The blame game: the origins of Covid-19 and the anatomy of a fake news story
One wonders how much longer Washington will continue fighting the information war against Beijing with one arm tied behind its back. Chinese media enjoy free run of the US, including on Twitter. Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post February 12, 2020
How US fears over the Russian threat led to the rise of China (Flashback 2017)
It was an accident of history that the two men most influential in advising the presidents who would make the decision to, as Nixon and Kissinger put it, 'sell Taiwan down the river' and throw in with Beijing... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post , June 2, 2017
How China’s rampant intellectual property theft, long overlooked by US, sparked trade war (Flashback 2018)
Nobody worried about that with the software, though. It was all fake, and everybody knew it. If you wanted to drop US$200 on real software, go buy it somewhere else, sucker.... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post Magazine, October 28, 2018
The 2020 US election is looking like a replay of 2016. Will Democrats fail to beat Donald Trump again?
While plenty of Americans like Trump’s policies and economy, many fewer actually like the man, which means the right Democrat should have a reasonable shot... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post March 14, 2020
Trump must stand firm on Huawei to convince US allies to ban the Chinese company from their 5G networks
The only thing worse for the leader of a US ally than taking a political hit at home for standing with Trump on Huawei would be taking that hit and having Trump leave him or her standing alone. Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post March 2, 2020
Despite the Trump impeachment trial and State of the Union saga, American democracy is far from broken
You’d think American democracy is on its last legs if you read the US press. The largely liberal media hate the man in the White House more than anyone since the last Republican president. ... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post February 12, 2020
China and the US were never going to live happily ever after
World views in any culture are hard to change, let alone one of a billion-plus people that’s millennia old. This isn’t limited to China. Americans regularly invoke their founding fathers ... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post, January 24, 2020
Why Trump will win another four years as US president: voters want him to finish what he started
Criticism of American presidents by their opponents and the press is a job requirement, but US President Donald Trump has inspired new extremes. Calling him a fascist seems especially popular... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post, January 11, 2020
Michael Bloomberg in the White House? China might say thanks, but no thanks
In September, during an interview on PBS’s Firing Line, Bloomberg stated that Xi was “not a dictator” and that he had to serve “his constituents”. Xi must have loved this. ... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post, November 16, 2019
Police and protesters need to make peace, to end the insanity of Hongkongers fighting Hongkongers
Remember the shotgun-waving police officer outside Kwai Chung police station, the one whose photo was all over global media with sensational headlines? ... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post, September 29, 2019
Hong Kong’s business is everyone’s business: world leaders should make sure China knows that
Everyone sees where the protests are likely to be headed. What are the democracies going to do after hundreds, maybe thousands, of Hongkongers have lost their freedom or their lives? ... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post, August 29, 2019
Did Ross Perot give us Donald Trump?
“Ross Perot passed away this week at 89. He was a real billionaire in the late 1980s, before billionaires were a dime a dozen, or lying about it. A good friend, who worked for Steve Jobs at NeXT Inc, would come home from time to time with a Perot story. ... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post, July 13, 2019
How China’s rise is helping to unite America behind Donald Trump’s trade war
“Yo, good game, man. You were the best player on our team.” This is a common post-game taunt in American sports when one is shaking hands with an opponent. American football players sometimes don’t get it, which adds to its zing. ... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post, May 28, 2019
To protect US trade, Donald Trump needs to stand firm on intellectual property protection demands with China
Over the weekend, US President Donald Trump threatened to dramatically increase tariffs on imports from China ... “The Trade Deal with China continues, but too slowly, as they attempt to renegotiate. No!” ... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post, May 7, 2019
The ‘big dumb guy’ and why a China trade deal will be a flop
“This time we really mean it. This time we’re going to change China. Honest. This time won’t be like the market access and intellectual property protection trade deals of 1992. Or 1995. Not to mention 1999 – or the 10 times since... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post, April 27, 2019
After Robert Mueller’s report, the partisan US press must reflect on how it played into China’s hands
One could almost hear the shot glasses clinking in celebration in Beijing last weekend, the chortling, the slapping of high-fives, or whatever it is China’s leaders do when they chalk up a victory. ... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post, March 30, 2019
China and Donald Trump have a problem. On trade, US Democrats may be even more hawkish
“Unless you get meaningful structural changes to address the stealing of our intellectual property and the other issues … if all we get is the sale of a few more soybeans and other products, then this is an agreement not worth having,” ... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post, March 15, 2019
Donald Trump caught between his wall and a hard place – China. And Beijing is watching his negotiations very closely
If he thinks getting to “yes” on the Mexico wall is hard, just wait until he tries getting to “yes” on trade with Beijing. He loses with his base if he makes a deal, and he loses with Wall Street if he doesn’t. Either way, it’s a no-win situation for the United States. ... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post, January 25, 2019
