https://www.scmp.com/rss/322423/feed Robert Boxwell has worked and lived in the Asia-Pacific region since the early 1990s. He is an occasional contributor on business and regional issues to the South China Morning Post, Reuters, Financial Times and Bloomberg, and is writing a book on the history of US-China trade. He lives in Kuala Lumpur, where he is director of the international consultancy Opera Advisors. Find him on Twitter: @RobertBoxwellJr. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com “Trump’s policies without Trump.” Not a few Americans have expressed the attraction of this idea since Donald Trump threw his hat in the ring in 2015. It dawned on some immediately, others gradually, depending on how much tolerance one had for his mouth and demeanour. The belittling nicknames Trump coined for his opponents during the 2016 campaign were singularly amusing, and his reference to the Washington establishment as “the swamp” resonated with tens of millions of voters. But he took... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3269175/trump-can-storm-back-white-house-if-he-loses-his-belligerence?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3269175/trump-can-storm-back-white-house-if-he-loses-his-belligerence?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 05 Jul 2024 12:30:09 +0000 The past two weeks have been good for anyone worn out by the divisiveness stoked by the US news media. On April 20, BuzzFeed announced it was winding down BuzzFeed News, one of the leading contributors to the shift away from the centre by many American news organisations. Most used to play it fairly straight in their reporting, even if they tended to lean slightly one way or the other. In Jill Abramson’s 2019 book Merchants of Truth, the former New York Times executive editor cited the success... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3218911/does-demise-buzzfeed-news-and-fall-tucker-carlson-and-don-lemon-signal-return-us-media-civility?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3218911/does-demise-buzzfeed-news-and-fall-tucker-carlson-and-don-lemon-signal-return-us-media-civility?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 01 May 2023 19:30:16 +0000 Like an old Russian joke, the protesters didn’t show up to protest the arrest that didn’t happen. One wonders if Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping shared a laugh last week when they met in Moscow. Donald Trump, their former nemesis, facing arrest by a local prosecutor – isn’t democracy great, Mr General Secretary! Trump’s appeal to supporters to protest against his imminent arrest by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg last month was largely ignored. Who can... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3215297/trumps-indictment-real-takeaway-us-polarised-ever?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3215297/trumps-indictment-real-takeaway-us-polarised-ever?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 02 Apr 2023 17:00:19 +0000 Assuming Elon Musk didn’t buy Twitter to shut it down and grind its servers into powder – something worth considering – he’s about to face a set of challenges that might outweigh those hitting him from America’s left, who have turned on one of their climate change allies in lockstep, fearing he will loosen their ideological hold on the platform. “Sorry to be free-speech absolutist”, Musk said in early March, explaining why, after sending some of his Starlink satellite broadband terminals to... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/world/article/3175837/twitter-censorship-conundrum-elon-musk-champion-free-speech?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/world/article/3175837/twitter-censorship-conundrum-elon-musk-champion-free-speech?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 30 Apr 2022 17:30:12 +0000 Four years ago, I wrote about new lows that American democracy was plumbing as we approached the 2016 presidential election. We had two candidates on offer, “in a battle to finish second-to-last in two centuries of presidential candidates”. Even worse, the US news media was self-destructing, giving up something money can’t buy – its integrity – to help their chosen one win. I concluded that “we look ridiculous, and America’s rivals in Beijing hope we keep it up”. We did a lot more than keep it... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3102681/four-years-us-democracy-plumbing-new-depths-and-divisions-are-more?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3102681/four-years-us-democracy-plumbing-new-depths-and-divisions-are-more?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 23 Sep 2020 17:45:05 +0000 “At this very moment, through the wonder of telecom­munications, more people are seeing and hearing what we say, than on any other such occasion in the whole history of the world.” – Richard Nixon, speaking at Zhou Enlai’s welcoming banquet for him on February 21, 1972. Folklore has it that, as Zhou Enlai and his dele­gation of officials walked to the aircraft stairs to meet the arriving Richard Nixon in Beijing in 1972, the Chinese premier was fretting about the loss of face he would suffer if... