Veteran Financial Columnist Jake van der Kamp Talks Markets and Investing
In his book The Rise and Fall of the Hang Seng Index, published earlier this year, veteran financial columnist Jake van der Kamp argues that the only investment advice you need should come from yourself, not financial publications. As he put it during a lunch event at The Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Hong Kong, “If it’s in the press, it’s in the price.”
A former analyst himself, van der Kamp spoke about the main argument of his book, which is that investment advisers and brokers are useful for executing the how and where of trading, but the what and when is best left to individual investors. Rather than finding the right advice or trying to play the market, van der Kamp advocated a common-sense approach to investing that relies on personal instinct and intelligence, adding that share prices themselves are a clear reflection of collective wisdom.
He also advised buying stocks and holding on to them “unless you’ve got a very good reason to sell.” In that way, he argued, investors could avoid the machinations of people working with alleged insider information or trying to manipulate the market.
Speaking about regional economies, van der Kamp expressed confidence in Southeast Asian countries and concerns about the world’s second-largest economy. “My own view on China is there is trouble coming,” he said, pointing to trends including an aging population. Still, he noted, he did not predict a major crash but rather a period of “falling asleep for 20 years” and stagnating in the way Japan’s economy did.
Watch the full event:
Reading Recommendations From the FCC’s Distinguished Guest Speakers
With countries around the world in and out of lockdown due to COVID-19, 2020 has provided ample opportunities for many to catch up on reading.
If you’re on the hunt for your next great read, look no further than this list of book recommendations from the FCC’s distinguished guest speakers, including Noam Chomsky, Joseph Stiglitz, Lingling Wei and many more.
Southeast’s Asia Editor at The Diplomat, Sebastian Strangio participated in a Zoom event on October 12 to discuss his book In the Dragon’s Shadow: Southeast Asia in the Chinese Century. He recommended Fortunes of War: The Balkan Trilogyby Olivia Manning.
Mark Thompson, the former BBC Director-General and CEO of The New York Times Co., participated in a November 24 Zoom discussion about the troubles facing RTHK and other public service broadcasters around the world. He recommended Why Liberalism Failed by Patrick J. Deenen as well as the unabridged version of Tolstoy’s War and Peace produced by Naxos AudioBooks.
‘City on Fire’ Author Antony Dapiran Discusses Legco and the Hong Kong Protests
The political events that have unfolded in Hong Kong this week have turned the Legislative Council into something resembling China’s National People’s Congress rather than a legitimate legislative body, according to lawyer and author Antony Dapiran.
“The events of this week are not surprising. That doesn’t make them any less dispiriting,” said Dapiran, who appeared at The Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Hong Kong on Thursday to speak with FCC president Jodi Schneider about his second book, City on Fire: The Fight for Hong Kong. “There was no real legal basis for what the NPC did.”
As he spoke to a lunchtime crowd, Dapiran described the city’s judiciary as being the last line of defense against the government, calling the courts “genuinely the one thing that is a constraint on government power” in the aftermath of four opposition lawmakers disqualified and ousted, and the remainder resigning in protest.
Dapiran also spoke about the National Security Law, arguing that it “seriously undermines Hong Kong’s rule of law” and has been particularly effective “as a tool of fear and intimidation” that has caused people to censor themselves and their social media accounts.
Having written a book on Hong Kong’s 2019 protests, the author reflected on the true meaning of the often-turbulent events that rocked the city last year. “This whole movement was building up this idea of a unique Hong Kong identity that was struggling in some way for greater autonomy within the People’s Republic of China.”
Though he noted that the NSL and coronavirus pandemic had effectively quashed the protests, Dapiran pointed out their global impact and lasting legacy, noting that the Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion movements had both borrowed tactics from their counterparts in Hong Kong. Meanwhile, he highlighted the ongoing protests in Thailand and how they’ve led to the formation of the so-called Milk Tea Alliance: “The two movements have been providing mutual solidarity and support.”
