https://www.scmp.com/rss/322347/feed Manjit Bhatia is research director of AsiaRisk, an economic and political risk consultancy. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Covid-19 infection rates are slowing in some places, thanks to state-enforced lockdowns, bringing a glimmer of hope. Western governments, having ditched their free-market mantra, are continuing with Keynesian interventions to “hibernate” their economies, and protect them from carnage. But how do poor, developing countries do this, and can they? While the world locked eyes on Covid-19’s sweep, the G20 summit, held virtually on March 26, went unnoticed. Just as well: it delivered nothing. The... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3078396/avert-pandemic-catastrophe-wealthy-nations-need-help-worlds-poorest?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3078396/avert-pandemic-catastrophe-wealthy-nations-need-help-worlds-poorest?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 05 Apr 2020 09:00:16 +0000 A week after his visit to India, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull put up the “No Vacancy” sign, saying the 457 temporary visa programme would be scrapped. Introduced in the 1990s, the visa scheme signalled a major shift in Australian immigration policy: it allowed businesses to hire foreign workers for jobs locals could not or would not fill. Something changed between the India visit and Turnbull’s “Australia first” decree: he looks suspiciously to have taken Donald Trump’s populism... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2090766/australians-first-ban-457-visa-scheme-skilled-migrants-will?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2090766/australians-first-ban-457-visa-scheme-skilled-migrants-will?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 28 Apr 2017 03:12:27 +0000 Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Sunday referendum to shunt Turkey’s parliamentary rule for dictatorship wasn’t a no-brainer. Several commentators argued diasporic Turks and followers of US-exiled preacher Fetullah Gülen would ruin Erdogan’s party. The sly nationalist and his AK Party won by a hair’s breadth, only to sink Turkey deeper into Orwellian quicksand. Erdogan survived last July’s Güllen-inspired failed coup and launched a campaign of state retribution and witch-hunting. Over 50,000 suspects were... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2088474/erdogan-tightens-his-grip-power-its-now-or-never-turkeys?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2088474/erdogan-tightens-his-grip-power-its-now-or-never-turkeys?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 18 Apr 2017 07:09:20 +0000 Aung San Suu Kyi is a flop, while Myanmar, formerly Burma, lurches towards becoming a failed state. Since her National League for Democracy (NLD) party’s landslide 2015 election win, which propelled her to the specially created post of state counsellor – or de facto head of government – she has talked the talk but can’t seem to walk it. On the explosive Rohingya crisis, Suu Kyi buries her head in the sand. It’s painfully obvious the Muslim Rohingya continue to be brutalised by Buddhist... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2058692/if-suu-kyi-can-offer-no-hope-rohingya-cutting-cash-flow?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2058692/if-suu-kyi-can-offer-no-hope-rohingya-cutting-cash-flow?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 02 Jan 2017 08:11:35 +0000 America is in trouble. Terrible trouble. It’s been in a headspin for the past eight years. Now, with the election outcome many in the world were dreading, it has spun out, tail dragging the head down into the dark pits of despair and who knows what else. There’s an America – still, if only in name. But there does not seem to be a United States. Not after the 2016 presidential election. This has been the dirtiest, most vulgar and, to borrow what has become an awful cliché, the most divisive... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2044406/divided-america-united-states-no-more?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2044406/divided-america-united-states-no-more?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 09 Nov 2016 08:47:29 +0000 So much for his regret. Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte has told the European Union to go “f**k” itself for condemning his extrajudicial killing of suspected drug-pushers and addicts, just days after he expressed regret about calling US President Barack Obama a “son of a whore”. Critics at home have not been spared, either. This week, Duterte removed Senator Leila de Lima as head of a Senate investigation into the killings. Few can deny Duterte’s ugliness – from his crude nationalist... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2021971/dutertes-war-drugs-philippines-cant-hide-his-policy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2021971/dutertes-war-drugs-philippines-cant-hide-his-policy?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:19:42 +0000 Last Friday’s attempted military coup d’état in Turkey barely surprises. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, dubbed Sultan Erdogan by Turkish secularists, has had it coming. Erdogan is modern Turkey’s most divisive leader. Since coming to power in 2002 in a landslide, he has taken Turkey farther right towards autocratic, fundamentalist Islamic rule. He has been gradually centring power in his hands and curbing civil and human rights: jailing writers and journalists, shutting down newspapers,... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1991340/turkeys-attempted-putsch-cements-position-its-divisive?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1991340/turkeys-attempted-putsch-cements-position-its-divisive?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 18 Jul 2016 09:55:02 +0000 As the US presidential election inches towards November’s finale, the lame-duck Barack Obama is already counting down his days. He’ll consider the legacy he will bequeath from his eight years in the White House, plus his presidential memoirs and library, on retiring in January. Yet the thorny work of implementing US policy lies frightfully ahead. In Asia, it’s fraught with jeopardy. The dogfight between billionaire Republican Donald Trump and the Democrats’ Hillary Clinton is all set to... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1941529/whether-its-donald-trump-or-hillary-clinton-next-us?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1941529/whether-its-donald-trump-or-hillary-clinton-next-us?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 08 May 2016 05:31:03 +0000 In the latest phase of their investigation, Brazil’s prosecutorial authorities have been going after former president Luiz “Lula” Inácio Lula da Silva. He has been accused of corruption during his term in office between 2003 and 2010, particularly for allegedly owning a luxurious condominium in Guarujá, a posh beachside suburb in São Paulo, which he had not paid for. And between 2011 and 2014, he is alleged to have received payments totalling US$8 million. Investigators claim the conduit between... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1926404/despite-arrests-and-crackdowns-corruption-remains-scourge?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1926404/despite-arrests-and-crackdowns-corruption-remains-scourge?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 18 Mar 2016 05:30:57 +0000