https://www.scmp.com/rss/329445/feed Richard McGregor is a senior fellow for east Asia at the Lowy Institute in Sydney. Mr McGregor was bureau chief for the Financial Times in Shanghai, Beijing and Washington and has also reported from Hong Kong, Tokyo and Taipei. His book, The Party, on the inner-workings of the Chinese Communist Party, published in 2010, was called a “masterpiece” by The Economist and was chosen by the Asia Society and Mainichi Shimbun in Japan as their book of the year in 2011. His last book on Sino-Japanese... en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Could Australia’s relations with China, already at their lowest point in decades, get any worse? The best place to answer this question is the port of Darwin in the scarcely populated north of the country. Australia is reviewing the 99-year lease on the port signed by Shandong Landbridge Group in 2015 and approved at the time by regulators overseeing foreign investment. Security concerns about a Chinese company owning the access point to northern Australia were dismissed and even faintly... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3152849/china-australia-trade-tensions-rise-will-us-remain-bystander?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3152849/china-australia-trade-tensions-rise-will-us-remain-bystander?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 19 Oct 2021 16:30:14 +0000 Much like the clandestine hostage dramas that played out in the Cold War, the story of the exfiltration of two Australian journalists from China last week is being fleshed only after the public has been presented with its resolution. The first that the public knew of the week-long ordeal endured by Bill Birtles, of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in Beijing, and Michael Smith, of the Australian Financial Review in Shanghai, was the photo of the relieved pair arriving at Sydney Airport on... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3101030/australian-journalists-case-reminder-what-can-happen-when-you?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3101030/australian-journalists-case-reminder-what-can-happen-when-you?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 12 Sep 2020 00:45:06 +0000 If the crisis over the coronavirus is moving decisively into the arena that hosts all big issues these days – that of great power politics – then at first blush, it ought not to be much of a contest. China has been gaining rapidly on the United States on all fronts in recent years, economically, militarily and diplomatically, but on issues of public health, the party-state’s system fell at the first hurdle. The first impulse of Chinese officials was to suppress information about the virus when... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3074692/trumps-america-risks-repeating-chinas-early-mistakes-coronavirus?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3074692/trumps-america-risks-repeating-chinas-early-mistakes-coronavirus?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 13 Mar 2020 01:22:38 +0000 The handling of the outbreak of the coronavirus in the central Chinese metropolis of Wuhan, and then its spread around the country and then the world, have been notable for many things. China’s response, which was late, and then overwhelming, quarantining overnight cities of more than 10 million people and constructing field hospitals in barely a week, displayed both the strengths and weaknesses of the party-state. The reaction of the rest of the world has been instructive as well, wary at... https://www.scmp.com/health/coronavirus-fallout-may-provoke-revolution-professionals/article/3049130?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/health/coronavirus-fallout-may-provoke-revolution-professionals/article/3049130?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 05 Feb 2020 12:40:01 +0000 The handling of the outbreak of the coronavirus in the central Chinese metropolis of Wuhan, and then its spread around the country and then the world, have been notable for many things. China’s response, which was late, and then overwhelming, quarantining overnight cities of more than 10 million people and constructing field hospitals in barely a week, displayed both the strengths and weaknesses of the party-state. The reaction of the rest of the world has been instructive as well, wary at... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3048734/how-coronavirus-crisis-has-brewed-revolt-professionals-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3048734/how-coronavirus-crisis-has-brewed-revolt-professionals-china?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 04 Feb 2020 22:30:08 +0000 China’s economic statecraft has been shaped not just by its recent surge in wealth. Beijing has watched for decades how Washington wields sanctions against other countries to attempt to bring them to heel. The Chinese remember well how the United States imposed an oil embargo on Imperial Japan in 1941 in response to its occupation of China and Southeast Asia. The attack on Pearl Harbour followed soon after. More recently, Washington has routinely used sanctions against other countries and areas,... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3032195/australia-pushes-back-against-china-western-world-watching-see?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3032195/australia-pushes-back-against-china-western-world-watching-see?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 13 Oct 2019 19:00:11 +0000 For Western historians, the signal moment for China’s coming out in the modern age was Deng Xiaoping’s trip to America in early 1979, a visit memorable for a single image – of the diminutive, Mao-suited vice-premier donning an oversized cowboy hat at a Texas rodeo. For historians with a wider lens, especially in Asia, Deng’s trip to Japan months earlier was an equally transformative event. Deng went to Japan in late 1978 when the country was on the crest of an industrial wave that was... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2175446/forget-texas-china-came-out-when-deng-tipped-his-hat-japan?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2175446/forget-texas-china-came-out-when-deng-tipped-his-hat-japan?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 01 Dec 2018 02:00:49 +0000 Washington’s new foreign policy buzzword, “decoupling”, has a rather bland ring, especially given the momentous phenomenon it describes – of the world’s two biggest economies, the United States and China, splitting apart. For the White House, the phrase is shorthand for the administration’s commitment, through taxes, tariffs and other punitive measures, to disentangle its companies and their technologies from China’s supply chains. But without a broader American economic strategy for the region,... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2174084/why-us-should-not-simply-decouple-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2174084/why-us-should-not-simply-decouple-china?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 20 Nov 2018 19:00:45 +0000