What's New

Shipping firms pull out of Hong Kong to skirt US tariffs - dynamics

Live radio interview with CNA (Channel News Asia), Singapore's premier media channel.

Preparing the next Hong Kong generation for Future Business Leadership in a New Global Economy

Download Preparing the next Hong Kong generation (PDF)
A presentation to a group of Hong Kong parents on 24 February 2025. 

 

Paradigm Shifts Upending the Global Order 2025

A PowerPoint presentation at the Hong Kong EGN Founding Chairmen Group meeting of 14 February 2025.
Download Paradigm Shifts Upending the World Order 2025

 

Hong Kong's Policy Secretaries reshuffle

BackChat on RTHK (Radio Television Hong Kong) on 6 December 2024

Andrew's April 2024 Newsletter

(My quarterly Newsletters go out to some 8,000 professional contacts worldwide. The following is my April 2024 issue. Back numbers may be accessed under What is New on my website.)

Greetings! May I first wish you a forthcoming glorious summer! 

The world is at a rare inflexion point.  As many as 64 countries plus the European Union are having leadership elections this year, covering half of the world population and including those, like the U.S. and EU, of global consequence.

The U.S. is finding both feet stuck in deep mud over Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas conflict with humunitarian disasters of biblical proportions.  The EU is struggling to cope with both a much-weakened economy and the looming prospects of an unpredictable second Trump-adminstration.

China has re-emerged from the economic ravages of a historically severe pandemic. It is beginning to,find its feet in a world economy transformed by the Fourth and Fifth Industrial Revolutions of borderless digitital connectivity. Howewver, the US-let Western camp is doubling down on anti-China "de-risking" or decoupling, friendly rhetoric and diplomatic overtures notwithstanding.  

Amidst the smoke and mirrors of this uncertain year, the following may hopefully offer some fresh food for thought. 

Hong Kong
Article 23 legislation: Debunking fearmongering myths (Op-ed in China Daily) 
Explaining Hong Kong's enactment of Article 23 on national security (Live TV interview on Aljazeera English Channel)
Hong Kong passes its own version of national security law - Article 23 (Live TV interview on CNA, a Singapore-based transmedia channel)_  
Speculation about the SAR’s impending demise is overexaggerated (Op-ed in China Daily) 
Financial Secretary Paul Chan's attendance of the Davos 2024 World Economic Forum (Backchat on Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK))
Xia Baolong's Hong Kong visit (Backchat on Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK))

United States 
Why the United States is losing the plot over Ukraine and Gaza (An in-depth analysis) 
The U.S. Double Standard that Weakens its Global Leadership (Op-ed in Rome-based World Geostrategic Insights, republished in French, Spanish, Russian, and Arabic. An earlier, shorter version, Gaza, Ukraine, TikTok: US double standards are eroding its global power appeared in the South China Morning Post.)

China
Beijing is debunking ‘China threat’ myth through trade and cooperation (Op-ed in the South China Morning Post) Republished in Rome-based World Geostrategic Insights with attribiution in in French, Spanish, Russian, and Arabic. An abridged version appeared in the bottom front pages of the China Daily Global Editon (1) (2))
"Two Sessions" Beijing meeting - debunking some myths about China's economy (Backchat on Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK))

Taiwan
Why Beijing needs to Sweeten the Carrot to Entice Taiwan’s People Towards Peaceful Unification (Op-ed in Rome-based World Geostrategic Insights, republished in French, Spanish, Russian, and Arabic.  An earlier, shorter version How Beijing can make reunification more appealing for Taiwanese appeared in the South China Morning Post with its prinited version entitled Outside the Box. 
What Taiwan’s election outcome means for China, US and the world (A report by the Anadulo Agency in Ankara, Turkey)
Ruling party candidate Lai Ching-te emerges victorious in Taiwan's election - implications (Exclusive live interview on TRT World) 

Israel-Hamas Conflict
China's mediating role in the Israel-Hamas conflict (An in-depth analysis) 
Gaza crie de ceour at the Academy Award 2024 (Video clip) 

Ukraine, Russia
Why Beijing insists on Russia's inclusion in any peace talks on Ukraine; why Biden suddenly offers an olive branch over nuclear armament talks with Russia and China (Exclusive recorded TV interview (in English) with MIC Izvestia, the largest Russian-language multi-media channel based in Moscow) 

TikTok
US TikTok ban a double-standard excuse to appropriate a valuable Chinese asset (Recorded interview (in English) with Russian-language CBC TV Azerbijan)

Climate Change
Climate action: how China is accelerating the drive towards a net zero world (Op-ed in the South China Morming Post) See a a coincidedntal Time Magazine piece How 2024 Will Be a Watershed Climate Moment for China 

India
"China Knows India Isn't Weak" (Live TV panel discussion on NDTV)

World
2024: Year of Living Dangerously (A PowerPoint presentation) 
Megatrends To 2050: Geopolitical Fragmentation To Accelerate, Raising Global Risks  (Forecast by BMI, a FitchSolutions Company) .  

