Publications

How China’s digital currency will thwart US dollar trap and help the world

Op-ed in the South China Morning Post of 28 December, 2020. The fuller original article with 21 linked notes can be accessed here.

How foreign businesses in China should respond to embedded "Party cells"

Asia Sentinel (paid subscribers only) article of 24 December 2020 quotes me as follows -

"Earlier this week, the Canadian government blocked an attempt by the Chinese state-owned enterprise Shandong Gold Mining to acquire a Canadian operator of an Arctic-circle gold mine on national security grounds, the latest indication of growing western unease over the extent to which the Communist Party is playing a growing political role in commercial enterprises.

“Chinese companies operating abroad should be aware of this new era of anti-Communist Party mindset,” said Andrew Leung, a Hong Kong-based China strategist. “They should be wary of any overt or covert connection with non-commercial political activism. They should keep to the straight and narrow of legitimate commercial benefits not only to themselves, but to wider stakeholders in their host countries. Red cells in western firms have stoked anti-China hysteria.”

"There is concern that some of this is overkill. “As the Chinese saying goes, every curved shadow looks like a snake. It's all part of the China Scare reminiscent of the old Cold War McCarthyism,” Leung said.

Leung holds a more benign view of CCP cells, saying: “Provided that the foreign firms don’t have any hidden political agenda, the presence of party cells often offers timely advice on what would work and what political minefields to avoid in China commercially.”