https://www.scmp.com/rss/322247/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Since its inception in 1921, China’s Communist Party has lurched between ultra-left radicalism and pragmatism, bringing about alternating tragedies and triumphs. In the first 30 years of the People’s Republic, Mao Zedong’s erroneous emphasis on ideology and class struggle, fanned by ultra-leftist nationalism, produced catastrophic consequences. In the late 1970s, Deng Xiaoping ended the disastrous Cultural Revolution and adopted an open-door policy, which put China on the track of reform and... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3212110/xis-chinese-dream-danger-being-hijacked-ultra-left-nationalism?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3212110/xis-chinese-dream-danger-being-hijacked-ultra-left-nationalism?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 05 Mar 2023 17:00:13 +0000 As I sit down to write this column to reflect on my career as a journalist, my mind keeps drifting to A Good Life, the title of the autobiography of US journalist Ben Bradlee, one of the greatest newspapermen in modern times and for whom I have the utmost respect. I cannot think of a more fitting description to summarise my life’s work as I have decided to move on from the hustle and bustle of reporting and writing for 33 years. I am leaving the South China Morning Post, a newspaper I have... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3197588/26-year-post-veteran-reflects-career-journalist-reporting-china-and-why-he-wants-return-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3197588/26-year-post-veteran-reflects-career-journalist-reporting-china-and-why-he-wants-return-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 29 Oct 2022 00:00:09 +0000 To really understand the extreme lengths that China is willing to go to as it seeks to crush Covid-19, and some of the seemingly unreasonable decisions that it makes towards that end, there’s a three-character Chinese phrase you should always bear in mind: jiang zheng zhi (emphasise politics). The Communist Party’s nearly 97 million members know the phrase all too well, as it’s invariably invoked whenever higher-ranking officials or the central government want lowly bureaucrats or regional... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3193603/guiyangs-zero-covid-tragedy-evokes-chinas-old-mantra-putting?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3193603/guiyangs-zero-covid-tragedy-evokes-chinas-old-mantra-putting?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 24 Sep 2022 01:00:15 +0000 Will China open up more to the wider world, as its leaders have repeated tirelessly in public, or is it about to close its doors, as many have privately feared, because of uncertainties at home and abroad? These two seemingly contradicting questions have been simmering for nearly three years now, as China has largely isolated itself from the outside world through its tough zero-Covid policies and as tensions with the United States have escalated dramatically. They matter even more now as China’s... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3191934/china-closing-its-doors-its-leaders-say-no-actions-speak-louder?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3191934/china-closing-its-doors-its-leaders-say-no-actions-speak-louder?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 10 Sep 2022 01:00:21 +0000 My daughter and I finally returned home to Beijing on Tuesday, a full 23 days after we had arrived in Hainan for a planned one-week beach holiday and became trapped in a travel nightmare by China’s extreme Covid-19 suppression measures. For almost a month, we were forced to become nomads – first stranded on the tropical island province, then trapped thousands of kilometres away in Tianjin for a week as we waited to be cleared for our return to the Chinese capital. We have experienced the good,... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3190293/hainans-covid-chaos-exposes-bad-ugly-and-scary-chinas-virus?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3190293/hainans-covid-chaos-exposes-bad-ugly-and-scary-chinas-virus?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 27 Aug 2022 01:00:16 +0000 For many observers, China faces a growing “trust deficit” with the rest of the world, particularly with advanced economies, as exemplified by a US-based Pew Research Centre survey in 2020 which showed unfavourable views of the country had reached historic highs amid rising geopolitical tensions. But China’s officials are having none of it. Rather, they take pride in frequently citing surveys by two other American institutions to show that the Chinese Communist Party and the government enjoy a... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3176006/chinas-covid-19-lockdown-dramas-show-beijing-must-learn-trust-its?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3176006/chinas-covid-19-lockdown-dramas-show-beijing-must-learn-trust-its?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 30 Apr 2022 01:30:16 +0000 China may have reported stronger-than-expected economic expansion in the first quarter of 2022, but pessimism about the outlook for the coming quarters, and even the whole year, is worsening – for good reason. In the first three months, the world’s second-largest economy grew by 4.8 per cent compared to the same period last year. That growth rate may be slower than the government’s set target, but it is higher than the 4 per cent rate it grew in the last quarter of 2021 as well as the estimates... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3175161/chinas-growth-headwinds-gather-speed-beijing-must-consider-cash?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3175161/chinas-growth-headwinds-gather-speed-beijing-must-consider-cash?