https://www.scmp.com/rss/505593/feed Neil Newman is a thematic portfolio strategist focused on pan-Asian equity markets. Experienced in the major global financial centres of Tokyo, London and New York, he is a regular commentator on commercial investment strategies that suit constantly changing investor trends. He is a long-term resident of Hong Kong. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com I am in a holding pattern for a return to Hong Kong, spending time on an aeroplane but without an opportunity to land, so to speak. Even though friends are leaving South Lantau for Europe and Britain, albeit temporarily and telling me to stay away, the weather is changing, I need lighter clothes and I miss my mattress – so I wouldn’t mind getting back home. However, I cannot deal with being locked up for 14 days mentally or financially right now. I have witnessed two communities recovering from... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3171147/post-covid-japan-and-britain-life-celebration-again-why-not-hong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3171147/post-covid-japan-and-britain-life-celebration-again-why-not-hong?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 21 Mar 2022 01:30:17 +0000 Occasionally, I come across a design story which gets my attention and captures my imagination – typically something that either flies, floats, or has four on the floor. This may be because I come from a family of engineers. On my mother’s side of the family, my grandfather and great-aunt built HRG sports cars in Tolworth, England. My father’s side was full of electrical engineers, with dad being instrumental in the development of text and data over telephone lines. I was the black sheep who... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3170184/hong-kong-ev-automotive-design-may-be-just-ticket-new-urban?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3170184/hong-kong-ev-automotive-design-may-be-just-ticket-new-urban?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 14 Mar 2022 01:00:18 +0000 Having lived in Asia for so long now that I’ve lost my right to vote in British elections, I can only gaze at the politics from afar. And recently, it has looked like insanity. I must say that at times I envy my 82-year-old mother who suffers from progressive dementia and is probably better in tune with the live broadcasts from Westminster than I, as she benefits from almost instantly forgetting what has just been said. Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, or BoJo for short, is our... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3169337/russias-invasion-ukraine-gives-boris-johnson-his-churchill-moment?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3169337/russias-invasion-ukraine-gives-boris-johnson-his-churchill-moment?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 07 Mar 2022 09:00:23 +0000 Sitting around a Sunday afternoon lunch table with a few cans of beer under the belt is a natural forum for entrepreneurs to air ideas of what we are likely to do next. Such was the case about a year ago when I sat with two new friends who hail from Switzerland and found themselves in South Lantau: Töni Sigg and Urs Stemmler. One thing we have in common, like many guys of our age, is a love of fancy cars – Ferrari, Maserati, Aston Martin, etc – and Urs has even taken the plunge with a 1980s’ era... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3168947/classic-cars-hong-kong-could-be-untapped-treasure-trove-investors?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3168947/classic-cars-hong-kong-could-be-untapped-treasure-trove-investors?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 02 Mar 2022 23:00:36 +0000 This week has been tough. The news from pretty much everywhere has been awful and I don’t think I’ve ever received more messages in a week from stressed-out friends worried sick. And not from Hong Kong. I think we can all agree that it feels like we’ve been living in a disaster movie lately. But unlike in the frighteningly prescient 2009 film Contagion or TV series Survivors, in which most of the world’s population is wiped out by a virus, the real-life impact of our current health crisis is... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3168402/escapism-cure-hong-kongs-pandemic-blues-doraemon-shows-how?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3168402/escapism-cure-hong-kongs-pandemic-blues-doraemon-shows-how?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 28 Feb 2022 01:30:22 +0000 Hong Kong’s government has been criticised for the uncompromising harshness of its efforts to track and try to eliminate Covid-19 infections – to the point where even old-age pensioners are forced to buy and learn to use a smartphone to dine out. Yet despite the backlash, the tracking of individuals’ movements has become commonplace during the pandemic, and not just here. Most countries have had a stab at contact tracing, with scan-as-you-go apps or even Covid-19 vaccine “passports”, with... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3167616/pet-project-would-you-get-implanted-microchip-used-pets-replace?