As we just entered a new year, I think Hong Kong now has a golden opportunity to think afresh and reinvent itself. Rather than regretting the events of the very difficult days in 2019-20, Hong Kong should embrace a very different and new kind of future, based on “one country, two systems.” I would like to make seven propositions concerning Hong Kong’s future. First, it must be based on deep integration with the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA). The dynamism of the Guangdong Province and its cities represents a…
Posts published in “Opinion”
On Monday, Yan Junjie, born in 1989, walked into a conference room in Beijing. At 37, he was likely the youngest entrepreneur at a symposium chaired by Chinese Premier Li Qiang to solicit opinions on the draft government work report and the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30). Who is this young man, and why does his voice matter to China’s economic strategy? Yan is the founder and CEO of MiniMax, an AI startup that became China’s second “AI tiger” to go public on January 9. The company achieved in four years…
In his annual address to French ambassadors in January, French President Emmanuel Macron sharply criticized the US for “gradually turning away” from some of its allies and “breaking free from international rules,” and rejected what he described as a “new colonialism and new imperialism,” the Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported. Macron’s remarks have put the term “new imperialism,” or “neo‑imperialism,” squarely in the international spotlight, with many observers linking it to what some describe as a series of predatory actions by the current US administration. From the forcible seizure of Venezuelan…
There are no Chinese warships operating in Greenland and no significant Chinese investments in the region, Denmark’s Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said in Washington on Wednesday, as he countered US threats to seize the Arctic island. Rasmussen, together with Greenland’s Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt, had an hourlong meeting with US Vice-President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the White House, the first face-to-face meeting between the high-level officials as Washington’s rhetoric of taking full control Greenland has run high. “It was a great opportunity also for…
In an extraordinary escalation of his bid to claim Greenland, US President Donald Trump has threatened eight European countries – Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Great Britain, France and Germany and the Netherlands – with a 10% tariff on all goods coming into the United States from February 1 until he is able to buy the semi-autonomous Danish territory. That tariff will then increase to 25% on June 1. On the one hand, Greenland is potentially rich in raw materials and rare earth minerals, highly desirable for US tech giants who…
Amid global tensions involving Venezuela and Iran, there is hope that the scheduled meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Beijing in April 2026 could arrest America’s aggressive and predatory policies. A possible Trump-Xi détente could also reduce risk-taking in the Taiwan Straits, and push China to take a different position on the Ukraine war. In 2025, Trump accepted an invitation from Xi to visit Beijing in April 2026. The call, as US media reported, was initiated by Xi. This was preceded by a…
When Donald Trump pulled back on his plan to impose eye-watering tariffs on trading partners across the world, there was one key exception: China. While the rest of the world would be given a 90-day reprieve on additional duties beyond the new 10% tariffs on all U.S. trade partners, China would feel the squeeze even more. On April 9, 2025, Trump raised the tariff on Chinese goods to 125% – bringing the total U.S. tariff on some Chinese imports to 145%. The move, in Trump’s telling, was prompted by Beijing’s…
“Avatar: Fire and Ash” has continued the franchise’s unbeatable winning streak. James Cameron’s latest “Avatar” film has grossed over $1 billion at the global box office, making the franchise the highest-grossing trilogy in history, and is one of only four films in 2025 to cross the worldwide billion-dollar mark. It will likely not break the records of the first or second film. But even so, you cannot argue that the series is anything short of a colossal success. One of the things few people discuss about the “Avatar” films is…
Christophe Fouquet, the CEO of ASML, a leading Dutch chip equipment manufacturer, has said that the geopolitical landscape indicates the US will persist in exerting pressure to impose stricter restrictions on ASML’s exports to China, according to a report by Reuters. “One of the debates is, is it really about national security? The other debate you start to see … is does it help us or does it hurt us? I see a lot of companies in the US that start to also ask that question,” he said at a…
Reuters recently published an “exclusive” story about a so-called Chinese “Manhattan Project,” claiming that Chinese scientists have built what Washington has spent years trying to prevent: a prototype extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machine. Regardless of whether the report – replete with “sources say” – was a smokescreen or not, the anxiety it conveys over China’s technological progress is palpable. This anxiety precisely reveals to the world an unhealthy mindset that often appears in the West. Lithography machines are major technical equipment that some countries believe it is the “last bastion”…