From Li Ka-shing the Superman to Li Ka-shing the Hegemon, corporate Hong Kong is learning a hard lesson in doing business in the world's freest economy. It is a different matter that Hong Kong is no longer a good place for doing business.

In fact though not in name, Hong Kong now functions like a messy democracy. Like corporations in liberal democracies the world over, corporate Hong Kong is battling a mounting public perception that big business means bad business.

Fortunately, the "big is bad" refrain so rampant elsewhere in the world is not yet full-blown in Hong Kong. Corporate Hong Kong may have misbehaved at times, labeling pork meat balls as beef balls, or passing off the second floor in a new residential project as fifth floor to trick unwary buyers. But we are nowhere near having our own editions of Enron's creative accounting, British Petroleum's massive oil spill, Sanlu's toxic milk powder, or Japan Airline's near bankruptcy in 2009 that cost taxpayers billions of dollars.

In our post-war, pre-World City days, there were no "employers" and no professional sectors to provide jobs for the teeming masses. Our entrepreneurs started their mom-and-pop businesses producing high-quality but low-priced products that the world needed. As their businesses grew, so did the workforce. Their export momentum gave birth to the city's service and professional sectors, and white collar and blue collar jobs of all variety sprouted.

Throughout our history, our business entrepreneurs have been people's partners in livelihood and the government's partners in governance. They are a key driver of prosperity, a force of stability, and the spring of creativity and progress. The people-government-business trinity is cemented by shared interest, interdependence, and collaborative goodwill. Such was the Hong Kong success model.

Lately, this trinity has come under stress. The current ethos demands an unprecedented degree of corporate transparency, accountability, and responsible corporate citizenship - and rightly so.

But one knows things are not going right when the usually mild-mannered chairman of China Light and Power laments, like he did last year, that Hong Kong would have been in total darkness if the government were to run the power industry. And, when property tycoon Lee Shau-kee offered his land to build affordable housing for the young, it was cited as a case of business-government collusion. Our home carrier Cathay Pacific Airways, which began as a one-plane two-man business 67 years ago, is compelled to openly query the government's air-licensing policy.

The government-business partnership is crucial to effective functioning of our system. A healthy partnership doesn't mean arm-twisting the pro-business lobby to cast a reluctant vote in the Legislative Council to shore up the government in its hour of need. Partnership means genuine consultation with our business leaders, who have proven talents not just in doing business but in bettering both the process and quality of public policy decisions.

But entrepreneurship is now being suppressed, sandwiched between growing populism and an increasingly interventionist government that doesn't know much about doing business. In this trying environment, the business sector is becoming increasingly public-spirited and more people-centered and planet-loving, because they have found that this is actually good for business!

The business-bashing culture and the "damned if you do, and damned if don't" dilemma drive some corporations to adopt a "lie low and off-the-radar" strategy. This approach ill-serves business or society. Today's political climate will be tomorrow's business climate should business leaders disengage themselves from the partnership for the greater good. Finding solutions to many of our pressing problems - from poverty alleviation to the aging population, from manual labor shortage to a sustainable public health care system, demands the imagination and enterprise of the business community. Without them, the government must realize, these problems cannot be solved.

The author teaches at Chinese University of Hong Kong's School of Journalism and Communication. He was former director of University Development and Public Affairs at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

(HK Edition 11/13/2013 page1)