As for Hong Kong’s future, Daprian said he’s less optimistic than when the book came out in March. “I don’t think we’re going to see a return to the kinds of protests we saw on the streets last year,” he said, “but I don’t think the story is over.”
Watch the full event below:
Ambassador Kurt Tong on What Hong Kong Can Expect from the Biden Presidency
Changing Hong Kong’s trade status is not likely to be a priority for President-elect Joe Biden, said Ambassador Kurt Tong, the former U.S. consul general in Hong Kong, in a Zoom interview with the FCC on Tuesday night. Though he was cautious not to speculate on any specific policies the new administration might implement in Asia, he said Biden and his advisors understand the importance of dealing with China, a task that might intentionally be made more challenging by the outgoing Trump administration over the next two months.
“The diplomatic dance between China and Biden is going to be an interesting one, and one worth watching,” said Tong, who has left public service and now works for strategic advisory firm The Asia Group in Washington. However, due to limitation in political bandwidth and a need to focus on challenging domestic issues including the coronavirus pandemic and economic stimulus, he projected that foreign policy would not be at the top of the new administration’s agenda.
Ambassador Kurt Tong
Asked what the Biden administration could to do reset U.S.-China relations, Tong said, “I question that ‘reset’ is the right word. I think the idea that the U.S. and China are in a relationship that is characterized by competition is widely accepted, so it’s not how do we get back to friendly, but rather how do we make this competition healthy?” He also predicted that the world could expect to see a see a more calm and consistent approach to international negotiations from the new administration.
“Trump’s negotiating style is to be unpredictable,” said Tong. “That is great when you’re signing leases in New York City. That is harder to make work when you’re dealing with other cultures and countries that don’t trust you. Being unpredictable tends to lead the other party to not continue the conversation.”
Commenting on the unpredictable transition period between presidents that lies ahead, Tong expressed concerns. “The focus over the past six months has been on rhetorical one-upmanship and high-profile but not terribly effective measures,” he noted, citing TikTok and WeChat as examples. “I worry that the Trump administration will try to do more of these things in the next couple of months in ways that may box in the Biden administration.”
“There are plenty of people already thinking about the 2024 election,” he remarked.
Reflecting on his time in Hong Kong, the former U.S. envoy wondered whether the 2019 protests may have gone too far and inadvertently led to the passage of the National Security Law. “The first time that tear gas started flying around made me very uncomfortable, because that can always lead to escalation, which it did,” said Tong.
“The two large peaceful marches in June – if it had stopped there and given the Hong Kong government a little bit of time to digest that and realize they needed to walk back from the extradition bill, there could have been a different outcome,” he added.
Tong also expressed doubts about some of the protesters’ tactics: “Invading the Legislative Council, it’s hard to see how that could appeal to the ‘better angels’ in the Hong Kong government and Beijing.” Still, he was cautious not to describe the protests and National Security Law as a simple case of cause and effect. “It’s hard to second-guess history,” he said.
Tong also criticized the framing of Hong Kong being caught between the West and China. Instead, he argued, the city is actually caught between two Chinese impulses: the desire to have a London-style economy inside China, and the desire to control.
“It’s those competing urges that determine the future of the city,” said Tong. “What foreign government policy does is not irrelevant, but it’s not the determining factor. The fate of Hong Kong is decided in Beijing and Hong Kong’s interaction with Beijing.”
Asked how the international community should interact with Hong Kong, Tong said the “U.S. and other countries should keep Hong Kong high on their list of priorities in dealing with China but not actively discourage business activity, because that’s the city’s lifeblood. If you make it harder for business to be done, that can have a lasting effect and you can’t always turn the dial back.”
Tong also argued that the international community should keep an open door to Hong Kong residents, but commented that “what foreign countries say about welcoming Hongkongers is less important than what Hongkongers actually decided to do. If a lot of people leave, that would be bad for China. If Hongkongers decided to move to the U.S., that would be great for the U.S.”
