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Liberals should mourn the passing world
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The British Museum’s Samurai show proves the brush is mightier than the sword
As you enter the suitably frightening half-light of the British Museum’s new Samurai exhibition, you are confronted by exactly the sort of image you might expect. There, in splendid isolation, is a suit of armour in all its mesmerising menace. But if the display matches every expectation of a war-ready samurai, it immediately subverts the visitor’s probable preconceptions. First, what you are looking at is not a single piece of armour, but rather a collection of parts cobbled together over centuries. The dragon-topped helmet is from 1519, the cuirass breast…
Pakistan tax authorities turn to social media to crack down on evasion
In a tower overlooking Islamabad, a team of intelligence officers is scrolling Instagram, calling up fashion houses and planning a wedding. With Pakistan’s rollicking wedding season in full swing, the Federal Board of Revenue’s “lifestyle monitoring cell” is reverse-engineering a lavish ceremony, which it believes costs far more than the suspected tax evader’s annual reported income. “People love to play up how rich they are on social media,” said Rashid Langrial, the FBR’s chair. “But no one wants to show off their money in their tax filings.” The cell’s officials…
US concludes Alibaba and BYD have links to Chinese military
The Pentagon has concluded that Alibaba and BYD should be added to a list of companies with alleged connections to the Chinese military, two months before Donald Trump is expected to meet Xi Jinping in Beijing. The defence department sent its required updated “Chinese Military Companies” list to the Federal Register on Friday morning. However, in a move that has led to confusion, the PDF was abruptly removed from the site following a request from the Pentagon that did not provide any explanation. A defence official said the Pentagon would…
Chinese real estate mogul revives empire with new ventures in US
As China’s once powerful real estate moguls grapple with plunging sales — leaving many under stress or behind bars — one of them has managed a rare escape. Zhang Xin, formerly one of the country’s most prominent commercial property developers, has shed the bulk of her China empire and is placing a big bet on New York to develop a residential tower that will require the demolition of six buildings covering 100,000 sq ft of land. “There is stable demand for new developments in Manhattan’s historic districts,” Zhang said in…
Advertising group Dentsu replaces chief after worst annual loss
Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Media myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Dentsu is replacing its global chief executive and suspending its dividend for the first time after the Japanese advertising group posted its worst annual loss, driven by huge writedowns on its troubled overseas business. Hiroshi Igarashi, who has struggled to sell Dentsu’s London-based international unit, will be replaced by Takeshi Sano, chief executive of the domestic arm, on March 27, the company said on Friday. The announcement came after Dentsu reported…
What must happen for the world to stack RMB
Karthik Sankaran is a senior research fellow, geoeconomics in the Global South program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. China has precious little of the exorbitant privilege/ burden (delete according to your priors) conferred on reserve currency issuers. Despite China’s economy being the world’s second largest, the renminbi ranks a lowly seventh place in the IMF’s COFER league table of official foreign exchange reserves. But MainFT reported recently that Xi Jinping plans to change this. What even are the requisites for a currency to be truly international? And how…
How China is fighting ‘involution’, with Yanmei Xie
China’s export powerhouse is feeding global demand for cheaper electronics, cars, clothing, and plenty more besides. But the supercharged competition driving that trend is causing problems within China itself, including deflation and thin or negative profit margins. China’s government has recognised the problem, but what is it actually doing in response – and how should the country’s trading partners react? Soumaya speaks to Yanmei Xie, senior associate fellow at the Mercator Institute for China Studies, to discuss. Subscribe to Soumaya’s show on Apple, Spotify, Pocket Casts or wherever you listen.…
Former McKinsey partner to lead Australian opposition party
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Australia’s main opposition party has ousted its leader Sussan Ley after only nine months and replaced her with a former McKinsey partner. Angus Taylor pledged to return the Liberal Party to a conservative social and economic agenda to step up opposition to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who won a second term in a landslide last year. Taylor, who was elected on Friday in a leadership vote of MPs, known as…
Trade bellwether Singapore says global ‘fragility’ will hit economy
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. After a turbulent year defined by geopolitical tensions and tariffs, Singapore’s economy came through relatively unscathed. Yet the city-state — widely seen as a bellwether for global trade — has warned that the worst is yet to come. “Despite mounting stresses, the global economy proved more resilient than anticipated and the system continued to function,” Singapore’s Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said during his budget speech this week. “This year, however,…