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3099213/us-china-relations-teeter-brink-could-nixon-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3099213/us-china-relations-teeter-brink-could-nixon-and?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 29 Aug 2020 21:15:14 +0000 “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” In the middle of a career in professional services, I spent a decade as founder and CEO of a speciality coffee chain in Asia. A green coffee broker once used the pithy line above, as colleagues and I “cupped” samples of his coffees. I really liked one of them; a colleague thought it tasted bad. The Luckin Coffee fraud scandal reminds me of that line, though in a different context. After raising almost US$600 million in an initial public offering in... https://www.scmp.com/business/article/3093678/luckin-coffee-fraud-cautionary-tale-investors-and-us-regulators?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/business/article/3093678/luckin-coffee-fraud-cautionary-tale-investors-and-us-regulators?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 19 Jul 2020 08:00:14 +0000 The human and economic havoc wrought by Covid-19 has awakened Americans to a “war” many didn’t know the country was fighting, or didn’t care about – the US-China information war. It has been going on for decades. That Americans largely ignored it isn’t surprising. Most need bullets and bombs to think the United States is in a war. This began to change in the past decade as the number of voices speaking out about non-military wars grew. In addition to information, economic and cyberwars are in... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3089798/door-closing-beijings-wolf-warriors-twitter-amid-us-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3089798/door-closing-beijings-wolf-warriors-twitter-amid-us-china?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 21 Jun 2020 17:00:10 +0000 After the National People’s Congress removed presidential term limits in 2018, there was much speculation that Xi Jinping would remain in power past the end of his second term in 2023. Then 2019 happened. China’s trade war with the United States dragged on, with no end in sight. Hongkongers took to the streets to protest against Beijing’s backtracking on Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” form of governance. Relations with Taipei worsened. And finally, Covid-19, a disease outbreak that began... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3083095/coronavirus-crisis-may-be-helping-china-and-xi-jinping-solve-donald?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3083095/coronavirus-crisis-may-be-helping-china-and-xi-jinping-solve-donald?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 07 May 2020 20:00:14 +0000 You’re not really an “experienced” businessperson until you have led your organisation through a crisis. You don’t even have to come out the other side alive to have learned so much more, as they say, than they teach you at Harvard Business School. Fortunately – or unfortunately – businesspeople around Asia have had plenty of opportunities to become experienced in the past 25 years. The Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998. The 2004 tsunami, which devastated parts of Indonesia and Thailand, among... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3079531/bouncing-back-coronavirus-asias-battle-hardened-businesspeople-are?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3079531/bouncing-back-coronavirus-asias-battle-hardened-businesspeople-are?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 12 Apr 2020 14:00:17 +0000 By now, the early history of Covid-19 is well known, if not clear in its details. The virus was first detected somewhere around Wuhan, in Hubei province, then appears to have entered the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, from where it infected many others. Doctors in Wuhan first noticed the novel coronavirus in December and began exchanging urgent warnings. Local government authorities set out to silence them; some were detained and made to sign documents admitting wrongdoing. Meanwhile, Wuhan... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3078417/how-chinas-fake-news-machine-rewriting-history?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3078417/how-chinas-fake-news-machine-rewriting-history?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 04 Apr 2020 12:00:16 +0000 I watched Hillary over the weekend, a new four-part documentary about you-know-who. As the show got on to her 2016 campaign for United States president, it became hard not to look at the Democrats’ current efforts to beat Donald Trump in November and see a repeat of 2016. Two tainted candidates are vying for the presidential nomination. One is tainted by scandal, the other by being a socialist in hyper-capitalist America. Both claim to be the best bet to beat Trump. We know how it turned out the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3074936/2020-us-election-looking-replay-2016-will-democrats-fail-beat?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3074936/2020-us-election-looking-replay-2016-will-democrats-fail-beat?