Hong Kong’s leader says his government opposes coercion by foreign governments, an allusion to comments by U.S. President Donald Trump, but stopped short of criticizing a prominent local conglomerate’s decision to sell its Panama Canal port assets to a consortium including American investment bank BlackRock Inc. John Lee was speaking during a news briefing after Beijing’s Hong Kong affairs office reposted newspaper commentaries critical of the deal between the constortium and CK Hutchison...

In this Thursday, May 28, 2020, photo, a woman uses a smartphone on a ferry in Hong Kong. Instead of Hong Kong transforming its neighbors in Guangdong province, he said, it's more likely that Hong Kong will be more and more absorbed into Guangdong." The rise of industrial and financial centers like Shenzhen and Shanghai has sidelined Hong Kong in other respects. Critics say it will undermine civil liberties and might be used to suppress political activity, and many in Hong Kong reacted with dismay. -Associated Press journalists Alice Fung and Magnum Chan in Hong Kong contributed.

HONG KONG - Hong Kong's richest man Li Ka-shing is giving one billion Hong Kong dollars ($128 million) to businesses hurt by the city's pro-democracy protests. Plus, Hong Kong's economy is facing unprecedented challenges," the foundation said in its statement. Spiking home prices are "the cause of the disease of Hong Kong's social turmoil," state-owned Xinhua News Agency wrote in a commentary published last month. "It's time for the Hong Kong developers to show their uttermost goodwill," wrote the People's Daily, the ruling Communist Party's official newspaper, in a separate commentary last month. The article urged Hong Kong developers to give their undeveloped land to the government.

Getty Images(CNN) - A real estate company controlled by Hong Kong's richest man is paying a big premium to buy a British pub chain and brewer. Li Ka-shing's CK Asset Holdings said Monday that it had reached an agreement to buy Greene King in a deal worth 4.6 billion ($5.6 billion), including its debt. The Hong Kong company is offering 850 pence ($1.03) per share, a 51% premium to Greene King's closing stock price on Friday. CK Asset Holdings is one of Hong Kong's top property developers. CK Asset Holdings also joined more than a dozen companies in signing a statement strongly condemning violent protests in the city.