Will the former U.S. consul general have any role to play in policymaking? Asked whether he would accept an appointment in the Biden administration and what position he would be interested in, Tong demurred: “Yeah, I’m not going to negotiate that over the Internet.”
Watch the full interview:
International Press Institute Issues Statement on Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists
Impunity for crimes against journalists has continued to remain high, as governments are failing to bring perpetrators to justice, the International Press Institute (IPI), a global network of editors, media executives and leading journalists, said ahead of the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists on November 2.
Since last October, as many as 52 journalists have lost their lives due to their work, according to the Vienna-based IPI’s Death Watch. At least 24 were killed in targeted attacks. An additional 15 cases are considered to be likely targeted attacks but remain under investigation regarding the motive. Seven other journalists were killed in Syria and one in Iraq covering armed conflict, and two died in Iraq and one in Afghanistan reporting on civil unrest. An additional two journalists were killed while on assignment. In almost half of the cases, those responsible are still at large,
An IPI analysis of these cases shows an alarmingly insufficient response by authorities to grave crimes against journalists. So far, arrests have only been made in 10 cases, five each in the Americas and Asia.
“The unbroken cycle of impunity for crimes against journalists fuels further violence against the press at a time when the free flow of news is more valuable than ever”, IPI Deputy Director Scott Griffen said. “The failure to bring those who kill journalists to justice is unacceptable and an attack on the public’s right to receive information.”
As in the year prior, the Americas accounted for the highest number of killings with 21 journalists murdered, including eight in Mexico, five in Honduras, two each in Colombia and Venezuela, and one each in Brazil, Guatemala, Haiti and Paraguay. In Asia, 11 journalists were killed, three in the Philippines, two each in India, Indonesia and Pakistan, and one each in Cambodia and Bangladesh. In Africa, two journalists were killed in Nigeria, and one each in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Somalia. One journalist died in a targeted attack in Yemen, and another was found dead in his car in Iraq, while in Qatar, the death of an imprisoned journalist is under investigation.
In Mexico, arrests were made only in one of eight cases on IPI’s Death Watch. Despite Mexico’s being one of the most dangerous countries for journalists to work, the government there has decided to stop funds allocated for upholding the Law for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists (LPPDHP). Although underfunded, since its establishment in 2012, a federal safety mechanism had benefited over 1,200 individuals, 33 percent of whom were journalists.
In Brazil, Colombia and Honduras, the killers are still at large, while in Haiti, Paraguay and Venezuela, arrests have been made connection with the killings.
Amongst Asian countries, the Philippines has arrested suspects in two of three murders, while Indonesia has apprehended the alleged masterminds of the two killings in the country. In India, the police have arrested suspects in one case, and filed a case against the accused in another killing. The police in Pakistan have filed a case against suspects in one of two murders. However, no progress has been reported in investigations into the killings that took place in Bangladesh and Cambodia.
In Africa and the Middle East, no arrests have been reported in the seven cases on IPI’s Death Watch.
“Unfortunately, even the fact of arrests does not necessarily indicate genuine progress in an investigation into the killing of a journalist, given that all too often the only people who are arrested are the triggermen, while the masterminds remain free”, Griffen noted. “Authorities must ensure that every single person involved in the murder of a journalist is brought to justice.”
Alarmingly, little progress has been made in bringing perpetrators to justice even for the most high-profile and shocking murders in recent years. A public inquiry and trial are underway in the killing of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who died in a car bomb explosion in 2017. Last month, a court in Slovakia acquitted the suspected mastermind behind the 2018 murder of journalist Ján Kuciak.
Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, has made a mockery of justice in the gruesome 2018 murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. After intense international pressure, the Saudi government admitted that Khashoggi had been murdered in what it described as a “rogue operation”. However, it then charged 11 without revealing their names or their alleged role in the killing. The trial that began in March 2019 was shrouded in secrecy and despite requests by the United Nations, international observers were not allowed to attend the proceedings. In December, five of the suspects were sentenced to death (later overturned) and three others were given prison sentences, while the remaining three were exonerated.