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 23 Apr 2022 01:30:22 +0000 Over the past year, watching how China’s policymakers address mounting economic woes and bleeding stock markets has been not unlike watching a disaster movie in which one sees a crisis looming on the horizon but can only sit and watch until its gathering strength and intensity threaten to overwhelm, before the characters on screen finally take action. There had been expectations that the Chinese leaders might signal a roll-out of robust market-friendly policies to support the economy and shore... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3171852/beijing-has-stopped-panic-chinas-stock-markets-it-must-do-more?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3171852/beijing-has-stopped-panic-chinas-stock-markets-it-must-do-more?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 26 Mar 2022 01:30:16 +0000 Ever since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his troops into Ukraine, Chinese officials and state media have acted like rhetorical contortionists. Because of China’s close ties with Russia, Beijing has backed Moscow’s security interests and refused to condemn the invasion. Instead it has accused the United States of stirring up the war in Ukraine and expressed opposition to the new sanctions imposed on Russia. On the other hand, Beijing has also called for “respecting and safeguarding the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3169083/why-china-should-step-forward-and-become-proactive-peacemaker?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3169083/why-china-should-step-forward-and-become-proactive-peacemaker?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 04 Mar 2022 00:30:21 +0000 As one Chinese saying goes, no matter how much one plans things out, life always intervenes. Back in 2000 and 2001, George W Bush, in his presidential campaign and in the first six months of his presidency, sharply criticised his predecessor Bill Clinton’s notion of “strategic partnership” with China and instead labelled Beijing as a “strategic competitor”, seeing China as a long-term threat. Among other things, he pledged to do “whatever it took” to defend Taiwan as his administration signalled... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3168453/ukraine-russia-crisis-china-benefits-if-us-pivots-back-europe-it?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3168453/ukraine-russia-crisis-china-benefits-if-us-pivots-back-europe-it?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 26 Feb 2022 01:30:20 +0000 In Hong Kong’s old days of people smuggling, it was mostly one-way traffic; poor mainland Chinese would sneak across the border or take boats in the middle of the night across the choppy waters to seek a better life in the city. That is why news of a group of at least 15 Hong Kong residents taking a high-powered tai fei speedboat to Zhuhai in the small hours of Monday morning, purportedly to escape the latest coronavirus outbreak, has gone viral on the Chinese internet. Two young women in the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3167600/xis-zero-covid-message-has-implicit-warning-against-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3167600/xis-zero-covid-message-has-implicit-warning-against-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 19 Feb 2022 01:30:19 +0000 Is capital evil? That question is at the heart of a debate that has been simmering ever since late 2020 when the Chinese leadership first warned against the “disorderly expansion of capital”, heralding waves of intense regulatory actions targeting sectors from tech to property to gaming to private education. Now the debate is set to ratchet up a notch. On Wednesday, the Chinese government introduced even more ominous lingo into the public discourse by accusing a former high-ranking official of... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3165084/capital-evil-chinas-widening-crackdown-has-ring-bygone-era?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3165084/capital-evil-chinas-widening-crackdown-has-ring-bygone-era?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 29 Jan 2022 01:30:22 +0000 If there is one thing that defines President Xi Jinping’s reign as it enters a 10th year, it is his anti-corruption campaign. The unprecedented and relentless drive, launched soon after Xi became China’s top leader in late 2012, has not only helped him tame his political opponents and consolidate his power rapidly but also won him widespread popular support. Over the past decade, the Communist Party’s anti-graft agency, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), investigated and... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3164226/tv-parades-corrupt-officials-snared-xi-jinpings-anti-graft?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3164226/tv-parades-corrupt-officials-snared-xi-jinpings-anti-graft?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 22 Jan 2022 01:30:19 +0000 “Keeping quiet while making a fortune”. This Chinese proverb was made popular by Jiang Zemin, China’s top leader from 1989 to 2002. Jiang relished citing the catchphrase to illustrate his governing philosophy, a folksy variation of Deng Xiaoping’s doctrine of “hiding one’s strength and biding one’s time”, which had successfully guided China’s foreign policy over the previous decades. The logic also appealed to multinationals as they tapped China’s huge market and turned handsome profits. These... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3162497/days-us-multinationals-china-keeping-quiet-while-making-fortune?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3162497/days-us-multinationals-china-keeping-quiet-while-making-fortune?