Letters | When businesses talk, Hong Kong listens: what climbdown on extradition bill says about most favoured sector

I refer to “Extradition plan to exempt nine economic crimes, under intense pressure from business community” (March 26). Companies should always conduct themselves in accordance with business ethics and abide by the law, whether in Hong Kong, on the mainland or in foreign countries. Hong Kong is an international business centre. As China has opened up its economy over the past 40 years and business opportunities have expanded there, Hong Kong businessmen seem to have enjoyed special status and privileges when setting up companies and doing business on the mainland. This sense of superiority seems to have persisted.

Hong Kong businesses do not support the government’s proposal to allow the transfer of fugitives from the city to the mainland, Taiwan and Macau and have lobbied for white-collar crimes to be exempted from the new arrangement. Their rationale is that they may, because of the difference in legal systems, inadvertently make a mistake or do something unlawful that may see them extradited to mainland China. In truth, what underlies their argument is a mistrust of the mainland legal system.

The government has now exempted nine economic offences from the list of 46 crimes to be covered by the new fugitive transfer arrangement. The excluded crimes relate to taxes, securities and futures trading, intellectual property, company offences, and unlawful use of computers. Extraditions will also only be sought for offences punishable by three years in jail, instead of one.