COVID-19 Panel: Hong Kong Resists ‘Infodemic,’ Offers Lessons on How to Avoid Winter Virus Wave
Hong Kong may not be badly affected by a winter-driven COVID-19 wave as the city continues to adopt health precautions it learned from the 2003 SARS epidemic, said top virus experts.
“We’ve learned that delay is deadly – that you have to act quickly,” said Sarah Borwein, a Hong Kong-based general practitioner, who ran the Infection Control program for the only expatriate hospital in Beijing during SARS.
“We’ve learned that clear, consistent, honest public health messaging is really important. We’ve had that here [in Hong Kong] and other parts of Asia,” she said at an FCC forum on Oct. 22.
In Hong Kong, “things we learned in 2003 from SARS have helped us contain COVID-19 with infection control measures,” said Professor Ivan Hung, a clinical professor and assistant dean in the University of Hong Kong’s Department of Medicine. He cited early responses including the wearing of face masks and social distancing.
Those measures may help the city avoid a spike in winter infections as seen in North America and the U.K., as the virus becomes more active and transmissible in cooler temperatures and as people spend more time gathering indoors.
“Hong Kong has been relatively well spared because we’ve been wearing masks and we’ve got good social distancing. We won’t be as badly affected as some of the other European countries,” said Professor John Nicholls, a clinical professor in pathology at the University of Hong Kong.
However, Borwein said the public needs to stay vigilant about following hygiene protocols rather than being lulled into a sense of security from “hygiene theatre” – the constant cleaning of surfaces, which may not have as much of an impact as masks and social distancing.
What remains to be seen is how the pandemic will progress during the Northern Hemisphere’s winter months, particularly as it coincides with flu season. “We’re already seeing detrimental effects in these countries,” said Professor Nicholls. “My concern is, if you get a double infection, you’re going to see an increase in transmission because of the coughing and sneezing caused by influenza.”
The experts also warned about another challenge in fighting the virus: “infodemics,” a tide of misinformation about the pathogen.
“Many people don’t get their information from the mainstream media – they get it from social media,” said Borwein. “If you like to read articles about the pandemic being a hoax, then soon that’s all you’re going to see on your feed.”
“Given the role of Google and the lack of fact-checking, the public has a hard time knowing what’s really going on,” said Nicholls. “Actually working out what’s true and not true is quite confusing,” he added, pointing out his concern with media outlets reporting information from studies that haven’t been peer-reviewed.
The panel also discussed what is known – and remains to be discovered – about COVID-19, which has infected 41.3 million people and claimed 1.1 million lives. “From recent research, we know that this virus is very good at suppressing the host’s immune system, allowing the virus to replicate rapidly,” said Professor Hung. “We know quite a lot about the biology,” added Professor Nicholls. “What we really don’t know is how much it’s going to mutate in the future.”
As to when a vaccine the panel was not overly optimistic. “I think it won’t be a magic bullet but it will be a major weapon,” said Professor Hung. “My own suspicion is that it will be an important part of the fight but not a magic bullet,” Borwein said.
Nicholls, meanwhile, raised several potential threats to the success of any future vaccine, including large portions of the global population being resistant to the idea of vaccination, the logistical difficulties of distribution, and the fact that vaccinations result in a less robust immune response, and therefore weaker immunity, among the elderly.
Even without a vaccine, panelists expressed hope for resuming international travel as soon as possible. “I see no reason why Hong Kong cannot have a travel bubble with, for instance, Taiwan,” said Professor Nicholls. “I’m very much for the travel bubble for place like Taiwan, Singapore, Korea, and Japan,” added Professor Hung. “This would be very important for the economy and travel industry, and it would also encourage people to get vaccinated in the future.”
Even once the COVID-19 pandemic ends, however, the panel expressed concerns about future viral outbreaks. “You have to respect nature,” said Professor Hung. “The next pandemic will most likely be linked to human consumption of meat.”
Nicholls said a pandemic could start “wherever animals are being mass produced for human consumption. It’s not going to be ‘if’ but ‘when.’”
