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My Take

My Take
My Take, a popular and sometimes controversial daily column of the South China Morning Post, analyses a variety of hot-button issues concerning Hong Kong, mainland China and the region.
last updated:
9 September, 2024
The wild pig or Eurasian wild pig (Sus scrofa) is the largest native terrestrial mammal in Hong Kong. Photo: Shutterstock
Hong Kong society

My Take | Extinction? Time has come to give our diminishing boars a break

With a back-of-the-napkin calculation suggesting animals will be no more within two years at current rate of culling, a wildlife action plan is needed.

South Korea

My Take | Is South Korea a burnout society?

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United States

My Take | Trumpian economics will hurt the world more than it will hurt China

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Middle East

My Take | An immoral and unjust proposal to resolve the Palestine question

Accept ‘Greater Israel’ as a de jure state, resettle most Palestinians across the West and some in friendly Arab states, then compensate a small, token minority by granting them full Israeli citizenship.

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Demonstrators hold a banner reading “Stop Genocide” during a protest organised by pro-Palestinian associations and French leftist parties in Paris, November 13, 2024. Photo: EPA/EFE

My Take | Mixing Marx with Confucius: the heart of the matter for China

Xi Jinping wants the country to have its own belief system to counter Western values but there is one thing missing.

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US-China relations

My Take | How will China fight a new trade war under Trump 2.0?

With hindsight from Trump’s first term, Beijing could adopt a different approach this time around.

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United States

My Take | Trump has been Beijing’s most effective science talent recruiter

Many fear the supposedly defunct ‘China Initiative’ – a racial profiling programme targeting Chinese-born scientists in the US – could return with a vengeance.

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Professor Yau Shing-tung, director of the Yau Mathematical Sciences Center at Tsinghua University. Photo: SCMP / Edmond So

My Take | Martial law fiasco exposes cracks behind the South Korean facade

Spreading social malaise and economic stagnation in country reinforce political instability while being caught in worsening US-China rivalry.

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United States

My Take | Blaming China to evade its own responsibility is now America’s default mode

Chinese political philosopher Xiang Shuchen lays bare the cultural and psychological roots of America’s Manichean view of Beijing and its ‘evil’ ways.

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South Korea

My Take | South Korea’s Yoon back-pedals on firing bazooka in knife fight

If there is anything worse than going after a hated opposition that enjoys a parliamentary majority, it’s having to back down almost immediately.

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Members of South Korea’s main opposition Democratic Party shout slogans during a rally against President Yoon Suk-yeol at the National Assembly in Seoul, December 4, 2024. The signs read “Stop”. Photo: AP
United States

My Take | Bureaucratic waste is (usually) in the eye of the beholder

The modern state is all about big government and public spending. The right and the rich in the US like to rail against it while being directly or indirectly subsidised and supported.

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Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk. Photo: Reuters

My Take | The end of US-dollar dominance will come, but not yet

Trump’s latest spat with Brics nations over their threat to challenge the greenback is premature despite Washington’s abusive weaponisation of the currency.

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Ukraine war

My Take | The West is reaping what it has sown in Ukraine and Palestine

Having failed in two of the biggest geopolitical challenges of the century, the same Western elites are doubling down by moving against China.

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US-China relations

My Take | The views of Bill Overholt could not be more timely and relevant

The banker and author, who died recently aged 79, believed that fears and myths must be rejected, calling for the creation of a “coalition of hope”.

A Chinese navy ship sailing during the sunrise near the Scarborough Shoal. Bill Overholt, who died recently aged 79, believed that fears and myths must be rejected, calling for the creation of a “coalition of hope”. Photo: AFP
China

My Take | Donald Trump’s tech war against China will prove self-defeating

Biden’s ‘small yard, high fence’ strategy may become ‘huge yard, tall fence’, prohibitively expensive to maintain and with diminishing returns.

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A semiconductor-chip factory in Huaian, in eastern China’s Jiangsu province, in April 2024. Photo: AFP

My Take | Xi Jinping is voice of reason to calm a world in chaos

Beijing has turned out to be a major force for stability while friends and foes alike are wreaking havoc around the world.

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United States

My Take | Will Musk make US government a lean, mean, effective machine?

Instead of enhancing efficiency, new advisory unit is likely to push radical deregulation and slash manpower required to supervise big industries.

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War and conflict

My Take | Bismarck was no rabid Western imperialist

Contrary to far-left revisionism in Germany, the West would have had much cleaner, instead of bloodied, hands in its colonial history if it had followed the Iron Chancellor’s restraint.

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Snow covers the paths, streets and the Bismarck monument in Hamburg, Germany on February 26, 2018. Photo: AFP
Crime in China

My Take | China’s authorities may struggle to address people’s emotional needs

Efforts to step up social control following two recent mass killings can only go so far in tackling complex personal matters.

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Israel

My Take | The mainstreaming of long-time critic is a symptom of US empire’s decline

Few commentators are better positioned than famous linguist Noam Chomsky to make sense of how American imperialism and Israeli colonialism have morphed together during the war in Gaza that has revealed their true colours.

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China

My Take | EU, US losing battles for Africa and Latin America to China

Developing countries showing they prefer investment and infrastructure development over the West’s moralising hypocrisy and badmouthing.

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A group of small scale miners try to start up an old metal mine in Uis, Namibia on February 13, 2008. Photo: AFP
Hong Kong politics

My Take | Ultimate aim of universal suffrage seems further away than ever

Jail terms over a subversion plot are a tragic end to what was hoped would be the city’s political development. But it should be revisited in the future.

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Police officers patrol outside the West Kowloon Law Courts Building. Photo: Elson Li
Israel-Gaza war

My Take | China speaks for conscience of the world at UN over horror in Gaza

Disgraceful veto of draft ceasefire resolution by US coincides with arrest warrants by International Criminal Court for Israeli pair on war crimes.

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My Take | Did Biden manage to contain China?

From a US perspective, the outgoing president and his foreign policy team did surprisingly well. But without a supportive successor – or rather with an actively hostile one – their work is likely to come undone.

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Hong Kong politics

My Take | Why the so-called 35+ plot was an attempted constitutional coup

It was no accident that a law expert specialising in various charters had convinced fellow ‘Hong Kong 47’ conspirators to trigger legislative crisis.

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Hong Kong 47 case defendants escorted by a Correctional Services Department vehicle on November 19, 2024. Photo: Elson Li
India

My Take | America, not China, stands in the way of India becoming a great power

Washington makes no room for New Delhi’s geopolitical ambitions but considers the Asian giant as just another asset in its Beijing containment strategy.

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Donald Trump, left, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi embrace after giving a joint statement in New Delhi, India back in 2020. Photo: AP
US-China relations

My Take | Is China ready to lead the way on fighting climate change after Trump’s return?

Beijing is under pressure to fill the leadership vacuum, but the world’s largest carbon emitter is resisting calls to provide more funding.

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Canada

My Take | My bucket list tribute to Anglo-American culture

There is much to admire about the most dynamic society of the past 500 years, just not necessarily the kinds of things that have most mesmerised many Hongkongers.

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