https://www.scmp.com/rss/9503/feed Graeme Maxton is a full member and past secretary general of the Club of Rome, a global network of renowned independent thinkers dedicated to addressing the challenges facing humanity. He is the co-author of Reinventing Prosperity: Managing Economic Growth to Reduce Unemployment, Inequality and Climate Change, and the sole author of The End of Progress: How Modern Economics Has Failed Us. Both books were international best-sellers. He was previously with The Economist Group in Hong Kong. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Media reports about climate change typically focus on big events – a wildfire in Greece that forces people into the sea, a flood in Germany that washes away a town, a drought in California that destroys a season’s harvest, unprecedented rainfall in Hong Kong, or a long heatwave in Vietnam. But this is to greatly misunderstand how climate change is happening. Big events make headlines but, for the next few years, lots of small events should be the main concern. These will bring difficult... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3258967/we-must-start-thinking-about-drip-drip-effects-climate-change?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3258967/we-must-start-thinking-about-drip-drip-effects-climate-change?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 16 Apr 2024 08:30:18 +0000 The devastating floods that caused so much damage in Hong Kong and southern China this week are yet another reminder of the growing effects of climate change. What can businesses do to help? When there is so much talk in business about transparency, compassion and environmental responsibility, the answer might not be what most people might expect. When it comes to climate change, there is not much businesses can do. If Hong Kong and mainland China want to reduce the effects of climate change,... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3234248/how-can-businesses-help-climate-change-fight-they-cant-so-government-must-force-them?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3234248/how-can-businesses-help-climate-change-fight-they-cant-so-government-must-force-them?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 13 Sep 2023 21:30:14 +0000 Restoring public order in Hong Kong will not happen through heavy-handed policing. That will only make the situation worse. And it will not come from the government abandoning its extradition bill or calling for calm. Even Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor stepping down would change almost nothing. The only way to restore order is through a radical change in Hong Kong’s economic policies. After decades of doing almost nothing, and letting the free market rule, it is time for the Hong... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3021423/how-hong-kong-can-put-end-protest-chaos-its-about-economy-so-fix?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3021423/how-hong-kong-can-put-end-protest-chaos-its-about-economy-so-fix?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 05 Aug 2019 08:00:06 +0000 For decades, China’s development path has seemed clear. State management of key industries coupled with some level of free-market liberalization elsewhere has made it easy to imagine that the country would soon return to superpower glory. But that will not happen now. China will have to accept a US-dominated world order or step into the slow lane. There will be no Pacific century and all those historical wrongs will not be righted, certainly not this time. America has played its Trump hand very... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/beijing-faces-choice-open-or-stagnate/article/3014003?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/beijing-faces-choice-open-or-stagnate/article/3014003?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 11 Jun 2019 08:43:11 +0000 For decades, China’s development path has seemed clear. State management of key industries coupled with some level of free-market liberalisation elsewhere have made it easy to imagine that the country would soon return to superpower glory. But that will not happen now. China will have to accept a US-dominated world order or step into the slow lane. There will be no Pacific century and all those historical wrongs will not be righted, certainly not this time. America has played its Trump hand very... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3013800/trade-war-shows-chinas-economic-dream-dying-beijing-now-has-choice?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3013800/trade-war-shows-chinas-economic-dream-dying-beijing-now-has-choice?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 10 Jun 2019 19:00:09 +0000 The limitations that the US government has imposed on American companies doing business with Huawei, the arrest of Meng Wanzhou and US attempts to restrict where other countries buy their 5G technology are only small parts of a much bigger battle. A greatly under-reported topic in the current trade war gets much closer to the central issue.  As well as fights about soybean shipments and intellectual property theft, one of the key topics under discussion in recent negotiations has been improving... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3011063/what-amazon-facebook-google-and-other-us-tech-companies-are?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3011063/what-amazon-facebook-google-and-other-us-tech-companies-are?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 22 May 2019 17:00:07 +0000 “Regrettable and inappropriate” was the response of Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor to the proposed Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC) talk by separatist leader Andy Chan Ho-tin. China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has asked the FCC to call off the talk. Past Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-ying has weighed in too, with not-so-subtle suggestions that the club’s rental of its Ice House Street premises might be open to question in the future, adding that the issue had nothing to do with... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/hong-kong/article/2158625/why-hong-kong-independence-should-not-be-discussed?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/hong-kong/article/2158625/why-hong-kong-independence-should-not-be-discussed?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 07 Aug 2018 21:00:30 +0000 What happens to an economy when the population gets older? Does it shrink, because old people do not spend as much, or expand because the medical and elderly-care sectors grow? These are vital questions if you have long-term interests in Hong Kong or the mainland as both are among the fastest ageing populations in the world. The number of people over the age of 65 in mainland China and Hong Kong will more than treble in the next 35 years to almost 330 million. At the same time, because of the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2023691/china-ages-will-its-economy-shrink?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2023691/china-ages-will-its-economy-shrink?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 30 Sep 2016 03:34:26 +0000 Before we set fire to any more State Council documents, claiming they are little better than toilet paper, or get in a stew about how independent Hong Kong's judiciary is, we should reflect a little on Beijing's latest white paper on "one country, two systems". What the central government is saying is neither daft nor unexpected, and that means it is not so unreasonable, either. We are within a few years of an election long promised, and there are hopes and expectations on both sides. All... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1531702/beijings-white-paper-reasonably-sets-out-its-expectations?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1531702/beijings-white-paper-reasonably-sets-out-its-expectations?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 15 Jun 2014 19:03:07 +0000 In the brief moments I spent chatting to him last year before we both spoke at a conference, I think I can say that I liked John Tsang Chun-wah. He seemed a decent sort and well-meaning. Though he spoke in that horribly confusing style that finance ministers around the world seem to prefer, he came across as someone who was trying very hard. He was doing a difficult job, too often constrained by the political tides that dragged him to and fro like driftwood. The trouble, for me, was that Tsang... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1435753/john-tsang-mouse-failed-roar?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1435753/john-tsang-mouse-failed-roar?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 26 Feb 2014 20:06:26 +0000 I was in Admiralty this week and took a detour to talk to some of the HKTV protesters, to hear what they had to say. I found people heartfelt in their views, willing to sleep on concrete to have their voices heard. They talked about censorship and a lack of democracy, about the need for more openness in government, about wanting less influence from Beijing. It was about freedom of the press, they said. While I understood what they were saying, and sympathised with their willingness to stand up... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1348343/hong-kong-theres-still-freedom-air?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1348343/hong-kong-theres-still-freedom-air?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 05 Nov 2013 10:30:00 +0000 We want to live in a world without limits. Like long-distance runners and racing drivers, humankind is always trying to overcome limits to achieve more. Even so, there is a maximum speed we can run, even drug-enhanced. There is a maximum speed cars can drive before they begin to fly. We don't understand where many of these limits lie, simply because we haven't reached them yet. One day we will reach them, and we will understand then that they cannot be overcome. When we talk about boundless... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1337289/no-way-stop-climate-change-we-have-unleashed?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1337289/no-way-stop-climate-change-we-have-unleashed?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 22 Oct 2013 12:15:15 +0000 They drive big black cars and look out from behind darkened windows. The people inside are dangerous, watching everything, protected behind thick steel doors. In Hollywood, the occupants of these cars are typically gangster bosses, those willing to act without conscience. In the real world, they look increasingly like Western politicians, who are happy to do the same. Like gangsters, many Western politicians have lost sight of right and wrong in the past 20 years. They have wielded great power... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1301953/fertile-ground-change-amid-rot-wests-free-market-democracy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1301953/fertile-ground-change-amid-rot-wests-free-market-democracy?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 02 Sep 2013 16:00:00 +0000 The mind-modifying machine is being cranked up and the sound of nasty news is getting louder. Russia is being demonised again and for reasons that are less than just. In the past two weeks, there has been a steady flow of news reports, especially in the English-speaking media, attacking Russia and President Vladimir Putin. It is troubling for China, which risks being dragged into the bad-news swamp as well Britain's Channel 4 News programme ran a story about how relations between America and... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1296671/anti-russia-tirade-deflects-scrutiny-us-misdeeds?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1296671/anti-russia-tirade-deflects-scrutiny-us-misdeeds?