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 13 Mar 2020 18:00:18 +0000 The top responsibility of any government is to protect its citizens. The United States and its allies all have multiple institutions dedicated to this effort. Intelligence gathering is a critical component of their work. Sharing intelligence binds them together and helps them connect dots. Since much of the sharing takes place through telecoms systems, keeping these systems secure from adversaries is critical to national security. Today, this goes beyond simply keeping military and diplomatic... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3052887/trump-must-stand-firm-huawei-convince-us-allies-ban-chinese-company?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3052887/trump-must-stand-firm-huawei-convince-us-allies-ban-chinese-company?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 01 Mar 2020 18:00:18 +0000 What a chaotic week for US democracy last week was. An “epic fiasco” – as The New York Times termed it – of an Iowa caucus on Monday. A shredded State of the Union address on Tuesday. A presidential impeachment trial acquittal on Wednesday. Democrats cheering for a Republican senator they loathe on Thursday. And, on Friday, a debate among seven candidates whose salient campaign message is that they’re not Donald Trump. Oh, and that they’ll give you the money they take from rich people. You’d... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3050007/despite-trump-impeachment-trial-and-state-union-saga-american?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3050007/despite-trump-impeachment-trial-and-state-union-saga-american?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 11 Feb 2020 22:00:20 +0000 Remember the good old days of happy, win-win trading between the US and China? Yeah, neither do I. But it seems like the vast majority of today’s pundits do, because they peg the end of those days – and the start of the trade war – to Donald Trump’s inauguration as US president, three years ago this week. A smaller number of realists peg the start to soon after Chinese paramount leader Deng Xiaoping charmed Americans by donning a cowboy hat and promising to buy large quantities of American... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3047177/china-and-us-were-never-going-live-happily-ever-after-so-trump?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3047177/china-and-us-were-never-going-live-happily-ever-after-so-trump?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 23 Jan 2020 19:00:09 +0000 Criticism of American presidents by their opponents and the press is a job requirement, but US President Donald Trump has inspired new extremes. Calling him a fascist seems especially popular, though racist, anti-Semite and misogynist aren’t far behind. Former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton extended the criticism to his supporters in 2016 when she said, “You know, to just be grossly generalistic [sic], you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables”.... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3045467/why-trump-will-win-another-fours-years-us-president-voters-want-him?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3045467/why-trump-will-win-another-fours-years-us-president-voters-want-him?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 10 Jan 2020 17:00:16 +0000 You might think former New York City mayor and billionaire businessman Michael Bloomberg’s entry into the 2020 US presidential race would be welcomed by Beijing. Bloomberg has been a compliant capitalist in China for years, especially since he learned his lesson about discussing sensitive topics in 2012. After Bloomberg News ran a story on the wealth of then vice-president Xi Jinping’s family, Beijing blocked Bloomberg sites in China and quietly banned state-owned enterprises from buying... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3037655/michael-bloomberg-white-house-china-might-say-thanks-no-thanks?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3037655/michael-bloomberg-white-house-china-might-say-thanks-no-thanks?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 16 Nov 2019 04:00:09 +0000 Remember the shotgun-waving police officer outside Kwai Chung police station, the one whose photo was all over global media with sensational headlines like, “Hong Kong police officer makes a grave safety error waving a shotgun in protesters’ faces”? This was supposed to be evidence that Hong Kong’s police were using excessive force. It was not. The full story is only now coming out. For whatever reason, videos from BBC, NBC and others pick up the action at around the time the police officer, Lau... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3030354/police-and-protesters-need-make-peace-end-insanity-hongkongers?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3030354/police-and-protesters-need-make-peace-end-insanity-hongkongers?