HONG KONG, Sept 17 (Reuters) – As Beijing seeks to tighten its grip over Hong Kong, it has a new mandate for the city’s powerful property tycoons: pour resources and influence into backing Beijing’s interests, and help solve a potentially destabilising housing shortage.
Chinese officials delivered the message in closed meetings this year amid broader efforts to bring the city to heel under a sweeping national security law and make it more “patriotic,” according to three major developers and a Hong Kong government adviser familiar with the talks.
“The rules of the game have changed,” they were told, according to a source close to mainland officials, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter. Beijing is no longer willing to tolerate “monopoly behaviour,” the source added.
For Hong Kong’s biggest property firms, that would be a big shift. The companies have long…
