HONG KONG—Since China took control of Hong Kong from Britain in 1997, the city’s billionaires have played a leading role in hewing the Asian financial center to Beijing’s priorities. So too have a dwindling band of fishermen and farmers.
The desire of China’s communist leaders to enlist the tycoons’ cooperation is understandable given the influence they have through their control of large swathes of the semiautonomous Chinese city’s economy. Chinese Communist Party chief Xi Jinping last year summoned a group of them for an emergency meeting as political tensions in Hong Kong mounted.
Less known outside Hong Kong, however, is the political role of fishermen and farmers, remnant industries in Hong Kong that form a large slice of the 1,200-member committee that selects the southern Chinese city’s pro-Beijing leader. They also have their own representative in the territory’s legislature.