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 08 Jan 2022 01:30:21 +0000 Do China’s leaders still care what foreigners say about the country? Do they get it that Beijing’s aggressive approach to its changing international environment has lost it friends and stoked disapproval in many parts of the world? Those are typical questions I receive from foreign friends inside and outside China, who genuinely care about the country and worry about what they see as a constant hammering of its reputation, sometimes self-inflicted. The answer is: yes and no. As mentioned in this... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3160145/do-chinas-leaders-care-about-what-foreigners-say-about-country?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3160145/do-chinas-leaders-care-about-what-foreigners-say-about-country?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 18 Dec 2021 01:30:25 +0000 The period of the Great Leap Forward, the People’s Communes and the Anti-Rightist Campaign from 1957 to 1962 may be a bygone era the Chinese leadership prefers to leave unmentioned because of its devastating consequences. In 1958, Mao Zedong launched a radical campaign known as the Great Leap Forward to surpass Britain through rapid industrialisation and agricultural collectivisation to turn an agrarian country into a communist paradise. Illiterate peasants and workers were encouraged to set up... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3158410/why-rising-ultra-left-nationalism-biggest-danger-chinas?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3158410/why-rising-ultra-left-nationalism-biggest-danger-chinas?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 04 Dec 2021 01:30:18 +0000 Around the world, reports of celebrity artists caught with prostitutes have long been a staple diet of tabloid journalism and table talk. Often, the artists involved suffer an intense and short period of public shame and humiliation but their careers are not seriously affected and they are allowed to continue to enchant their audiences with their artistic talents. A case in point is Hugh Grant, the British actor who was arrested in Los Angeles in 1995 with a sex worker known as “Divine Brown”... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3154037/china-shouldnt-cancel-piano-prince-li-yundi-over-one-night-sex?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3154037/china-shouldnt-cancel-piano-prince-li-yundi-over-one-night-sex?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 30 Oct 2021 01:45:09 +0000 At long last, Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden have agreed in principle to hold a virtual meeting before the end of the year. This will be the first formal meeting between the leaders of the world’s two largest economies, one that comes nearly a year after Biden took office – a nod to how the Covid-19 pandemic has changed not only people’s lives but also diplomacy. That it also comes after months of tension marked by acrimony and accusations between the two countries has... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3151698/no-discord-no-concord-xi-biden-meeting-sign-china-us-relations?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3151698/no-discord-no-concord-xi-biden-meeting-sign-china-us-relations?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 09 Oct 2021 01:30:27 +0000 Is China-US conflict inevitable? That question, long debated in academia, has burst into the real world. Since former US president Donald Trump launched the trade war against China in 2018, their bilateral ties have been in free fall, particularly with rising tensions over Taiwan and the South China Sea. This has heightened concerns about the so-called Thucydides Trap, a theory surmising that a rising power and an existing power will inevitably come into conflict, leading to war. The risks of... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3149050/conflict-between-us-and-china-inevitable-not-if-they-talk-each?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3149050/conflict-between-us-and-china-inevitable-not-if-they-talk-each?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 18 Sep 2021 01:30:19 +0000 To go short or long on China, that is the question that’s been vexing Wall Street ever since China’s recent spate of intense regulatory actions prompted a sharp sell-off in shares of New York-listed Chinese companies. George Soros, the billionaire investor known for his liberal views, has upped the ante by making the debate more political and personal. In his latest opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, headlined “BlackRock’s China Blunder”, Soros described the initiative in China by the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3148254/george-soros-not-blackrock-one-making-china-blunder?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3148254/george-soros-not-blackrock-one-making-china-blunder?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 11 Sep 2021 01:30:23 +0000 Until recently, many people outside China looking at the country’s great transformation in the past 40-odd years failed to appreciate how capitalist the country had become. The Communist Party leaders had adroitly labelled the development model as being in the primary stage of “socialism with Chinese characteristics”. But in fact, China had long practised raw capitalism through and through as it single-mindedly pursued economic development above everything else – at the expense of the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3147408/hyping-chinas-regulatory-crackdown-profound-revolution-risks?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3147408/hyping-chinas-regulatory-crackdown-profound-revolution-risks?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 04 Sep 2021 01:30:14 +0000 “To get rich is glorious.” “Our policy is to allow some people and some regions to get rich first.” In the 1980s, these two concise and famous quotes from Deng Xiaoping crystallised China’s revolutionary shift, from Mao Zedong’s obsession with creating an egalitarian social order – which led to disastrous consequences, including the Cultural Revolution – to the single-minded pursuit of economic development. But while the Chinese media played up Deng’s motto about letting some people get rich... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3146684/china-urges-rich-give-more-common-prosperity-it-can-no-longer?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3146684/china-urges-rich-give-more-common-prosperity-it-can-no-longer?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 28 Aug 2021 01:30:19 +0000 Of all the jokes trending on Chinese social media mocking America’s messy withdrawal from Afghanistan, this one stands out: “If you ever feel useless … Just remember that the United States took four presidents, thousands of lives, trillions of dollars and 20 years … To replace Taliban with Taliban.” America’s longest war has ended in a catastrophic failure, further polarising domestic politics, sapping its international standing, dismaying its allies, and emboldening its enemies. And it has... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3145755/china-americas-messy-afghanistan-exit-more-laughing-matter?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3145755/china-americas-messy-afghanistan-exit-more-laughing-matter?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 21 Aug 2021 01:30:19 +0000 “What’s going on?” That is one of the most frequently asked questions from rattled international investors trying to make sense of China’s recent spate of regulatory moves that have triggered a brutal sell-off in Chinese company stocks over the past few weeks. The answer to this seemingly easy question is anything but because of China’s obsession with secretive politics and failure to communicate the rationale of its policies of global impact. Repercussions look set to rumble on for months. On... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3144884/will-china-learn-its-us1-trillion-lesson-stock-rout-and-be-more?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3144884/will-china-learn-its-us1-trillion-lesson-stock-rout-and-be-more?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 14 Aug 2021 01:30:13 +0000 It seemed not long ago that China’s stock markets in Shanghai and Shenzhen were very much out of step with the global markets, mostly governed by the top-down approach of heavy-handed government intervention. Chinese retail and institutional investors had long been resigned to the not-so-secret arm twisting and ministerial diktats that often came out of the blue and caused wild market swings, whereas foreign investors looked on in bemusement. But circumstances have changed greatly since China’s... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3144146/ant-didi-and-private-education-firms-china-stock-rout-mess-its?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3144146/ant-didi-and-private-education-firms-china-stock-rout-mess-its?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 07 Aug 2021 01:30:13 +0000 The worst may be over for the central Chinese province of Henan – where epic rainfall and flooding swamped cities including its capital, Zhengzhou, causing 99 deaths and affecting close to 14 million people – but the finger-pointing has just started. Local officials have pinned the devastating destruction solely on Mother Nature, but there are questions about whether they paid sufficient attention to early warnings and whether rigid bureaucracy delayed evacuations, particularly in the case of a... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3143255/china-floods-lack-public-debate-holds-back-preparation-future?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3143255/china-floods-lack-public-debate-holds-back-preparation-future?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 31 Jul 2021 01:30:14 +0000 By all accounts, Britain’s move to relax nearly all coronavirus restrictions on July 19 – known as Freedom Day – could not have come at a worse time. It is hardly surprising that on the same day, American and European equities suffered their worst session of the year amid rising fears that the highly contagious Delta variant could impact global economic growth. After marking Freedom Day, Britain recorded its largest number of Covid-19 deaths in months. Despite a surge in cases, Britain is not... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3142295/when-will-china-open-its-borders-non-chinese-vaccines-might-speed?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3142295/when-will-china-open-its-borders-non-chinese-vaccines-might-speed?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 24 Jul 2021 01:30:11 +0000 In the annals of the Chinese Communist Party – which is planning elaborate celebrations to mark its centenary on July 1 – nowhere is more sacred than Yan’an, a hilly city in the northwestern province of Shaanxi.  The party may pride itself on being atheist, but it has no qualms in describing Yan’an as a revolutionary holy land. Party members and ordinary people travel there like pilgrims, many dressed in the blue costumes of the Red Army. It was there that Mao Zedong and other party leaders set... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3138592/mao-and-xi-snows-does-their-legacy-yanan-continue-define-chinas?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3138592/mao-and-xi-snows-does-their-legacy-yanan-continue-define-chinas?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 26 Jun 2021 01:30:17 +0000 To counter US-led efforts to contain the rise of China, Beijing has made further opening up to foreign investment the cornerstone of its policy, betting that the lure of its massive domestic market is difficult to resist and decouple from. Turning Hainan Island, China’s most southerly province known as the “Hawaii of China”, into the world’s largest free-trade port is a crucial piece of the puzzle. With a land mass of about 33,900 sq km, the size of the island is similar to Belgium and slightly... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3137740/hainan-chinas-hawaii-faces-uphill-struggle-catch-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3137740/hainan-chinas-hawaii-faces-uphill-struggle-catch-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 19 Jun 2021 01:30:00 +0000 “Telling China’s stories well and making China’s voice heard and understood”. Since he came to power in late 2012, Chinese President Xi Jinping has reiterated these catchphrases in numerous high-level meetings to highlight the importance of improving the country’s soft power through better international communications and public relations. Back in 2016 in a speech to the country’s top media officials, Xi lamented that despite China’s rising national strength, its international image was to a... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3136809/if-chinas-leaders-want-engage-international-media-learn-mao-deng?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3136809/if-chinas-leaders-want-engage-international-media-learn-mao-deng?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 12 Jun 2021 01:30:00 +0000 US President Joe Biden’s recent decision to order spies to investigate the origins in China of the Covid-19 pandemic has opened up a new front in the battle between Washington and Beijing.  Biden’s statement, on May 26, was framed to suggest that he had ordered US intelligence agencies to determine whether the virus originated in animals and spread to humans or whether it was the result of a lab accident – and to report back to him within 90 days. However, its actual effect has been to put the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3135964/china-should-allow-covid-19-leak-theory-probe-wuhan-lab-if-us?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3135964/china-should-allow-covid-19-leak-theory-probe-wuhan-lab-if-us?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 05 Jun 2021 01:00:16 +0000 The move by the United States to support an international effort for a global minimum corporate tax, which would apply to multinational firms, has injected momentum into discussions on how international businesses are taxed amid speculation that a deal could be reached as early as October. Curiously, this significant international taxation reform has hardly caused a ripple in China with news reports and commentaries discussing the issue largely in the global context, giving the impression that... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3135174/why-china-should-slash-taxes-just-us-seeks-global-minimum-rate?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3135174/why-china-should-slash-taxes-just-us-seeks-global-minimum-rate?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 29 May 2021 01:00:13 +0000 For an outsider to understand China’s A-share stock markets, which are dominated by retail investors and thus known for high levels of market turnover and volatility, learning about harvesting chives and stir-frying methods in Chinese cookery would help a great deal. By official counts, there are more than 180 million mostly small investors who, driven by rumours, trade in and out of positions very frequently, contributing to wild fluctuations. The trading pattern is known as chao, the Chinese... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3134262/ye-fei-stocks-scandal-shows-why-china-must-encourage-whistle?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3134262/ye-fei-stocks-scandal-shows-why-china-must-encourage-whistle?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 22 May 2021 01:30:08 +0000 “There is great chaos under heaven, and [thus] the situation is excellent.” Mao Zedong once used those words to explain his decision to launch the Cultural Revolution to build a new order at home in the 1960s and 1970s. On another occasion, he said “great chaos will lead to great rule”. Fast forward to today and while the circumstances may have changed greatly and the situation may have become more complicated, Mao’s old mottos still resonate with Chinese leaders who are battling the West over... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3132632/china-sees-world-chaos-opportunity-its-struggle-west?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3132632/china-sees-world-chaos-opportunity-its-struggle-west?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 08 May 2021 01:30:10 +0000 The contrast could not be more telling. While the international media hailed Chloé Zhao as making history this week by becoming the second woman and the first Asian woman to land the best director Oscar award for the film Nomadland, the Chinese media acted as if her historic win had not happened at all. Moreover, international attention has since then focused on the Chinese censors’ heavy-handed approach in scrubbing any mention of the award from social media and search engines because of her... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3131838/chinas-treatment-oscar-winner-chloe-zhao-shows-how-lose-friends?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3131838/chinas-treatment-oscar-winner-chloe-zhao-shows-how-lose-friends?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 01 May 2021 01:30:22 +0000 Will China deliver on its ambitious promises to fight climate change or are those pledges part of a public relations offensive to distract attention from its confrontation with the United States and other major Western powers over human rights or Taiwan? Or are those commitments merely being used as a trade-off to gain concessions from Washington on other issues as the two countries try to reset their fraught bilateral ties? These questions exemplify the lingering scepticism in the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3130705/scepticism-chinas-climate-change-promises-misplaced?