https://www.scmp.com/rss/311826/feed David Dodwell is CEO of the trade policy and international relations consultancy Strategic Access, focused on developments and challenges facing the Asia-Pacific over the past four decades. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com David Dodwell David Dodwell As my wife and I quaffed our way through a sumptuous five-course South African wine tasting dinner at the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC) early this week, the world food crisis and global food insecurity seemed a very long way away. Yet as the US war on Iran approached its third month, with the Strait of Hormuz still blocked and a host of critical commodities hostage to the conflict, our FCC wine dinners must surely be in jeopardy. More seriously, millions worldwide may face much... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3351187/iran-war-brewing-food-crisis-we-must-avert?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3351187/iran-war-brewing-food-crisis-we-must-avert?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 24 Apr 2026 08:30:09 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell Earlier this week I stumbled on a fascinating piece of research led by geography professor Becky Loo at the University of Hong Kong and soon to be published in the Nature Cities journal. Fascinating not just because of its scale – an analysis of 200,000 household travel surveys covering Boston, Chicago, London, Sao Paulo and Hong Kong – but because of its focus on daily mobility and social mixing. Its key finding? That people aged over 66 have more encounters with a broader cross-section of... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3350402/debunking-myth-lonely-isolated-hong-kong-retiree?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3350402/debunking-myth-lonely-isolated-hong-kong-retiree?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 17 Apr 2026 08:30:08 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell Last week, on April 1 to be exact, Apple reached the grand old age of 50 (almost exactly a year younger than Microsoft), one of a tiny proportion of S&P-listed companies that have stayed the course for half a century. It is a company with which I have had a special connection and a love-hate relationship for most of my adult life. Not that I have ever owned an Apple product (I have always been a loyal Android man) nor any Apple shares; heavens, I wish I had. No. My special connection is more... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3349541/my-love-hate-relationship-apple-android-user?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3349541/my-love-hate-relationship-apple-android-user?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 10 Apr 2026 08:30:09 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell The Trump administration has assured us that the long-awaited summit in Beijing between President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump will now be held on May 14 to 15. Whether you believe the meeting will go ahead is up to you. Beijing has not confirmed it, but neither has it contradicted the White House. That is more than can be said for Tehran’s brutal response to White House claims that US-Iran peace negotiations are under way. Even if we take the White House summit claim at face value,... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3348890/3-reasons-xi-trump-summit-wont-be-waste-time-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3348890/3-reasons-xi-trump-summit-wont-be-waste-time-china?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 03 Apr 2026 08:30:08 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell In these turbulent times, focusing on the World Trade Organization’s 14th ministerial conference (MC14) in Yaounde, Cameroon, is a bit like trying to focus on a picnic sitting alongside a bar brawl, or listening to a lesson in pruning bonsai while a lumberjack takes a chainsaw to a giant redwood. But try we must. Even if the deliverables are meagre and may take years to materialise, the symbolism of Yaounde points to a possible future very different from today’s chaotic hegemonic unilateralism –... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3348028/wto-meeting-cameroon-signals-rise-world-minus-one-order?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3348028/wto-meeting-cameroon-signals-rise-world-minus-one-order?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 27 Mar 2026 08:30:08 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell If there is a thread that provides coherence to Donald Trump’s mad emperorship, it is the frenetic invention of new, evermore dramatic diversions: no week can be allowed to pass without new melodrama that erases the chaotic melodramas of weeks past. Nor can a week be allowed to pass without the seeds being sown for next week’s melodramas. This week it is Iran, and the computer-gaming unreality of a scorched-earth US-Israeli bombardment that has generated convulsions across economies in the... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3347181/us-section-301-tariffs-set-trigger-fresh-wave-trade-disruption?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3347181/us-section-301-tariffs-set-trigger-fresh-wave-trade-disruption?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 20 Mar 2026 08:30:08 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell Spare a thought for the iceberg A23a which, after an extraordinary 40-year life voyaging around the southern Atlantic Ocean, is this month expected to die unnoticed close to the island of South Georgia, a mess of “brash ice, small icebergs and bergy bits”. A23a was one of the largest “megabergs” to be spawned in our lifetimes. When it broke away from the Filchner Ice Shelf into the Weddell Sea in Western Antarctica in 1986, it covered an area of around 4,000 sq km – about the size of Hong Kong... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3346371/how-icebergs-final-dance-tells-story-about-our-past-and-future?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3346371/how-icebergs-final-dance-tells-story-about-our-past-and-future?