Opinion

  Britain scored a game-changing goal with “Brexit,” but the ball landed in its own net and the point, it seems, has gone to China. Let’s rewind. Remember the line “greed is good” from the film Wall Street? Asher Edelman, the inspiration for the character of Gordon Gekko, was one of the pioneers of computer trading. Soon everyone was using …

  Michelle DeFreese SPECIAL TO EMIRATES BUSINESS Prime Minister Narendra Modi is meeting with heads of state in four African countries during his first visit to the African continent since he took office in 2014. Modi’s official visits will take him to Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, and South Africa. Notably, his arrival in Mozambique will mark the first time an Indian …

  Since the Brexit vote, Europe’s populists — and the Scottish and Irish losers of the U.K. ballot — have had referendums on their mind. What if they, too, get lucky the way Brexiteers did? Simultaneously, there’s a predictable backlash against plebiscites from the intellectual elite: How can people be allowed to give binary answers in complex situations they don’t …

Britain’s epochal decision to leave the European Union prompted Australia’s political leaders to re-emphasise their economic security credentials ahead of the election on July 2. No doubt, Brexit weighs on cousin-state of Australia despite geographic distance. It is added to the list of scare campaigns by main parties to canvass votes through suggesting who could better weather the global uncertainty …

Robert Farley SPECIAL TO EMIRATES BUSINESS The Korean shipbuilding industry has plunged into a deep crisis. The three biggest shipbuilding firms—Daewoo, Hyundai Heavy, and Samsung Heavy—posted record combined losses in 2015, and 2016 looks no better. Combined with a major accounting scandal and ongoing concerns about the viability of the market, South Korea could face a major shift in the …

  Clive Crook The Financial Times’s Gideon Rachman says he thinks Brexit won’t happen. The referendum result doesn’t mean that much, he argues. Any long-term observer of the EU should be familiar with the shock referendum result. In 1992 the Danes voted to reject the Maastricht treaty. The Irish voted to reject both the Nice treaty in 2001 and the …

In a service to all South China Sea watchers, the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) announced that its award in Philippines v. China will be announced on July 12. For the outgoing Aquino administration in the Philippines–the initiator of the arbitration–the award has come a little too late. But, for Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines’ new president, who’s sent mixed signals …

  Michael Reilly SPECIAL TO EMIRATES BUSINESS Taiwan’s trade figures with China should not make comfortable reading for any Taiwanese legislator or policymaker. True, between 2008 and 2015, China’s imports from Taiwan increased by almost 40 percent, vindication, presumably, in Kuomintang (KMT) eyes of Ma Ying-jeou’s cross-straits policy. But that growth pales into near insignificance against the 300 percent plus …

Catherine Putz SPECIAL TO EMIRATES BUSINESS After seven months of stalled relations–barbed comments and sanctions–Russia and Turkey may be moving toward a rapprochement. On Monday, according to the Russians, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent a letter “in which the Turkish President expressed his desire to settle the situation concerning the downing of a Russian military aircraft.” In the letter, …

  Financial markets are still trying to make sense of Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, and almost everyone is wringing their hands over what it all means — popular anger at elites, an eruption of racism and xenophobia, the collapse of the liberal world order, the resurgence of English nationalism. The uncomfortable truth is that it’s probably all …