IN HONG Kong, they are known as The Three
Musketeers, Chinese taipans with wealth beyond the imag-
ination of Noble House author James Clavell. They are

multi-billionaires.

Lee Shau-kee, Li Ka-shing and
Cheng Yu-tang have a great deal
in common: a birthplace in China,
a post-war Hong Kong life,
business, golf, horses and Canada.

A journalist once noted an
amazing paradox. They seemed
ferociously competitive, but they
shared with each other a piece of
just about every deal. He used the
sobriquet The Three Musketeers,
for they are surely all for one and
one for all.

The best known in Vancouver,
Li Ka-shing, owns the Expo
lands. But Lee and Cheng also
have a slice of the project.

Cheng, the gold and jewelry _
czar, emperor of the New World
hotel and real estate group
(Ramada, Renaissance and New
World Hotels), is said to gamble
$1,000 a hole when he navigates
the Royal Hong Kong Golf Club
at Fanling.

He is also known in Hong Kong

as ‘‘The Doctor.’’ A grateful
University of Toronto, recipient
of what the press described as a
“massive” benefaction, awarded
him an honorary degree.

The business press has recently
reported that Li, Lee, Cheng, the
Hong Kony and Shanghai Bank,
the Hong Kong Canadian Business
Association and other agencies
have developed a sense of abject
‘contempt for the current govern-
ment of British Columbia.

The question is not socialism. It
‘concerns honesty and competence.

Premier Mike Harcourt is rap-
idly making of himself a pathetic
internationa! joke. On the one
hand, he travels far and wide at
taxpayers’ expense, allegedly to

- encourage business. Yet his gov-
ernment makes a mockery of
every deal,” ,

. In Davos, Switzerland, where
previous British Columbia gov-

- ernments earned great respect,
Harcourt was asked this year to
explain why he arrived without
support from his business com-
munity.

. Stanley Kwok, the president of
Concord Pacific Developments,
on behalf of Li Ka-shing, has bit-
teriy complained about the Cor-
porate Capital Tax. Invested
money — borrowed or equity ~—
is now hit with a new tax irrespec-
tive of profit, loss, or all of the
other taxes assigned to property.

. . But the Hong Kong taipan with
the most'valid current criticism is

Cheng Yu-tung. He has been ~
cheated by the government of |
British Columbia. He has learned
that a deal, in B.C., is not neces-
sarily a deal.

It involves a racetrack proposed
for Burns Bog in North Delta. It
had been approved by the
previous government. .

_ Inthe same manner as the doc-
tors' pension was voided, the new
government walked away froma

_ $90 million racetrack proposal.
Cheng Yu-tung was one of th
backers, ;

Ashiey Ford, Vancouver Fro-
vince Asia columnist, has reported
that an angry letter from Cheng,
dispatched in December, remains

_ unanswered on the premier’s desk. '

The next time a glad-handling
Mike Harcourt and his junketeers

‘arrive in Hong Kong the reception’

will be frosty.
Several times this week, not
long after six in the morning, I
’ drove by Exhibition Park. The
racetrack was brightly floodlit in
.. the dark of early morning.
. Trainers were out exercising their |
horses, even though the thor-
_ oughbreds don’t start racing until
‘April. :
It crossed my mind that most of
these trainers and horsemen don’t
realize that the bizarre new track .
designed by the New. Democratic
Party amateurs does not have a
stable area.
If the NDP scheme :zafolds as

OPEN LINES

planned, all horses wiil have to be
trucked in for every day of racing.

For over 2 decade now, horse
racing has cried out for govern-
ment understanding. Former at-
torney-general Brian Smith prora-
ised a British Columbia thor-
oughbred track to rival Santa
Anita. Since then, ali capital im-
provements to racing have been
on hold.

The British Columbia Jockey
Club — the Diamond and Randall
families — have waiched their
lease tick down toward a 1994 ex-
piration. They want to continue
and the City of Vancouver would
let them do it, if the city were to
call the shots «it the Pacific Na-
tional Exhibition, ‘

There has been tremendous
pressure from the industry to de-
velop‘a modern one-mile thor-
oughbred track to repla¢e the
five-eighths mile Ex Park oval.

The Jockcy Club complained
that a one-mile track couldn't be
profitable.

The former B.C. Racing Com-
mission called for proposals. The
commission offered a pari-mutuel
incentive,

Developers of a new track
would be able to use 2% of the
money wagered toward their con-
struction.

Extended for t0 years, this
would amount to $30 million.

Jack Diamond failed to submit,

. arguing instead that the new deal

was wrong. He hoped that city
managenient would come to pass
and that an extension would be

~ granted.

Only one proposal met all of

. the criteria and it was spectacular.

A syndicate led by the On-
tario-based McLaughlin Group,
proprietors of Grouse Mountain

- Resorts Ltd., outlined a $90 mil-
_lion venture at Burns Bog in

North Delta. .

This would have a one-mile dirt
track, with chutes to facilitate
races up to a mile and a half, an

DIAMOND anp

interior turf track, stables, mod-
ern vehicle handling facilities,
veterinary services, a substantial
paddock, clubhouse and all the
amenities.

It was too good to be true. It
was revealed that the McLaughlins
had attracted the support of New
World Developments and a second
Hong Kong-based firm, CIM and
Associates.

The deal was done ... or so
Cheng Yu-tung foolishly thought.
Colin Gablemann became the

attorney general. He appointed
‘lawyer Carolyn Askew to chair a
new B.C. Racing Commission.

A long period of study follow-
ed, tied up in the perpetual
harangues over the Pacific Na-
tional Exhibition.

The first noisy proclamation
from the government was that
there would be no tax subsidy for
a new racetrack, even though this
was not tax money, but par?-
mutuel furds dedicated to develop
an industry.

Western Delta’s Tom Johnson,
a former deputy minister in Vic-
toria, wert to several meetings
with the new group, patiently an-
swering every question. For one
important round, they brought in
the principals from Hong Kong.

“It was dike playing tennis with
no one on the other side,”’
Johnson recalls.

It became apparent that the
government had a secret agenda.
It would reveal none of its plans.

The Western Delta group beg-
ged the government to advise ifany
part of their business plan was in-
adequate, before announcing the
miter to the public.

This assurance was given.

They were thunderstruck when
the racing commission announced
that Western Delta was rejected
because of the subsidy,

Had the government asked the
developers if they would proceed
without the pari-mutuel incentive,
they not only would have kept a
promise, they might have been
surprised by. the answer,

But the NDP senses a cash cow
at the PNE,

If wiser minds don't soon

prevail, the government will em-
bark on a scheme that will be
ridiculed throughout the racing
world. {t has already provoked
serious turmoil within racing cir-
cles, ‘
’ At least 300 horsemen have ac-
cused the executive of the
Horsemen's Benevolent and Pro-
tective Association that it has
“sold out.”’

The PNE plan cannot possibly

“work. Next week, I'll outline why.

Ts
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