https://www.scmp.com/rss/11605/feed Tom Holland is a former SCMP staffer who has been writing about Asian affairs for more than 25 years en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com In 1558, at the very beginning of her reign, Queen Elizabeth I of England famously declared that she had “no desire to make windows into men’s souls.” What the 25-year-old monarch meant was that under her rule, people’s religious convictions would be a matter for their own conscience, and would be no business of the state, nor indeed of any corporate body. Instead of launching an inquisition to root out those whose religious practices differed from her own, as her predecessor and half-sister... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/tom-holland-cathay-pacifcs-way-controlling-political-beliefs-could-hurt-hong-kong/article/3025444?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/tom-holland-cathay-pacifcs-way-controlling-political-beliefs-could-hurt-hong-kong/article/3025444?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 03 Sep 2019 12:35:04 +0000 In 1558, at the very beginning of her reign, Queen Elizabeth I of England famously declared that she had “no desire to make windows into men’s souls”. What the 25-year-old monarch meant was that under her rule, people’s religious convictions would be a matter for their own conscience, and would be no business of the state, nor indeed of any corporate body. Instead of launching an inquisition to root out those whose religious practices differed from her own, as her predecessor and half-sister... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3025150/beijings-treatment-cathay-just-start-welcome-hong-kongs-future?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3025150/beijings-treatment-cathay-just-start-welcome-hong-kongs-future?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 02 Sep 2019 00:00:17 +0000 Apparently, Hong Kong has an “Achilles’ heel”. According to one Zhou Luohua, vice-president at the Chongyang Finance Research Institute of Beijing’s Renmin University, the city’s deadly weakness is its currency peg to the US dollar. In an article in the South China Morning Post last week, Zhou argued that the peg left Hong Kong’s economy extremely exposed to falls in local stock and property prices. Because of the constraints of the peg, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) is not free like... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3024116/hong-kongs-currency-peg-us-dollar-isnt-achilles-heel-its-achilles?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3024116/hong-kongs-currency-peg-us-dollar-isnt-achilles-heel-its-achilles?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 25 Aug 2019 23:00:10 +0000 The Chinese government doesn’t generally get – or deserve – much sympathy, but you almost have to feel for Beijing on this one. Last Monday, Chinese policymakers briefly stopped manipulating the exchange rate of the yuan, and within 24 hours the United States had turned around and formally designated them currency manipulators – a designation Beijing has long been anxious to avoid, and that Washington has long withheld from making. In truth, the currency manipulator label doesn’t actually mean... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/danger-behind-us-label-china-currency-manipulator/article/3022410?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/danger-behind-us-label-china-currency-manipulator/article/3022410?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 12 Aug 2019 12:11:09 +0000 The Chinese government doesn’t generally get – or deserve – much sympathy, but you almost have to feel for Beijing on this one. Last Monday, Chinese policymakers briefly stopped manipulating the exchange rate of the yuan, and within 24 hours the United States had turned around and formally designated them currency manipulators – a designation Beijing has long been anxious to avoid, and that Washington has long withheld from making. In truth, the currency manipulator label doesn’t actually mean... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3022359/real-danger-behind-us-currency-manipulation-charges-against-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3022359/real-danger-behind-us-currency-manipulation-charges-against-china?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 11 Aug 2019 23:03:02 +0000 As protests against Hong Kong’s government and its masters in Beijing rumble on, an increasing number of financial investors are wondering whether the city’s summer of discontent will be the prick that finally bursts the local property market bubble. Amid such a climate of uncertainty and fear, they reason, surely the world’s most expensive residential property market is on the verge of a painful slump? Even a 1997-style crash? It is hardly a new thing for observers to call a top to Hong Kong’s... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3019394/why-extradition-bill-protests-wont-burst-hong-kongs-property?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3019394/why-extradition-bill-protests-wont-burst-hong-kongs-property?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 22 Jul 2019 00:00:09 +0000 The railway which winds its way from Piraeus and Athens northwards to Thessaloniki and on towards Macedonia has a certain antiquated charm. Passing Thermopylae off to the north and Mount Parnassus away to the south, passengers can reflect that they are trundling slowly through the very heart of Western civilisation’s cultural cradle. There is more recent history too. Rattling across the spectacular Gorgopotamos viaduct, passengers can clearly see where in 1942 the vital supply route was blown up... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3018427/chinas-sinister-plan-buy-eastern-europe-exaggerated?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3018427/chinas-sinister-plan-buy-eastern-europe-exaggerated?