The city’s chief executive said a deal between the Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchison and BlackRock, a major American investment firm, requires “serious attention.”

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.

Hong Kong leader John Lee on Tuesday said criticism of city conglomerate CK Hutchison's sale of its Panama Canal ports deserved "serious attention", after Beijing authorities repeatedly slammed the deal.