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 28 Sep 2019 23:00:08 +0000 During the protests over the presidential election results in Iran in 2009, I was teaching an MBA course at the University of Malaya. Three of my students were Iranians, one of whom looked like he was in his early 50s, about my age. We had established a friendly “old guys” rapport during the first weeks of the course and I was enjoying learning as much from him as I hoped he was from me. At a break one evening, after the protests had turned deadly, I walked over to talk to him. “Crazy stuff back... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3024523/hong-kongs-business-everyones-business-protests-rage-world-leaders?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3024523/hong-kongs-business-everyones-business-protests-rage-world-leaders?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 29 Aug 2019 01:00:08 +0000 Ross Perot passed away this week at 89. He was a real billionaire in the late 1980s, before billionaires were a dime a dozen, or lying about it. My roommate at the time, a good friend, worked for Steve Jobs at NeXT Inc, and would come home from time to time with a Perot story. Perot, the first outside investor in NeXT, was on the company’s board of directors and wasn’t shy about telling Jobs or anyone else there about how they were screwing up. He was one of those few people for whom Jobs would... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3018299/did-ross-perot-give-us-donald-trump-his-anti-free-trade-1992?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3018299/did-ross-perot-give-us-donald-trump-his-anti-free-trade-1992?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 12 Jul 2019 19:00:06 +0000 “Yo, good game, man. You were the best player on our team.” This is a common post-game taunt in American sports when one is shaking hands with an opponent. American football players sometimes don’t get it, which adds to its zing. The next time US President Donald Trump meets his trade war opponent and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, he could try the line. In their “whose tariffs are bigger” contest, Xi’s actions over the past few weeks have helped Trump a lot. Xi and his team are helping unite a... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3011858/how-chinas-rise-helping-unite-america-behind-donald-trumps?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3011858/how-chinas-rise-helping-unite-america-behind-donald-trumps?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 27 May 2019 19:00:05 +0000 Over the weekend, US President Donald Trump threatened to dramatically increase tariffs on imports from China, concluding in a pair of tweets that, “The Trade Deal with China continues, but too slowly, as they attempt to renegotiate. No!” With almost any other US president, you might reasonably conclude that “no” means “no”, but not Trump. So, who knows. US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, whose job is made harder every time Trump or one of the others on the team spout some happy nonsense... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3009051/protect-us-trade-trump-needs-stand-firm-intellectual?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3009051/protect-us-trade-trump-needs-stand-firm-intellectual?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 07 May 2019 15:15:13 +0000 “This time we really mean it. This time we’re going to change China. Honest. This time won’t be like the market access and intellectual property protection trade deals of 1992. Or 1995. Not to mention 1999 – or the 10 times since then that China’s leaders have promised to stop doing this or that trade practice we found objectionable and finally behave like we want them to. This time is different. This time, your president is our president’s friend. And even if he weren’t, our president is still... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3007951/big-dumb-guy-and-why-china-trade-deal-will-be-flop?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3007951/big-dumb-guy-and-why-china-trade-deal-will-be-flop?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 27 Apr 2019 09:23:31 +0000 One could almost hear the shot glasses clinking in celebration in Beijing last weekend, the chortling, the slapping of high-fives, or whatever it is China’s leaders do when they chalk up a victory. It’s hard to imagine a better outcome for them than the conclusion of the long-awaited report from US Special Counsel Robert Mueller on Russia’s role in the 2016 presidential election.   If you thought an indictment of US President Donald Trump, to the backdrop of the US-China trade war, would have... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3003826/after-robert-muellers-report-us-press-must-reflect-how-it?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3003826/after-robert-muellers-report-us-press-must-reflect-how-it?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 29 Mar 2019 17:30:04 +0000 On February 27, Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, testified in front of the House Oversight and Reform Committee in a hearing that could have been called “Trump Bashing Day 767” (of which, truth be told, I’m an occasional participant in the US press). Meanwhile, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer was two blocks away, testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee in a hearing called simply “US-China Trade”. Ways and Means has jurisdiction over tariffs, which is why it was... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/3001570/china-and-donald-trump-may-have-bigger?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/3001570/china-and-donald-trump-may-have-bigger?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 14 Mar 2019 16:30:13 +0000 While Americans focus on President Donald Trump’s negotiations over the Mexico border wall, negotiations over his other wall – trade with China – carry on less raucously. If he thinks getting to “yes” on the Mexico wall is hard, just wait until he tries getting to “yes” on trade with Beijing. He loses with his base if he makes a deal, and he loses with Wall Street if he doesn’t. Either way, it’s a no-win situation for the United States. Promises to fix the border with Mexico and trade with China... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2183436/trump-caught-between-wall-and-hard-place-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2183436/trump-caught-between-wall-and-hard-place-china?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 24 Jan 2019 19:00:30 +0000 Who knew trade could be so exciting? Aside from trying to outrun Somali pirates in speedboats chasing your freighter with AK-47s in hand or wondering whether your produce truck is going to make it across the Mexico-US border with your cocaine shipment intact, trade is generally humdrum stuff. Offices, emails, orders, containers, ships, jets, trucks, payments. And millions of people who generally get along. You can buy a pint of Ben & Jerry’s at your local Kuala Lumpur hypermarket (if you don’t... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2177605/arrest-huawei-cfo-sabrina-meng-wanzhou-matters?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2177605/arrest-huawei-cfo-sabrina-meng-wanzhou-matters?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 12 Dec 2018 17:02:03 +0000 Peter Navarro and Henry Paulson, two Americans with vastly divergent views on trading with China, made speeches last week that indicate a speedy resolution to the US-China trade war may be hard to find. White House trade adviser Navarro, speaking at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, criticised Wall Street bankers and American “globalist elites” for interfering in the Trump administration’s trade negotiations with Beijing. Calling them “unregistered foreign... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2173440/when-even-china-hawks-and-doves-agree-its-time?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2173440/when-even-china-hawks-and-doves-agree-its-time?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 16 Nov 2018 18:00:45 +0000 The summer of 2017 marked six months of almost constant turmoil in the presidency of Donald Trump. On July 1, an editorial head­line in The New York Times read, “President Trump, Melting Under Criticism. Unlike his predecessors, this president can’t seem to take the heat.” Two days later, Times columnist and Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman, focusing on the US trade dispute with China wrote a scathing piece headlined: “Oh! What a Lovely Trade War. Let’s do something stupid to please the... https://www.scmp.com/politics/origins-us-china-trade-war-trumps-tariff-target/article/2171750?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/politics/origins-us-china-trade-war-trumps-tariff-target/article/2171750?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 05 Nov 2018 10:00:30 +0000 The summer of 2017 marked six months of almost constant turmoil in the presidency of Donald Trump. On July 1, an editorial head­line in The New York Times read, “President Trump, Melting Under Criticism. Unlike his predecessors, this president can’t seem to take the heat.” Two days later, Times columnist and Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman, focusing on the United States’ trade dispute with China wrote a scathing piece headlined, “Oh! What a Lovely Trade War. Let’s do something stupid to please... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2171369/trumps-real-trade-war-target-chinas-outrageous?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2171369/trumps-real-trade-war-target-chinas-outrageous?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 04 Nov 2018 14:30:00 +0000 Imbi Plaza, a shopping mall on the fringe of Kuala Lumpur, capital of Malaysia, is a good place in which to start understanding how the United States and China came to be in a trade war in 2018. In its heyday, in the 1990s and early 2000s, Imbi was the Malaysian capital’s thriving bazaar of high-tech – a collection of shops selling computer hardware and accessories, and the software needed to run them. The hardware was mostly real, though rumors hovered in the complex’s dank air of proprietors... https://www.scmp.com/business/how-chinas-piracy-intellectual-property-theft-and-clintons-us-policy-sparked-trade-war/article/2170659?