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 13 Mar 2026 08:30:07 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell As the world’s largest oil and gas importer, China undoubtedly faces a significant disruption, what with the US-Israeli war on Iran and its cascading impact across the Gulf. But it could have been worse. Beijing has worked unstintingly for well over a decade to build energy self-reliance and reduce the role of fossil fuels in powering the country’s manufacturing economy. For leaders gathered in Beijing for the annual parliamentary “two sessions” meetings, which will endorse China’s 15th... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3345607/chinas-energy-transition-proves-boon-iran-crisis?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3345607/chinas-energy-transition-proves-boon-iran-crisis?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 06 Mar 2026 08:30:07 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell A week ago, I had never heard of Matt Shumer. Today, I and 80 million others have viewed his “Something Big is Happening” essay warning about the all-conquering power of the AI revolution, counselling us to maximise our use of artificial intelligence immediately and to put our finances in order. The message? A technology as flexible and powerful as AI will leave many people’s careers permanently devastated. For the truly paranoid, Citrini Research’s 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis report this... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3344778/ai-backlash-growing-how-much-just-hype?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3344778/ai-backlash-growing-how-much-just-hype?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 27 Feb 2026 08:30:08 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell I would like to explore some rather interesting data buried deep in the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Economic and Social Trends 2026 report: an estimated 15.3 per cent of jobs worldwide depended on foreign demand in 2024. In other words, they depend on international trade. The ILO report, based on data from 80 economies that account for 85 per cent of global employment, says this amounts to 465 million jobs. Of these, 278 million are in Asia and the Pacific and 96 million are in... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3344016/despite-trumps-trade-wars-globalisation-eurasias-win-or-lose?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3344016/despite-trumps-trade-wars-globalisation-eurasias-win-or-lose?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 20 Feb 2026 08:30:08 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell As Hong Kong braces itself for the Lunar New Year tourist surge, and perhaps long-awaited evidence of a return to the tourism heydays of 2017 and 2018, spare a thought for the US and mounting evidence of a “Trump slump” in US tourism this year. While UN Tourism data shows that international tourism was up by 4 per cent globally in 2025 – back to levels not seen since the Covid-19 crash in international travel – the US stood alone worldwide, with at least a 4 per cent fall. US President Donald... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3343362/will-tourism-slump-force-trump-rethink-his-unilateral-approach?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3343362/will-tourism-slump-force-trump-rethink-his-unilateral-approach?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 13 Feb 2026 12:30:11 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell If anyone anywhere this week spares a thought for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, it will almost certainly be linked to the Apec leaders’ meeting set for Shenzhen in November. But this is to miss the massive value and purpose of the 21-member grouping inaugurated in Canberra in 1989. To witness Apec’s unique and distinguishing value, you should have been in Guangzhou this week, where over 1,000 have gathered without pomp or fanfare for the first senior officials’ meeting (SOM1). I... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3342541/apecs-quiet-cooperation-still-matters-noisy-divided-world?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3342541/apecs-quiet-cooperation-still-matters-noisy-divided-world?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 06 Feb 2026 08:30:09 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell In Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, Mike Campbell described how he went bankrupt: “Gradually, and then suddenly.” Over the past weeks, there is a feeling that US President Donald Trump and his administration have reached the “suddenly” bit. First, Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney captivated a World Economic Forum audience when he described the “rupture” in the rules-based order, a “bargain” that “no longer works”: leaving middle countries like Canada with no choice but to dilute their... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3341726/gradually-then-suddenly-world-waking-us-threat?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3341726/gradually-then-suddenly-world-waking-us-threat?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 30 Jan 2026 08:30:14 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell In a week marked by the first anniversary of Donald Trump’s second inauguration as US president and a Davos-based melodrama over his ambitions to own Greenland, it is perhaps timely to review this first year of Trump 2.0 and look into the second. First, one has to be in awe of the frenetic energy of Trump, who celebrates his 80th birthday in June. Whatever one makes of his meandering, insulting, overbearing and frequently inaccurate address in Davos, made right off his flights from Washington,... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3340897/why-trumps-davos-farce-may-come-be-seen-watershed?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3340897/why-trumps-davos-farce-may-come-be-seen-watershed?