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3130705/scepticism-chinas-climate-change-promises-misplaced?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 24 Apr 2021 01:30:19 +0000 Over the past few weeks, China and the United States have ramped up their dangerous high-stakes game in the Taiwan Strait amid rising fears that Beijing may invade the island much sooner than expected. On Wednesday, China announced it would begin a six-day live-fire exercise in waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast on Thursday, the same day Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen met a delegation of former US politicians sent by President Joe Biden in a trip described as “a personal signal” of his... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3129883/us-risks-forcing-chinas-hand-taiwan?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3129883/us-risks-forcing-chinas-hand-taiwan?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 17 Apr 2021 01:30:20 +0000 Fans of James Bond will be familiar with scenes showing the British spy sauntering into a hotel room, before looking around and using a handheld counter-intelligence device to sweep for bugs and hidden cameras. Well, given the scale and multitude of privacy violations in China these days, it’s smart to be as alert as Bond. If possible, arm yourself with a bug detector next time you plan to check into a hotel or Airbnb, visit a changing room or have a massage – chances are high that you might... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3128985/china-has-privacy-problem-new-data-laws-could-help-curb-worst?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3128985/china-has-privacy-problem-new-data-laws-could-help-curb-worst?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 10 Apr 2021 01:30:19 +0000 Beijing formally kicked off its plans to remake politics in Hong Kong on Tuesday, when China’s top lawmaking body approved sweeping changes to the city’s electoral system to ensure the central government has critical control over how its leader and lawmakers are chosen. These changes are widely seen as the latest example of Beijing’s attempt not only to tighten its political grip over Hong Kong, but also to push it to become another Chinese city that mirrors mainland ways. Britain, along with... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3128149/britain-has-criticised-beijings-changes-hong-kong-electoral?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3128149/britain-has-criticised-beijings-changes-hong-kong-electoral?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 03 Apr 2021 01:45:10 +0000 Much has been written about the acrimony and accusations traded by Chinese and American diplomats in front of reporters in Anchorage, Alaska, at the start of their first face-to-face talks since US President Joe Biden took office. While the fireworks may be unusual and undiplomatic for the world’s two most powerful countries – particularly as they are looking for ways to reset their fraught ties – they should hardly come as a big surprise. In fact, what transpired has helped set the tone of... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3127191/tough-rhetoric-us-china-talks-sets-tone-future-ties-clashing?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3127191/tough-rhetoric-us-china-talks-sets-tone-future-ties-clashing?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 27 Mar 2021 01:30:22 +0000 “Listening to the party and following the party is the most comprehensive consensus in Macau.” Those were the words of Zhang Zongzhen, a national member of the advisory Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, to reporters on the last day of the CPPCC’s annual session this month – in a reference to the ruling Communist Party of China. That sentence naturally made the headlines of many state media reports the next day, because Zhang is not only a prominent Macau businessman but also a... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3126231/hong-kong-can-you-be-patriot-and-criticise-communist-party?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3126231/hong-kong-can-you-be-patriot-and-criticise-communist-party?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 20 Mar 2021 01:30:19 +0000 For more than 5,000 delegates converging in Beijing and attending annual meetings of China’s parliament and its advisory body, their main task is to endorse and lend legitimacy to the Chinese leadership’s major decisions and policies on political, economic and social developments. But the gatherings like the one which ended last week also provide them an annual platform to broadcast the issues they are passionate about to influence the government’s thinking, through giving media interviews or... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3125260/china-walks-fine-line-between-stoking-nationalism-and-seeking?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3125260/china-walks-fine-line-between-stoking-nationalism-and-seeking?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 13 Mar 2021 01:30:06 +0000 Dong Mingzhu may be one of China’s richest women as the leader of the world’s largest air-conditioning giant with annual sales of 200 billion yuan (US$30 billion) but the chairwoman of Gree Electric Appliances has gained popularity by championing the cause of the less well-off. A case in point is that over the past years, she has consistently and publicly pressed the Chinese government to reform its regressive and much maligned personal income tax regime by hiking the tax-free threshold so that... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3124143/why-its-time-china-cut-its-45-cent-income-tax-rate?