Stitching up Northeast Asia: Blast from the Past

I’m reading “The Making of Northeast Asia” by Calder and Ye on the rapid stitching together of Northeast Asia into an organisational bloc to be reckoned with.

I saw an intriguing map of a network of high speed rails tying up the region together, titled the Big Loop, proposed in the early 2000s by Mr Shioya. Fast forward a decade later and we see China’s high speed rail system going their own way and also stitching up the region along the way too.

The comparison with past policy plans, and actual implementation on the ground years later, is always fascinating.

Economist China Summit Nov 2010

Uploading some of my notes during the Economist China Summit in Beijing (Nov 2010).

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People’s Republic of Change

The PRC has so many stories of the future embedded in it that it could be an entire series of ‘People’s Republic of Change’.  This is our first effort, and I hope more folks out there can tell the story of change. If there ever was a society in future shock, it is the People’s Republic of Change.

New Silk Railroads

Well, it’s a been a while since I last posted for a variety of reasons. We have been rather busy, and I’ll be uploading some of the past twelve month’s work by and by. But here’s our latest release, the new silk railroads of Asia and some what-ifs. Let me know what you think?

Pearl River Delta 2020

When I was in CN last month, we were showed the outline of a pilot reform program by the central govt to reform Pearl River Delta into ‘Asia Pacific’s most dynamic city cluster’ by 2020. That was quite an audacious statement, and you probably know that a ‘pilot reform’ by the China central govt means they set the large directions but leave it to the city governments to work out the details, and more importantly, best practices of what works will be replicated across China to guide the formation of their mega city clusters. What makes PRD 2020 interesting is they are gearing to go head on with Korea in terms of advanced manufacturing, creating a services hub that will be augmented with HK (if they get it right) and the number of global Chinese MNCs they want to create. I’ve combed through the outline and with some help from HK’s Civic Exchange group on slideshare here it is!

SocGen’s Worst Case Debt Scenario

I think the first para says it well. “But while we believe the greatest danger is past, we also recognise the price of our salvation has yet to be paid in full.” SocGen’s view on how public debt will swing recovery (or not) in the next five years.

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Future of Enterprise – Phase I (Chinese Enterprises)

Late last year, Futures Group did a video presentation – “Rise of the Rest”. So we reckon that if the Future lies here in Asia, wouldn’t it be interesting to learn and understand how Enterprises in Asia, especially those in China, India and even Indonesia, are evolving? How different are these Enterprises today as compared to 10-20 years ago and what they will look like moving forward?

Hence in May this year, we embarked on the first leg of our Future of Enterprise project focusing on Chinese Enterprise, and here’s the slides on some of the trends observed.

Note: This is a synthesis of ideas from more than 100 people (Including business leaders, academia, entrepreneurs, bloggers, etc. in both Singapore and China) interviewed over the past 3 -4 months.

Chinese enterprises have long enjoyed a low-cost structure, and after decades of being labeled “Factory of the World”, the Chinese understood that apart from manufacturing and/ or producing copies/ imitations, they would have to innovate in order to differentiate themselves from the competition. In addition, we also learnt that it is not always about product innovation, but the ability to adapt foreign ideas or create new hybrids to fit local context as well as the ability to monetize it (Example of Facebook Vs QQ). Another key observation is the need to understand State Policies – We learnt how state policies can affect and even create new industries in China (example of One Child Policy and its impact on education, healthcare and internet industry as well as removal of licensing requirement which led to the boom in Shenzhen’s cottage phone industry).

As China prepares herself to be a dominant force in the global economy, what are the opportunities and threats faced by Singapore and our enterprises? Well, something to mull over while we continue phase II of our project – India. Here We Come!

East Asia’s online kingdoms

We just returned from a fruitful trip to Korea, lots that we’ve learnt there, but up front sticking in my mind are East Asia’s online hermit kingdoms. These are the QQs, Navers, Mixis etc that have shown new ways or organising, socialising and monetising networks that facebook, myspace etc have not. We are thinking of doing some animation to highlight these kingdoms, but for now, there’s a very useful slideshare below from Benjamin Joffe of pluseightstar, who was also at LIFT Asia presenting on a similar topic.

The Descent of Finance

Will Chimerica end in a divorce? Will the USA be a shadow of its former self?

Niall Ferguson, who co-invented the term Chimerica, asks what the post-Chimerica world might look like in 2013 in the latest HBR issue (full article below). He starts with the US in crisis (high public debt, digesting toxic assets, who wants to buy US bonds?) and then moves on to the economic marriage between the USA and China. Chimerica could end in a divorce if China relies less on exports for growth, resulting in a shift in the balance of power. Yet US global economic power is not undermined as there is no real alternative to the US dollar. Ferguson reiterates a point he made before, that the global economy’s breakdown hurts other nations more than the US. Other countries, including China, will be more weakened by comparison with the collapse in world trade and industrial production. This results in a world of low US growth, and lower growth for other emerging nations. What Pimco has termed ‘the new normal’.

The economic crisis will spill over into politics. In this crisis, US allies (East Asian exporters, newly democratic Eastern Europe) have been hurt more than US rivals. We see new outbreaks of instability in emerging markets that previously looked stable, such as Thailand and Ukraine. The world’s increasing instability reinforces the US as a safe haven. But the US may not want to be global policeman much more, and both new and old unstable spots are left to fester.

It is in this world that Ferguson revisits 2013. It is an assymetric world where everywhere else seems more dangerous and unpredictable than America, where the actual consequences of the crisis are less terrible. The USA’s financial power has been diminished, but its economic power is still stronger than all others.

Power after all, is relative.

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Charter cities

Paul Romer spoke at TEDGlobal on his new idea of ‘charter cities’. Charter cities are catalysts for economic development as they are the appropriate arena for new ideas (villages are too small and nations are too big). Economic development not only involves technologies (a main emphasis of Romer’s theories); it also involves rules. Charter cities are the ‘greenfield’ sites where new rules are implemented. As they succeed, cities nearby will become influenced and development will spread. Just as Hong Kong was a charter city which influenced Shenzhen and other cities,  Romer proposes charter cities in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (calling Canada to take a partnership there) and throughout Africa.  Singapore’s experience complements Romer’s theory perfectly. I caught his attention with the idea of a TEDxCharter Cities to take these ideas further and encourage bottom-up discussion about the concept and its application. Something to think about…?