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 23 Jan 2026 08:30:08 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell More than 2,300 years ago, Aristotle mused in Politics that to live alone, a man must be a god or a beast, or words to that effect. I wonder what he would have thought of the popularity of China’s “Are You Dead?” app. For Aristotle, we are social animals, thriving in the “polis” in the company of family, friends and fellow citizens. The average mother had at least five children. Many homes housed three, even four, generations. Family life was noisy and crowded, full of companionship, contest and... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3340039/families-shrink-our-primary-relationship-increasingly-ourselves?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3340039/families-shrink-our-primary-relationship-increasingly-ourselves?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 16 Jan 2026 12:30:09 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell Alongside death and taxes, there are few things more universally certain than corruption in public procurement. That is a reality worth keeping front of mind in Hong Kong as we home in on those we want to blame for the tragic Wang Fuk Court fire that in November killed at least 161 people and left thousands homeless. The maintenance contracts may not have been public procurement contracts, but they were supposed to be strictly overseen by officials and subject to government regulations.... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3339224/root-out-corruption-hong-kongs-tai-po-fire-investigation-must-go-beyond-scapegoats?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3339224/root-out-corruption-hong-kongs-tai-po-fire-investigation-must-go-beyond-scapegoats?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 09 Jan 2026 08:30:09 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell As an undergraduate student of anthropology long ago, I remember studying the phenomenon of “compartmentalism” as a hallmark of primitive cultures or societies – their capacity to hold contradictory beliefs without inner conflict or even appearing to notice the contradictions. We well-educated rationalists in the rich West were supposed to be above this kind of schizophrenic inconsistency, seen as a symptom of a defective imagination or the shallowness of the masses. Think of street hawkers in... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3338425/2025-was-year-denial-what-now?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3338425/2025-was-year-denial-what-now?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 02 Jan 2026 08:30:10 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell For the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum, which in 2026 will be under China’s leadership for the first time in 12 years, the critical challenge for the year ahead rests at the end of its name – economic cooperation. Never in its 36-year history has the 21-member grouping’s challenges been so daunting. US President Donald Trump’s unilateralist agenda and assault on multilateral institutions and the principles of multilateral cooperation have threatened Apec’s mission to encourage... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3337421/us-pursues-unilateralism-china-faces-challenging-task-apec-host?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3337421/us-pursues-unilateralism-china-faces-challenging-task-apec-host?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 26 Dec 2025 08:30:08 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell This week, exactly six years ago, as we were gliding cheerfully into the 2019 festive Christmas season, the Covid-19 virus was spreading in Wuhan, China. I was preparing for an important Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Australia in February (the last overseas trip I would make for three years), oblivious to the looming pandemic. The world in general had no inkling of the terrible three years that would follow, with death estimates ranging from 7 million to 36 million, over 700... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3336967/six-years-are-we-better-prepared-next-pandemic?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3336967/six-years-are-we-better-prepared-next-pandemic?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 19 Dec 2025 08:31:28 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell It is almost eight years since US President Donald Trump first declared that “trade wars are good, and easy to win”. How much longer will it take him and his tariff hawks to eat those words, and acknowledge the crass economic illiteracy of that conviction? How high a price must everyone pay – in particular, US consumers – before he calls off his tariff war? As America’s Christmas shopping season gets into full swing, typically accounting for around one third of US retailers’ annual profits, the... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3336113/us-christmas-shoppers-are-paying-high-price-trumps-tariffs?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3336113/us-christmas-shoppers-are-paying-high-price-trumps-tariffs?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 12 Dec 2025 08:30:09 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell We should call it the “Neom factor”: the force that transforms reasonable aggressive ambition into hallucinogenic fantasyland. It glared out at me last week in a Financial Times headline: “Three ‘Heathrows’ of growth: the unstoppable rise of Middle East airports”. In short, Dubai, Istanbul, Riyadh, Doha and Abu Dhabi in aggregate have airport expansion plans to lift passenger capacity almost threefold to around 750 million a year over the coming decades. In the words of Paul Griffiths, chief... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3335236/why-gulf-regions-dreams-aviation-domination-are-built-sand?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3335236/why-gulf-regions-dreams-aviation-domination-are-built-sand?