"Secretary Zhou, look at the garden villa on the left, which is the Yunfeng Residence, the residence of HSBC Taipanpu Weishi. This house has just been sold to Kazuo Wada, the chairman of Japan's Yaohan Company, for 85 million Hong Kong dollars! And this rainbow residence of the God of Wealth Li covers an area larger than Yunfeng Residence, and the valuation given by the outside world is more than 100 million Hong Kong dollars!"

While waiting for the doorman to open the door, Secretary Zhou Nan, who was sitting in the passenger seat, pointed to a bungalow hidden in the shade of the trees not far from the left, and whispered to his leader. Zhou Nan has just been transferred from his post as vice minister of foreign affairs to Hong Kong to take up the post of director of the Xinhua branch.

Although he was the head of the Chinese negotiating delegation when he was working in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he personally witnessed the whole process of the confrontation between China and Britain over the issue of Hong Kong's return to the motherland, Zhou Nan himself had not been in Hong Kong before. This time, he was sent by the central government to serve as a firefighter, and he did not have time to familiarize himself with many situations in Hong Kong.

In addition to serving as the president of the Xinhua Branch, Zhou Nan also served as the secretary of the Hong Kong-Macao Working Committee, which is why his secretary called him Secretary Zhou.

Zhou Nan listened to his secretary introduce the details of Hong Kong's customs and customs, and at the same time thought about various questions in his mind. HSBC has a very special place in Hong Kong's history. HSBC's Taipan is known as the Czar of the Underground and rules Hong Kong alongside the Viceroy appointed by the Queen of England.

Now, HSBC has begun to plan for a retreat, and the sale of the property by Pvis is a clear signal. During his visit to Beijing last year, he said he was confident in Hong Kong's future, but he also euphemistically expressed HSBC's willingness to fade out of Hong Kong.

At that time, some people within the central government expressed opposition, believing that HSBC's influence in Hong Kong was too great, and its retreat was likely to cause a new round of panic in Hong Kong society, just as Jardine Matheson Group had moved its registered company out of Hong Kong.

But it is precisely because HSBC's influence in Hong Kong is so great that the central leadership, after careful consideration, still believes that its departure will have more advantages than disadvantages. Otherwise, HSBC, which has always played the role of the central bank of the Hong Kong government, even has the ability to hollow out Hong Kong's financial power, which is very unfavorable to the work of the new SAR government after the handover.

HSBC's strategic contraction in Hong Kong also heralds the beginning of the waning of British influence in Hong Kong. But Hong Kong's problems are not so simple, and the British will certainly not easily throw in the towel. In the spirit of not being able to get it yourself anyway, and not wanting you to get it, the British will definitely start to make trouble desperately in the last few years before Hong Kong's return to the motherland, which can be seen from the previous Rose Garden plan.

In addition to the secret wrestling between China and the UK, local voices in Hong Kong are becoming more and more difficult to ignore. The most important representative of this is Li Xuan, the neighbor of HSBC Taipanpo Weis, the boss of the Oriental Group. This "God of Wealth Lee" is known by Hong Kongers as the new generation of Hong Kong's underground czar who succeeded HSBC Taipan.

The addresses of the two tsars, as if discussed in advance, chose the highest peak in Hong Kong - the Gefu Mountain Road at the top of Victoria Peak. Zhou Nan doesn't know if there is a metaphor for "being at the top" and wanting to trample on this Hong Kong.

For Li Xuan, Zhou Nan is actually no stranger. As early as the beginning of the Sino-British negotiations, he had studied this person. The "God of Wealth" and his Eastern Bloc have been ambiguous in their political attitudes over the years. To say that his investment in China, especially in the deep-sea special zone, is very huge, and he should be regarded as a "patriotic businessman", but he has never explicitly expressed any support for the central government in the mainland in public.

According to the information obtained by the relevant departments, Li Xuan provides a lot of political cash to the British Conservative Party and the Labour Party every year, and is also inextricably linked with the Windsor royal family. But to say that this "God of Wealth Lee" is ready to hug the thighs of the British, that is not necessarily true. You must know that in recent years, Li Xuan's Asia Satellite TV has criticized various policies of the Hong Kong authorities.

Therefore, Zhou Nan prefers to define Li Xuan as a ****** who bets on both sides of the world under the sign of representing the public opinion of Hong Kong, which is most in line with the cunning character of the world's most successful businessman.

"President Zhou, welcome to the Humble House!"

