Opinion

For years, China has purported to be a new type of great power: one that rises peacefully and respects the rights of other states rather than chasing the foreign domination of empires past. “China will never seek hegemony, expansion or a sphere of influence,” President Xi Jinping said in April. Yet many of Beijing’s policies have a distinctly imperial feel. ...

In the days before Covid, the response that doctors would give: “It’s just a virus”. As someone who’s long been fascinated by the detective work that goes into tracing the origins and history of infections, the answer always seemed too perfunctory. Which virus was it? Where and when did this strain emerge? How many other people were getting infected with ...

Russia is struggling to boost its oil production, even as its allowance under the latest Opec+ agreement is rising. At least that’s what the current data show. If it’s true, we ought to be worried. The country is the largest of the allies that joined with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries last year to agree to a record cut ...

There are moments in a government’s lifetime that symbolise a change of ideological direction. Last week UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision to raise taxes to pay for social care and bail out the National Health Service (NHS) was one of them. However worthy the objectives, the result will leave the country with the highest tax burden since 1945. Crucially ...

Poor man’s private equity or private equity’s poor cousin? Blank-check companies, which will soon be arriving in Singapore, could easily fall in one or the other group, depending on the quality of their early sponsors. Celebrities need not apply. Serena Williams or A-Rod won’t be luring Indonesian travel booking website Traveloka or Vietnamese gaming firm VNG Corp to Singapore. And ...

Think used cars are expensive? Take a look at totaled cars. Copart Inc is a $34 billion company that specialises in auctioning off wrecked cars that insurers deem too damaged to justify the cost of repairs. The insurance companies and other sellers — which include banks, charities and, increasingly, used-car dealers — get what’s recovered in the auction, but they ...

Apple Inc’s dominance over the mobile-app economy has just suffered its first significant setback. It could mark the beginning of a real antitrust reckoning for the technology giant that may benefit the livelihoods of millions of app developers. US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers issued her decision in a landmark antitrust suit brought by video-game publisher Epic Games Inc against ...

In the wake of President Joe Biden’s announcement of new, more aggressive tactics against the Covid-19 pandemic, including expanded vaccine mandates, some of those who support vaccination are worried that it could all backfire. National Journal’s Josh Kraushaar put it this way: “Unfortunate consequence of this speech — by forcing American vaccine holdouts to choose between vaccine and job — ...

It takes gumption to reject a takeover approach from a rival and announce a potentially very dilutive capital hike on the same day. British low-cost airline EasyJet Plc asked shareholders to pony up 1.2 billion pounds ($1.7 billion) via a fully underwritten rights offer to help pay down debt and seize growth opportunities presented by the pandemic. It also revealed ...

Coinbase Global Inc boss Brian Armstrong has long believed that the adoption of digital currencies like Bitcoin would resemble a straight arrow towards progress — much like the internet’s development from a web of interlinked computers to a whole economy of applications and businesses. Yet his angry tweet storm against the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), after its behind-the-scenes ...