How Trump can strengthen his hand with China
The first topic Donald Trump mentioned when announcing his candidacy for president in June 2015 was China. “They kill us” on trade, he said, and promised to fix that. ... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, Reuters, December 19, 2018
The arrest of Huawei CFO Sabrina Meng Wanzhou matters, or not: welcome to the US-China trade mess
Aside from trying to outrun Somali pirates in speedboats chasing your freighter with AK-47s in hand or wondering whether your produce truck is going to make it across the Mexico-US border with your cocaine shipment intact, trade is generally humdrum stuff. ... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post, December 13, 2018
It’s time for Trump to tell Americans the painful economic truth about the US-China trade war
Peter Navarro and Henry Paulson, two Americans with vastly divergent views on trading with China, made speeches last week that indicate a speedy resolution to the US-China trade war may be hard to find. ... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post, November 17, 2018
Trump’s trade war: the one thing he does know is that doing nothing is not the answer
Trump seemed to have a resolve that his predecessors lacked, yet few were willing to go on the record backing him, or even to say that he was headed in the right direction. ... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post Magazine, November 4, 2018
How China’s rampant intellectual property theft, long overlooked by US, sparked trade war
Nobody worried about that with the software, though. It was all fake, and everybody knew it. If you wanted to drop US$200 on real software, go buy it somewhere else, sucker.... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post Magazine, October 28, 2018
How one of Wall Street's biggest insider trading cases was cracked in 1980s Hong Kong
Into this maelstrom of high-profile, front-page Wall Street law enforcement, like snatch thieves at an FBI convention, stumbled two Wall Street nobodies: a 38-year-old Taiwanese bon vivant... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post Magazine, August 18, 2018
The US-China trade war: a long and complex history
The Trump administration's imposition of tariffs on imports from China has been criticised by many as being "not the answer" to the trade issues the two countries are trying to resolve. Yet few seem to know what the answer is. The two systems may, in fact, be incompatible... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post Magazine, June 30, 2018
The elephant in the Trump-Abe room
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is visiting U.S. President Donald Trump this week, their seventh meeting since Trump's 2016 election victory. Abe was the first foreign leader to meet Trump... "China" is almost always in the room when the United States and Japan meet ... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, Reuters, April 18, 2018
Trump's flaws should not distract from the greater imperfections of US-China trade relations
Perhaps the best place to begin understanding why President Donald Trump's administration is headed into a trade confrontation with Beijing is Robert Lighthizer's testimony before the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post , March 27, 2018
When ride-sharing titans like Uber and Didi collude, it is the customer who loses out
So Uber’s planning to exit Southeast Asia and leave the ride-sharing markets there to Singapore-based Grab. Like its exit from China in 2016, it’s a win for the ride-sharing behemoths and a loss for the public. Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post , March 17, 2018
Trade war revisited: a US clash with China won't be like its 1980s feud with Japan
America's last "trade war", with Japan in the 1980s, was one of the best things that ever happened to American industry and consumers, because American businesspeople rose to the challenge ... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post , February 11, 2018
Let Lee Kuan Yew's home stand as a monument to his ideas
Lee Kuan Yew was decades-long proof that the ability to govern democratically and without corruption has nothing to do with DNA. He routed the cynical shibboleth of democracy's enemies – the largest collection of whom are in Beijing – ... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post , July 10, 2017
Lee Hsien Loong is right to choose Parliament to respond to critics
Don't click "Like" if you're sick of the airing of political disputes and celebrity family troubles on social media. The latest – incessant tweets by US President Donald Trump aside – is the Facebook attack last week on Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong by his siblings. Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post , June 24, 2017
How US fears over the Russian threat led to the rise of China
It was an accident of history that the two men most influential in advising the presidents who would make the decision to, as Nixon and Kissinger put it, 'sell Taiwan down the river' and throw in with Beijing... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post , June 2, 2017
Trump's best option in the Asia Pacific
Eleven American allies and friends met on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Hanoi last weekend in an effort to keep alive the Trans Pacific Partnership... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, Reuters , May 26, 2017
Why Trump's trade deal with China is unworthy of America
America's "early harvest" trade deal with China, announced by the Trump administration, is underwhelming. One could be forgiven for thinking cynically that the announcement last week, coming the day after President Donald Trump fired FBI director James Comey... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post , May 18, 2017
The campaign pledge that could sink Trump's China summit
This week's meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping probably won't bring a major breakthrough in U.S.-China relations, which have been strained in recent years by Chinese military aggression, cyber crime and rising trade tensions, among other issues. Read more... By Robert Boxwell, Reuters , April 7, 2017
Will Trump's hard line on US trade with China mean the end of business as usual?