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3167616/pet-project-would-you-get-implanted-microchip-used-pets-replace?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 21 Feb 2022 00:00:27 +0000 Neil Newman Neil Newman SLEEPWALK This will make you cringe. In 1985, I bought my first CD in London: The Collection, an album of Ultravox’s greatest hits. Although I did not have a CD player at the time, I knew I was being seconded to Tokyo where I’d get one cheaper and kick off the transition of my music collection to crisp digital, leaving my analogue vinyl LPs behind in the attic. By 1992 I had amassed a decent CD collection, the year MiniDisc arrived, an expensive technology offering 60-80 minutes of audio on a... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3166734/cryptocurrency-and-nft-friendly-hong-kong-could-be-sitting-new?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3166734/cryptocurrency-and-nft-friendly-hong-kong-could-be-sitting-new?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 14 Feb 2022 00:00:10 +0000 I SEE YOU I am sitting in a café in Nihombashi on the edge of the financial district close to the Bank of Japan, having just stepped out of the crisp cold air of a Tokyo winter morning for a latte. Outside the café is nothing out of the ordinary being a typical financial district coffee shop with snacks, a light lunch menu and a list of fancy coffees. But, inside could not be more different – the shop’s staff are made of white plastic. The robot waiters, or avatars, that serve the café’s... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3166150/how-robot-avatars-piloted-disabled-people-are-changing-japans?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3166150/how-robot-avatars-piloted-disabled-people-are-changing-japans?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 07 Feb 2022 23:30:21 +0000 To buy or to rent? It’s a fundamental question we all ask when we consider how to put a roof over our heads. I went through this process 40 years ago, early in my career and with a young family, and have seen some wild swings in interest rates and property prices since. In 1986, three years into my finance career, I relocated to Tokyo as the Japanese stock market and property boom were going at full throttle. It was a time of easy money, speculation, and senseless punting on memberships for... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3165511/are-hong-kong-property-prices-its-hamsters-eye-tiger?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3165511/are-hong-kong-property-prices-its-hamsters-eye-tiger?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 02 Feb 2022 02:30:28 +0000 Being locked up in government-mandated quarantine as part of international travel remains to me as hard to swallow as the pre-departure nasopharyngeal swab. But both have been with us in one form or another for over two years, and chances are that mandatory quarantine will remain with us for a while yet – especially if Hong Kong’s rate of re-opening is anything to go by (though at least it appears to be going in the right direction, having cut the confinement period from three weeks to 14... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3165053/hong-kong-should-learn-japans-covid-19-quarantine-state-pays-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3165053/hong-kong-should-learn-japans-covid-19-quarantine-state-pays-and?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 30 Jan 2022 23:00:15 +0000 Han Solo stepped on a twig in the forest of Endor, alerting an Imperial scout trooper who promptly jumped on a Speeder bike, kicking off one of the most exciting chase sequences in 1983’s Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. Newly created special effects from Industrial Light and Magic showed Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia Organa chasing down the scout troopers at 100mph through the trees on fictional hover bikes. Glued to the silver screen by the chase, a group of engineering students studying... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3164353/yer-bike-personal-air-mobility-becoming-race-between-japan-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3164353/yer-bike-personal-air-mobility-becoming-race-between-japan-china?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 23 Jan 2022 22:00:17 +0000 P is a professional vocalist in Hong Kong, and a single mother raising her two daughters in the most expensive city in the world. Like all musicians, P, who asked that her real name not be used, was hit hard at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. With the closure of venues and a complete loss of income, she could no longer send her girls to school, or afford the rent on her flat, and had to ask friends to let her sleep on the sofa. Babe Tree, a songwriter, performance artist and close... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/people/article/3163415/while-hong-kong-gets-chills-and-theyre-multiplying-musicians-union?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/people/article/3163415/while-hong-kong-gets-chills-and-theyre-multiplying-musicians-union?