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3124143/why-its-time-china-cut-its-45-cent-income-tax-rate?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 06 Mar 2021 01:30:15 +0000 With a rapidly ageing population and a fast shrinking labour force, China is under rising pressure to completely remove its much-maligned birth controls to defuse a ticking demographic time bomb. These days any public comment the government makes on the hugely sensitive subject could easily ignite a national debate. The latest example came on February 18, when the National Health Commission – which is in charge of family planning – published on its website a statement saying it encouraged the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3123157/it-already-too-late-defuse-chinas-population-time-bomb?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3123157/it-already-too-late-defuse-chinas-population-time-bomb?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 27 Feb 2021 01:30:09 +0000 As China and the United States try to reset their fraught relations, the word “reciprocity” will be a buzzword to watch for. After the four years of the Donald Trump administration, which made the idea of reciprocity the cornerstone of its policy towards China and pushed bilateral ties to a historical low, Joe Biden’s new government is also expected to frame its responses largely around the very same idea – albeit with different tactics. As the principle of reciprocity will be an underlying... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3121460/would-china-let-us-teach-american-values-peking-university?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3121460/would-china-let-us-teach-american-values-peking-university?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 13 Feb 2021 01:30:14 +0000 To contain China or not, that is the question for American officials and analysts as President Joe Biden’s new administration ponders how to respond to what it sees as the most significant challenge facing the United States. Of the flurry of proposals churned out by US think tanks, the strategy paper titled “The Longer Telegram: Toward A New American China Strategy” published by the Atlantic Council late last month has raised some eyebrows among China watchers both in China and the US. That is... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3120790/longer-telegram-short-sighted-us-must-accept-it-has-chinese-peer?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3120790/longer-telegram-short-sighted-us-must-accept-it-has-chinese-peer?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 06 Feb 2021 01:30:11 +0000 As Washington searches for new thinking and policy innovation to reset its fraught ties with Beijing, the White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Monday said that President Joe Biden wanted to approach relations with China with “patience”. Her interesting choice of the word “patience” has set tongues wagging among Chinese officials and analysts about what that really means. Some think it is that Biden needs a lengthy comprehensive review of his predecessor’s destructive China policies of the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3119721/beijing-must-recognise-its-own-mistakes-us-china-relations?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3119721/beijing-must-recognise-its-own-mistakes-us-china-relations?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 30 Jan 2021 01:30:15 +0000 Over the past two weeks, the rest of the world has watched aghast as the United States degenerates into its biggest political crisis in recent memory. The implications of the mob attack on the Capitol building, widely seen as the most hallowed temple of American democracy, by thousands of supporters of the US President Donald Trump, will continue to reverberate around the world for a long time to come. The most immediate fallout is the serious erosion of American exceptionalism in which... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3117787/american-exceptionalism-falls-chinese-exceptionalism-rises?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3117787/american-exceptionalism-falls-chinese-exceptionalism-rises?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 16 Jan 2021 01:30:18 +0000 Systemic corruption in Chinese courts is an open secret. This is particularly so in commercial litigation cases in which judges are known to rule in favour of the plaintiff or the defendant, largely based on whoever can offer the bigger bribe. But the evidence of such rampant corruption has been scarce as the authorities tend to shield details of misconduct by corrupt judiciary personnel from public view, acutely aware of the danger of eroding public trust in judicial fairness and... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3116783/chinas-crackdown-corrupt-judiciary-has-long-way-run-zhang-jiahui?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3116783/chinas-crackdown-corrupt-judiciary-has-long-way-run-zhang-jiahui?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 09 Jan 2021 01:30:12 +0000 The landmark investment treaty China and the European Union struck on Wednesday was nearly seven years in the making, giving the distinct impression of long, drawn-out negotiations. Indeed, for much of the previous six years, Beijing had dragged its feet and instead focused on satisfying Washington’s demands, leaving Brussels increasingly weary and frustrated. What went wrong for China and Australia, and what will happen next? But dynamics have changed since the beginning of last year, when... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3116147/china-eu-trade-deal-strengthens-beijings-hand-power-game-us?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3116147/china-eu-trade-deal-strengthens-beijings-hand-power-game-us?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 02 Jan 2021 01:30:14 +0000