As soon as Zhou Nan got out of the car, Li Xuan, who was already standing at the door, smiled and stretched out his right hand. Zhou Nan reflexively stretched out his hand to shake hands with the other party, and there was a look of surprise on his face, as if he didn't expect Li Xuan's Mandarin to be so standard. If you can tell by the accent alone, Zhou Nan doesn't believe that the other party is a Hong Kong person at all.

You must know that not to mention Hong Kong under British rule, even in the mainland of Guangdong Province, the popularity of Cantonese far exceeds that of Mandarin, and it is absolutely rare to find a person among the locals who can speak standard Mandarin without a Cantonese accent.

However, from this small detail, Zhou Nan's attention to Li Xuan suddenly increased by a few points. He doesn't believe that a Hong Kong super-rich man who has deliberately learned Mandarin will have no research on the mainland!

"In addition to expanding our recruitment scale in the mainland, we at the Oriental Group also attract a large number of outstanding talents from Hong Kong and Taiwan every year. In order to allow employees from across the Taiwan Strait and three places to communicate better, Oriental Group actively encourages employees to master Mandarin, Cantonese and English at the same time at the beginning of its establishment!

As the founder of the company, he naturally has to take a good lead for other colleagues!" Li Xuan noticed the surprise that flashed on Zhou Nan's face, so he explained with a smile.

"Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan-Bay and the mainland all belong to the same China, everyone is a family linked by blood, but because of this or that historical reason, there are some estrangements! Li Sheng, your method is very worth advocating, we can only better communicate with each other by first eliminating the language barrier, we very much support that more and more Hong Kong people can learn to speak Mandarin!" Zhou Nan nodded and replied, he at least heard that Li Xuan spoke Mandarin instead of Taiwan-Wan Chinese, and there was still a clear difference in pronunciation between the two.

Li Xuan accompanied the guests into the living room, and when everyone sat down with each other, the Filipino maid immediately began to make tea.

"Li Sheng, before I set off from Beijing to Hong Kong, Chairman Wu Shaozu of the Asian Organizing Committee specially asked me to take him to express my gratitude to you for his generosity, and at the same time, on behalf of the Beijing-Beijing Asian Organizing Committee and the Beijing-Beijing Municipal Government, I invite you and your family to go to the capital to watch the Asian Games in October this year!" Zhou Nan's first sentence after sitting down was to express his gratitude to Li Xuan.

Beijing is about to host the 11th Asian Games this fall, which is the first major international event since the founding of the People's Republic of China, so the whole country is paying great attention. In order to support the capital to host the Asian Games, the people of the whole country have donated generously, and Li Xuan also donated 36 million Hong Kong dollars for the construction of Olympic venues.

As a member of China, I naturally hope that the motherland can show its best side to the whole of Asia! By the way, our Eastern Bloc and the Beijing-Beijing Asian Games still have a lot of origins!

For the first time, Asia Satellite TV will send a 50-member interview team to convey the grand occasion of the Beijing-Beijing Asian Games to the six million citizens of Hong Kong! At the same time, we at the Oriental Group are also the main sponsor of the Hong Kong delegation, and Hong Kong will also send the largest delegation ever to Beijing to participate in the competition!" Li Xuan said with a smile.

Zhou Nan is worthy of being a diplomat, and he released his goodwill through a word of thanks. Li Xuan really deserves this gratitude, after all, he has really donated a large amount of real money! And the topic of the Beijing-Beijing Asian Games that he chose was very relaxed, and the two sides suddenly narrowed the distance.

"On the first day I came to Hong Kong, the comrades of Xin-Hua News Agency recommended to me the news and information channel of Asia Satellite TV, and you can know the world without going out, and your TV station is doing a very good job!" Zhou Nan praised again, but quickly frowned again, "I heard that the Hong Kong government is going to issue another free TVB license, I don't know if this news is true?"

Li Xuan secretly praised President Zhou's acting skills in his heart, and the worried expression on the other party's face made people think that he was the boss of the TV station. Although Li Xuan complained slightly in his heart, he had to show a grateful expression on his face: "There is such a voice within the Hong Kong government, and some people think that there are only two TV stations in Hong Kong, ATV is suitable for TVB, and the degree of competition is not enough, and it is impossible to fully play the role of TV stations in reflecting public opinion!"