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 17 Jan 2022 01:30:22 +0000 There is a shortlist of things to consider when buying a modern electric car over a petrol or diesel, and for me they are: Not to look goofy. Electric vehicles (EVs) used to be weird, ugly vehicles that were tucked away at the back of motor shows as far away from Aston Martin, Maserati and Ferrari as you can get. Tesla changed that with the help of Lotus with its first roadster in 2008, and then the Model S. Other manufacturers realised this and some of the slickest designs from Porsche, Audi... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3163088/theres-solution-chinas-lithium-squeeze-electric-vehicle-battery?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3163088/theres-solution-chinas-lithium-squeeze-electric-vehicle-battery?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 12 Jan 2022 08:10:23 +0000 I am a sixties child and have never been in the thick of any armed conflict. My parents were born in the 1930s and were caught up in World War II as children, being evacuated from suburban London as the German V-1 flying bomb menaced them from overhead. My grandparents were caught up in both world wars, having been born just before the first one kicked off, with my grandfather shooting German bomber aircraft out of the sky in the second one. As a young clerical assistant in the City of London, I... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3162577/trade-sanctions-gas-people-weapons-choice-our-new-world-war?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3162577/trade-sanctions-gas-people-weapons-choice-our-new-world-war?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 10 Jan 2022 01:30:22 +0000 The editorial desk at This Week In Asia kindly thought of me when scouting for ideas for their forward-looking 2022 jamboree of predictions. I enthusiastically took on the challenge, looking for something beyond my ramblings on interest rates which they kindly published. I got to thinking about Donald Trump and that he has been low key, especially on the political front, and how North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un has been relatively quiet also. If Kim were to mischievously play with the White... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3162234/will-bidens-china-russia-and-north-korea-woes-provide-ballast?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3162234/will-bidens-china-russia-and-north-korea-woes-provide-ballast?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 05 Jan 2022 23:30:26 +0000 FINGER LICKIN’ GOOD I dropped a line to a friend of mine, Takamoto-san, a delightful housewife living on the outskirts of Tokyo, who in her former life worked as a financial translator in the hedge fund world. As convenience stores have flagged the possibility of a chicken shortage this Christmas season, I was teasing her by suggesting she should keep a few chickens in the yard. “I enjoy the quiet life,” she replied, “though no chickens in my garden as I keep three cats” – cats don’t fry up... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3161011/japanese-christmas-means-dashing-though-snow-kfc?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3161011/japanese-christmas-means-dashing-though-snow-kfc?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 27 Dec 2021 01:00:29 +0000 GRAB A XXXX, THE PRIDE OF QUEENSLAND I must admit my eyeball rolling of 2021 has stopped and I am now starting to feel sorry for the Aussies, who still seem to be looking at life through beer goggles. Over the past two years Australia has seen its chooks come home to roost, and once more a fox is in the coop. This time, a critical shortage of a basic chemical that we daily flush down the toilet, urea, which Australia gets almost exclusively from China, threatens to cripple the country. Fifty or... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3160061/china-taking-xxxx-out-australia?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3160061/china-taking-xxxx-out-australia?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 20 Dec 2021 00:00:28 +0000 Like most, I have a list of people I’ve been meaning to call. During the pandemic I noticed this list getting longer. And considering a phone has two ends and mine hasn’t been ringing much lately, I’m sure I am not the only one with such a list weighing on my conscience. So last week, I started reconnecting with three people I haven’t seen or spoken to – shamefully – for almost two years. I’ll call them Tom, Dick and Harry. Tom and Dick are colleagues from the early 2000s in my stockbroking... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3159264/heres-some-investment-advice-2022-japanese-chinese-and-us-stocks?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3159264/heres-some-investment-advice-2022-japanese-chinese-and-us-stocks?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 13 Dec 2021 01:15:20 +0000 At the beginning of the pandemic, I vowed not to slide into couch-potato mode and crawl out of the television screen looking like Sadako from Ring after a nighttime Netflix binge. But I seemed to be in a minority keeping the streaming addiction at bay and soon it seemed everyone was recommending something I “must see” as streaming platforms multiplied and grew their subscriber bases. At this rate, Netflix alone will have close to a quarter of a billion subscribers in 2022. However, I did not... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3158409/squid-game-hellbound-will-south-korea-displace-japan-new-cultural?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3158409/squid-game-hellbound-will-south-korea-displace-japan-new-cultural?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 06 Dec 2021 01:30:22 +0000 Ryohei Shimazaki ploughed a hefty slice of his savings into his dream retirement business: a boutique cafe in Kamakura, about an hour south of Tokyo. With its temples, shrines, and Japan’s largest seated Buddha, the old capital oozes with the kind of culture locals hold dear and tourists love to experience. As a mini-Kyoto of sorts, it was the perfect place for his new venture, and Shimazaki found a pretty spot by a well-trodden path to a famous shrine. A few years ago he took the plunge and... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3158414/omicron-shelves-japans-reopening-post-chinese-tourism-era?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3158414/omicron-shelves-japans-reopening-post-chinese-tourism-era?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 05 Dec 2021 01:00:24 +0000 The staff at JPMorgan were burying their heads in their hands all week as CEO Jamie Dimon opened his mouth to backtrack and apologise for his wisecrack on comparing the longevity of the American bank to the Chinese Communist Party, both of which are centenarians. The response to his ridiculous remark while coming back from China was that the CCP would outlive America anyway. Dimon is the latest high-profile visitor allowed to skip the 21-day quarantine, on the basis his visit would benefit Hong... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3157521/overweight-china-and-obese-america-puts-tubby-hong-kong-difficult?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3157521/overweight-china-and-obese-america-puts-tubby-hong-kong-difficult?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 29 Nov 2021 01:30:24 +0000 From a very young age, I have had a fascination with aircraft. And before my swerve into finance, after years spent gluing balsa wood planes together to crash in the park, I got very serious about becoming an aeronautical engineer. IT’S CLASSIFIED On a visit to British Aerospace in Preston in 1979, I and a bunch of wide-eyed university students almost got into the Tornado F2 hangar where the brand new fighter jets were being assembled for the Royal Air Force. We were blocked by the engineering... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3156494/pacifist-japan-quietly-arming-itself-teeth-china-its-sights?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3156494/pacifist-japan-quietly-arming-itself-teeth-china-its-sights?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 22 Nov 2021 01:30:22 +0000 I felt rather privileged to receive a note from the chairman and CEO of British Airways to tell me a historic event had occurred: the vast majority of people in the UK, fully vaccinated and with a quick Covid test, could again fly to the United States. After 18 months of disruption, non-essential travel is being welcomed back by America across its air, sea and land borders. This is a big deal for Mexico and Canada, where crossing borders had become a way of life for many thousands who entered... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3155881/worlds-post-covid-recovery-takes-closed-hong-kong-poorer-it?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3155881/worlds-post-covid-recovery-takes-closed-hong-kong-poorer-it?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 15 Nov 2021 01:30:10 +0000 As residents of South Lantau will tell you, living in the pretty seaside town of Mui Wo at the bottom of one of Hong Kong’s larger mountains can occasionally get a bit damp. Being on the flood plain of several small rivers that flow into Silvermine Bay, residents have at times found themselves waist-deep in water for a few days during the summer storms, ruining furniture and playing havoc with their septic tanks. Several large flood ditches were constructed around the villages at the base of the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3155061/china-europe-being-ill-prepared-floods-will-leave-us-soaked?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3155061/china-europe-being-ill-prepared-floods-will-leave-us-soaked?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 08 Nov 2021 00:30:19 +0000 IS THAT CHEESE? I was listening to Britain’s Prince Charles being interviewed by the BBC ahead of the climate conference COP26 which begins on October 31 in Glasgow. He was keen to promote his green credentials to the BBC interviewer, pointing out that he runs his Aston Martin, my favourite car, on a common favourite fuel: wine and cheese. Several years ago he invested in a conversion of his 51-year-old DB6 to run on a blend of 85 per cent bioethanol and 15 per cent unleaded, also known as E85,... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3154172/sorry-boris-without-china-cop-flop?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3154172/sorry-boris-without-china-cop-flop?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 01 Nov 2021 01:30:22 +0000 Among traders, there have through the decades been two bits of perennial advice, “sell in May and go away” after the bulk of the year’s returns have been made by smart investors who then scarper to the beach. Then, once their golden tans start to fade, “evil October” arrives. Although stock-market statistics show that performance in October averages out to just about any other month, the month sparks fear in traders’ hearts. It is, after all, the month in which some notable bad things have... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3153397/prepare-stock-market-crash-and-take-stock-golden-opportunity?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3153397/prepare-stock-market-crash-and-take-stock-golden-opportunity?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 25 Oct 2021 01:30:16 +0000 THE FIFTY-YEAR TRANSITION The fifty-year period of “one country, two systems” following the handover of Hong Kong in 1997 was formulated to ease the city’s transition to a politically, financially and culturally different mainland China by 2047, principally by allowing Hong Kong to maintain its capitalist system. Until around 2013, it seemed to have worked fairly well as the People’s Liberation Army never appeared on the streets of Central and Kowloon with cattle prods as some had feared,... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3152482/one-country-two-systems-isnt-working-time-hong-kong-governor?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3152482/one-country-two-systems-isnt-working-time-hong-kong-governor?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 18 Oct 2021 01:30:23 +0000 As we know, dirt in Australia is rich in important minerals and there is a lot of it. Early settlers discovered large quantities of iron ore deposits and digging it up to make iron became a meaningful business in the early 1900s. One hundred years or so later, the Australian economy has become more reliant than ever on revenues from iron ore. Yet Australia’s mining is not driven by domestic consumption but rather by overseas buyers, with around two-thirds of its total 2020 export revenues coming... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3151634/evergrande-sinic-fantasia-tidal-wave-chinese-debt-about-sink?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3151634/evergrande-sinic-fantasia-tidal-wave-chinese-debt-about-sink?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 11 Oct 2021 01:30:21 +0000 James Bond, embodied by Daniel Craig, pouted his way down the red carpet in London on Tuesday for the premiere of his final adventure as Britain’s favourite secret agent. The Bond film series has transformed many times over its 50-year run, adapting with the times. Bond films have ranged from camp comedy with David Niven and Roger Moore, to brutal, Cold-War-tinged super-spy thrillers with Sean Connery and George Lazenby in the role, to gritty and modern action with Pierce Brosnan – and Timothy... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3150828/did-aukus-just-torpedo-europes-united-front-contain-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3150828/did-aukus-just-torpedo-europes-united-front-contain-china?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 04 Oct 2021 01:30:26 +0000 Eighteen months ago, international manufacturers were considering the impact Covid-19 would have on their concentrated manufacturing processes and supply chain integrity. In particular, companies that depended heavily on manufacturing in China, the early epicentre of the pandemic, started to move out. The continued rumbling of the US-China trade war had already caused Chinese consumers to start rethinking their purchase choices. The benefit of hewing to requirements to have local partners and... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3150030/china-decoupling-world-not-other-way-around?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3150030/china-decoupling-world-not-other-way-around?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 27 Sep 2021 01:30:14 +0000 These are unusual times, I think everyone would agree, as the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic continues to roll over our daily lives. Although some folks had hoped it would be over by the summer of 2020, scientists are having to use more of the Greek alphabet to keep track of variants. Like mathematicians, and indeed options traders like myself 30 years ago, they need the Greeks to keep their variables in order. But three strange things happened last week, none of which I had considered... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3149179/what-lolly-uk-lorry-means-wonga-hongkonger?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3149179/what-lolly-uk-lorry-means-wonga-hongkonger?