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/business/how-chinas-piracy-intellectual-property-theft-and-clintons-us-policy-sparked-trade-war/article/2170659?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 29 Oct 2018 10:00:30 +0000 Imbi Plaza, a 1970s-era shopping mall on the fringe of the Bukit Bintang area of Kuala Lumpur, is a good place in which to start understanding how the United States and China came to be in a trade war in 2018. In its heyday, in the 1990s and early 2000s, Imbi was the Malaysian capital’s thriving bazaar of high-technology – a collection of shops selling computer hardware and accessories, and the software needed to run them. The hardware was mostly real, though rumours hovered in the complex’s... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2170132/how-chinas-rampant-intellectual-property-theft?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2170132/how-chinas-rampant-intellectual-property-theft?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 28 Oct 2018 13:00:15 +0000 One evening in May 1986, Dennis Levine, a 33-year-old managing director in the mergers and acquisitions department of Wall Street investment bank Drexel Burnham Lambert, drove to the United States Attorney’s office in Lower Manhattan, went up to the sixth-floor reception area, and extended his hand to the two government prosecutors who were waiting to meet him. They weren’t interested. They bent him over a desk, frisked him and arrested him. Not fully comprehending his situation, Levine seemed... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2160121/how-one-wall-streets-biggest-insider-trading?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2160121/how-one-wall-streets-biggest-insider-trading?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 18 Aug 2018 12:30:45 +0000 In a look back at conflicts that have demanded the attention of political and business leaders over the past half-century, one stands out for its intracta­bility: the long-running trade war between the United States and China – an ongoing series of skirmishes and battles over US access to Chinese markets and China’s access to American technology. Hot wars, cold wars, culture wars and 10 Star Wars films have come and gone, while trade warfare has raged on. Sino-American friendship and trade dates... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2152874/us-china-trade-war-can-trump-learn-history-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2152874/us-china-trade-war-can-trump-learn-history-and?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 30 Jun 2018 14:00:00 +0000 Perhaps the best place to begin understanding why President Donald Trump’s administration is headed into a trade confrontation with Beijing is Robert Lighthizer’s testimony before the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission in 2010. Ambassador Lighthizer, now the US trade representative, provides much of the intellectual heft behind Trump’s attempt to fulfil what many see as his most important campaign promise – to stop the pillaging of the American economy by mercantilist... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2139116/trumps-flaws-should-not-distract-greater-imperfections-us?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2139116/trumps-flaws-should-not-distract-greater-imperfections-us?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 27 Mar 2018 10:30:45 +0000 So Uber’s planning to exit Southeast Asia and leave the ride-sharing markets there to Singapore-based Grab. Like its exit from China in 2016, it’s a win for the ride-sharing behemoths and a loss for the public. That didn’t take long. Once SoftBank Group completed its investment in United States-based Uber, adding it to its stakes in Grab, China’s Didi Chuxing, and India’s Ola, it seemed only a matter of time before it calmed down the cutthroat competition in cities where they overlap. One might... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2137667/when-ride-sharing-titans-uber-and-didi-collude-it-customer?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2137667/when-ride-sharing-titans-uber-and-didi-collude-it-customer?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 17 Mar 2018 14:35:57 +0000 America’s last “trade war”, with Japan in the 1980s, was one of the best things that ever happened to American industry and consumers, because American businesspeople rose to the challenge of the time. Today’s looming trade war with China will be vastly different though, as will be how American industry responds. It’s coming soon to a theatre near you and may have a long run. In the 1980s, Japanese companies were clobbering American competitors across a variety of industries, their success due... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2132682/trade-war-revisited-us-clash-china-wont-be-its-1980s-feud?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2132682/trade-war-revisited-us-clash-china-wont-be-its-1980s-feud?