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 14 Jul 2019 23:30:12 +0000 Donald Trump says “trade wars are good and easy to win.” Conversely, orthodox economists like to say that in trade wars, there are no winners. Strictly speaking, neither view is correct; things aren’t that simple. The agreement between Trump and Xi Jinping in Osaka last month to put further tariff increases on hold and to resume bilateral negotiations amounts to a ceasefire which marks the end of the first round of the US-China trade war. So this is a good time to look at how the conflict has... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/vietnam-winning-us-china-trade-war/article/3017867?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/vietnam-winning-us-china-trade-war/article/3017867?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 09 Jul 2019 10:58:22 +0000 Donald Trump says “trade wars are good and easy to win”. Conversely, orthodox economists like to say that in trade wars, there are no winners. Strictly speaking, neither view is correct; things aren’t that simple. The agreement between Trump and Xi Jinping in Osaka last month to put further tariff increases on hold and to resume bilateral negotiations amounts to a ceasefire which marks the end of the first round of the US-China trade war. So this is a good time to look at how the conflict has... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3017498/one-country-winning-trade-war-its-not-us-and-its-not-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3017498/one-country-winning-trade-war-its-not-us-and-its-not-china?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 08 Jul 2019 00:12:16 +0000 Tom Holland Tom Holland “Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough,” Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg once said. Today Facebook is racing as fast as it can to break the global financial architecture, before the world’s big governments can shatter its existing business model. It will lose the race. Last week the US social media giant announced plans to launch a new “global currency” called libra. The idea is to use a smartphone app to create an international payments... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3016586/why-facebooks-answer-bitcoin-and-wechat-pay-libra-doomed-fail?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3016586/why-facebooks-answer-bitcoin-and-wechat-pay-libra-doomed-fail?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 01 Jul 2019 00:00:08 +0000 When Donald Trump and Xi Jinping get together at the end of this week for their “extended meeting” on the fringes of the Osaka G20 summit, there will be little hope on either side for a peace deal to end the US-China trade war any time soon. For both leaders, domestic politics makes an early deal unlikely. But if the hopes for peace on either side are slight, so too are the fears of a protracted conflict that threatens to drag on into the next year. Policymakers in both Washington and Beijing... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3015605/china-thinks-it-can-weather-trumps-trade-storm-it-can-not-long?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3015605/china-thinks-it-can-weather-trumps-trade-storm-it-can-not-long?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 23 Jun 2019 23:00:10 +0000 Demonstrations, tear gas and rubber bullets on the streets. You can see why the business community is in a flap. At first glance the events of the last week in Hong Kong look like a bad day in Belfast circa 1989. In response, American politicians are again muttering about how the Hong Kong government’s proposed extradition bill undermines the “one country, two systems” model on which the United States’ relations with Hong Kong are based. More and more are calling for a review of the legislation... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3014608/hong-kong-extradition-protests-one-country-two-systems-good?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3014608/hong-kong-extradition-protests-one-country-two-systems-good?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 16 Jun 2019 23:00:14 +0000 The US political strategist James Carville once said that after his death, he would like to be reincarnated as the bond market. “You can intimidate everybody.” Well, the US bond market is a lot bigger and scarier today than in Carville’s time. The US Treasury bond market alone is worth some US$22 trillion. Then there is another US$7 trillion outstanding in US corporate bonds. And that’s without even considering all the US mortgage-backed securities out there. And lately, as the US-China trade... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3013623/us-china-trade-war-financial-markets-are-focused-wrong-risk?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3013623/us-china-trade-war-financial-markets-are-focused-wrong-risk?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 09 Jun 2019 23:00:11 +0000 IF STRICTLY ENFORCED and sustained, the United States government’s ban on sales of US technologies to Huawei will drive the Chinese telecoms equipment giant out of business. And if extended to a broader range of Chinese companies, as rumoured, Washington’s export controls will do great economic damage not just to China, but also to US and international businesses. In the long run, they could even split the world into two incompatible – and hostile – technological blocs, with potentially... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3011741/chinas-wrong-us-can-kill-huawei-heres-why-it-wont?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3011741/chinas-wrong-us-can-kill-huawei-heres-why-it-wont?