Early in his ill-fated campaign to become Hong Kong’s chief executive, Henry Tang told the city’s young people to stop complaining about property prices. Local tycoons were not born with billions of dollars, pronounced the magnate turned politician in a news-paper interview last year. Those unhappy about the success of Asia’s richest man should ask: “Why can’t I become the next Li Ka-shing?”

The response – in a city where the median home price is 13 times annual average household income, the highest multiple in the world – was derision. Just months before, a Catholic priest sparked a furore on Halloween by saying: “Ghosts and spirits are not scary. People like Li Ka-shing are the real man-eating devils.” Both incidents highlight a widening inequality that is generating anger among ordinary residents. Many feel a cosy relationship between government and business in one of the world’s most liberal economies is benefiting a handful at the expense of the bulk of the city’s 7m-strong population.

Looking back to the “Hong Kong dream” of the 1970s and 1980s, Vincent Lo, chairman of Shui On Land and one of the city’s wealthiest men, says there were “lots of opportunities for everyone. Now, young people just don’t feel they have any possibility of ever getting there themselves, of ever becoming a tycoon.”