Cheer Up and Chill Out

A 10-point Multimedia Outlook on Life  (Music video)
Inspirational videos and excerpts for life's down-moments

Forhcoming summer sojourn in London
I will be staying in London from beginning of July through early September. I am open to any invitation to speak or get together in London or in the vincinity. 

International investment opportunities
I am on the International Advisory Board of Silk Road Partners, an international investment firm. Mr Yves Leterme, ex-Prime Minister of Belgium (November 2009 to December 2011) has joined the same Board. If you are interested in getting in touch with us, please give me a shout.

Consultation services
Please email me at [email protected] or text my Hong Kong mobile +852 98198987.I can also be reached on Skype at andrew.k.p.leung, LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/andrewleunginternational, Whatsapp at (852) 98198987, WeChat at Andrewkpleung, Facebook at andrewkinpongleung, and Twitter at @Andrewkpleung

Business networking and speaking platform in Hong Kong
As an Advisor to the Denmark-based Executives' Global Network Hong Kong, I welcome your suggestion of a suitable speaker for an EGN event in Hong Kong. This will be entirely at our own cost with acknowledgement of your support, provided that we are not asked to cover any speaking fee, travel or accommodation expenses.

RSS feed and weblinks
My posts are regularly uploaded under my three blogs CHINAwatch, Publications and What's New .A collection of leading China media and research sites can be found under China Links.

Please feel free to save my website on your computer, laptop, tablet, iPhone or iPad as a reference resource. If you wish instant access as soon as my postings appear, just click on “Subscribe to this blog’s feed” under RSS Feed on top of the right-hand column of each blog. Select the appropriate Google feed option. It is free of charge.

This newsletter is uploaded to my website here.You may save it for reference or reading at leisure. You are free to share it on Facebook, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Twitter or other social media devices.

Courtesies
I look forward to your guidance, advice, comments, suggestions, and criticisms. You may share the above contents with colleagues or friends. You are also welcome to publish any of them with full attribution.

If you think that I may add value to your endeavors in any way, please let me know how I may help.If for any reason you do not wish to receive my emails, just ask me to delete your name from my data bank permanently.

Best personal regards,

Andrew K. P. Leung, SBS, FRSA  
International and Independent China Strategist
Andrew Leung International Consultants and Investments Company Limited

Positions

Chairman and CEO, Andrew Leung International Consultants and Investments Limited

(Founded in London, now re-incorporated in Hong Kong; name changed from Andrew Leung International Consultants Limited as from 10 July, 2017) 

China Futures Fellow, Berkshire Publishing Group, Massachusetts, USA (2011-13)
Brain Trust member, The Evian Group (global think-tank), Lausanne, Switzerland

Gerson Lehrman Group (Global Experts) Council Member
International Expert, Reuters Insight Community of Experts, Thomson Reuters 

Senior Analyst, Wikistrat, a cloud-sourced global strategic consultancy based in Tel Aviv and Washington D.C. 

Download Wikistrat Excellence Award

Senior Consultant, MEC International (a UK-based global strategic energy consultancy) 

Distinguished Contributor, Asymmetric Threats Contingency Alliance (ATCA) (global think-tank)

Professor of Practice, Hong Kong Institute of Education for Sustainable Development (2018-20)  

Download Certificate of Appointment as Professor of Practice

Certified Sustainable Development Planner, World Institute of Sustainable Development Planners

Download Certificate of Recognition as Certified Sustainable Development Planner

Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (FRSA)
Elected Member, Royal Society for Asian Affairs

Contributing author, Politics Today

Think-tank Research Fellow, Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai Campus, PRC (14.4.2017-13.4.2020) 

International Advisory Board Member, Silk Road Partners

Download Silk Road Partners - corporate profile 24-06-2022 

Download Silk Road Partners 2023

Advisory Board member, The e-Centre , European Centre for e-Commerce and Internet Law, Vienna 

Honorary Adviser, International Institute of Management (IIM) 

Advisory Board member, The Global Analyst, India

Honorary President, China Hong Kong Economic and Trading International Association (from 28 March, 2016) 

Download 中國香港國際經貿合作協會簡介和組織架構 (28.03.2023)  