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 14 Aug 2013 16:00:00 +0000 The events surrounding whistle-blower Edward Snowden, the ex-CIA analyst and until a few days ago a Booz Allen Hamilton employee, have an element of tragedy as well as farce. The tragedy comes from the witch-hunt that is being used to cover up the news that US security agencies have been gathering data about us from the big technology firms for years. There is scant evidence that this massive effort to spy on us is making us any safer The farce is that this is not news. The desires of US... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1259277/time-stop-tech-giants-snooping-us?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1259277/time-stop-tech-giants-snooping-us?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 12 Jun 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Recently, a US company few of us had heard of gained instant fame for saying the People's Liberation Army was behind a lot of computer hacking. That may be. But the claims made by Mandiant should also be treated with caution, and not just because they have been vigorously denied. There are seven reasons. First, the report said exactly what many people wanted to hear. It reinforced the belief that China is the world's worst cyber bogeyman and gives Western diplomats another cudgel to wield in... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1173472/seven-reasons-why-claims-pla-hacking-fail-test?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1173472/seven-reasons-why-claims-pla-hacking-fail-test?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 03 Mar 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Free marketeers, please take a bow. It is time for you to let those with other ideas take centre stage. Let's hear it for the free marketeers! The free market has been a wonder of our age. Its ideas have been like some remarkable scientific breakthrough that transformed the world. The free market propelled America and the West to global economic dominance, and allowed hundreds of millions of people in China and elsewhere to prosper. It won the 20th century. But the free market's best time is now... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1148096/best-days-free-market-are-over?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1148096/best-days-free-market-are-over?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 11 Feb 2013 16:00:00 +0000 It almost seems fitting. The country that uses the most oil, has produced the greatest amount of carbon dioxide emissions for decades and has consistently denied the evidence of climate change has been given the slap it required. With tens of deaths, a crushed infrastructure and billions of dollars worth of damage, Hurricane Sandy is the wake-up call America needed. More than that, it is an event to which we should all pay heed. It is time to stop wasting money on fake wars and start spending it... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1074310/climate-change-clear-and-present-danger?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1074310/climate-change-clear-and-present-danger?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 01 Nov 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Over the past 20 years, nearly everyone seems to have become an economics expert. Discussions about complex economic theories, once reserved for dusty lecture halls in elite universities, are now heard all over Hong Kong. The bars in Central echo with arguments about growth rates, deflationary spirals and cures for unemployment. Nearly everyone seems to have a view about the causes of the financial crisis, the value of quantitative easing and the fate of the euro. In many ways, this is good.... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1061011/tired-ideas-wont-save-ailing-western-economies?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1061011/tired-ideas-wont-save-ailing-western-economies?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 14 Oct 2012 16:00:00 +0000 If it had been my 10-year-old daughter, it might have been OK. A simple mistake, the duty of parents to correct. But when the error is made by someone who wants to be the next leader of the free world, and when it concerns primary-school levels of general knowledge, it is more troubling. When Mitt Romney confused the word "Sikh" with "Sheikh" recently, more than once, he demonstrated a humiliating lack of knowledge about, well, just about everything. Were such gaffes by Western politicians... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1017206/west-has-no-reason-be-smug?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1017206/west-has-no-reason-be-smug?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 17 Aug 2012 16:00:00 +0000 He certainly didn't hold back. 'They are rotten to the core' was how Britain's secretary of state for business described 'institutions like Barclays Capital' in an interview last week. The bank had just been fined GBP290million (HK$3.5billion) for falsifying its submissions on Libor, the London interbank offered rate, one of the core interest rates used around the world. More shocking was the discovery that Barclays was not the only bank which has been found acting fraudulently. At least a dozen... https://www.scmp.com/article/1005715/stop-rot?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/1005715/stop-rot?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 02 Jul 2012 16:00:00 +0000 It is fitting that hysteria is a word with Greek roots. It reflects sentiment about the euro - excessive or uncontrollable emotion, often characterised by irrationality. Yet it is spreading across the world again. Yet another wail of despair is rising to a crescendo, as more and more people get drawn into another euro-induced mass panic attack. It is all nonsense - or almost all of it. If you read the English-language press or tune in to English-language news broadcasts these days, you could be... https://www.scmp.com/article/1000954/euro-bogeyman?