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 05 Dec 2025 08:30:10 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell Even in these turbulent times, Hong Kong has reasons to count its blessings. I refer to the fundamentals of our global competitiveness, which will protect us from the fiercest storms of the current cycle of economic and geopolitical turmoil. We cannot be immune, given that many economies worldwide face challenges more severe than at any time in the past four decades, but we should be grateful. Critics have in the past predicted the death of Hong Kong. Our government officials often rebut them by... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3334357/3-overlooked-economic-strengths-will-serve-hong-kong-well?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3334357/3-overlooked-economic-strengths-will-serve-hong-kong-well?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 28 Nov 2025 08:30:09 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell As South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa convenes the Group of 20 summit in Johannesburg, two things are likely to be on many minds: the empty chair and the spirit of ubuntu. Wikipedia defines the ubuntu philosophy as encompassing “the interdependence of humans on one another and the acknowledgement of one’s responsibility to their fellow humans and the world around them”. For the purposes of South Africa’s hosting of the G20 summit, that Zulu term means multilateralism – anathema to US... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3333596/multilateralism-isnt-dead-despite-trumpian-year?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3333596/multilateralism-isnt-dead-despite-trumpian-year?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 21 Nov 2025 08:30:10 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell Spectating from afar during the Cop30 UN climate summit in Belem on the edge of Brazil’s Amazon forests, it is easy to despair. Despite 30 years of concerted global diplomacy and exhaustive scientific evidence of the gravity of global warming, carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise, as do global temperatures. Brazil’s rainforest continues to burn. Global oil and gas production remains robust. Governments procrastinate and funding promises still fail to materialise. Worst of all, the world’s... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3332704/takeaway-cop30-climate-action-needs-be-close-and-local?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3332704/takeaway-cop30-climate-action-needs-be-close-and-local?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 14 Nov 2025 08:30:10 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell For a man like Donald Trump, desperately in search of an indelible legacy and congenitally needing to be the centre of news attention, it was only a matter of time before he got round to building a grand ballroom at the White House. Why not a US$300 million solution to the problem of having to entertain national and global elites in a tent, and the embarrassment of women’s high heels getting stuck in the White House lawn? As US President Trump toils to make America great again, why should the... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3331811/giving-white-house-big-beautiful-ballroom-trump-may-be-right?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3331811/giving-white-house-big-beautiful-ballroom-trump-may-be-right?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 07 Nov 2025 12:30:09 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell Despite the superficial conviviality of Donald Trump’s whistle-stop tour through Asia this week, we watched first-hand the dysfunctional reality of the US’ disengagement from the world of multilateralism. Trump delivered a speech at the US-Asean Summit in Malaysia, but skipped the main Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) leaders’ meeting in South Korea. Overall, he was more interested in cutting bilateral deals on the sidelines of the summits. In Malaysia, he finalised unilateral tariff... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3330940/trumps-asia-tour-made-us-distaste-multilateralism-obvious?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3330940/trumps-asia-tour-made-us-distaste-multilateralism-obvious?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 31 Oct 2025 08:30:15 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell If Elon Musk’s 2018 battle for a US$56 billion payday seemed surreal to most average people, then the Tesla board’s proposal to offer him US$1 trillion over the coming decade is nothing short of eye-popping. But Musk’s temerity sits at the heart of an unresolved corporate conundrum amplified by the extraordinary stock market bubble inflating in the United States: to what extent should an individual CEO take credit for a company’s success and thus reap the bulk of its financial rewards, rather... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3330100/elon-musks-proposed-payout-shows-far-reach-genius-myth?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3330100/elon-musks-proposed-payout-shows-far-reach-genius-myth?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 24 Oct 2025 12:30:09 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell When did you last notice that laptops invariably carry a little “Intel inside” sticker? Aware that its microprocessors were important but invisible, Intel thought it was essential marketing to alert the world to their existence at the heart of every computer. Perhaps every computer today should carry another prominent sticker: “Rare earth elements inside”. So too electric vehicles, wind turbines, drones, jet engines, radar systems, smart bombs and Tomahawk missiles. Not to mention everyday items... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3329351/trump-may-be-realising-he-has-less-leverage-over-china-he-thought?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3329351/trump-may-be-realising-he-has-less-leverage-over-china-he-thought?