Download A brief introduction to the China-Hong Kong Economic and Trading International Association

Global Commercial Agent, Changsha City, China

Hong Kong Advisory Board member, Denmark-based Executive Global Network (EGN)

Visiting Professor, London Metropolitan University Business School 

Governing Council Member, King’s College London, UK (2004-2010)
Advisory Board member, China Policy Institute, Nottingham University, UK (2005 -2010)

Visiting Professor, Sun Yat-sen University Business School, China (2005-10)
Founding Chairman, China Group, Institute of Directors City Branch, London, UK (2006-2010)
Vice Chairman, 48 Group Club, UK (2008-2010)
Committee Member of RSA, London Region, UK (2006-2010)
Included in UK's Who's Who since 2002
Awarded the Silver Bauhinia Star (SBS) in the July 2005 Hong Kong Honours List 

Implications of Houthi's attacks in the Red Sea

Recorded video interview (in English) on 19 December 2023 with MIC Izvestia, the largest multimedia platform in Russia, including 4 TV-channels, 5 web sites and the oldest newspaper “Izvestia”.

 

Why Europe seems to shun China's electric cars?

Recorded TV interview (in English) on 4 October 2023 by Izvestia, Russia's state-owned online TV channel.

Download Izvestia TV interview 4 October 2023  

8th Belt and Road Summit in Hong Kong

Backchat with RTHK (Radio Television Hong Kong) on 18 September 2023.

How the Ukraine war is likely to play out in global geopolitics

At the start of the War on Ukraine, President Putin initially seemed to be losing his grip. Massive losses of armors and combatants were incurred with little territorial or other strategic gains.  As a result, there was a prevailing sense of triumphalism in Washington and the US-led NATO coalition that Putin's "adventurism" has spectacularly backfired. 

The Western commentariat has been busy speculating on a looming ignominious Russian defeat, the emergence of a more unified Ukraine, a more united Europe and NATO rallying behind America's global anti-Russia leadership, a probable collapse of Putin's regime, and even his eventual consignment to a health sanitorium. 

For good measure, America's China strategists were quietly rubbing their hands that finally the United States would now be placed in a much better geopolitical position to concentrate on subjugating China, the “most serious long-term challenge to the international order”. "China is the only country with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to do it", according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken's China policy address at George Washington University on 26 May, 2022, his velvet-glove rhetoric of not wanting a Cold War against China notwithstanding. Some quarters in America's intelligentsia are even cheerleading for an enduring American Century. 

However, according to Ukraine President Zelensky, Russia has now controlled some 20% of Ukraine. This is seen as President Putin's "Plan B" focusing instead on occupying the Donbas region with a possible land bridge linking Russia-occupied Crimea. He has reaffirmed that Russia will not let up until all his goals are reached, banking on a prolonged war of attrition with Ukraine and its Western backers.  

Europe has been bearing the brunt of energy and food shortages with resultant price hikes, inflationary pressures and prolonged economic recession fears. Now over 100 days into the War, a sense of "Ukraine fatigue" in the West coalition is beginning to set in, according to Edward Luce of the Financial Times.

Gazprom has cut off at least 20 billion cubic meters of its annual gas supplies to customers in six European countries —Poland, Bulgaria, Finland, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands, because they failed to make payments in rubles, a retaliatory demand President Vladimir Putin made back in March. This amounts to nearly 13% of the European Union's total annual gas imports from Russia.

While some of the European countries are wriggling out of these strictures by converting their Euro payment into Russian currency at Putin's designated Russian bank, replacing Russia's readily-available piped gas-supply through maritime oil or gas imports from the Middle East or America is unlikely to be a smooth logistical and economic solution.

Even as Europe is stocking up energy supplies in preparation for the coming winter, such precautions are unlikely to be adequate for households, let alone impact on Europe's economic activities. 

Additionally, Russia is the world’s largest exporter of wheat, accounting for more than 18% of international exports. In 2019, Russia and Ukraine together exported 25.4% of the world’s wheat, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC).

In addition, Russia exports nearly 20% of the world’s nitrogen fertilizers and, combined with its sanctioned neighbor Belarus, 40% of the world’s exported potassium. Most of these commodities are now off limits to the world’s farmers, thanks to Western sanctions and Russia’s recent fertilizer export restrictions. That's why the Chairman of the African Union, Senegal's President Macky Sall, called on President Putin on 3 June to ask for help freeing up Ukrainian grain exports. 

Meanwhile, energy and agricultural price hikes worldwide are boosting Russian coffers, strengthening instead of weakening the ruble.

