https://www.scmp.com/rss/323135/feed Josef Gregory Mahoney is professor of politics and international relations at East China Normal University and a senior research fellow with the Institute for the Development of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics at Southeast University, and the Hainan CGE Peace Development Foundation. He was previously with the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau in Beijing, then China’s leading think tank. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com President Xi Jinping has characterised America’s strategy towards China as containment, encirclement, suppression and a technological blockade, producing “unprecedented severe challenges” that aim to forestall China’s post-pandemic recovery and kneecap its modernisation and rejuvenation, undermining peaceful regional development. These concerns were alluded to in a recent call with President Joe Biden – ahead of visits by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Secretary of State Antony Blinken –... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3260987/how-us-hustling-china-relations-towards-another-cold-war?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3260987/how-us-hustling-china-relations-towards-another-cold-war?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 02 May 2024 11:30:11 +0000 American efforts to foster detente with China have failed: it’s time to acknowledge this and move on. This argument has emerged in recent weeks in several important publications, including The Washington Post and Foreign Affairs, expressed by key opinion leaders considered close to the Biden administration and those representing more conservative positions. These views have not been endorsed officially by the administration but suggest a consensus coalescing on both sides of the American... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3235769/us-peace-efforts-china-have-failed-dont-be-fooled-narrative?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3235769/us-peace-efforts-china-have-failed-dont-be-fooled-narrative?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 27 Sep 2023 21:30:17 +0000 The property bubble in China is a hot topic in domestic and international media, but it is often presented in simplistic ways that obscure its historical causes. Let’s review the historical developments that brought us to this point and hopefully draw lessons to avoid repeating past mistakes. First, the various property market reforms that were brought in rather quickly, starting in the 1980s and early 1990s, introduced a massive new sector to China’s economic landscape. The growth of this... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3190666/how-understanding-roots-chinas-property-bubble-can-prevent-repeat?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3190666/how-understanding-roots-chinas-property-bubble-can-prevent-repeat?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 31 Aug 2022 03:49:35 +0000 It has become a bubbling, meme-like refrain on social media in China and beyond that the nation’s zero-Covid policies are the result of leftist and even Maoist ideological excesses, from the very top leadership down to the juweihui, or “neighbourhood committees”, tasked with local implementation, and sometimes doing so in ways that exceed their authority. The frustrations are understandable. The lockdowns have put tens of millions under physical and emotional duress. One cannot “lie flat” or... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3177718/why-science-not-ideology-guiding-chinas-covid-19-policy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3177718/why-science-not-ideology-guiding-chinas-covid-19-policy?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 18 May 2022 00:45:17 +0000 Many scholars date the Cold War from 1947, starting with the Truman Doctrine which aimed to contain the Soviet Union, to 1991, when the USSR collapsed. In those intervening years, the conflict touched billions of lives, with nearly every significant historical development connected in some way, directly or indirectly. Today, it is worth reviewing American and Chinese assessments of the Cold War as these two countries find themselves on the brink of a new one. American narratives typically... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3159535/us-failure-learn-cold-war-lessons-will-be-chinas-benefit?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3159535/us-failure-learn-cold-war-lessons-will-be-chinas-benefit?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 14 Dec 2021 17:30:17 +0000 In 1948, as the Cold War between the US and Soviet Union was heating up, W.H. Auden’s long poem, The Age of Anxiety, captured both the zeitgeist and a Pulitzer Prize. Its title became a trope to describe the ruins of modernity, and moved Leonard Bernstein especially. A year later his Symphony No 2, also titled The Age of Anxiety, fixated on the poem’s central theme: the loss of faith and the realisation that only faith remains. This dialectic was not entirely new. Søren Kierkegaard just over a... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3155014/us-china-tensions-fuel-our-age-anxiety-we-must-choose-better-future?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3155014/us-china-tensions-fuel-our-age-anxiety-we-must-choose-better-future?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 07 Nov 2021 17:30:24 +0000 More than 250,000 Americans are dead and cases are rising uncontrollably. An effective vaccine strategy is months away. A recalcitrant president refuses to concede or lead. Even so, US markets are surging with the Dow topping 30,000 for the first time in history. As argued by Marxists and Naomi Klein, capitalism has long exploited crises and even encouraged them to discipline labour and advance elite interests. Indeed, Klein’s term “disaster capitalism” from her prescient book The Shock... https://www.scmp.com/business/article/3111826/us-infected-pandemic-capitalism-markets-incentivise-suffering?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/business/article/3111826/us-infected-pandemic-capitalism-markets-incentivise-suffering?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 30 Nov 2020 14:00:11 +0000 In the past few days, several developments have rippled across the communities that closely watch US-China ties. In some ways, these narratives appear to be at odds with each other but, as is so often the case, the contradictions are where the real meaning can be found.  The first is a recent report by The Wall Street Journal, indicating the United States and China have agreed to hold high-level talks on August 15 to discuss progress on the bilateral trade agreement signed earlier this year. The... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3096780/forget-cold-war-and-tiktok-wechat-bans-us-preparing-hot-war-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3096780/forget-cold-war-and-tiktok-wechat-bans-us-preparing-hot-war-china?