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/1000954/euro-bogeyman?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 13 May 2012 16:00:00 +0000 They're so helpful, aren't they? Willing to take in blind dissidents or runaway policemen, without a thought for themselves. Keen to offer endless advice on economic management, even though most of it doesn't work. And always enthusiastic to make friends with the neighbours, and not just the troublesome ones. Since US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton laid out her new foreign policy agenda at the end of last year, America's diplomats and politicians have been stomping across Asia like... https://www.scmp.com/article/999905/bully-china-shop?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/999905/bully-china-shop?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 02 May 2012 16:00:00 +0000 In the past 30 years, China has transformed the lives of almost all its citizens. Hundreds of millions of people now have higher standards of living, with better access to education, health care and housing. Levels of nutrition have risen, too. Millions now own several apartments, cars and luxury handbags. Hundreds of millions, rising behind them, aspire to the same, or a washing machine, unpolluted air and a little less corruption. As well as unleashing a wave of manic consumption, China's rise... https://www.scmp.com/article/993779/will-they-miss-boat?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/993779/will-they-miss-boat?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 26 Feb 2012 16:00:00 +0000 In the past 20 years, China has powered ahead economically, as if it propelled by some experimental jet engine. Yet it has achieved this without being especially experimental and without the government losing much control. While other developing countries have watched their plans misfire, lurching forwards for a while and then stalling, China has mostly cruised ahead, outperforming them all. What has it got right, where has it been lucky, and how has it achieved this feat of economic... https://www.scmp.com/article/993127/thrust-issues?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/993127/thrust-issues?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 19 Feb 2012 16:00:00 +0000 To many in the West, though fewer in Hong Kong and Asia, China's rise is moving roughly according to plan. The forces unleashed by Deng Xiaoping's reforms have created an increasingly free-market economy, albeit with some unwanted legacies, such as the tendency of Chinese companies to receive state support or steal intellectual property. For most observers in Europe and America, though, the path is broadly established, even if those who understand China a little better think that nothing could... https://www.scmp.com/article/992480/never-twain-shall-meet?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/992480/never-twain-shall-meet?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 12 Feb 2012 16:00:00 +0000 It almost seems like a game. Businesspeople, financial analysts and, yes, journalists sometimes appear to compete with one another to identify the biggest weakness in China's economy. What will make it hit the buffers, they ask? Where are the biggest risks? Some talk about unsustainable bank debt. Others claim the entire banking system is rotten. Many like to say that social unrest, provincial corruption and rising levels of pollution-induced illness will bring about a collapse in the social... https://www.scmp.com/article/991831/not-all-boom-and-gloom?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/991831/not-all-boom-and-gloom?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 05 Feb 2012 16:00:00 +0000 The visit of United States Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to Beijing in early January was not just to discuss sanctions against Iran. It was also to remind China and the rest of Asia that the US State Department has a new foreign policy initiative. Since the end of last year, America's overseas attention has moved like some giant telescope sweeping across the sky, away from Iraq and Afghanistan, to refocus instead on the Pacific. The subtext is clear. China and America are now in direct... https://www.scmp.com/article/991211/resistance-futile?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/991211/resistance-futile?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 29 Jan 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Last month, Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney promised that, if elected, he would 'get tough' on China. Not only was Beijing was manipulating its currency, he said, but Chinese firms were also competing unfairly. He demanded tariffs to correct the 'uneven playing field'. On both counts he is misguided, and if this is not just campaign rhetoric, he also risks widening an ideological chasm - a battle between the free marketeers and centralised-control theorists - from a position of... https://www.scmp.com/article/990267/let-china-grow-its-own-way?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/990267/let-china-grow-its-own-way?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 15 Jan 2012 16:00:00 +0000 With car sales falling or flat in almost every country last year and the outlook for this year even less exciting, China is like the answer to a prayer. Car demand is booming. With falling prices, more competition and more readily available car financing, demand will continue to surge in the next few years. By the end of the decade, sales should exceed four million cars a year, according to the government. Although that forecast may prove slightly bullish, according to our figures, it is not... https://www.scmp.com/article/409602/foreign-makers-beware-china-wants-chinese-cars?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/409602/foreign-makers-beware-china-wants-chinese-cars?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 17 Mar 2003 16:00:00 +0000