The COVID-19 pandemic has created a new context for widespread protectionism in international trade, reinforcing the tendency to move away from a laissez-faire business model to a slightly more state-managed economy.
For months, the US-China diplomatic stalemate has left Hong Kong’s top officials confused, powerless and indecisive.
Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam’s (林鄭月娥) reaction to the bilateral rivalries was not her finest hour.
Geopolitical complexities make it impossible for the territory to look ahead in a deeply polarized landscape. In addition, health is taking precedence over wealth.
In a post-COVID era, many national leaders are skeptical of laissez-faire as the necessary path toward prosperity.
Although trade barriers are nothing new to Hong Kong, it cannot remain neutral and is becoming an incidental casualty amid worsening US-China relations.
In this volatile environment, Hong Kong officials and business leaders are hoping to use the trade diplomacy mechanism to get the best deals.
Today, Hong Kong and Chinese exports to the US are reportedly subject to quotas and tariffs. These constraints have prompted local industries to adjust to future uncertainty.
With the loss of profit from the manufacturing sector, Hong Kong entrepreneurs are shifting their investment into social media technologies in the Pearl River Delta.
The optimal timing of making such a strategic business adjustment is of great significance.
Celebrating the 40th anniversary of the founding of Shenzhen as a special economic zone last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) urged Hong Kong to raise fresh capital for Shenzhen’s transition into a major global financial and high-tech powerhouse.
Effective planning across regional government bureaucracies is always a key to success. Even though infrastructure upgrades and environmental sustainability are at the top of official agendas, Beijing has yet to launch a new regional body that embraces different interest groups, professional bodies and the civic sector in the decisionmaking process.
Evidently, China’s export-driven, labor-intensive system of industrialization has run its course. To avoid losing its edge, Hong Kong’s political and business leaders are eager to join hands with Shenzhen, utilizing the latter’s rich supply of cheap, talented and skilled labor to transform outdated businesses into knowledge-driven industries.
Only by doing so could the territory catch up with Taiwan’s thriving technological and financial sectors, and remain vibrant and competitive during these trying times.
Joseph Tse-hei Lee is a professor of history at Pace University in New York City.
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) trip to China provides a pertinent reminder of why Taiwanese protested so vociferously against attempts to force through the cross-strait service trade agreement in 2014 and why, since Ma’s presidential election win in 2012, they have not voted in another Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate. While the nation narrowly avoided tragedy — the treaty would have put Taiwan on the path toward the demobilization of its democracy, which Courtney Donovan Smith wrote about in the Taipei Times in “With the Sunflower movement Taiwan dodged a bullet” — Ma’s political swansong in China, which included fawning dithyrambs