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 26 May 2019 23:00:11 +0000 From the volume of bellicose rhetoric in China’s state media, you might think Beijing is digging in for a bloody fight to the finish in its trade conflict with the United States. But after the US administration this month jacked up import tariffs on US$200 billion of Chinese goods to 25 per cent, and threatened equal tariffs on another US$340 billion, the Chinese government faces a problem. The policy responses it is considering are all either impossible, impractical, ineffective or expensive.... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3010619/us-china-trade-war-here-are-beijings-options-and-not-one-looks?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3010619/us-china-trade-war-here-are-beijings-options-and-not-one-looks?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 19 May 2019 03:00:09 +0000 As the US-China economic cold war heats up and Beijing clenches its grip on Hong Kong ever tighter, fears are growing that the White House may strip the city of its special status under US law. The prospect has caused a great deal of anguished hand-wringing among the city’s business community, which fears for its profits. On closer examination, however, the professions of anxiety are overblown. Hong Kong’s special position in US law is likely to be secure for the time being – although not for... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3009788/hong-kongs-special-status-us-safe-now-not-reasons-you-think?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3009788/hong-kongs-special-status-us-safe-now-not-reasons-you-think?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 13 May 2019 02:00:17 +0000 Everyone loves a scary story. Remember as a child when you happily suspended disbelief and crouched in delighted terror behind the sofa, peeping between your fingers as some unfortunate actor lurched around on the television screen dressed in a ludicrous rubber monster mask? The fright was delicious. Well, the adult equivalent is a good financial scare story. And last month, US hedge fund manager Kyle Bass came out with a cracker. In a letter to investors, he warned at great length about “Hong... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3008816/hong-kong-ticking-financial-time-bomb-thrilling-story-dont-buy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3008816/hong-kong-ticking-financial-time-bomb-thrilling-story-dont-buy?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 06 May 2019 02:00:20 +0000 It seems the Iran hawks have prevailed over the petrol-price doves; last week the United States government announced it would grant no more exemptions from its sanctions on Iranian oil exports. “We’re going to zero across the board,” said US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, declaring his intention to halt Iranian oil shipments entirely. China, the biggest buyer of Iranian oil, immediately protested, insisting its purchases of Iranian exports are perfectly legitimate and should continue. Yet... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3007906/weaponisation-us-dollar-end-its-economic-ascendancy-asia-chinas?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3007906/weaponisation-us-dollar-end-its-economic-ascendancy-asia-chinas?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 29 Apr 2019 00:30:16 +0000 In case you hadn’t noticed, media commentators and industry analysts are locked in a fierce competition to come up with ever more extreme hyperboles to describe the importance of fifth generation – or 5G – mobile telecommunications technology. Just last week, an article in the South China Morning Post told us that “5G will change the way we live forever”. A couple of weeks earlier, Foreign Policy magazine declared that “5G will be, simply put, the central nervous system of the 21st-century... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3006933/forget-hype-why-5g-about-disappoint-you?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3006933/forget-hype-why-5g-about-disappoint-you?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 22 Apr 2019 04:15:12 +0000 There has been an enormous amount of nonsense reported in the last couple of months about the state of economic relations between the European Union and China. First we heard that the EU was adopting an altogether more assertive, even confrontational, stance towards Beijing. Brussels had declared China to be a “systemic rival,” European politicians were slamming the Chinese government’s protectionist industrial policies, and the EU was vowing to stop the Chinese from obtaining cutting-edge... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/europe-chinas-economic-cold-war-west-over-its-begun/article/3006161?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/europe-chinas-economic-cold-war-west-over-its-begun/article/3006161?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 15 Apr 2019 10:53:32 +0000 THERE HAS BEEN an enormous amount of nonsense reported in the last couple of months about the state of economic relations between the European Union and China. First we heard that the EU was adopting an altogether more assertive, even confrontational, stance towards Beijing. Brussels had declared China to be a “systemic rival”, European politicians were slamming the Chinese government’s protectionist industrial policies, and the EU was vowing to stop the Chinese from obtaining cutting edge... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3005986/europe-chinas-economic-cold-war-west-over-its-begun?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3005986/europe-chinas-economic-cold-war-west-over-its-begun?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 14 Apr 2019 17:00:12 +0000 When Chinese Premier Li Keqiang stood up in the Great Hall of the People last month to deliver his annual work report, he spoke for more than an hour and a half. Yet he was notably silent about one high-profile government policy. Not once did he mention Beijing’s flagship “Made In China 2025” industrial strategy, unveiled with such fanfare back in 2015. Since then, of course, MIC2025 has attracted intense criticism internationally. Beijing’s plan to pour vast state resources into seizing a... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/tom-holland-made-china-2025-runs-risk-racking-debt/article/3005141?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/tom-holland-made-china-2025-runs-risk-racking-debt/article/3005141?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 08 Apr 2019 07:53:15 +0000 When Li Keqiang stood up in the Great Hall of the People last month to deliver his annual work report, he spoke for more than an hour and a half. Yet, the Chinese premier was notably silent about one high-profile government policy. Not once did he mention Beijing’s flagship “Made in China 2025” industrial strategy, unveiled with such fanfare back in 2015. Since then, of course, MIC2025 has attracted intense criticism internationally. Beijing’s plan to pour vast state resources into seizing a... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3004900/beijings-made-china-2025-plan-isnt-dead-its-out-control?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3004900/beijings-made-china-2025-plan-isnt-dead-its-out-control?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 08 Apr 2019 00:00:14 +0000 Last week, the Hong Kong government said its planned project to create artificial islands off the coast of Lantau would cost HK$624 billion (US$79.5 billion), rather than the HK$500 billion it had previously estimated. Despite the eye-watering cost – HK$83,750 for every single man, woman and child that lives in the city – the government insists the project is necessary to tackle Hong Kong’s grievous shortages of building land and affordable housing. Let’s leave aside that the government’s first... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3002917/hong-kongs-solution-housing-problem-doesnt-exist-dump-hk1?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3002917/hong-kongs-solution-housing-problem-doesnt-exist-dump-hk1?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 24 Mar 2019 04:15:03 +0000 In the last few weeks the warnings have come thick and fast: the world economy is teetering on the edge of a new global recession, and sooner rather than later is going to tip over the edge into the abyss. Happily, the alarm bells are premature. Some of the warnings are simply a perverse form of wishful thinking. The commentators behind them disapprove of what’s going on the world. Their personal grievances may be global capitalism, Donald Trump, Brexit or the Chinese Communist Party’s success... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3001937/global-recession-prophets-have-misread-us-and-chinese-economies?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3001937/global-recession-prophets-have-misread-us-and-chinese-economies?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 18 Mar 2019 00:00:10 +0000 China’s stock markets took a pasting last Friday, sliding some 4 per cent in a single session as investor sentiment appeared to catch up with grim economic reality. To many market watchers the fall made sense. To them it was irrational that the Shanghai market should have risen 26 per cent between the first week of January and the first week of March, and Shenzhen 34 per cent, even as China’s economy was slowing and the outlook for corporate earnings was darkening. They argued that Friday’s... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2189291/three-reasons-think-twice-about-chinas-stock-slump?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2189291/three-reasons-think-twice-about-chinas-stock-slump?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 11 Mar 2019 02:00:46 +0000 According to a flurry of reports, the trade truce that the United States and China hope to reach over the coming days will include a memorandum on exchange rates. The Chinese side is said to be prepared to keep the yuan stable against the US dollar. But the word from well-connected sources in Washington is that in private, US officials say they are aiming at something altogether more ambitious. They are hoping to secure a second Plaza Accord: a new version of the 1985 agreement under which... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2187370/us-mulls-new-plaza-accord-china-should-learn-japans-fate-not?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2187370/us-mulls-new-plaza-accord-china-should-learn-japans-fate-not?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 23 Feb 2019 22:16:39 +0000 Think of the smartphone in your pocket. Now compare it with the mobile phone you might have carried 20, or even 30, years ago. They are hardly comparable. They are different sizes, different shapes, and worlds apart in what they can do. That brick from 20 years ago could make telephone calls and send short text messages – if you were lucky enough to have cellular coverage. With today’s smartphones you can not only watch movies, you can make them. They can monitor your health and fitness, tell... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2186396/global-car-giants-are-nokia-today-rolling-towards-commercial?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2186396/global-car-giants-are-nokia-today-rolling-towards-commercial?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 18 Feb 2019 10:03:45 +0000 Call it competitive populism. As the campaigning gains pace ahead of an Indian general election that must be held by mid-May, the governing BJP of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the opposition Congress party are locked in an epic struggle to win over voters. In recent weeks, each has rolled out plans to ramp up public welfare spending on the country’s rural poor. But while some of these are simply the same old failed policies warmed up and worked over, others are remarkably innovative – and... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2185484/rahul-gandhis-plans-end-indian-poverty-work-economically-just-not?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2185484/rahul-gandhis-plans-end-indian-poverty-work-economically-just-not?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 11 Feb 2019 01:00:32 +0000 What if there really is a magic money tree? What if governments can spend as much money as they want, without raising taxes or borrowing? What if they can pay for free college education for all, free health care, decent social housing, shiny new infrastructure and a universal basic income – all without worrying about deficits or debt accumulation? To most people this sounds downright crazy – the sort of fiscal recklessness dreamt up by an extreme fringe of economic illiterates. Nevertheless, it... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2184741/even-china-theres-no-magic-money-tree-modern-monetary-theory?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2184741/even-china-theres-no-magic-money-tree-modern-monetary-theory?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 04 Feb 2019 02:00:00 +0000 When Donald Trump complains about China’s trade practices, he inevitably points at China’s monster trade surplus with the United States as evidence the Chinese are cheating. At first glance, it looks as if the US president might have a point. According to US Census Bureau data, over the 12 months to October China ran a US$410 billion merchandise trade surplus with the US – the biggest such imbalance on record. But to focus on China’s bilateral trade surplus with the US is misleading. Viewed in... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2182799/truth-about-chinas-economy-trump-wont-get-there-no-surplus?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2182799/truth-about-chinas-economy-trump-wont-get-there-no-surplus?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 21 Jan 2019 04:00:45 +0000 After a panicked end to 2018 in the financial markets, and a jittery start to the new year, an increasing number of investors, analysts and economists are beginning to warn about “the crisis of 2019,” as often as not to be followed by “the recession of 2020.” Part of the reason is simply the feeling that the world is overdue for another downturn. A look at the economic history of recent decades shows that major financial crashes tend to come along every five to seven years. Seven years on from... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/tom-holland-next-financial-crisis-will-come-us-not-china/article/3000469?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/tom-holland-next-financial-crisis-will-come-us-not-china/article/3000469?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 15 Jan 2019 09:26:47 +0000 After a panicked end to 2018 in the financial markets, and a jittery start to the new year, an increasing number of investors, analysts and economists are beginning to warn about “the crisis of 2019”, as often as not to be followed by “the recession of 2020”. Part of the reason is simply the feeling that the world is overdue for another downturn. A look at the economic history of recent decades shows that major financial crashes tend to come along every five to seven years. So, for example,... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/2181593/look-us-not-china-2019-financial-crisis-heres-why?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/2181593/look-us-not-china-2019-financial-crisis-heres-why?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 14 Jan 2019 02:02:21 +0000 As 2019 gets under way and it becomes more clear that activity in the world’s three biggest economies – the United States, the euro zone and China – is weakening, businesspeople and investors are increasingly looking to policymakers in Beijing to unveil a stimulus package they hope will support growth and financial markets not just in China but around the world. But although China rode to the rescue in 2009, and again in 2015-16, rolling out stimulus measures that boosted demand both at home and... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/2180771/dont-count-china-toss-global-economy-stimulus-lifeline-2019?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/2180771/dont-count-china-toss-global-economy-stimulus-lifeline-2019?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 07 Jan 2019 01:00:15 +0000 Newspapers, complained the British prime minister Stanley Baldwin in 1931, enjoy “power without responsibility – the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages”. The influence of the press is greatly diminished since Baldwin’s day. Yet there remains an uneasy feeling that newspapers, and newspaper columnists in particular, get away with far too much, writing whatever ill-informed nonsense pops into their heads without ever being held to account. So with 2018 drawing to a close, and Abacus now... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2179036/columnist-confesses-i-nailed-belt-and-road-hong-kong-stocks-not-so?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2179036/columnist-confesses-i-nailed-belt-and-road-hong-kong-stocks-not-so?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 24 Dec 2018 03:30:45 +0000 It has been a rough week for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi – and a troubling one for investors in South Asia’s emerging economic giant. Last weekend, voters in three key states turned away from Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), choosing instead the opposition Congress party in local elections: a worrying sign for the prime minister ahead of national elections that must be held by May 2019. Then last Monday, Urjit Patel, governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), resigned... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2178095/modis-plans-indias-central-bank-borrow-future?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2178095/modis-plans-indias-central-bank-borrow-future?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 17 Dec 2018 02:00:00 +0000 Anyone who thought last Saturday’s agreement between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to suspend punitive tariff increases on US imports from China signalled a de-escalation of the countries’ economic cold war got a rude shock last week. On Wednesday it emerged that the chief financial officer of Chinese telecoms giant Huawei had been arrested in Vancouver airport at the request of US authorities on suspicion of breaking American sanctions against... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2176891/dont-ask-why-us-acted-against-chinas-huawei-ask-why-now?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2176891/dont-ask-why-us-acted-against-chinas-huawei-ask-why-now?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 10 Dec 2018 02:00:00 +0000 If you want to know whether Beijing will succeed in its ambitious programme to procure pollution-free blue skies this winter across China’s industrial north and east, take a look at the recent price action on the country’s commodity futures markets. Unfortunately, it suggests China’s toxic winter smog will be back with a vengeance over the next three to four months. Since late September, the price of aluminium futures traded in Shanghai has fallen almost 9 per cent. Thermal coal futures traded... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2175864/why-falling-steel-prices-shanghai-mean-rising-smog-beijing?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2175864/why-falling-steel-prices-shanghai-mean-rising-smog-beijing?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 03 Dec 2018 02:00:00 +0000 It is a mark of just how thoroughly Donald Trump has turned the established principles and practices of international diplomacy on their head that observers have no genuine idea what will transpire when the US president meets his Chinese opposite number Xi Jinping in Buenos Aires next weekend. The hope across much of Asia and the wider world is that Trump will execute a policy U-turn and seal a “beautiful deal” with Xi on trade. If so, the two presidents will avert the next salvo in the US-China... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2174560/xi-trump-summit-could-go-either-way-either-way-its-bad?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2174560/xi-trump-summit-could-go-either-way-either-way-its-bad?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 26 Nov 2018 00:00:30 +0000 In the last few weeks, China’s leaders seem to have rediscovered their enthusiasm for private enterprise. Last month, President Xi Jinping pledged “unwavering” state support for private businesses, reinforcing his message days later at a widely reported meeting between government bigwigs and private business bosses. This newfound official interest in the health of private companies appears to abruptly reverse the official attitude of recent years, summed up by the oft-repeated phrase “the state... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2173480/xis-sudden-embrace-private-firms-cant-solve-chinas-economic?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2173480/xis-sudden-embrace-private-firms-cant-solve-chinas-economic?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 19 Nov 2018 02:00:00 +0000 In a city, and a country, where the bizarre often feels commonplace, and the commonplace bizarre, the South China Morning Post runs some eye-catching headlines. Just in the last week we have had police officers loosing off live rounds in an MTR station during rush hour, writers and cartoonists – surely the most gentle of professions – barred from expressing themselves during Free Expression Week, and senior government officials flatly denying there is any thing amiss with Hong Kong’s human... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2172470/china-property-if-they-tell-you-its-bear-market-its-bull?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2172470/china-property-if-they-tell-you-its-bear-market-its-bull?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 11 Nov 2018 23:00:45 +0000 Hopes are riding high that Donald Trump and Xi Jinping will strike a deal on trade tariffs when they meet in Buenos Aires at the end of this month. On Thursday, the US president tweeted that he had just had “a long and very good conversation” on trade with his Chinese counterpart. And on Friday, the Bloomberg news service reported that Trump had ordered officials to draft an agreement to present to Xi in Argentina. But even if the two leaders do manage to agree to scrap punitive duties on each... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2171479/deal-tariffs-wont-end-us-china-economic-cold-war?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2171479/deal-tariffs-wont-end-us-china-economic-cold-war?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 05 Nov 2018 02:00:00 +0000 Steep falls in global stock markets over the past few weeks have raised fears that escalating international trade conflict could trigger an October crash reminiscent of those in 1929, 1987 and 2008, when the United States’ equity market plunged by 25 per cent in a matter of days. But while the risk of an even steeper sell-off cannot be dismissed entirely, the US-China trade war will not be to blame. All through this summer, American investors and businesspeople were confident the US would emerge... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2170454/trumps-trade-war-not-behind-chinas-stock-market-slump?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2170454/trumps-trade-war-not-behind-chinas-stock-market-slump?