https://www.scmp.com/rss/322777/feed Jean-Pierre Lehmann is emeritus professor at IMD, Lausanne, Switzerland, where he was appointed to the chair of international political economy in 1997. He has worked intensively and extensively across Asia for 50 years. He is founder of the Evian Group, an international coalition of corporate, government and opinion leaders united by a common vision of enhancing global prosperity for the benefit of all. He is currently visiting professor in the Faculty of Business and Economics at the... en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com This has been an extraordinary year: we are witnessing arguably the most radical global transition since 1945. To quote sinologist Richard McGregor: “If China continues in its present path, the world as we have known it will never be the same again.”   The signs had been there for some time. In 2012, Financial Times Washington Bureau chief Edward Luce published Time To Start Thinking: America and the Spectre of Decline. The beginning of the end for US leadership can be dated back to two events... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2119615/why-fears-over-malign-china-replacing-benign-america-are?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2119615/why-fears-over-malign-china-replacing-benign-america-are?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 13 Nov 2017 09:45:45 +0000 During most of my working life, I have commuted physically and intellectually between western Europe and East Asia, where I spent part of my childhood and where I have over the years lived, studied, worked and taught. Of course, to get from one to the other, one has to traverse the Eurasian continent. Which is what I did. In the late 1960s/early 1970s, for example, I would take a ship from Portsmouth to Leningrad (as it then was), a train from Leningrad to Moscow, a plane from Moscow to... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2115222/chinas-rise-assured-our-new-world-order-not-hegemon?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2115222/chinas-rise-assured-our-new-world-order-not-hegemon?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 13 Oct 2017 07:30:00 +0000 In the conclusion of her outstanding book on the first world war (The War That Ended Peace), historian Margaret MacMillan asks whether, as many have argued, war in 1914 was inevitable. She refutes this view; the final sentence of the book contains these four words: “There are always choices.” As things currently stand in September 2017, the question would seem to be not whether there will be a trade war, but when. Geopolitical dialogue has broken down, the institutional fabric of the global... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2110091/trade-war-imminent-not-inevitable-can-mindsets-change-its?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2110091/trade-war-imminent-not-inevitable-can-mindsets-change-its?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 08 Sep 2017 04:16:18 +0000 Far from ushering in a “new world order”, so far the 21st century has been marked by turbulent uncertainties. There are very few things on which a consensus could arise – even on the most critical issues. For example, will there be war, or not, and, if so, between who? There is, however, one thing that seems incontestable: in stark contrast to the 19th and 20th centuries, when China was a peripheral passive actor in global affairs, in the 21st century its role is and will be absolutely... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2105912/why-world-has-study-chinese-history-and-how-china-views?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2105912/why-world-has-study-chinese-history-and-how-china-views?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 08 Aug 2017 09:31:18 +0000 This year marks the anniversaries of a number of Asian historical landmarks. July 1 was the 20th anniversary of the handover of sovereignty over Hong Kong from the UK to China. August 8 will mark the 50th anniversary of the Asean declaration, the founding document of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. This Friday, July 7, marks the 80th anniversary of the Japanese invasion of China, triggering the Pacific war that lasted until Japan’s surrender on September 2, 1945. July 7 should be a... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2101366/why-west-and-japan-should-stop-preaching-rising-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2101366/why-west-and-japan-should-stop-preaching-rising-china?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 06 Jul 2017 09:48:07 +0000 When I am in Hong Kong, I usually stay in Causeway Bay. I often take a stroll in Victoria Park where invariably I pass in front of the majestically imposing statue of Queen Victoria. This ­allows me to reflect upon the remarkable rise of the British empire, of which Hong Kong was more than just a symbolic hub. In many ways, the history of Hong Kong, colonised following the first opium war, reflected the determination and brutality of British imperialism. During my latest stay, teaching a course... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2098131/make-britain-great-again-sake-europe-and-world?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2098131/make-britain-great-again-sake-europe-and-world?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 13 Jun 2017 09:38:21 +0000 The conspicuous absence of the heads of state from the major Western economic powers and Japan at the belt and road summit this month in Beijing is a big mistake and a missed opportunity for enhancing dynamic and cooperative globalisation. I live in Lausanne, Switzerland, which is well known among many Chinese as the city in which the International Olympic Committee is located. My flat is near the Olympic Museum and I often walk through the Olympic Museum Park down to the lake at weekends. I did... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2093869/western-and-japanese-snub-chinas-belt-and-road-summit-missed?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2093869/western-and-japanese-snub-chinas-belt-and-road-summit-missed?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 11 May 2017 09:24:19 +0000 I was in Cancún in 2003 for the WTO ministerial meeting to witness the initial cracks in the global governance edifice. The World Trade Organisation was established in 1995 following the completion of the GATT Uruguay Round. It was hailed as the first institution in this new era of globalisation, a new global dawn. The post-war global trade regime had been dominated by the rich countries in what came to be known as “The Quad” – Canada, the European Union, Japan and the US. So-called third world... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2086976/global-order-crumbling-and-we-need-fix-curb-humanitys-worst?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2086976/global-order-crumbling-and-we-need-fix-curb-humanitys-worst?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 12 Apr 2017 08:58:54 +0000 Though there is some flurry of activity for reviving certain trade initiatives – for example, a modified Trans-Pacific Partnership deal – the global outlook for trade remains stormy. The first thunders of protectionism could come at any time. Indeed, the current situation may be the proverbial calm before the storm. Policymakers must realise that there is no alternative to the World Trade Organisation as the responsible institution for articulating a solid global trade agenda. While some... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2079033/revived-wto-offers-best-defence-against-donald-trumps?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2079033/revived-wto-offers-best-defence-against-donald-trumps?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 16 Mar 2017 09:43:22 +0000 East Asia has amazed the world with its economic miracles. But the region must now overcome its geopolitical challenges. In the wake of the second world war, Japan was widely assumed to be “finished”, South Korea was a basket case of underdevelopment, and China was chaotic and poor – indeed, the terms “Chinese” and “poor” were held to be synonymous. Taiwan was hardly worth consideration economically notwithstanding its importance geopolitically. Half a century ago, Taipei’s main economic role... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2076450/east-asia-needs-geopolitical-miracle-protect-its-economic-one?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2076450/east-asia-needs-geopolitical-miracle-protect-its-economic-one?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 06 Mar 2017 11:15:00 +0000 “Datsu-A, Nyu-O” was the title of a Japanese publication that first appeared in 1885, 17 years after the start of the so-called Meiji Restoration (1868), a period marking Japan’s amazing drive to modernisation. Not until perhaps the reforms launched by Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) in China, in 1979, had the world seen anything comparable. From backward feudal isolation, in the space of a few short decades, Japan emerged as a modern, industrialised, imperialist world power. It was the only non-Western... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2070769/shinzo-abe-friend-trump-and-lacking-asian-allies-true-son?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2070769/shinzo-abe-friend-trump-and-lacking-asian-allies-true-son?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 15 Feb 2017 09:46:25 +0000 Of all the many surprises that have occurred in my lifetime, the news on Monday morning, February 21, 1972, that US president Richard Nixon was in Beijing stands out as one of the greatest. Since the “Liberation” in October 1949, China – better known to Americans as “Red China” – had been ostracised by the US, its allies and the international community. The “legitimate” government of China was in Taipei under Chiang Kai-shek, not Beijing. What Americans termed the “fall” of China – the victory... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2062836/remembering-nixon-trump-white-house-can-only-be-bad-china-us?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2062836/remembering-nixon-trump-white-house-can-only-be-bad-china-us?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 18 Jan 2017 09:51:39 +0000 In the course of the Pacific War, Japan committed numerous crimes against humanity. The 1941 attack on Pearl Harbour was not one of them. The attack on Pearl Harbour was an act of war. War material was destroyed, ships were sunk, aircraft were grounded, American soldiers and sailors were killed, an estimated 2,400, along with nearly 70 civilians. But such is war. However, unlike what was happening almost simultaneously as the Japanese invaded Hong Kong, there was no torture, no rapes (an... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2058185/abes-words-pearl-harbour-were-purely-effect-eye-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2058185/abes-words-pearl-harbour-were-purely-effect-eye-china?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 03 Jan 2017 02:00:06 +0000 The rise of the four Asian newly industrialised economies (NIEs) of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan in the last quarter of the 20th century is one of history’s most remarkable narratives. The dictum, however, that “nothing succeeds like success” is misleading. Success can breed complacency; that, in turn, leads to hubris. Today all four, to different degrees, are facing a crisis; primarily a crisis of confidence. Where to next in this looming jungle of the 21st century? I visited... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2056279/how-asias-four-tiger-economies-can-regain-their-verve?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2056279/how-asias-four-tiger-economies-can-regain-their-verve?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 22 Dec 2016 08:13:27 +0000 I was in Astana recently, invited by the Astana Club, a think tank with global perspectives, to a roundtable meeting on “Eurasia at a Crossroads”. There was a very rich discussion – animated, as can be imagined, by the fact that Donald Trump’s electoral victory had occurred only a few days before – with some 60 participants from 22 countries. Here, I aim to highlight a few key points that illuminate what I have termed “the great game in the new global disorder”. The Great Game was a term coined... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2048524/great-game-lives-waning-days-western-supremacy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2048524/great-game-lives-waning-days-western-supremacy?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 23 Nov 2016 09:49:17 +0000 There is only one planet earth, but it looks very different depending on where you are standing. I was in Kiev last week. My last visit was 10 years ago. A lot has happened during that decade, especially recently with the February 2014 revolution and the carnage in Independence Square that ensued. On the main street leading to the square are portraits of those who were killed: all ages, all professions, and both genders. Three I noticed side by side were born in 1970, 1941 and 1993. Shortly... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/2029051/wounded-russia-retreat-rising-china-riding-waves-globalisation?