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 11 Aug 2020 17:30:18 +0000 US President Donald Trump seems to be promoting war with China, but what kind of war does he want? A cold war, a perpetual trade war, a war of words for re-election or something more? A new cold war is already unfolding, and pandemic control measures have advanced Washington’s vision of decoupling and strategic repositioning. The trade war appears endless while the war of words is accelerating daily, with Republicans and Democrats competing over who’s tougher on China. Trump has long blamed... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3085006/how-close-has-coronavirus-pandemic-brought-china-and-us-military?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3085006/how-close-has-coronavirus-pandemic-brought-china-and-us-military?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 19 May 2020 17:00:17 +0000 The World Health Organisation estimates the case fatality rate for the novel coronavirus at 2 per cent. Other estimates range from 3.5 to 4 per cent. While the illness is life-threatening for some, most of those infected will experience only mild, flu-like symptoms. Although WHO director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has declared a global health emergency, the concern, he said, was not due to health concerns in China but the inability of weaker public health care systems in other countries to... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3048953/are-we-overreacting-coronavirus-threat-and-merely-creating-bigger?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3048953/are-we-overreacting-coronavirus-threat-and-merely-creating-bigger?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 05 Feb 2020 17:00:05 +0000 Britain’s counter-intelligence chief recently said he believes the United Kingdom’s intelligence-sharing relationship with the US will not be hit if Britain adopts Huawei technology in its 5G mobile phone network. This is the latest twist in a deepening saga with major implications for Huawei, US-China relations and global technological progress. In Germany, Economy Minister Peter Altmaier has been criticised for comparing Chinese with US surveillance capabilities, as the European Union laments... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3046357/trumps-campaign-against-huawei-symptom-digital-orientalism-ignoring?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3046357/trumps-campaign-against-huawei-symptom-digital-orientalism-ignoring?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 17 Jan 2020 22:30:10 +0000 Vladimir Lenin once quipped that it was better to fall fighting in the streets than in some minister’s antechamber. Such a fate, he acknowledged, was even too cruel for a liberal. Elsewhere, he extolled the virtues of “learning” in the streets, with many failed attempts at revolution likely before success. Lenin’s success can be questioned, but without a doubt Marxism-Leninism found successors in China, as Comrade Xi Jinping repeatedly reminds us. Suffice to say that China’s Communist Party... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3025321/tiananmens-lesson-if-hong-kongs-protesters-want-fight-beijing-will?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3025321/tiananmens-lesson-if-hong-kongs-protesters-want-fight-beijing-will?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 02 Sep 2019 22:30:12 +0000 A century has passed since Chinese youths led their fellow citizens onto the streets to protest against the Treaty of Versailles for awarding Shandong to Japan. The May Fourth Movement was a watershed moment in China’s effort to become a modern nation and inaugurated a tradition of Chinese youths in the political vanguard, since discontinued. Given that May 4 is also celebrated as Youth Day in China, it is proper to ask: what is the state of Chinese youths today? Armed with statistics from... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3008625/century-may-fourth-protests-chinese-youths-are-state-crisis?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3008625/century-may-fourth-protests-chinese-youths-are-state-crisis?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 04 May 2019 06:00:10 +0000 With the announcement of a US-led “Indo-Pacific Economic Vision” to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative, on top of reports that the European Union and the United States have agreed to avert a trade war and work together instead to discipline China, the foreign policy of Donald Trump appears to be coming into focus: repositioning to contain China economically and diplomatically. Just a week ago it seemed Trump’s foreign policies, while detrimental to China, would create opportunities for... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2157652/donald-trumps-strategy-was-never-about?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2157652/donald-trumps-strategy-was-never-about?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 31 Jul 2018 18:00:15 +0000 Many unmurmured questions resonated at the heart of the recent decision during the surprise third plenary session of the 19th Communist Party Central Committee to lift term limits on the presidency amid the declaration of a new era under Xi Jinping “thought”. Three of the most important and taboo questions are: Can the system produce leaders? Does collective leadership work? And, to what extent are some of the key elements of Deng Xiaoping Theory being negated? While Deng’s political reforms... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2135784/xi-jinping-making-his-bid-history-books-pitting-himself?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2135784/xi-jinping-making-his-bid-history-books-pitting-himself?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 06 Mar 2018 10:14:18 +0000 The Polish legislature’s passage of the “Law on Institute of National Memory” on February 1 has provoked outcries of anti-Semitism and Holocaust-denying, especially from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with politicians up and down the Israeli political spectrum and elsewhere echoing his concerns. However, while anti-Semitism is a growing concern in Poland and other parts of Central and Eastern Europe, and while it may well be an important subtext of this legislation, the bill has... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2132206/polands-holocaust-law-about-much-more-anti-semitism?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2132206/polands-holocaust-law-about-much-more-anti-semitism?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 06 Feb 2018 07:23:20 +0000 The recent United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea ruling favouring Philippine over Chinese claims in the South China Sea has highlighted ongoing tensions between neighbours in the region. In public, these discussions often highlight sovereignty and rights to resources. While such interests cannot be discounted completely, “access” is less a matter of national sovereignty over a specific region than it is to capital, technology and markets. In fact, the deeper concern in the South China... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2000901/how-make-south-china-sea-more-secure-both-china-and-its?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2000901/how-make-south-china-sea-more-secure-both-china-and-its?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 09 Aug 2016 09:02:01 +0000