The original cause of global disparity

 The problem may lie in China which is a communist state and disregards basic human rights. China is admitted to WTO in 2001 and runs economy on the model of 996 as mentioned here by a Shanghainese to suppress Chinese wages income and exportation price in the overseas markets destroying foreign private businesses by which China exported the disparity and corruption of the de facto communist system to other countries.

Previously China robbed Chinese peasants with heavy agriculture tax without any personal allowance, an also very unfair economy system. As a result, great famine and Tiananmen Square democracy protest occurred respectively in late 1950s and 1989.

The generations of parents don't have to face the expansion of China communist plague via WTO.

Do you have the impression about why 2008 financial crises happened? Not just because of accounting fraud. Basic reason is that after China entry into WTO in 2001 exploited Americans' wages aren't able to afford too expensive property prices. It's a coincidence that in 2001 Enron accounting scandal occurred.

But corrupted politicians are reluctant to reform WTO. Trump's isolating WTO didn't solve problem. What works is to hold Chinese Communist party accountable to damage it made and promises it failed to keep. For example, let CCP pay overtime health damage to each Chinese worker for more than 1 million dollars or pay personal famine death damage to each farmer victim's family for more than 50 million dollars.

Tax on dividend income should be reduced further while tax on capital gains should rise to 45% or more. Dividend is paid after many other taxes are paid from profit before tax. Less tax on dividend income could encourage shareholders and leave more resources to shareholders enforce corporate governance, scrutinize directors and management and analyse financial statements and audit report thereof. American shareholders, now mainly interested in speculation, don't care China companies' financial statements' integrity problem due to US PCAOB inspection on audit papers being blocked and are being cheated by Chinese companies listed in US vulnerable to accounting fraud shock. 

On the other hand, abnormal low tax rate on capital gains encouraged excessive share buyback leading to negative net assets of many American companies, and speculation, inflating share prices  financed by bank borrowings, distorting valuation system, increasing wealth disparity and increasing bank risk as evidenced in the case of Credit Suisse. China Minsheng Bank may be the next case. Those with more assets and closer to bank credit are more easy to manipulate share price to make themselves wealthier. This is what is happening in China, Hong Kong, USA and UK.

I don't think international capital market has learnt enough lessons from Enron scandal and Lehman Brothers scandal if  unfair heavy burdens are just left to accountants and auditors without much economic means but much accounting knowledge, without hiking capital gains tax on share speculation.

Any investment with HSBC should be considered as terrorist financing or at least violating ESG investment criteria as HSBC financed communist terrorism in Hong Kong and China.

Any investment with HSBC will accelerate global warming as HSBC financed properties and infrastructure construction in China.

The number of HSBC wasn't scrutinised independently by any auditor. Any reporting about such number without emphasizing the number being unaudited is irresponsible and misleading.

Besides, the reporters to this article didn't have basic accounting knowledge that under current IFRS HSBC's income is divided into profit or loss and other comprehensive income so they failed to report that there was 2.8 billion decrease in other reserves on page four of the document https://www.hsbc.com/-/files/hsbc/investors/hsbc-results/2021/1q/pdf/hsbc-holdings-plc/210427-1q-2021-data-pack.pdf. Other comprehensive income was reported under the heading other reserves rather than retained earnings. Because Hong Kong HSBC's auditors'  working papers can't be inspected by US Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, HSBC is more likely to misclassify  financial instruments to misclassify loss into OCI and positive OCI into profit.

This article is overall a propaganda of Chinese Communist party following Financial Times rendering advertisement service to China Construction Bank on the front page.

The problem doesn't lie in Big Four accounting firms. I'm Chinese and also a certified auditor with audit quality assurance experience in China but not associated any member of Big Four. China auditors also want to realize audit integrity, evidenced by tremendous audit quality assurance work carried out by many individual China CPAs,  but the Chinese Communist party(CCP) tyranny system disallows. Foreign listings with false accounts increase foreign reserves of CCP as CCP adopted a foreign currency exchange system with heavy administration or dirty foreign exchange system to enrich associates of CCP. A Chinese saying "When you care about the interest or dividend, the bad investee is only interested in your principals " (in Chinese “你盯着别人的利息，别人盯着你的本金”)depicts exactly what mistakes both foreign investors and Chinese investors have been committing.

To solve problems of audit paper access, what works is to prosecute CCP and enforce laws directly on CCP Chair Jinping Xi. CCP regime is an illegal regime and not a country  so it's legal to prosecute CCP central committee and its associates. According to case law of UK Supreme Court, foreign laws such as those made by illgal CCP regime should be considered as a fact not as law. It's lawful to prosecute Chinese Communist party in Taipei, where The Constitute of Republic of China is effective, US or UK.

I have carried out a forensic audit in China in which case accounting documents of suspect were obtained with CCP's commerce police's "friendly" interview with the suspect. The same can be done to CCP to obtain audit working papers. 

China is a single-currency zone with many provinces that never allows data reflect what it purports to represent. The growth of China is untrustworthy because I am auditor with first line experience with Chinese economy but the author doesn't know how and why China always tells lies just as it told the lie that there was no human-to-human transmission on the early stage of Chinese Communist party virus outbreak. Foreign authors and reporters are also unaware of the internal control deficiencies and corporate governance issues of China government and vaccine makers so they always lack scepticism and critical thinking regard data of China. One representative corporate governance issue of China government is that China government controlled by CCP is not elected democratically,  disallows free speech, audit independence and spends tax collected illegally without taxpayers' representatives' approval.

If author didn't challenge data integrity of CCP, the journalism ethics have to be challenged.

China's Belt and Road leads to global carbon emissions, reduced forests worldwide, environment pollution and corruption. China built military bases and other wasteful infrastructures globally to threaten global security, emit CO2 and ruin reefs and woods. Reefs and woods turn CO2 into O2.

Therefore, suggest Financial Times and all the other media to cease advertisement services for China's financial institutions and any heavy carbon emission supply chain related enterprises of China. Delist all the financial instruments they issued in the west to cheat money no matter publicly traded or over the counter. China just made tremendous promises subsequently voided by its own actions. We have to take means at our disposal to let China follow international rules and fulfill promises.

This is right. Otherwise, even if many Chinese and Hong Kongers flee China and Hong Kong to UK, they still can't avoid being harmed by Chinese Communist party. I have lived in a suburb for a long time in Guangzhou with cameras around all the corners from home gates through routes to McDonald's for breakfast or Walmart , then on public buses/métro stations  to gates of office buildings. Even if you just want to repair substandard ThinkPad computer in the Lenovo shop bought at http://amazon.com I thought made in USA but shipped unexpectedly from China factory, the guard of building requires registering with ID card number and phone number without privacy protection agreement. I don't know how many surveillance stuff have been installed in the ThinkPad. What I know is that everything made in China is taxed heavily and illegally so it's substandard. For example, property tax on office leasing @12%, VAT @6%, while the leased office had been levied deed tax twice @3-5% respectively in buying land and property selling, land appreciation tax 30%-60% (https://www.pwccn.com/en/services/tax/accounting-and-payroll/overview-of-prc-taxation-system.html#:~:text=Land%20appreciation%20tax%20%2D%20a%20tax,the%20%22total%20deductible%20amount%22.), all of which aren't agreed by elected representatives of Chinese through transparent democratic voting process.

Chinese Communist party, itself an international terrorist organisation or transnational organized crime organization, treats every Chinese citizen as suspect and scans all the stuff and inspects ID card wherever to go.