Watch the full discussion:
‘New Yorker’ Writer Jiayang Fan on Her Mother, Social Media, China and Fact-Checking: An FCC Zoom Event
Social media can be a force for good, but it also has a destructive side, which New Yorker staff writer Jiayang Fan recounted in an FCC interview Tuesday, detailing how she and her mother were branded as traitors in a social media campaign in China.
“Twitter, at its worst, has this unique opportunity to magnify opposition and flatten all complexity,” Fan said in the FCC Zoom event. The Chongqing-born writer has experienced firsthand the dark underbelly of social media, a subject she wrote about in her recent New Yorker cover story “How My Mother and I Became Chinese Propaganda.” The moving essay recounted how publicizing her mother’s struggle with ALS in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic led to the dark social media campaign in which they both ended up being portrayed as traitors by Chinese nationalists.
Yet Fan, a journalistic celebrity with more than 62,000 followers on Twitter, noted that sometimes, “Twitter feels like a family of kind strangers. I’m grateful for the kindness of strangers on this website.”
“To this day, I have an ambivalent relationship to social media, which you wouldn’t be able to tell from my prolific tweeting,” she said. “At times, I think Twitter is the worst thing to have happened to journalism. At other times, I think it offers me a conduit to my readers and the ability to be a bit more three-dimensional.”
Fan said she did not initially intend to write her recent cover story as a personal essay, but it developed into one after she began receiving disturbing messages on Twitter. “I was struck by the specificity of their insults,” she said. “There is so much rage and fury on the other side of a computer.”
Despite being subjected to online abuse, Fan said the experience only served to spark her journalistic curiosity. “What injustices did they feel they had suffered to merit such vicious attacks on someone they’ve only read about on the Internet?” she said. “As a writer, you have a responsibility to probe into the impulses of what people do, even if it seems counterintuitive.”
Fan’s cover story in the Sept. 14 issue of the magazine, which went viral and has led to a book deal, is the latest highlight of her tenure at The New Yorker, where she started as a fact-checker when Evan Osnos’s articles on China for the magazine required a staffer with Chinese language skills. She explained that serendipity and luck were responsible for her rise at the storied publication.
“I was told that there would be no upward mobility,” Fan said.
She continues to have great respect for fact-checkers. “I feel incredibly lucky,” she added, noting the foundational role fact-checkers play in journalism. “They do heroic work. They’re so vital.”
In addition to her recent personal essay, Fan has written about the Hong Kong protests, Hong Kong activist and singer Denise Ho, and the National Security Law. “I’ve watched with alarm and not a little bit of grim, heart-in-throat expectations as the National Security Law came into effect,” she said. “I hate to say this, but I haven’t been terribly encouraged by the turn of events. I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling this way.”
Asked if she would feel safe traveling to China given recent events, she said, “I really wish someone could answer that question for me. I miss going to China to report. In the short term, for various reasons, I won’t be going there.” Commenting on China’s role in the world, Fan said she felt that the ongoing pandemic had made things worse: “It’s distracted the world from China’s encroachment.”
As for U.S.-China relations and the Nov. 3 U.S. election, she noted that the Trump presidency, with its chaotic nature, has been a useful tool for Chinese leaders looking for real-life examples of the downsides of democracy. “Every time Trump does a faux pas, Xi and team at Zhongnanhai must feel some glee,” she commented.
Claiming that Biden would be a more predictable president, which has both pros and cons for the Chinese Communist Party, Fan added, “On the whole, I think Xi’s been grateful for the Trump presidency for the way it’s taken the U.S. down a peg – or 12.”
Watch the full interview:
FCC Membership Promotion
FCC Membership Promotion
The FCC prides itself on the diversity and vibrancy of its membership. Our Correspondent and Journalist members represent the core of the club, while our Associate, Diplomatic and Corporate members bring a vast range of talents and backgrounds that make the club such an important cornerstone of Hong Kong life. In order to encourage membership and maintain that diversity in all categories, the Board of Governors has approved a promotion through which existing members who introduce new applicants in any of the five categories will receive a HK$ 1,000 food and beverage credit to their account upon the successful acceptance of the applicant and payment of their joining fee. Application forms are available from the Club reception desk or can be downloaded from the FCC website.