After branding Saudi Arabia as a "pariah state" over the murder of journalist and Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, President Biden's planned goodwill visit to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is unlikely to yield adequate results, given Saudi Arabia's long-established prudent oil production and pricing policies. Moreover, windfall energy price hikes are a bonanza to the Saudis and other major oil producers in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, President Biden's domestic ratings are back in the doldrums, raising the odds of  losing Congress at mid-term elections in the autumn. Biden risks  becoming a "lame-duck" President for the remainder of his term. 

Nevertheless, the United States seems turbo-charged to segregate the world into two camps, framing this a contest of the century between democracy and authoritarianism.

However, notwithstanding draconian across-the-board sanctions and other restrictions, according to Wang Huiyao, founder and president of Center for China and Globalization (CCG) in Beijing, in 2021, "global trade hit a record $28.5 trillion, up 25% year-on-year and 13% higher than in 2019, before the pandemic struck. For all the talk of decoupling, U.S.-China trade swelled more than 20% last year, to $687.2 billion. Even with war in Ukraine, global trade is forecast to grow in 2022, albeit at a slower pace". "Cross-border investment also surpassed pre-pandemic levels last year, swelling to $1.65 trillion. China, in particular, is more integrated into the global economy than ever. In 2021, its foreign direct investment inflows rose by a third to an all-time high of $334 billion. In the first quarter of this year, they grew by more than 25% year-on-year". Click here "Globalization isn’t dead, It’s just not American anymore", Wang quipped. 

This shows how robust China's centrality remains in the world's inter-connected supply and value chains. After all, China remains the largest trading partner for 130 nations worldwide, compared with 57 for the United States. This centrality is being cemented by the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). This consists of ASEAN and its main trading partners including China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, representing a third of the world's population and a third of the world's GDP. China is at the trading and logistical heart of it all. 

Beijing is doubling down on its global footprint. Witness the latest round of island-hoping in the South Pacific, signing a number of cooperation and law enforcement deals. 

This represents a further extension of China's massive Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), now being reformed to address concerns about debt-sustainability, transparency, corporate governance and environmental sustainability. The BRI already covers land and sea in Asia, Africa, Eurasia and Europe. Added to this is a "Polar Silk Road" capitalizing on the now more navigable, much shorter Artic Circle route linking the Pacific with the Atlantic, thanks to Climate Change, and a "Digital Silk Road" linking businesses across the globe including undersea fiber-optic telecommunication cables. 

A key strategic consideration of the BRI is to neutralize the threats posed by transit choke points such as Singapore's Malacca Strait controlled by America's Seventh Fleet. Energy and international trade, China's economic life-blood, can now transit overland, for example, through China-friendly countries in Eurasia, the Middle East, and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)., including the port of Gwadar. 

Save bipartisan unanimity to confront China, the United States remains a politically deeply-divided country, undermining its overarching geographical, natural resources, technological, cultural, financial and military dominance. It is now engaged on war on two fronts, against both Russia, the world's largest landmass, and China, the world's second largest economy, soon to become the world's largest. It is struggling with how best to keep using its "exorbitant privilege" of money-printing to prop up its economy without undermining global trust in the greenback. 

Meanwhile, China is pushing ahead with completing its own single-handedly-built Space Station by the end of this year. This will eventually replace the US-led 21-year old International Space Station (ISS), whose useful life has been repeatedly extended to 2031. The ISS has been excluding China right from the start. 

This speaks volumes about China's technological capabilities, along with its head start in certain domains of 5G, Big Data, and Internet of Things (IoT), technologies set to change lives and how businesses are conducted in a "Fourth Industrial Revolution" of the 21st century. China already dominates the world in e-payment systems. It is fast developing a digital sovereign currency (digital yuan), which is set to challenge the dollar's hegemony on multiple fronts,considering China's status as the world's largest trader, manufacturer and logistical hub. 

In addition, China is also achieving a breakthrough in nuclear fusion, a source of endless, sustainable energy, according to the South China Morning Post of 11 November, 2021. This is supported by China's leading positions in solar, wind, hydro energy capacities and as the world-largest electric vehicle production and market. Additionally, the country seems on track to realize its Paris Agreement pledge of "carbon peak" by 2030 and "carbon neutrality" by 2060. 

China has launched the world's fastest programmable quantum computers, a million times more powerful than its nearest competitor, Google’s Sycamore, according to a report of 26 October 2021 in the South China Morning Post. 

According to a research paper dated August 2021 of George Town University, by 2025 Chinese universities will produce more than 77,000 STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) PhD graduates per year compared to approximately 40,000 in the United States. If international students are excluded from the U.S. count, Chinese STEM PhD graduates would outnumber their U.S. counterparts more than three-to-one. 

