Fate of Patrick Ho sends out warning
- Jailing of former Hong Kong home affairs minister in the United States must never be forgotten by companies and businessmen from China who go abroad in search of new markets and growth opportunities
With credit for 16 months already held behind bars, plus up to five months off the remainder for good behaviour, Ho may serve only another 15 months. Experienced defence lawyers see that as a “merciful” outcome, given that he could have faced many years more. It reflects seeming restraint from prosecutors who did not dispute his career contributions, his remorse and, possibly, his community work in helping other prison inmates with English, writing resumes and public speaking.
But such leniency does not lessen the gravity of the lesson to corporate China that it is imperative to comply with the letter of the law of markets and financial networks in overseas jurisdictions. Companies and businessmen who flout the rules with their ways of doing business might be foolish to expect to get off as relatively lightly as Ho. And amid trade tensions with the United States and rivalry over the belt and road trade expansion strategy, they can expect greater scrutiny of business practices. That said, foreign companies still have to learn different ways of doing business on the mainland.
There are, of course, negative political overtones to Ho’s case at home and abroad. It has emerged he was under surveillance during his years at the United Nations promoting Chinese culture and the belt and road. And aside from the difficulty for Beijing of backing someone who had violated US law, a corruption investigation of his former boss at CEFC, Ye Jianming, did not make it any easier.