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/2029051/wounded-russia-retreat-rising-china-riding-waves-globalisation?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 18 Oct 2016 08:55:01 +0000 As is well known, for a period of over a century, the erstwhile great Chinese empire – a source of admiration and inspiration for centuries – underwent an era of humiliation. Since the reforms in the late 1970s and early 1980s under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping ( 鄧小平 ), China’s economic fortunes have been greatly restored. When China speaks, the entire planet listens – a quite dramatic contrast with not many decades ago when it was shunned and marginalised by the international market and... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2019640/china-has-power-now-can-one-belt-one-road-take-it-down-path?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2019640/china-has-power-now-can-one-belt-one-road-take-it-down-path?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 15 Sep 2016 08:56:02 +0000 This month, post-second-world-war Japan and I celebrate our 71st anniversary. For much of these 71 years, our existences have been quite intertwined. I first went to Tokyo in 1950. I have childhood recollections of the intense poverty, the begging by wounded former soldiers, the “pom-pom” girls and the Occupation forces. I left Tokyo in 1959, but returned frequently in the ensuing decades. In the 1960s, I witnessed the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, the economic boom that was termed a “miracle”, but that... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2005147/post-war-japan-should-look-back-gratitude-and-slam-door?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2005147/post-war-japan-should-look-back-gratitude-and-slam-door?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 17 Aug 2016 09:39:12 +0000 At a major conference on global trade in London this month, officials from the US were extolling the virtues and benefits of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and, in cahoots with officials from the European Union, the virtues and benefits of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. The fact that these so-called mega-regional deals were a significant advance in the global trade agenda and that they would soon be implemented was the proverbial no-brainer. I asked the American... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1992311/trans-pacific-partnership-all-dead-what-next-now-world-trade?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1992311/trans-pacific-partnership-all-dead-what-next-now-world-trade?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 20 Jul 2016 09:33:36 +0000 There is something quintessentially British about Brexit. As I wrote in another article before the results were known, whether the British exit or not remains to be seen, but the fact is they never truly entered. Splendid isolationism is still part of the DNA, at least among 52 per cent of the population (those who voted Leave). It is also very British in the sense of the “two nations” brilliantly articulated by statesman Benjamin Disraeli in his novel Sybil, published in 1845 (three years... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1982177/brexit-shows-failures-globalisation-hate-advancing-across?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1982177/brexit-shows-failures-globalisation-hate-advancing-across?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:57:00 +0000 The seemingly unending skirmishes between China and Japan over the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands in the East China Sea provide a constant reminder, if one were needed, that while the two are officially at peace and have official diplomatic relations, “peaceful” would hardly be the adjective that readily comes to mind in describing the relationship. The second world war “officially” ended 70 years ago in both the Atlantic and the Pacific but whereas the Atlantic enjoys a solid and durable peace, the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1971589/make-peace-china-abe-should-visit-nanjing-80th-anniversary?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1971589/make-peace-china-abe-should-visit-nanjing-80th-anniversary?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 10 Jun 2016 09:06:30 +0000 If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, the World Trade Organisation can be deemed to be insane. The latest failure in an unending stream of failures occurred on July 31 when India refused to implement the Trade Facilitation Agreement that had been reached (in extremis) in Bali at the WTO ministerial meeting in December last year. Next year, 2015, will mark the 20th anniversary of the founding of the WTO - with 14 of the 20 years... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1572894/move-wto-hong-kong-reflect-new-global-trade-order?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1572894/move-wto-hong-kong-reflect-new-global-trade-order?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 13 Aug 2014 09:45:45 +0000 In writing this at a time of acute tension and bearing in mind a previous article I wrote on the opium wars and the West's cheek in admonishing China to be a "responsible stakeholder", I am aware that I am entering a minefield and risk being misinterpreted. I am not anti-British, nor do I believe the Chinese should enjoy carte blanche in bullying just because we did. As a Westerner, what makes me incandescent is our sanctimonious hypocritical smugness, especially in preaching democracy to the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1552061/given-its-own-record-west-no-position-preach-about-democracy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1552061/given-its-own-record-west-no-position-preach-about-democracy?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 13 Jul 2014 19:24:20 +0000 China is the first new great global power to emerge in over a century. It is receiving a great deal of unsolicited advice in the process, notably then US deputy secretary of state Robert Zoellick's 2005 admonition to Beijing that it should be a "responsible stakeholder". (Note: that was two years after the invasion of Iraq!) It was logical, therefore, that the Chinese should ask how the preceding emerging great powers got there. One result of the inquiries was a brilliant 2006 CCTV series, The... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1545026/chinas-unprecedented-quest-peaceful-rise?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1545026/chinas-unprecedented-quest-peaceful-rise?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 02 Jul 2014 10:15:15 +0000