https://www.scmp.com/rss/509847/feed Nancy Qian, professor of managerial economics and decision sciences at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, is a co-director of Northwestern University’s Global Poverty Research Lab and the founding director of China Econ Lab. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Nancy Qian Nancy Qian With little economic or political rationale, US President Donald Trump has introduced some of the highest tariffs in more than a century and imposed them on nearly every economy in the world. Then suddenly, despite his insistence that the tariffs were here to stay, he paused the new “reciprocal” tariffs for all countries except one, keeping in place an across-the-board 10 per cent levy for the rest. For China, on top of the two 10 per cent tariff hikes in February and March, Trump added a 50 per... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3306529/how-china-could-turn-trumps-tariffs-geopolitical-opportunity?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3306529/how-china-could-turn-trumps-tariffs-geopolitical-opportunity?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 15 Apr 2025 14:30:07 +0000 The world is reeling from US President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day”, when he announced the highest US tariffs in more than a century. The United States is hiking taxes on imports from almost every country in the world. Shoes made in Bangladesh and sold to American wholesalers for US$20 will now cost at least US$27. A machine part that General Motors imports from Europe for US$200 will now cost at least US$240. The White House’s new, supposedly “reciprocal” tariff increases range from 11 per... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3305613/trumps-tariffs-deal-americans-losing-hand?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3305613/trumps-tariffs-deal-americans-losing-hand?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 08 Apr 2025 12:30:08 +0000 The opening salvoes of US President Donald Trump’s trade war have sent shock waves around the world. Over the past three weeks, his administration has broken with decades of free-trade orthodoxy, threatening to impose tariffs not only on strategic adversaries like China but also on long-standing allies like Canada and Mexico. Even Denmark – a Nato member and steadfast US ally – has found itself in Trump’s crosshairs. Trump’s actions have made many in the United States and around the world... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3298170/trumps-latest-trade-offensive-more-about-power-economics?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3298170/trumps-latest-trade-offensive-more-about-power-economics?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 11 Feb 2025 06:34:07 +0000 What happens to the world economy and global geopolitics in 2025 will depend significantly on China, the world’s largest exporter and second-largest consumer market. But prevailing assessments of China’s economic health are deeply flawed. The headlines in 2024 have been mixed. China’s GDP is growing, though the precise rate is always a matter of debate. Youth unemployment, which shocked policymakers when it reached a peak of 21.3 per cent in June 2023, has declined to 17.6 per cent. And the... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3290697/how-china-can-achieve-its-next-wave-economic-growth?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3290697/how-china-can-achieve-its-next-wave-economic-growth?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 16 Dec 2024 21:30:07 +0000 Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 US presidential race remains one of the biggest stories of the year. Criticised for his June debate performance and showing clear signs of ageing, the 81-year-old president finally acknowledged what the polls were showing and handed the reins to his vice-president, Kamala Harris, who is 59. Suddenly, the 78-year-old Republican nominee, Donald Trump, has gone from being the slightly younger candidate to the much older one. While the United States does not have... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3274909/us-has-age-limits-top-military-posts-why-not-elected-officials?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3274909/us-has-age-limits-top-military-posts-why-not-elected-officials?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 18 Aug 2024 06:30:15 +0000 With Donald Trump still leading in polls ahead of the US presidential election, many are wondering how a second Trump administration would approach China. Trump’s stance on purely political issues is unclear. He recently remarked that Taiwan should pay for US defence, hinting at an unwillingness to defend the island, even as his former – and perhaps future – advisers advocate a large military build-up in Asia. But Trump’s economic approach to China is much less ambiguous: the two countries are... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3272746/us-china-trade-war-has-become-forever-war-what-cost?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3272746/us-china-trade-war-has-become-forever-war-what-cost?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 01 Aug 2024 09:30:11 +0000 TikTok is one of the biggest stories in business and geopolitics. US President Joe Biden has just signed a law that will ban the massively popular app in nine months if its Chinese owner, ByteDance, does not sell it to a non-Chinese entity. TikTok, for its part, has called the law “political theatre”, and it is probably right: there is always some theatrics in politics, and bashing China is one of the most popular shows in town. Almost no other issue can unite the two major parties. But, given... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3261634/how-tiktoks-arrogance-sealed-its-fate-america?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3261634/how-tiktoks-arrogance-sealed-its-fate-america?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 07 May 2024 10:30:14 +0000 On a recent trip to China with my Northwestern Kellogg students, we were all struck by how few Americans had returned to the country since the end of its zero-Covid policy in December 2022. In Shanghai, our tour guide had hosted only one other US school group, and she expected to have only one more this year – a marked decline from the 30-plus she booked each year prior to the pandemic. In Guilin, where the iconic mountains, a Unesco World Heritage site, had previously been among the most... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3258113/fix-us-china-relations-we-must-centre-lives-ordinary-people?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3258113/fix-us-china-relations-we-must-centre-lives-ordinary-people?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 07 Apr 2024 09:30:21 +0000 It is becoming increasingly apparent that immigration will be a major issue for voters in this year’s US presidential election. Since US President Joe Biden took office in 2021, more than 6.2 million people who did not have permission to enter the United States have attempted to cross the border from Mexico, and more than 2 million have been allowed to remain while they await an immigration hearing. This marked increase from previous years has become a source of controversy. While Biden’s... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/united-states/article/3255890/why-heated-rhetoric-over-us-immigration-imperils-americans-future?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/united-states/article/3255890/why-heated-rhetoric-over-us-immigration-imperils-americans-future?