ATV is more willing to spend money than TVB because of Li Xuan, the boss who is not bad for money, whether it is TV dramas, variety shows, news information, live sports, etc. The direct result of this is that ATV firmly crushes TVB under it in terms of ratings.

And higher ratings mean greater influence on public opinion, and Li Xuan is using this ATV as a communication platform to constantly sell his political ideas. Many of them are singing against the Hong Kong government, which will naturally cause dissatisfaction among the Hong Kong authorities. However, freedom of speech is the cornerstone of the democratic-subjective system in Western society, and if the British authorities in Hong Kong want to accelerate the democratization of Hong Kong, it is naturally impossible to slap themselves in the face!

Originally, they pinned their hopes on TVB, hoping that TVB could come out to compete with ATV, so as to divert some of its influence. But TVB's boss Shao Liushu is not comparable to Li Xuan financially. Especially after the Shaw Brothers began to gradually withdraw from the film industry, TVB became the core asset of the Shaw family.

Li Xuan can accept that ATV does not make money or even loses money, but Shao Yifu can't bear TVB's continuous losses. So in the first two years after Li Xuan just acquired ATV, TVB also wanted to trample ATV under his feet through competition, and when he found that ATV had the upper hand with Li Xuan's Jinyuan offensive, Shao Yifu chose a truce and reconciliation with a clear mind.

Therefore, in recent years, Shao Yifu's strategy of operating TVB has been to control costs and create profits, so naturally it is impossible to challenge ATV's leading position. What's more, Shao Yifu's attitude towards politics is much more conservative than Li Xuan's. Although TVB is the second largest TV station in Hong Kong, it does not dare to speak out as actively as ATV!

In this case, the only way for the Hong Kong government to suppress Asia Satellite TV is to add a TV station to divert the audience of Asia Satellite TV. You must know that in Hong Kong in the 70s, in addition to TVB and ATV's predecessor Li's TV station, there was also a Jiayi TV station. It's a pity that the situation of the Three Kingdoms only lasted for three years, and Jiayi TV hesitated to operate poorly and went bankrupt!

At that time, the reason for the collapse of Jiayi TV was largely due to the policy restrictions of the Hong Kong government. At the beginning, one of the licensing conditions of Jiayi TV was that part of the ambient time needed to be used to broadcast educational programs. And the ratings of these boring educational programs are miserable, which directly leads to the TV station being unable to break even.

Therefore, some people in the Hong Kong government are ready to learn a lesson this time and no longer set preconditions for new licenses. And there are definitely a lot of people in Hong Kong who come out to compete for the new TV license, especially after Li Xuan taught other Hong Kong tycoons a lesson called controlling public opinion through Asia Satellite TV!

"I think we must be cautious in issuing new TV licenses, because the media industry is different from other things, and if it is not properly supervised, it is easy to cause confusion in thinking!" Zhou Nan considered from the standpoint of the mainland, and naturally did not want Hong Kong to add another television station, in case it fell into the hands of people who disagreed with the mainland government, it would be a very troublesome matter.

"Although there have been discussions within the Hong Kong government about the new TV license, everyone prefers to issue a cable TV license rather than a TVB license! TVB transmits program signals through radio transmission towers, which needs to occupy a special radio frequency band!

In the 70s, the coexistence of three television stations was due to the fact that the content of the programs provided by each television station was not rich enough! After the development of the last decade or so, Hong Kong society has made great progress, and the demand for television content has become even more!

Under the umbrella of Asia Television Station alone, there are now six channels, including a comprehensive channel, a news and information channel, an entertainment channel, a sports channel, a movie channel, and an English channel, and a documentary channel is being opened in the future! Each channel needs to occupy an independent radio band, and all the existing channels of ATV and TVB have consumed 80 percent of the radio band resources specially allocated by the Hong Kong government to the television industry!

So technically, the remaining bands can no longer support a new wireless TV station. On the contrary, cable TV transmits signals directly through optical cables, and is not limited by signal bands!" Li Xuan pursed his lips and explained, a smile on the corner of his mouth revealing a strong confidence.

The Eastern Bloc has such a powerful think tank behind it, how can it not take into account the countermeasures of the Hong Kong government in advance. Therefore, ATV and TVB have a very tacit understanding to continuously expand the number of channels, completely nipping the possibility of the emergence of a third wireless TV station in the bud.

Although cable TV stations are not limited by the band, laying TV fiber optic cables requires huge investment. So cable TV is charged, which is much less of an impact on ATV and TVB, two free-to-air TV stations! )