I contributed this to China File. The full conversation is here. By David Schlesinger “The dragon must have two eyes.” This was the inevitable, hopeful refrain whenever I interviewed Hong Kong businessmen in the 1980s, during the long and tortured handover negotiations. Their point was that while Shanghai might flourish, Hong Kong’s sophistication and internationalism..
Like partners in a bad relationship, the US and China can’t find much right with each other these days. I discuss with Monocle radio:
Donald Trump tweets about China’s tech company ZTE and suddenly the door to corporate death-row is thrown open. What’s going on? And how does it fit with the looming Sino-US trade talks and the situation on the Korean peninsula? I discussed these issues with Monocle radio’s The Globalist program. The whole program is available here..
…The truth is China punditry is always looking through a dark, distorted and murky glass. Here are two headlines from two good newspapers with excellent China staffs on the same day:
I joined a ChinaFile conversation on China’s Economy. The whole back-and-forth can be viewed here. My contribution: When things hit their extreme, they can only move to the opposite direction—物极必反 (wù jí bì fǎn)– is an idiom that seems to sum up perfectly punditry about China. Where once Beijing seemingly could do no wrong and..