Yoon’s risky Japan wager looking like a losing bet

There are signs of a thawing in the frosty ties between South Korea and Japan. It began with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s controversial attempt to salvage the relationship, dropping demands for an apology and compensation from Japan over wartime forced labor. Though Japan’s response has been more tepid and skeptical, the countries’ leaders have […]Continue Reading

How nationalism destroyed Indonesia’s oil and gas

An Indoensian oil worker opens a gauge near crude oil tanks on Bunyu island, Indonesia's East Kalimantan province. Photo: Reuters/Beawiharta

JAKARTA – Urged on by President Joko Widodo, the nationalist tide that has decimated Indonesia’s oil and gas industry over the past decade has left the nation on the bottom rung for prospective foreign investment and without the financial and technical means – or even the inclination – to find and develop new fields itself. […]Continue Reading

Anwar’s nonalignment pays off big in Beijing

SINGAPORE – Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has cast his recent maiden state visit to China as a major foreign policy win, securing a record 170 billion ringgit (US$38.6 billion) worth of investment commitments from Beijing all the while asserting his country is non-aligned in the escalating New Cold War pitting Washington versus Beijing. The […]Continue Reading

No, BlackRock is not leading a Marxist assault on capitalism

Five years ago it would have been unimaginable, but today there is a global movement convinced the world’s largest corporations are engaging in stealth warfare to transform liberal democracies into neo-communist dictatorships. At the heart of this corporate-led Marxist revolution, apparently, is the trend towards businesses not just focusing on profit maximization but taking into […]Continue Reading

The great re-shoring charade

NEW YORK – Moving factories from China to Mexico is one of the few hot topics in an otherwise listless market, US investment bankers say. As American hostility to China rises, US corporations scramble to assure the public as well as inquisitive congressional committees that they are moving operations out of the Middle Kingdom to […]Continue Reading