Money Matters | Beijing wants tycoons to take action, not just pay lip service
Withdrawn Xinhua report a sign that central government is losing patience with tycoons who it sees as not doing enough to oppose Occupy
State media don't make "mistakes", so when they say they have made a spectacular one, it's always for a special purpose.
At play is the Xinhua News Agency. At noon last Saturday, it published a signed commentary headlined "Hong Kong tycoons reluctant to take sides amid Occupy turmoil".
The article - which singled out Li Ka-shing of Cheung Kong (Holdings) and three other magnates - was removed at 7pm.
By 10.35pm, Xinhua ran a new story with a completely different tone. "Several Hong Kong business leaders have criticised the month-long Occupy Central movement," its first paragraph read.
It is not hard to imagine the tycoons' shock at the first version.
Their subordinates must have been ringing up their mainland contacts for clues. The answer: it was nothing but a "mistake" made by a junior journalist who was new to Hong Kong.