One advantage to having some hardened old capitalists coming into the Trump administration is that they understand, first-hand and in great detail, what the problems of doing business with Beijing are. ... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post , January 29, 2017
What Trump didn't say about the Trans-Pacific Partnership
Here's what Trump should have said or, better, read from the written statement that wasn't on his desk, because his audience isn't hostile reporters, it's the rest of the world. ... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, Reuters , January 27, 2017
The US is making a mockery of democracy...
Some folks say the Democrats are going to be the winners in next month's US election, some say the Republicans. From my view in Asia, where I've lived and worked for over 20 years, I say the Communists ... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post , October 26, 2016
What investors can learn from Uber's bumpy ride in China
A warning from a travel guide has stayed with me since I started working in Asia 25 years ago. Don't ever get in a fight in Thailand, where kickboxing is the national sport, the author advised, because ... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, Reuters , August 24, 2016
China's challenges are not the same as Japan's -- they're worse
Open a newspaper nowadays and you're bound to find comparisons of China with early-1990s Japan: growth slowing, monetary stimulus leading to bad debts and financial bubbles, demographics heading inexorably towards a population that won't match the required long-term repairs ... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post , July 17, 2016
By making too many concessions to China, the West has given 'wings to a tiger'
In his 2011 book, On China, Henry Kissinger recounted a discussion between US national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and Deng Xiaoping ... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post , April 5, 2016
Regulators must get to grips with China's stock market manipulators, but are they up to the job?
Two cheers for the recently departed China Securities Regulatory Commission Chairman, Xiao Gang, who left after not succeeding at the impossible task of propping up China's overvalued stock markets ... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post, March 1, 2016
Beijing's futile quest to turn string-savers into spendthrifts
My very Chinese Malaysian wife saves string. She saves practically everything that comes into the house that can be used again, but the string is notable ... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, Financial Times, August 13, 2015
Uber's rabble-rousing tactics mean its days in Hong Kong and mainland China are numbered
Uber is Twitter on wheels, and the petition seems more like Occupy Central than a smart business move ... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post, August 25, 2015
Uber on a collision course with China's taxi drivers and cartels
News of Uber racing into China brings to mind images of young, rich guys with naked girls in Ferraris, racing late at night on a Beijing ring road. You know it's going to end badly - but it really doesn't bother you that much ... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post, July 9, 2015
Dual-class share structures would be ill-advised in Hong Kong
When historians look back 100 years from now to explain how capitalism went off the rails, Exhibit A will be a list of events from the past 20 years: the pump and dump of inflated dotcom shares in the 1990s before the bubble burst;... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post, April 6, 2015
Safer food is an invention that should be freely copied
Stroll through a local market in China and there is little sign of quality control, hygiene or refrigeration. Chickens, ducks, piglets and animals that westerners might take for a walk hang from hooks all day at ambient temperature ... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, Financial Times, July 27, 2014
to police wall street, go after the little guys
Conventional wisdom holds that landing the big fish in high-profile white collar cases is the best deterrent against other people breaking the same laws. Yet for would-be criminals, the arrest of a colleague or a peer at another fund has a more personal, harrowing effect ... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, Reuters, May 16, 2014
what beijing can learn from wal-mart
So, how? The question, short for "So, how do you want to handle this?" is a common, subtle way to invite someone to offer you a bribe in Asia. A traffic cop pulls you over for running a yellow light. He's at your passenger window, a leather strap covering his name tag... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, Reuters, April 17, 2014
Insider traders are still trying to get it right
Sylvester Stallone once told an interviewer about advice he got from Carl Icahn when they were discussing investments. "The dumbest guy on Wall Street is smarter than you," Icahn warned him. "Keep your money in the bank." ... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, Reuters, March 20, 2014
Hong Kong must not go soft on insider trading
Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission's annual report opens with a piece about the benefits of "quality" regulation and "sustainable" markets, which is generally consistent with news stories about the new, tougher SFC. But the tables at the end of the report tell a story that financial crooks won't miss ... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, South China Morning Post, July 22, 2013
Why I was invited to the White House: Investing in Africa
It was an experience that I hadn't dared imagine for my personal bucket list: an invitation to be the keynote speaker at the White House. Why did the White House invite me to talk about doing business in Africa? Why is the White House focused on an idea that seems incongruous to most Americans: investing in Africa? ... Read more... By Teresa Clarke, Huffington Post, March 1, 2013
The familial consequences of insider trading
Anyone who thinks insider trading is victimless need look no further than the painful story of John Kinnucan. Approached at his Oregon home late one afternoon in October 2010 by two FBI agents looking to... Read more... By Robert Boxwell, Reuters, August 17, 2012
The price you pay for an Olympic-caliber career
Today's business world is so competitive that those who reach the very top must focus "all-in" or lose out to their rivals, much in the same way as Olympic hopefuls. Read more... Fortune, July 26, 2012
Ex-Barclays Leader Shows How to Come Clean
Last week's testimony of Barclays Plc Chairman Marcus Agius to a U.K. parliamentary committee received less press than the earlier testimony of his former chief executive officer, Robert Diamond, but Agius's performance was more remarkable. Read more... By Robert Boxwell, Bloomberg, July 20, 2012
Japan's Insider-Trading Carousel
Financial scandals in Japan have a rinse-and-repeat quality. Investigators raid companies. Disgraced executives bow apologetically before the cameras and head off into early retirement. Then... Read more... Bloomberg/Businessweek, July 20, 2012
Vacation time: Use it if you've got it
Good news, everyone. I'm ordering you to go on vacation. I know, I know, you're not sure if this is the right time. Things are busy at work. You might not take any time off this year because of the economy. You want to impress the bosses... Read more... Chicago Tribune, July 9, 2012
Insider Trading Thrives as Japan Drags Its Feet
Last month, lawmakers from the ruling Democratic Party of Japan announced they will convene a panel to figure out how to stop an insider-trading problem they have been working on since 2006. Traders, operating on inside information, have been short selling shares of companies just before new equity sales are announced, which often causes the company's share price to fall, then covering their short position by buying shares back at the new, lower price. Read more... By Robert Boxwell, Bloomberg, July 1, 2012
America’s insider-trading trials have a heavy purpose
Since Raj Rajaratnam was arrested in late 2009, federal agents have swept up more than 60 hedge fund employees, consultants, and corporate managers in the largest insider-trading crackdown in history. Most of those arrested are now in or on their way to prison for sentences generally measured in years. Read more... By Robert Boxwell and Maeen Shaban, Reuters, June 19, 2012
Hong Kong must stand firm on IPO fraud
Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission chief executive Ashley Alder's recent defence of proposed new regulations criminalising false statements in initial public offerings wasn't necessary. In fact, a defensive stance was counterproductive. His message should have been that he was surprised by the bankers' reactions and he looks forward to not having to use the new rules because he couldn't imagine any banker breaking them. Read more... By Robert Boxwell and Maeen Shaban, South China Morning Post, May 21, 2012
Wal-Mart's bribery is sadly unsurprising
The recent New York Times revelation that Wal-Mart paid bribes to grease the skids of rapid expansion in Mexico is not shocking to anyone who has built a retail business in a developing country. It would be shocking if they hadn't. Read more... By Robert Boxwell, Reuters, April 24, 2012
How to stop the Whac-a-Mole of insider trading
Preet Bharara's work rooting out insider trading is good news for U.S. investors, as long as you're not one of the 240 people being investigated. But until governments tackle insider trading on a global basis, it's like playing Whac-A-Mole. If your business model includes insider trading, you can pop up in Hong Kong or London almost as easily as Tokyo and Shanghai without much fear of prosecution. Read more... By Robert Boxwell and Maeen Shaban, Reuters, March 20, 2012
Good Luck Changing Japanese Business
There's a way of doing business in Japan and, if you make it to the rank of chief executive as a foreigner, you follow it – unless, like Carlos Ghosn at Nissan or Michael Woodford at Olympus, you were brought in because you don't. Either way, it's not easy. It's also risky. You're legally responsible for the business, you have to trust what your colleagues tell you, and you sign things you literally can't read.. Read more... By Robert Boxwell, Financial Times, October 27, 2011