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 11 Feb 2018 02:34:42 +0000 Lee Kuan Yew was decades-long proof that the ability to govern democratically and without corruption has nothing to do with DNA. He routed the cynical shibboleth of democracy’s enemies – the largest collection of whom are in Beijing – that it somehow wasn’t suited to the Chinese. And he routed the stereotype in the West that Asians couldn’t govern cleanly. After sweeping to victory in Singapore’s first elections in 1959, Lee never had to declare a “crackdown” on corruption. His People’s Action... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2101988/singapore-must-preserve-lee-kuan-yews-home-monument-his?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2101988/singapore-must-preserve-lee-kuan-yews-home-monument-his?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 10 Jul 2017 06:37:32 +0000 Don’t click “Like” if you’re sick of the airing of political disputes and celebrity family troubles on social media. The latest – incessant tweets by US President Donald Trump aside – is the Facebook attack last week on Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong by his siblings. Suddenly the one country in Asia that has seemed above it for the past half-century is embroiled in a scandal. I have no basis to wade into the arguments on either side of the Lee family feud, but I know two things for... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2099577/singapores-lee-hsien-loong-right-choose-parliament-respond?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2099577/singapores-lee-hsien-loong-right-choose-parliament-respond?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 24 Jun 2017 02:00:00 +0000 Zbigniew Brzezinski, who died on May 26, was the man who, as US national security adviser under president Jimmy Carter, drove the final laps in 1978 of the “normalisation” of diplomatic relations with China. The process began seven years earlier, when Richard Nixon’s national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, gave his American travelling companions the slip during a Pakistan trip and flew ­secretly to Beijing to meet premier Zhou Enlai (周恩來). It was an accident of history that the two men most... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/2096594/how-us-fears-over-russian-threat-led-rise-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/2096594/how-us-fears-over-russian-threat-led-rise-china?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 02 Jun 2017 04:30:00 +0000 America’s “early harvest” trade deal with China, ­announced by the Trump administration, is underwhelming. One could be forgiven for thinking cynically that the announcement last week, coming the day after President Donald Trump fired FBI director James Comey, was an attempt to change the subject. According to the “joint release”, as the announcement was styled, the two sides made some promises. Beijing agreed to issue guidelines to allow US-owned card payment ­services, like Visa and... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2094678/why-trumps-trade-deal-china-unworthy-america?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2094678/why-trumps-trade-deal-china-unworthy-america?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 18 May 2017 09:45:45 +0000 US President Donald Trump’s cabinet picks expressed divergent views on some issues during their Senate hearings, but they mostly seemed in agreement that US trade with China, as it stands, isn’t working. Americans who haven’t benefited from globalisation largely agree. Those who have benefited – from what cynics call a vast transfer of wealth from the US to China – don’t. The US trade relationship with China has evolved since Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger began crafting a strategy to... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2065356/will-trumps-hard-line-us-trade-china-mean-end-business-usual?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2065356/will-trumps-hard-line-us-trade-china-mean-end-business-usual?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 28 Jan 2017 17:02:57 +0000 Some folks say the Democrats are going to be the winners in next month’s US election, some say the Republicans. From my view in Asia, where I’ve lived and worked for over 20 years, I say the Communists in Beijing will be the biggest winners. They must be revelling in the fun right now, witnessing just how depraved freedom and democracy have become. Get out and vote, America, and show the world that democracy works I’m not going to waste my vote on either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, who are... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2038945/us-making-mockery-democracy-and-china-must-be-loving-it?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2038945/us-making-mockery-democracy-and-china-must-be-loving-it?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 22 Oct 2016 02:00:15 +0000 Open a newspaper nowadays and you’re bound to find comparisons of China with early-1990s Japan: growth slowing, monetary stimulus leading to bad debts and financial bubbles, demographics heading inexorably towards a population that won’t match the required long-term repairs. The similarities seem apt, but two salient differences also exist. One could make it harder for China to sustain export growth; the other makes the need for a solution more urgent than it was in Japan. Both aggravate the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1990212/chinas-challenges-are-not-same-japans-theyre-worse?