The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand expresses fears over press freedom and journalists’ safety
The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand (FCCT) has expressed concerns over the “new risks” to journalists covering the unrest in Thailand and called on the authorities to “respect the role and responsibilities” of all media. Below are the FCCT’s statements in full.
The FCCT released the following statement on October 18, 2020.
As protests continue in Thailand, the FCCT is concerned about the safety and security of all involved, including members of the media – both foreign and Thai. In particular provisions of the new emergency decree place vaguely defined criteria for news coverage that could see journalists arrested for simply doing their job. The arrest, albeit temporary, of a Thai journalist on Friday night highlights the new risks for media in covering events. The FCCT urges the authorities to respect the role and responsibilities of all media in Thailand.
The FCCT released the following statement on October 19, 2020.
U.S. election disinformation worse than ever – Craig Silverman
The spread of disinformation and fake news is far worse than four years ago and is fuelling a deluge of lies in the run-up to the U.S. election, Buzzfeed media editor Craig Silverman said in an FCC panel discussion.
Eric Wishart (left) interviews (clockwise) Thomas Kent, Craig Silverman, and Elyse Samuels.
He said that conspiracy theories and an alternate reality ecosystem had flourished on the internet since the last election. In 2016, social media platforms were criticised for disseminating fake news ahead of the election of President Donald Trump.
“What’s incredible to me is thinking about what I was seeing in 2016 in the U.S. and how that just felt like an incredible high watermark for conspiratorial thinking infecting the mainstream, for viral falsehoods, gathering a huge amount of attention and interactions… And all of that seemed like ‘how could it get worse?’, and here we are,” Silverman said.
He criticised social media platforms for not doing enough to curb the continued rise of disinformation and fake news on their sites.
Twitter and Facebook were late to act against the spread of fake news due to a sense of American “free speech”. He said the firms were led by people “very much in favour of leaving up rather than taking down”.
Silverman acknowledged that platforms were beginning to crack down on disinformation. However, highlighting Facebook’s recent commitment not to accept political ads after the U.S. election polls close on November 3, he added: “It’s fair to point out a lot of this stuff is coming very close to the election. They’ve had four years and while they’re banking massive profits they have not really invested as much as they could have.”
Samuels discussed the rise in deep fakes – manipulated videos or photos – with the most common form being clips used out of context. As an example, she spoke of the recent controversy surrounding a Donald Trump campaign video in which White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci appears to praise the president’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Fauci subsequently issued a statement saying his quote was taken out of context.
“It just shows how easy it is to take something out of context and change the narrative,” Samuels said.
She conceded that once a video clip had gone viral it was “harder to put the genie back into the bottle” but added that she hoped articles that debunked misinformation were having a positive effect.
Samuels said both the Trump and Biden campaigns were guilty of spreading disinformation, although she said there were more instances of the Trump campaign using this strategy.
Kent discussed interference in elections by Russia. Although the Kremlin was widely believed to have helped elect Trump in 2016, Kent argued that Russia is also “on the other side too”. He cited Russian-created content that was both critical and supportive of the Black Lives Matter movement.
“You can look at this in two ways: the classical explanation of this would be that the Russians are trying to hedge their bets, to have some allies on both sides depending on who wins the election,” he said. “However, the general thrust of Russian information operations in the United States has not been aimed particularly at making allies for Russia anywhere. Instead, it’s been aimed at sewing disruption in general in U.S. society.”
Kent suggested one solution to the divisive spread of disinformation was to change the way people think about politics and democratic values.
“The problem is we are too defensive; we spend all our time saying don’t believe this don’t believe that… If you want to affect the way people think about politics you need to present a positive message as well as a negative message,” he said.
