Last week’s he-said, they-said war of words between Hong Kong’s richest man and Chinese state media says much about the confidence that the Communist…

Last week’s he-said, they-said war of words between Hong Kong’s richest man and Chinese state media says much about the confidence that the Communist party has gained from the country’s economic rise

In particular, Li Ka-shing’s run-in with the People’s Daily highlights a shift over the past decade in the relationship between the party and business interests — whether recently-minted private sector billionaires or multinational companies

In the mid-1990s, the then Chinese president Jiang Zemin had been deferential in his dealings with Mr Li and the city’s other tycoons — conscious that Hong Kong investors were at the forefront of a foreign investment bonanza transforming China’s economy. Mr Jiang also knew the tycoons’ support was essential to ensure the UK colony’s smooth transition from British to Chinese rule in 1997

At that time, it was inconceivable that commentators at tightly-controlled state media organisation would be able to cast aspersions on Mr Li’s patriotism, or accuse him of selling down his investments on the mainland — accusations that last week prompted an unusual public rebuttal from the usually low-key tycoon

But, today, Mr Li and his Hong Kong peers are not the only big businessmen that the party sees as subjects from whom deference is expected, rather than as natural partners. Chairmen and chief executives from the world’s largest companies, once routinely feted in Beijing, have had their status similarly downgraded

Besides Hong Kong investors, Mr Jiang’s other preoccupations in the 1990s included negotiations over China’s accession to the World Trade Organisation. Scarcely a week passed without the chief executive of IBM or some other behemoth dropping by for a chat with China’s president, in an encounter often featured at the top of the evening news on China Central Television

In a recent memoir, Hank Paulson revealed the remarkable access that he and other investment bank bosses had to top party leaders at that time. There was a simple reason: Mr Jiang and his premier, Zhu Rongji, needed the expertise of the then Goldman Sachs chief executive and his colleagues to pull off their make-or-break restructuring of a bankrupt banking system

Once Beijing had secured WTO membership, and finished restructuring its banks, this remarkable era of open collaboration ended

As a new leadership team shifted its focus to the development of China’s rural hinterlands, high-profile meetings with Wall Street’s Masters of the Universe and other corporate titans were no longer politically correct

It is a dynamic that continues under the “strongman” presidency of Xi Jinping. In Mr Xi’s world, there is just one Master of the Universe

Of the current seven members of the party’s most powerful body, the Politburo Standing Committee, only Wang Qishan continues to tap western business contacts on a regular basis, albeit discreetly. Mr Wang held financial portfolios through the Jiang-Zhu era, which has given him an international Rolodex that none of his communist colleagues possess

But, friends of Wang aside, any foreign executives hoping for top-level access to Mr Xi’s administration must make do with short, highly scripted and content-free encounters — as evidenced by the president’s roundtable with select chief executives during a state visit to the US last month

Yet still they lap it up. Mark Zuckerberg, who speaks broken Chinese and revels in every opportunity to show it off, declared his brief handshake and chat with Mr Xi “a meaningful personal milestone”

Previously, the Facebook founder had tried to impress Lu Wei, head of the Chinese government body that blocks his company’s website in China. During a tour of Facebook’s offices for China’s censorship tsar last year, a volume of Mr Xi’s speeches was clearly visible on Mr Zuckerberg’s desk

Mr Zuckerberg could learn much from Mr Li when it comes to dealing with China. Although the Chinese Communist party may not have particularly liked the tycoon’s riposte last week, the one thing it understands and respects more than anything else is strength