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 17 Oct 2025 08:30:08 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell Two hundred years ago on September 27, the age of the passenger train was born. Hundreds of passengers journeyed 26 miles from the coal mining town of Shildon in northeastern England through Darlington to the port of Stockton. George Stephenson’s steam-powered Locomotion No 1 carried them at 24km per hour, but its average speed on that historic journey was a little over half. Today, the world is criss-crossed by hundreds of thousands of kilometres of railways, carrying around six billion tonnes... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3327717/chinas-high-speed-railway-revolution-should-inspire-world?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3327717/chinas-high-speed-railway-revolution-should-inspire-world?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 03 Oct 2025 08:30:11 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell As US President Donald Trump lambasted attendees at the UN General Assembly this week for failing to stop wars and curb illegal immigration, for championing the climate “hoax”, and even for its faulty escalators and teleprompters, his disdain for all things multilateral was on full display. But to the many who believe – or fear – that multilateralism is in full retreat, the past few weeks have nevertheless provided a smidgen of comfort. In February, Trump promised to undertake within six months... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3326894/wto-fisheries-deal-suggests-multilateralism-not-yet-full-retreat?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3326894/wto-fisheries-deal-suggests-multilateralism-not-yet-full-retreat?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 26 Sep 2025 08:30:09 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell In his policy address, Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu said he remained “deeply concerned” about the progress of the Northern Metropolis mega project. And so he might be. With plans first unveiled almost four years ago and a detailed “action agenda” released two years ago, there is still barely any concrete evidence of its existence. It is intended to transform 30,000 hectares (about a third of Hong Kong’s land area), adding 500,000 homes so the area can accommodate a population of up... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3326038/speed-northern-metropolis-construction-get-bamboo-scaffolders?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3326038/speed-northern-metropolis-construction-get-bamboo-scaffolders?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 19 Sep 2025 08:30:07 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell Counterfeit bricks in MTR’s Tung Chung East station project, improperly sourced bottled water for government departments, substandard trainers for lifeguards – recent scandals in Hong Kong have aroused controversies rooted in the government’s public procurement process. Few Hongkongers have the vaguest idea of the scale of government procurement, even though it is everywhere around us. The Government Transparency Institute, which tries to monitor government procurement worldwide, estimates it... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3325245/hong-kongs-procurement-scandals-reminder-constant-vigilance-needed?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3325245/hong-kongs-procurement-scandals-reminder-constant-vigilance-needed?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 12 Sep 2025 08:30:09 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell Few economies depend as heavily as Hong Kong on a free and open multilateral trading system. Few have as much to lose if the current US administration succeeds in disembowelling the World Trade Organization and miring international trade in tariffs and other forms of protectionism. Yet as the global trading system faces a protectionist assault, Hong Kong’s voice is nowhere to be heard. Our economy has a vested interest in pushing back against the chaotic trade protectionism that US President... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3324357/trade-dependent-hong-kong-must-push-back-against-trumps-tariff-onslaught?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3324357/trade-dependent-hong-kong-must-push-back-against-trumps-tariff-onslaught?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 05 Sep 2025 08:30:08 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell In the film Forrest Gump, one of the titular character’s most famous lines is, “My momma always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” This should give US President Donald Trump pause. He seems always to talk about poker and who holds the top cards. But in the chaotic and unpredictable world that he has chosen to create, he seems oblivious to the cards he is going to get, or that many of the chocolates in his box are rapidly going stale. Still less, he... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3323491/why-global-south-holds-winning-trade-cards-despite-trumps-bluster?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3323491/why-global-south-holds-winning-trade-cards-despite-trumps-bluster?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 29 Aug 2025 08:30:08 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell Who before this month had ever heard of Erika McEntarfer, the career statistician who toiled quietly and uncontroversially at the heart of the US data-gathering machine, for 20 years at the Census Bureau and more recently as head of the Bureau of Labour Statistics? Who except US President Donald Trump could have sought to create a firestorm out of dull labour statistics, accusing McEntarfer of rigging jobs numbers to contradict his narrative of a robustly recovering economy, and making an... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3322690/trump-isnt-first-leader-be-paranoid-about-economic-data?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3322690/trump-isnt-first-leader-be-paranoid-about-economic-data?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 22 Aug 2025 12:30:07 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell The grand edifice of the World Trade Organization’s headquarters on the banks of Lake Geneva stands as strong and sturdy as ever, but US President Donald Trump is set upon bulldozing its foundations. Inside those headquarters, there is evidence of increasing irrelevance. It is populated by a community of around 600 diplomats, economists and various experts who are adrift and directionless. Meanwhile, countries are wrestling with the implications of Trump’s assault on the global trading system... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3321935/most-favoured-nation-thatll-be-us-under-trump?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3321935/most-favoured-nation-thatll-be-us-under-trump?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 15 Aug 2025 08:30:08 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell As a trade policy nerd for the past four decades, passionate about the importance of global trade trends, I am quite disappointed when I am reminded that reader interest in trade issues is miserably low. Even in a place like Hong Kong, where trade accounts for 359 per cent of gross domestic product, the subject seems deadly boring to most people, including those whose livelihoods critically rely on it. In normal times, this may not matter. In such times, people have better and more interesting... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3321175/5-reasons-trumps-attack-global-trade-will-backfire-us?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3321175/5-reasons-trumps-attack-global-trade-will-backfire-us?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 08 Aug 2025 12:30:09 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell US President Donald Trump’s “flood the zone” strategy – intended to keep the world’s media so busy with his narratives they have no capacity to generate their own – is set to change this weekend. After three months focused largely on tariffs and coercive trade deals (with unwelcome distractions from Ukraine, Gaza and Jeffrey Epstein), his administration is due to deliver the fruits of a 180-day State Department review of all multilateral organisations, conventions and treaties, and “provide... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3320327/us-faces-costly-isolation-world-minus-one-cooperation-grows?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3320327/us-faces-costly-isolation-world-minus-one-cooperation-grows?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 01 Aug 2025 08:30:08 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell Whatever it’s been called – plumbago, black-cawke, wadd, black-lead – through century after century, graphite has been nothing if not humble. Last week, the United States slapped a 93.5 per cent duty on graphite imports from China. Share prices soared for graphite miners outside China, from Australia to Canada and South Korea. For some exporters, Trump’s tariffs are not an ill wind. The drama comes down to the global surge in the electric vehicle (EV) market, and the humble but essential role... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3319491/why-trump-attacking-chinas-dominance-humble-graphite?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3319491/why-trump-attacking-chinas-dominance-humble-graphite?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 25 Jul 2025 08:30:08 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell If I earned a dollar for every article written in the past 42 years predicting the end of the Hong Kong dollar’s peg to the US dollar, I would be living a life of genteel luxury, sipping cocktails beside the pool in a tropical paradise not far from here. And yet here we are again, with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) spending upwards of HK$80 billion (US$10.2 billion) since late June to keep the currency within its upper and lower boundaries of 7.75 to 7.85 to the US dollar as... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3318685/why-ending-us-dollar-peg-isnt-answer-hong-kong-needs?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/hong-kong-opinion/article/3318685/why-ending-us-dollar-peg-isnt-answer-hong-kong-needs?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 19 Jul 2025 01:30:09 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell Back to April 2016, at the Qingfeng steamed bun restaurant in Beijing’s bustling Xicheng district, Jin Liqun lunched with the Asia editor of the Financial Times to introduce himself and China’s newly created Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Beijing’s decision to establish a development bank reflected in part a deep frustration with the reluctance of the world’s leading economies to give China (and other leading developing economies) more influence in Bretton Woods institutions such... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3317731/after-10-years-aiib-welcomes-new-leadership-and-fresh-us-challenges?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3317731/after-10-years-aiib-welcomes-new-leadership-and-fresh-us-challenges?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 11 Jul 2025 08:30:07 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell The commitment by Nato’s 32 members to lift their defence spending to 5 per cent of their gross domestic product by 2035 has generated something between shock and awe and a feeling of being plunged into an Alice-in-Wonderland world. Above all, the agreement, which would lift Nato defence spending from an estimated US$1.5 trillion to around US$4.2 trillion over the next 10 years, was an attempt to prevent US President Donald Trump from pulling the United States out of the transatlantic security... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3316861/europes-vow-trump-push-defence-budget-5-rings-hollow?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3316861/europes-vow-trump-push-defence-budget-5-rings-hollow?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 04 Jul 2025 08:30:08 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell Perhaps this is a good moment for an audit of US President Donald Trump and his “Make America Great Again” (Maga) acolytes’ efforts to reshape the world as we have known it for over seven decades. That means reviewing the 130-or-so days since his inauguration, during which he has seeded the storm, and looking towards the 500-or-so days up to next year’s US midterm elections, during which he is set to reap the whirlwind. One clear certainty is that we face a period of unrelenting uncertainty,... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3313178/costs-trumps-chaos-become-clear-expect-him-shift-blame?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3313178/costs-trumps-chaos-become-clear-expect-him-shift-blame?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 06 Jun 2025 08:30:08 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell Mark Twain, in his bestseller The Innocents Abroad, commented on travel as the great unifier: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” A Hong Kong government investing heavily in tourism promotion to charm its way back into the good books of communities worldwide after our 2019... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3312144/mark-twain-was-wrong-travel-not-fatal-prejudice-hoped?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3312144/mark-twain-was-wrong-travel-not-fatal-prejudice-hoped?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 30 May 2025 08:30:17 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell US president Franklin D. Roosevelt, at the end of 1940 in one of his famous “fireside chats”, first coined the idea of the US as the “arsenal of democracy”. Congress might have been unwilling to directly join the war in Europe but it could certainly be persuaded to sell the military equipment its allies needed. Since then, the United States has not only retained its formidable military dominance but also eagerly exports its arms, as a source of valuable export earnings and means of subsidising... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3311426/us-economys-heavy-dependence-arms-sales-should-worry-world?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3311426/us-economys-heavy-dependence-arms-sales-should-worry-world?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 23 May 2025 12:30:09 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell In the mad scramble to understand the narrative around the latest US-China trade “deal”, almost no one has raised the question of why discussions were held in Geneva. The answer is simple. It goes a long way towards helping one understand the outcome. It explains why, despite narratives to the contrary, there was no winner, with the journey to any resolution likely to be long and fraught. In having the meetings in Geneva at the gated residence of Switzerland’s UN ambassador, the Chinese message... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3310529/chinas-message-trade-deals-clear-multilateral-only-way?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3310529/chinas-message-trade-deals-clear-multilateral-only-way?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 16 May 2025 08:30:07 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell Last weekend, Jon Voight, the 86-year-old Hollywood actor most famous for his role in the 1969 film Midnight Cowboy, met US President Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago, Florida. As one of Trump’s three emissaries to Hollywood, Voight’s aim was to discuss how to make Hollywood great again. Tinseltown has had a terrible time in the last five years. Not only did Covid-19 batter the industry, but the long strikes that followed in 2023 provided a second body blow. Technology changes, including video... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3309677/emily-paris-or-pasadena-might-depend-trumps-tariff-plan?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3309677/emily-paris-or-pasadena-might-depend-trumps-tariff-plan?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 09 May 2025 21:30:08 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell As economists and think tanks wade through the fog and flip-flops of the US administration’s tariff war in an effort to estimate the cost to the US and other economies, many overlook a larger, more slippery threat: the hard-to-quantify cost of the uncertainty, loss of trust, inconsistency and unreliability fomented by Trump’s policies. Having issued 142 executive orders in his first 100 days in office, US President Donald Trump has transformed one of the most stable and trusted economies into a... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3308706/trump-wreaks-global-havoc-dollar-cost-uncertainty-rises?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3308706/trump-wreaks-global-havoc-dollar-cost-uncertainty-rises?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 02 May 2025 21:30:07 +0000 The death of Pope Francis is more than a powerful distraction from the routine chaos of the Trump administration in the United States – it is a reminder to the increasingly secular West that religion in its many forms is on the rise, rather than in decline. While the papal succession offers a fascinating glimpse into the arcane mysteries of the Vatican’s autocratic political processes, it also provides an opportunity to review the radical and often controversial liberalisation driven by Francis,... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3307818/why-next-pope-may-be-asian-or-african?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3307818/why-next-pope-may-be-asian-or-african?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 25 Apr 2025 08:30:07 +0000 As trade across the world is being frozen by uncertainty over US President Donald Trump’s chaotic tariff policy, questions arise: when are the so-far silent voices in defence of rules-based multilateralism in trade going to awaken? Why are they not already shouting from the rooftops? And in the face of such deliberate and unprecedented abuse of global trade rules, what should those voices be demanding? The first excuse must be that the chaos surrounding Trump’s 19 executive orders, four... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3306978/trumps-bullying-raises-prospect-us-gone-rogue?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3306978/trumps-bullying-raises-prospect-us-gone-rogue?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 18 Apr 2025 08:30:08 +0000