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 27 Oct 2018 06:30:00 +0000 The disappearance of dissident Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and his alleged killing inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul by a hit squad acting on orders from the highest levels of the royal family in Riyadh, could be a watershed moment for the country. Over the last year, Western media have largely been full of praise for Saudi Arabia’s young crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, hailing him as a bold reformer for permitting women to drive and allowing cinemas to reopen. When MbS, as... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2169338/khashoggi-killing-could-drive-saudi-arabia-chinas-arms?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2169338/khashoggi-killing-could-drive-saudi-arabia-chinas-arms?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 20 Oct 2018 01:45:45 +0000 Amid the sell-off in stock markets around the world last week, an extra shiver of unease accompanied the slide in Hong Kong shares: the fear that local home prices may be about to roll over, exposing a dangerous build-up of hidden leverage in the city’s pumped-up property market. We’ve all heard the stories. Attending a new property launch, eager young hopefuls without enough cash for the 40 per cent down payment for a standard bank mortgage find themselves the targets of a hard sell. Do not... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/2168393/how-much-hidden-leverage-there-hong-kongs-property-market?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/2168393/how-much-hidden-leverage-there-hong-kongs-property-market?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 15 Oct 2018 02:00:30 +0000 Donald Trump wants to shrink the United States’ trade deficit. In particular, the US president wants to cut America’s bilateral trade deficit with China. That presents Beijing with a problem. The US$375 billion merchandise trade surplus that China ran with the US last year was far bigger than the US$165 billion overall current account surplus it ran with the rest of the world. In other words, China needs the US dollars it earns by selling goods to America to pay for all the technologies it needs... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2167132/china-has-golden-opportunity-become-asias-monetary-power?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2167132/china-has-golden-opportunity-become-asias-monetary-power?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 07 Oct 2018 23:30:30 +0000 In just over a month, on November 5, the US government is due to re-impose sanctions on Iran’s exports of oil. As Iran’s biggest customer – buying roughly a third of its 2 million barrels a day of exports last year – China will be heavily affected by the US action. How Chinese oil buyers respond will have deep implications, not just for China itself, but for other economies across Asia and around the world. So far China is talking tough, with state-owned oil importers insisting they will pay no... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2166213/asia-faces-devils-bargain-over-us-sanctions-irans-oil?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2166213/asia-faces-devils-bargain-over-us-sanctions-irans-oil?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 30 Sep 2018 23:02:36 +0000 Hong Kong government head Carrie Lam has drawn flak over the past week for failing to order non-essential workers to take the day off on Monday to allow for a clean-up following Typhoon Mangkhut. Most commentators suspected Lam was concerned about the territory’s economy. They thought she was worried a day off would mean the inevitable loss of a day’s economic output, which would knock 1.6 per cent off Hong Kong’s gross domestic product in the third quarter. This reasoning is flawed. Strange as... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2165246/typhoon-mangkhut-hey-carrie-lam-day-hong-kong-made-economic-sense?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2165246/typhoon-mangkhut-hey-carrie-lam-day-hong-kong-made-economic-sense?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 22 Sep 2018 00:30:21 +0000 This month marks the 10th anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the event that tipped the US subprime crisis into a worldwide financial crash. For the next few weeks the international media will be full of ponderous opinion pieces by worthy pontificators, all re-examining the crisis. Inevitably, the majority will blame greedy and reckless bankers for causing the crash. Most of what they write will be rubbish. Bankers did not cause the 2008 financial crisis. It makes no more sense to... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2162218/lehman-crash-10-years-nearly-all-you-read-will-be-wrong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2162218/lehman-crash-10-years-nearly-all-you-read-will-be-wrong?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 03 Sep 2018 01:02:01 +0000 At the end of 2008, China’s leaders rode to the rescue. Faced with a collapse in global demand as the international financial crisis deepened, they launched a massive stimulus programme that supported growth, not only in China’s economy, but across much of Asia too. Now, hopes are growing that China’s leaders will do something similar today. Faced with a slowing domestic economy and the risk of a damaging escalation in its trade conflict with the United States, Beijing is once again preparing to... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2161080/its-not-2008-dont-look-beijing-big-stimulus-programme?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2161080/its-not-2008-dont-look-beijing-big-stimulus-programme?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 27 Aug 2018 01:00:45 +0000