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 19 Sep 2021 23:00:20 +0000 Neil Newman Neil Newman I fell out with a friend in Hong Kong some eight or so years ago over “investing” in Bitcoin. I said it was a dumb thing to do. She maintained it was the future of all currency transactions and that I was the idiot. It spiralled down. I have no idea how it turned out for her, as she unfriended me on LinkedIn, blocked my mobile phone number and we haven’t spoken since. I admit, though, that I reacted on instinct. It took me a long time to get my head around cryptocurrencies, blockchains, coins,... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3148181/after-chinas-crackdown-uns-green-energy-drive-could-take-hong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3148181/after-chinas-crackdown-uns-green-energy-drive-could-take-hong?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 12 Sep 2021 23:00:09 +0000 That Hollywood is credited with predicting the future is something we increasingly take for granted. And it’s true, the props we see on the screen often do turn up in real life. That is only reasonable, since futuristic film and television is the product of the same creative imaginations that propel the invention of new consumer goods. Here are my five favourite examples from my outdated DVD collection of movies and television shows – have a guess at the titles, answers below. Doors that open... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3147425/elon-musks-tesla-bot-surrogate-rosamund-pike?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3147425/elon-musks-tesla-bot-surrogate-rosamund-pike?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 05 Sep 2021 23:00:13 +0000 Brits in the UK love to talk about the weather. It is the topic of conversation which is guaranteed to come up when meeting and greeting, followed by blaming delays in public transport on the dreadful weather. It’s the same broken record: how rotten the summer is and, indeed, how all summers have worsened since 1976 – the best summer in living memory, now 45 years ago. I’m just as bad. Sitting by the Discovery Bay ferry pier with my pint, I’m likely to witter on about how hot it has been this... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3146536/us-britain-and-europe-led-creating-climate-change-china-japan-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3146536/us-britain-and-europe-led-creating-climate-change-china-japan-and?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 29 Aug 2021 23:00:20 +0000 Headlines about Hong Kong’s “alarming” annual population decline of 89,200 people caught my eye last week as the news bounced its way around the globe. I couldn’t see how such a low number was “alarming”. Idea balloons went up from a Hong Kong government spokesman that perhaps these were people going off to study or work, and perhaps the decline was due to a lack of immigration because of border closures, a declining birth rate, and Hong Kong’s elderly passing faster. The methodology by which... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3145641/hongkongers-keep-faith-anti-sanctions-law-looming-how-much-longer?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3145641/hongkongers-keep-faith-anti-sanctions-law-looming-how-much-longer?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 22 Aug 2021 23:00:10 +0000 MADE IN JAPAN Five years ago, I had the good fortune to meet Aya, a lovely young lady working in Tokyo’s financial district. Aya’s career was accelerating fast, and in her late-20s, recently married, she was now looking to start a family. It was refreshing to hear her excitement, given all the negativity around Japan’s “lost generation”, and their lack of babies. And it seemed many of her friends were like-minded and wanted babies too! The proviso was that they found affordable childcare so they... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3144889/japans-message-china-baby-boom-isnt-going-happen?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3144889/japans-message-china-baby-boom-isnt-going-happen?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 15 Aug 2021 23:00:09 +0000 As a product of a solid free education in England, and having been at the mercy of money-grabbing international schools with crippling fees, I let loose a wry grin when China announced a sweeping reform of its private education industry to level the playing field for parents. Under its new regulations, companies that teach the national school curriculum will not be able to raise capital, list on stock exchanges, accept foreign investment or pay shareholders, as they will no longer be allowed to... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3143981/hong-kong-equity-investors-may-well-give-and-kiss-hsi-goodbye?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3143981/hong-kong-equity-investors-may-well-give-and-kiss-hsi-goodbye?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 08 Aug 2021 23:00:20 +0000 Champagne is coming home We Brits love to rib the French now and again. It’s in our culture, as the rivalry extends back over 1,000 years, sometimes violently. Thankfully, modern-day squabbles are generally of the “ours is better” variety and tend to be about food. England’s chocolate doesn’t contain enough cocoa, British chips are the wrong shape or size to be fries, and the contentious “emulsified high-fat offal tube”, known to the Brits as sausages, may one day lead to fisticuffs. The French... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3143264/follow-bubbly-trend-asias-getting-kick-champagne?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3143264/follow-bubbly-trend-asias-getting-kick-champagne?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 01 Aug 2021 23:00:29 +0000 Last weekend was somewhat painful for Hong Kong, with many eyes in Europe and the United States focused on the city and how it has changed over the past two years. Kicking off with the Cannes Film Festival, the surprise announcement of a special screening of Hong Kong filmmaker Kiwi Chow’s hard-hitting documentary Revolution Of Our Times is sure to raise Beijing’s ire. The carefully edited drone and webcam footage of the protests was reportedly a brutal and lengthy reminder of the street warfare... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3142293/between-biden-and-hong-kong-are-hsbcs-days-global-bank-gone-good?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3142293/between-biden-and-hong-kong-are-hsbcs-days-global-bank-gone-good?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 25 Jul 2021 23:00:23 +0000 Neil Newman Neil Newman I have disappeared into Finnair. Finally cracking under the pressure of not seeing my parents for a year and a half, it was time for a visit to Britain. In the process of gathering all the usual things – passport, cards, cash – I came across a bag of coins. Although accumulating small change is something I try to avoid, I still end up with far too many heavy coins destroying my pocket linings. Leaving Heathrow Airport in a cab, I was reminded how far down the e-payment path Britain has gone. On... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3141476/will-chinas-digital-yuan-help-hong-kong-go-cashless-dont-bank-it?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3141476/will-chinas-digital-yuan-help-hong-kong-go-cashless-dont-bank-it?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 19 Jul 2021 01:00:25 +0000 UNFINISHED SYMPATHY I am the first to admit that I have password fatigue. When poked and prodded to create a new password, and when I’m not using an old one or adding special characters and upper case letters and all the other things the IT people want me to do these days, I sometimes rebel by using something silly like “Overr!de!” (miscreants will be disappointed to find this is only a hypothetical example). And still, I got hacked by the Russians after I downloaded a recipe for Rougail... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3140394/russian-hackers-hit-us-and-europe-asia-next-target-massive-attack?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3140394/russian-hackers-hit-us-and-europe-asia-next-target-massive-attack?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 11 Jul 2021 23:00:17 +0000 What we’re living in Like many expats, I find shopping in Hong Kong bemusing. You never know what the price of an item is going to be, or if it is the right price. That has always been true of big-ticket items, which are priced according to demand, inventory and out-of-datedness. Prices are often very negotiable for a television or camera that is a year out of date or not quite the latest, highest definition. But it also seems to be true of the daily shop. Price variance on basic supermarket... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3139480/will-ai-dynamic-pricing-lead-hong-kongs-shoppers-virtual-insanity?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3139480/will-ai-dynamic-pricing-lead-hong-kongs-shoppers-virtual-insanity?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 04 Jul 2021 23:00:23 +0000 THERE ARE CHILDREN SOMEWHERE, I CAN SMELL THEM In my youth, I wanted to be an inventor. I was glued to old movies on the telly about Thomas Edison, Barnes Wallis, Louis Pasteur, and of course Ian Fleming’s fictional Caractacus Potts. All good, clean Sunday afternoon BBC TV.  After school I would race to my garden-shed headquarters to work on ideas for how to make my wooden go-kart steer using a joystick, and for how to make it go without my mate Gary pushing it.  Growing up during the Apollo... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3138568/nuclear-fusion-or-galactic-pollution-whats-conclusion-chinas?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3138568/nuclear-fusion-or-galactic-pollution-whats-conclusion-chinas?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 28 Jun 2021 00:00:11 +0000 THE RACE A race to the bottom is never good news in any business context, as I and a former colleague discovered around 10 years ago when we decided to make the move out of stockbroking – and competing with brokers offering negative commission rates – to “value added” fee-based research, which they could not offer.  What reminded me of those difficult times, and prompted this article, was the agreement reached on June 5 by the G7 on minimum corporate tax rates. Under a new proposal from the G7,... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3137862/after-g7-tax-deal-heres-how-hong-kong-can-keep-its-edge?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3137862/after-g7-tax-deal-heres-how-hong-kong-can-keep-its-edge?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 20 Jun 2021 23:00:00 +0000 THE WILD BOYS I have memories of travelling around in the back of an exhausted 10-year-old Bedford CF van with the band back in 1982. It was a cheap heap bought from a dodgy mate of our keyboardist, John. “Final Academy” was the name of the band, and with radio plays of our single, skinny ties and Carnaby Street outfits, armed with our Musicians’ Union membership cards, we were definitely the next Duran Duran. Except, it turned out we weren’t.  On the way back from a gig in Hereford on the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3136610/take-pressure-hong-kongs-musicians?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3136610/take-pressure-hong-kongs-musicians?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 13 Jun 2021 23:00:00 +0000 On the list of world-famous inventors, there aren’t a lot of Japanese names, but Japanese firms are well-known for their skill at improving products, and taking them to manufacturing. In the 1970s and 1980s they dominated the auto industry, audio-visual technology, car navigation, batteries, chipmaking and cameras.  They were able to “ride the wave” in consumer goods that everyone wanted to get their hands on, until manufacturing moved to China and the hangover from the 1980s led to a banking... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3136026/bans-chinese-drone-tech-wont-stop-japans-industry-taking?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3136026/bans-chinese-drone-tech-wont-stop-japans-industry-taking?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 06 Jun 2021 23:00:09 +0000 Storm’s comin’ One of the funny things about debt is that, according to some economists, there’s in theory a good reason why, if you’re big or rich enough, you won’t have to pay it back. Certainly, in times of low inflation, low interest rates and high levels of liquidity, entities with lots of assets and desirable businesses can repeatedly refinance. On a grander scale, wealthy countries such as the United States, China, Japan, Germany and Britain have central banks that can continuously print... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3135198/china-heading-economic-perfect-storm?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3135198/china-heading-economic-perfect-storm?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 30 May 2021 23:00:17 +0000 Would you like chips with that? I was having lunch last week with a passionate investor in high-growth tech companies and talking about Taiwan. He asked me if I knew how many “chips” I’d consumed in the past year. I was tempted to pull out the obvious joke just to give myself time to think, but I took a random guess anyway. I was light on my purchases in 2020. I bought a new iPhone, replaced my MacBook with USB-C adaptors for everything, picked out a skinny, USB-C charged vacuum cleaner. I don’t... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3134260/take-away-taiwans-chip-bottleneck-invest-software-firms-teach?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3134260/take-away-taiwans-chip-bottleneck-invest-software-firms-teach?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 23 May 2021 23:00:21 +0000 LEMMINGS IN CENTRAL Walking through Central last week I noticed something that made me sigh. Fresh in the wake of the closure of The Gap and the fire sale that followed “Coming this Summer”, American Eagle with its range of much the same casual wear as The Gap will be opening in exactly the same spot on Queen’s Road. Why? Top Shop recently threw in the towel after eight years. H&M and Abercrombie & Fitch, which have used topless male models in advertising campaigns, have all been crushed by the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3133560/if-2021-kills-fast-fashion-hong-kongs-garment-industry-could-come?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3133560/if-2021-kills-fast-fashion-hong-kongs-garment-industry-could-come?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 16 May 2021 23:00:23 +0000 This November, Britain will host the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, delayed by one year due to the coronavirus pandemic. On the docket will be discussion of aircraft emissions and the impact tourism has on the environment. The upside of being grounded by the pandemic has been that for much of the past year, air pollution has been perceptibly lower. Though in recent months as economies such as China have picked up substantially, so has the level of dirty air.... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3132659/zero-emission-guilt-free-flights-hong-kong-da-nang-may-soon-be?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3132659/zero-emission-guilt-free-flights-hong-kong-da-nang-may-soon-be?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 09 May 2021 23:00:15 +0000