Alex Lo
Columnist
Alex Lo has been an SCMP columnist since 2012, commenting on China and international affairs. He is also a member of the editorial writing team. A journalist for 30 years, he has worked for various publications in Hong Kong and Toronto as a news reporter and editor. He has also lectured in journalism at the University of Hong Kong.
Alex Lo has been an SCMP columnist since 2012, commenting on China and international affairs. He is also a member of the editorial writing team. A journalist for 30 years, he has worked for various publications in Hong Kong and Toronto as a news reporter and editor. He has also lectured in journalism at the University of Hong Kong.
Areas of Expertise:
Hong Kong politics, society and economyLanguages Spoken:
Cantonese, English, Mandarin
Research co-authored by Nobel laureate Daron Acemoglu finds labour shortages can spur, rather than slow down, productivity and growth.
Washington aims not only to counter growing Chinese influence but to reestablish hegemonic control in the region.
While China does have a large trade surplus, economist Michael Pettis’ argument that Beijing is most vulnerable to a global adjustment is not convincing.
How Taiwan dragged its former diplomatic partner Grenada through US courts to collect on defaulted loans should be a lesson for island nations currently holding Taiwanese debt.
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China’s sustained engagement across the continent stands in stark contrast to a US approach driven purely by strategic utility.
While Washington says it is monitoring certain countries, including Japan, for foreign exchange interventions, it also coordinated with Tokyo to prop up the yen.
An Indian writer and an American businessman explain how de-industrialisation and the rise of oligarchs handicapped the US ability to compete.
US and other Western multinationals were all chasing the lowest price that China offered – and willing to sacrifice jobs for easy profits.
Stephen Roach and his like-minded critics should let go of their fantasy of a bygone era. The city has already moved on.
China’s most enduring philosophical tradition didn’t merely revere the past; it drew upon history to construct the future.
From Indian colonisation to the opium trade, an empire of avarice and brutality was powered by the East India Company.
While Americans know they can’t get the welfare benefits they need, their leaders must realise their military can’t give them world domination.
While the US is seeking to dismantle the International Criminal Court, it has signed a statement upholding the Hague tribunal’s South China Sea ruling.
US is so deindustrialised and EU so uncompetitive that they will not be able to meet the demands of Chinese consumers if the mainland market is flung open to them.
The quiet, devastating reunion of master and dog, recently given the Hollywood treatment, remains one of the most poignant scenes in Western literature.
Scheming Odysseus may have been the first modern man with a self-directing mental life while other archaic heroes blindly obeyed the gods.
As hundreds of wildfires rage across Canada, the US president and his cronies pour scorn on the country in its hour of need and threaten to take it over.
A new book on the Spring and Autumn period and its experiments in conflict and diplomacy helps explain today’s global order.
The commission attacks these philosophers’ ideas as morally corrupting but Trump may be the ultimate postmodern politician, lacking fundamental principles and any regard for facts.
Western pundits were quick to denounce Beijing. But far more frequent US launches rate barely a mention.
Their revisionism challenges the neoliberal perspective which treats Maoist command economics and Deng-era capitalist reforms as diametrically opposed.
For all the destruction of the Mao era, it also replaced traditional structures with modern frameworks that set up China for rapid growth.
For its 250th birthday, it is worth remembering some of the greatest contributions that the US has made to humankind.
A Trump appointee shares a vision of Washington taking over the island’s seafood industry and keeping exports from the Chinese.
Those who left Hong Kong for Britain may be missing the ubiquitous cooling in homes as the UK swelters this summer.
Long-reigning Fed chair personalised the fanaticism of a US system that triggered two worldwide economic crises.
Instead of hoping for Beijing to commit economic suicide, it would be more realistic for the EU to strike a mutually acceptable trade deal.
Cutting off the company’s latest models for non-Americans only serves to highlight China’s open-source alternatives to the rest of the world.
EU bureaucrats thought they had left power politics behind. Now it is coming back to bite them.