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 19 Mar 2024 12:30:09 +0000 China’s high youth unemployment rate and increasingly disillusioned young people – many of whom are “giving up” on work – have attracted much attention from global media outlets and Chinese policymakers. The standard narrative is to associate the problem with the country’s recent growth slowdown. In fact, the issue goes much deeper. The rise of youth depression has been decades in the making, and owes much to China’s rigid education system, past fertility policies and tight migration... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3245845/why-so-many-young-chinese-are-depressed-and-how-beijing-can-help?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3245845/why-so-many-young-chinese-are-depressed-and-how-beijing-can-help?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 22 Dec 2023 11:30:10 +0000 China’s youth unemployment rate, after rising every month this year, reached a record high of 21.3 per cent in June. Faced with hypercompetitive work environments and grim job prospects, many of the country’s young workers and middle-class professionals have embraced the “lying flat” movement – which means opting out of the culture of overwork and consumerism – while others have quit to become “full-time children”. In the wake of these startling trends, the Chinese government has stopped... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3235796/why-chinas-soaring-youth-unemployment-doesnt-signal-economic-apocalypse?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3235796/why-chinas-soaring-youth-unemployment-doesnt-signal-economic-apocalypse?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 26 Sep 2023 06:30:08 +0000 Last month, China ended its “zero-Covid” policy, bringing a tumultuous end to restrictions after nearly three years. The suddenness of the move surprised nearly everyone. The process could have been much more gradual, with a slower shift from mass lockdowns to more flexible policies such as voluntary self-quarantine and social distancing. Instead, the government has effectively thrown caution to the wind. As a result, China is now having one of the worst outbreaks seen anywhere since the start... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3205831/china-must-brace-itself-dark-covid-winter-lunar-new-year?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3205831/china-must-brace-itself-dark-covid-winter-lunar-new-year?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 06 Jan 2023 08:42:00 +0000 China’s leaders always knew they would have to abandon their “zero-Covid” policy eventually and, the longer they waited, the more painful the transition would be. Yet, they seemed mired in the policy, unable to leave it behind and move on. Then, a blaze in a block of flats in locked-down Xinjiang killed 10 people, whose escape was thwarted by locked doors and blocked entrances. This sparked China’s largest anti-government protests since the Tiananmen movement of 1989 and became the catalyst for... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3202884/why-chinas-zero-covid-upheaval-holds-both-promise-and-peril-countrys-future?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3202884/why-chinas-zero-covid-upheaval-holds-both-promise-and-peril-countrys-future?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 11 Dec 2022 08:20:13 +0000 Nine months after Russia invaded their country, Ukrainians are seizing back their territory and raising hopes of a military victory. But, when it comes to long-term peace and prosperity, a military victory would be only the end of the first phase. The next phase – reconstruction – will be much longer and harder, and it will require continued, extensive economic support from Ukraine’s friends and allies. The Ukrainian economy is expected to have contracted by a third in 2022. Some 13 million... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/world/article/3200517/financing-ukraines-economic-recovery-will-pay-europe-long-run?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/world/article/3200517/financing-ukraines-economic-recovery-will-pay-europe-long-run?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 23 Nov 2022 14:00:11 +0000 Xi Jinping is poised to become the first three-term president in Chinese history when the Communist Party’s 20th National Congress convenes this month. That makes this an opportune time to take stock of Xi’s economic-policy record from the past 10 years and explore some steps to improve economic performance. When Xi assumed China’s top political position in 2012, the economy was thriving but also had many serious problems. Gross domestic product had been growing at an average annual rate of 10... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3195488/chinas-economy-after-10-years-xi-jinping-what-worked-what-didnt?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3195488/chinas-economy-after-10-years-xi-jinping-what-worked-what-didnt?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 11 Oct 2022 08:30:09 +0000 As China prepares for its 20th Party Congress in October, when President Xi Jinping is expected to accept a third term, observers worry about uncertain days ahead, especially regarding Taiwan. But one doesn’t need a crystal ball to glimpse its future. China’s leaders, for their part, are looking at Russia. China has mirrored Russia’s historical trajectory for most of the past 100 years. At the beginning of the 20th century, both were large empires with outdated institutions that could not... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3192684/clues-beijings-plans-taiwan-look-russia?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3192684/clues-beijings-plans-taiwan-look-russia?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 16 Sep 2022 19:30:15 +0000 China’s urban populations have been enduring some of the most intense infection-prevention measures of the Covid-19 pandemic. For 60 straight days, Shanghai’s 27 million residents were forced into a strict lockdown – and they were not alone. During the peak of the Omicron BA.2 wave in April and May, 45 cities with a total of 373 million people were under some sort of lockdown. That is more than the combined populations of the United States (329.5 million) and Canada (38 million), and 83 per cent... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3181386/exit-its-zero-covid-strategy-china-needs-build-trust-vaccines?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3181386/exit-its-zero-covid-strategy-china-needs-build-trust-vaccines?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 12 Jun 2022 10:45:19 +0000 Before the pandemic, firms and workers around the world used emails and conference calls to reduce communication costs. But a lack of coordination made it difficult to use these technologies fully. Firing off an email was easy, but there was no guarantee of when the other person would respond. People were reluctant to break old habits. More broadly, low demand discouraged product development, leaving much to be desired in many workplace apps. By forcing entire economic sectors into virtual work,... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3133435/working-home-low-cost-solution-two-chinas-biggest-problems-low?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3133435/working-home-low-cost-solution-two-chinas-biggest-problems-low?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 14 May 2021 19:30:18 +0000