When Tung, with Beijing's blessing, ran for Hong Kong chief executive in 1996, it was no surprise that Li backed him.

CNN: Master of Guanxi

For instance, the websites of some state-owned publications ran stories taken from the uncensored Hong Kong press about a corruption scandal in Fujian province.

ECONOMIST: The flies swarm in

Failures are rare but they do happen: Hong Kong's futures clearing-house ran out of resources in 1987, for example, and it took a government bail-out and the closure of the main stockmarket for things to get back to normal.

ECONOMIST: The risk in clearing-houses