Thu 05 Mar 2026 Bangkok, IMF Asia in 2050 Conference
I will be speaking on this panel alongside these distinguished thinkers on the Future of Growth in Asia
Depending, I might go all in on rules-based order.
www.imf.org/en/news/semi...
AI inversion. I asked my local LLM to introspect and join up what I'd been thinking the last four years
open.substack.com/pub/dannyqua...
We're dealing with a powerful nation whose ultimate objectives remain unclear and unarticulated. Instead of resolving that, many have chosen instead to respond to the strongest signal that they do see, that of a mercurial political leader.
substack.com/@dannyquah/n...
It's called economic statecraft
These days when I have dinner with age-appropriate friends, I get to say curmudgeonly things. Also, we get to talk authentically about the lived background to what's being shown at National Exhibitions and museums and stuff.
This is great.
But I keep thinking of America's approach today to the rest of the world and of those writers who describe economic statecraft as "a means of working the US's geopolitical will in the world."
igp.sipa.columbia.edu/news/columbi...
Ministers to movie stars, everyone wants to talk new world order these days.
The point is not to complain about geopolitics being the dustbin of bad economics. Or how great powers can hurt us, and so we should play exposed-puppydog-belly strategy, and do what they say.
Instead it is to ask, What does economic statecraft tell us is the smartest thing to do?
When I lived in London I once let slip I'd won silver at the British Championship taekwondo sparring. I remember being deeply offended that all my academic colleagues at School could say was, What age group?
Now, running West Coast parkrun, I am very pleased for age categories.
When major powers adopt “Might Makes Right, We’re a Superpower” tactics, small states must craft strategic responses.
The point is not to approve or disapprove, or to cheerlead or complain. Instead, it is to ask what is the smartest thing to do.
www.straitstimes.com/opinion/bewa...
I find this gives me both solace and dread. On the other hand, however, when someone says they reckon Trump has some Grand Strategy that they then try to explain to me... there there is only despair.
This morning from Michael Wolff's Substack // open.substack.com/pub/michaelw....
Mark Carney has put on the table the proposition that capitulation is not the best response, even to someone playing the "We're a Superpower" strategy. Instead, better is to mitigate.
substack.com/@dannyquah/n...
While the Transatlantic West has taken its position against America's "We're a superpower" approach to foreign relations, some observers in Asia and elsewhere consider that European stance naive.
It's striking how badly Might Makes Right goes when it goes bad.
substack.com/profile/1378...
I have friends who cheer on the US's recent international actions. They cite a combination of Might Makes Right and how MAGA and America First as fine principles. The problem, however, is squaring those with what the US administration is doing to its own people.
substack.com/@dannyquah/n...
Beyond the deep polarization within the US, a fracture is also emerging internationally. (...) "Which side were you on when all that was unfolding?"
substack.com/@dannyquah/n...
Maybe "is" has been misspelt as "that Are".
Many of my American friends agree 'that's not policy', while many of my Asian friends: "America is now in a stronger position than it's ever been; power is how the world works; the White House is exercising ingenious far-sighted geopolitical grand strategy."
Someone is lying.
At her US Supreme Court confirmation hearings, when Elena Kagan was asked where she was Christmas Day 2009, she said, "You know, like all Jews, I was probably at a Chinese restaurant."
When you have Penang food in Bangsar
If the benefits of the Great Power-led old world order were exaggerated, will a new order be better if organised by Middle Powers, again with small states in tow?
substack.com/@dannyquah/n...
If multilateralism is dying, what new forms of international engagement might emerge? What forces can help surface future multilateralisms and shape their contours?
substack.com/profile/1378...
A gentle suggestion on how in social science we describe current US policies
substack.com/@dannyquah/n...
"US tariffs are painful. But they affect you only as long as you continue to trade with the US."
Quah, D. 2025. "China + One vs world minus one", in Recalibrating Asia's Frontiers, 38th Asia-Pacific Roundtable, ISIS Malaysia Focus www.isis.org.my/wp-content/u...
DannyQuah.github.io/Storage/2025...
Mon 01 Dec 2025 I will be on a panel in London to discuss forces driving and Indo-Pacific consequences of global fragmentation. Via AU, IN, SG High Commissions in the UK, with the Centre for Statecraft and National Security, KCL
Register to take part csns.uk/event/indo-p...
Time was, life in England used to be a lot simpler.
Tue 02 Dec 1200h I'm speaking at LSE's International Development department. But all interested welcomed.
Apart from "Hwarang tul. Junbi. Sijak", this is how I sound in Korean.
n.news.naver.com/article/009/...
www.koreaherald.com/article/1061...
Next weekend I'm trying out some ideas in England
Actually, my job here is to help develop sound economic statecraft to protect my part of the world from the MAGA "America First" geoeconomics of a globally irresponsible United States.
(And when I do that here, I'm not being just a development economist.)
DannyQuah.github.io/Storage/2025...
When I returned to SE Asia in 2016, a good friend at a top US Economics Department told me I had obviously decided to take the easy way out and retired, so I would no longer have to compete in the fierce competition of frontier economic ideas.