Militarily, China is also catching up by leaps and bounds. China's navy has already become the world's largest in numbers. It is about to launch a third state-of-the art aircraft carrier. Apart from its Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) medium-range high-precision aircraft-killer missiles, according to a report of 18 December 2019, The New Missile Gap in The National Interest,  Dan Goure, Ph.D., vice president at the Lexington Institute, a public-policy research think-tank, opines that America is losing to Russian and Chinese hypersonic weapons. This includes China's "Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS)" that can circumnavigate the globe in all directions before striking targets with guided, hypersonic, multiple warheads, neutralizing extant missile defense systems. 

Some critical technological bottlenecks remains, such as high-end micro semiconductor chips (smaller than 10 nanometers).  However, to assume that China would for long be crippled technologically underestimates the nation's technological resilience. 

Along with robotics and digitization, a three-child policy with measures to support child births, China is grappling with its worsening demographics with increased productivity through nationwide high-speed transport connectivity.  

Long the talk of the town, China's high-speed rail network accounts for two-thirds of the global total. This will be nearly doubled to 70,000 km over the next 15 years. The will link up all cities over half a million people, while an additional 200,000 km of modern railway would connect all towns of 200,000 people and above. Even the remotest  parts of the country are to be connected. This would hasten China's urbanization rate from 60.6% in 2019 to 65%, doubling China's consumer middle class to 800 million by 2035. Various city clusters are formed, capitalizing on their mutual transport connectivity. All these will boost overall productivity. 

To address widening socio-economic inequality, China is adopting a strategy for "common prosperity", targeting monopolistic or predatory behavior of the nation's biggest and wealthiest conglomerates. This is part of President Xi's strategy to build "China 3.0", creating a fairer, healthier, stronger and ecologically more sustainable nation in fulfilment of the "China Dream". China's miraculous economic transformation in recent decades explains the Chinese people's overwhelming support of China's Communist Party (CCP), (over 90%), multiple ranks above many countries including the United States, according to recent Harvard Kennedy School findings. 

As pointed out by Kishore Mahbubani, a world-renowned Singaporean academic, diplomat and geopolitical consultant in his book Has China Won? (Pubic Affairs, New York, 2020), while America's bottom half have seen their incomes stagnate over the past thirty years, China's bottom half have the best lives ever, for the past 4,000 years! A resounding answer to the West's continuing aspersions about the CCP's legitimacy.

When the Ukraine war eventually comes to an end, a weakened and ostracized Russia and a devastated, partitioned Ukraine are likely to ensue, along with an extended NATO encompassing Finland and Sweden. A more nervous yet resilient Russia surrounded by enemies at the gates is likely to double down on friendship with China "without limits", both countries being arch enemies of the United States.

In particular, Russia would rely on China as its largest customer for its energy and agricultural products, the latter production likely to expand thanks to global warming. China's trade and investments are likely to replace Russia's domestic markets vacated by Western enterprises and brands. As a gateway to the rest of Europe, Ukraine is also likely to resume having China as its largest customer of its wheat and other commodities, capitalizing on the BRI's deep wallets. .

Wary of the perceived "China Threat" to values and security, the European Union is unlikely to return to its former coziness with China. While relying on America's leadership and NATO's combined military might to deter an embittered Russia, leading countries like Germany, France, Italy and Spain are likely to foster growing European capabilities, including the military, to conduct the EU's own independent affairs of state.

Europe's overall attitude towards China, therefore, may not be on all fours with that of the United States. On the one hand, it would erect firewalls and safeguards against perceived threats, on the other hand, it is likely to capitalize on the EU's excellent institutions and unique traditions to foster a more constructive relationship with a more powerful China pivoting more to Europe and Eurasia in preference to a hostile United States. This is likely to translate into more EU-China trade, investments, research, and people-to-people exchanges, to say the least. 

All told, the War in Ukraine promises to be a global game-changer. It exposes Russia's and Ukraine's vulnerabilities as well as resilience. It is ushering global dynamics more in tune with China's quest for its China Dream of national renaissance than with the United States' hope of not having to share power ever with a vast country of diametrically different civilization, culture, race and ideology. It would also beg the question whether the United States' current hard-wired anti-China mindset and policies needs some major modification. 

 

Hong Kong social welfare spending cuts

Backchat with RTHK (Radio Television Hong Kong) on 10 December 2021 (My interventions in the top bar start from time counter 13:14, 28:31, 35:12, 39:40, and 42:09)