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1990212/chinas-challenges-are-not-same-japans-theyre-worse?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 17 Jul 2016 04:33:31 +0000 In his 2011 book, On China, Henry Kissinger recounted a discussion between US national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) in 1978 as the US and China sought to normalise relations, a rapprochement driven largely by both sides’ desires to check the Soviet Union. Deng chided Brzezinski about US negotiations with the Soviets: “To be candid with you, whenever you are about to conclude an agreement with the Soviet Union it is the product of [a] concession on the US side to... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1933643/making-too-many-concessions-china-west-has-given-wings-tiger?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1933643/making-too-many-concessions-china-west-has-given-wings-tiger?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 05 Apr 2016 08:45:13 +0000 Two cheers for the recently departed China Securities Regulatory Commission chairman, Xiao Gang (肖鋼), who left after not succeeding at the impossible task of propping up China’s overvalued stock markets. He has been replaced by Liu Shiyu (劉士余), who, like Xiao when he started, has no regulatory experience. Not that it would help. READ MORE: CSRC chief Liu Shiyu faces uphill battle to reform China’s stock markets In January, Xiao summed up China’s stock market problems: an “immature bourse and... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1919021/regulators-must-get-grips-chinas-stock-market-manipulators?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1919021/regulators-must-get-grips-chinas-stock-market-manipulators?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 01 Mar 2016 09:30:15 +0000 After seven Uber drivers were arrested and its Hong Kong office was raided, the company sent a link to a "petition" through its app to its Hong Kong customer base. Within days, democracy showed its power, with more than 50,000 people signing what essentially looks like an Uber Hong Kong group hug. The petition thanked Uber users for their "Uberlove", but didn't really demand anything. I wrote last month that Uber will never make it in mainland China. Organising their Hong Kong customers to sign... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1852441/ubers-rabble-rousing-tactics-mean-its-days-hong-kong-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1852441/ubers-rabble-rousing-tactics-mean-its-days-hong-kong-and?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 25 Aug 2015 08:45:00 +0000 News of Uber racing into China brings to mind images of young, rich guys with naked girls in Ferraris, racing late at night on a Beijing ring road. You know it's going to end badly - though in Uber's case, the young, rich guys will be in a billion-dollar wreck instead of a million-dollar one - but it really doesn't bother you that much. Uber is making its presence felt as it chases an initial public offering. The company's reported valuation - US$50 billion - is in the stratosphere, so you know... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1835111/uber-collision-course-chinas-taxi-drivers-and-cartels?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1835111/uber-collision-course-chinas-taxi-drivers-and-cartels?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 09 Jul 2015 09:45:15 +0000 When historians look back 100 years from now to explain how capitalism went off the rails, Exhibit A will be a list of events from the past 20 years: the pump and dump of inflated dotcom shares in the 1990s before the bubble burst; hedge funds and spendthrift governments collapsing currencies and obliterating the savings of millions in the Asian financial crisis; Enron et al; rampant insider trading in markets everywhere; Wall Street bankers bringing the world to its knees in 2008-09, then... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1757655/dual-class-share-structures-would-be-ill-advised-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1757655/dual-class-share-structures-would-be-ill-advised-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 06 Apr 2015 10:30:16 +0000 I was in Bangkok in May 1992, staying a few miles from where 100,000 Thais had converged to protest at the appointment of Suchinda Kraprayoon as prime minister. Suchinda was one of the generals who led a coup in 1991 to oust a government that the military complained was filled with corrupt politicians - "unusually rich" was the Thai term for them. In March 1992, fresh elections were held, ostensibly to give a clean government back to the people. But a coalition of military-friendly parties... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1648250/having-tasted-freedom-hong-kong-will-never-settle-fake?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1648250/having-tasted-freedom-hong-kong-will-never-settle-fake?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 25 Nov 2014 04:15:30 +0000