The Chinese government has strongly criticized a planned deal by a Hong Kong conglomerate to sell ports in Panama and elsewhere to an investment group led by an American asset manager, warning that the deal would deprive China of needed influence over key shipping routes.
The criticism marks an abrupt shift in Chinese policy toward Panama and the control of seaports around the world. When President Trump raised concerns soon after taking office that China had too much power in the Panama Canal, his comments were initially ridiculed by Beijing.
But Ta Kung Pao, a Hong Kong newspaper owned by the Chinese government and Communist Party, denounced the planned port transaction. The newspaper’s commentary, published on Thursday, assailed plans by the Hong Kong company, CK Hutchison, to sell ports at either end of the Panama Canal and over 40 ports elsewhere in the world for $19 billion to an investment group led by BlackRock, an American giant.
Ta Kung Pao is regarded in Hong Kong as a mouthpiece for Beijing, and has been praised by Xi Jinping, China’s top leader. But in case anyone missed the point, the Beijing government agency overseeing Hong Kong policy quickly reposted the commentary on its own website.
The commentary warned that with the Trump administration threatening to raise tariffs on goods that arrive in Chinese-built ships at American ports, China needs to preserve a presence in the Panama Canal. The canal was described as “the core route for China’s trade with Latin America and the Caribbean.”
If the deal is completed, the commentary claimed, “the United States will definitely use it for political purposes and promote its own political agenda. China’s shipping and trade there will inevitably be subject to the United States.”
Ta Kung Pao said that internet users in China saw the transaction as “profit-seeking and unrighteous,” adding that it “sells out all Chinese people.”
The commentary concluded that the companies involved in the planned transaction should “think carefully about what position and side they should stand on.”
Shares in CK Hutchison fell sharply in Hong Kong trading on Friday. Hutchison did not respond to phone calls or an email seeking comment.
Beijing had previously rejected Mr. Trump’s warnings about Chinese influence over the Panama Canal. President Trump welcomed the BlackRock deal.
CK Hutchison is controlled by the Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, whom Bloomberg News estimated has a fortune of $31 billion. Mr. Li, nicknamed “Superman” by the Hong Kong media for his decades of shrewdly timed market moves, has had steadily deteriorating relations with Beijing since Mr. Xi took office in 2012.
Mr. Li sold many of his real estate investments in mainland China in the years leading up to the Covid-19 pandemic and reinvested much of the money in Europe. His actions were widely criticized by Chinese nationalists, but proved to be wise in financial terms. He was able to get out of these investments before the start of China’s housing market crash in 2021, which has steadily worsened ever since.
Mr. Li expressed sentiments during the Hong Kong democracy protests in 2019 that were interpreted as sympathetic to the protesters and their demands. Beijing’s allies in Hong Kong were critical of him then as well.
Mr. Li’s disputes with Mr. Xi go farther back. In the 1990s, long before it was clear that Mr. Xi might someday become China’s top leader, he was the top official in Fuzhou, a city in southeastern China. Mr. Xi stopped a project by Mr. Li to build high-rises in a historic Fuzhou neighborhood.
It was not immediately clear if China would go beyond its criticism of the CK Hutchison deal, but the Chinese government has interfered in other commercial transactions in the past.
Two real estate entrepreneurs who sometimes voiced skepticism of government policies, Pan Shiyi and Zhang Xin, agreed in 2021 to sell a controlling stake in their empire, Soho China, to Blackstone, another investment giant in the United States, for as much as $3 billion. But the Chinese government refused to approve the transaction, which then fell apart.