to see more and more older and smaller units, and no one cares about them.

After all, the total amount of funds in the entire Hong Kong property market is limited in a short period of time, but when most of the funds go to chase the New Territories property market, which represents the future of Hong Kong, housing prices in the central city of Hong Kong and Kowloon stagnate or even fall, which is a normal thing!

If 10 years ago, most Hong Kong people were afraid of the handover, now at least seven or eight out of 10 Hong Kongers are full of unrealistic illusions about the handover. For example, there is a very popular view in Hong Kong that free Hong Kong is the paradise that the rich in the mainland yearn for.

There are more than 1.3 billion people in the mainland, and even if only one thousandth of the wealthy strata pour into Hong Kong, they will be able to hold up Hong Kong's housing prices to the sky! Therefore, many Hong Kong people have the illusion that after the return to the motherland, a large number of wealthy people from the mainland will come to Hong Kong to take over the market, and even if they are burdened with huge debts, they will be the first to buy a house, and they will be able to make a lot of money as soon as they sell after the return to the motherland!

It is the crazy speculative atmosphere in the local area, and the influx of more and more international tourists into Hong Kong after the end of the US dollar interest rate hike cycle, the superposition of the two has caused the Hong Kong property market in another time and space to start a crazy surge two years before the handover, but it was instantly cut in half due to the Asian financial crisis in '98. After the sharp rise and fall, countless ordinary investors in Hong Kong lost their money, which greatly hurt the potential of Hong Kong's economy!

The best way to combat the rapid rise in property prices is to increase the supply of land. The first thing Vice Governor Dong did after taking office was to sell land in the West and North New Territories frantically, and then use the massive funds from the land sales to quickly promote infrastructure construction in the New Territories.

In addition to the basic three links and one level, parks, hospitals, libraries, schools, sewage treatment plants, and various complete supporting facilities have also been launched. However, the government's efficient action has further made more people bullish on the property market in the New Territories.

In the face of the surging general trend, even Li Xuan did not dare to use his mantis arm as a car. However, because of the back-up agreements with major real estate developers, Li Xuan has swept more than 21,000 units in Tuen Mun, Yuen Long, Tai Po, Fanling and other places in recent years, with a total area of more than 13 million square feet.

With the continuous rise in housing prices in the New Territories, by the middle of 95, the market value of these residences held by Li Xuan had risen by 90%, bringing Li Xuan a floating profit of more than 12 billion Hong Kong dollars.

Beginning in July '95, as Hong Kong's property market entered the craziest stage before the handover, Liu Xuan began to sell off all his residences rapidly at a rate of 1,500 units per month! Although Li Xuan's sell-off suddenly increased the supply of the second-hand housing market by 10 percent, this only slowed down the momentum of the rise in the property market in the New Territories.

By the time Li Xuan completely emptied all 21,000 homes in '96, Hong Kong's housing prices had risen by 30% in just over a year, and his real estate fund had finally made a staggering 13.5 billion Hong Kong dollars.