As the Hong Kong-based editor of T Brand Studio, I traveled to the Chinese capital to report on the latest developments in the design scene there for Beijing Design Week. I interviewed the city's leading architects, fashion designers, graphic designers and government officials. The result is this advertorial that was published in The New York Times International Edition.
The New York Times's T Brand Studio commissioned me to research and write up a map to complement their coverage of the Golden Spoon awards for Vietnamese ceramics company Minh Long.
I was commissioned by TBrand Studio – the native advertising unit of the NYTimes – to interview a series of scientists and researchers who are doing cutting-edge work on artificial intelligence, specifically where AI intersects with human emotion. The project, which clinched two prizes at the 2016 OMMA Awards, can be seen here.
Preface: The Turkish-Syrian border is home to a growing economy on one side and an escalating war on the other – and an increasing line of refugees between the two. Does it all add up? (First published on: monocle.com/monocolumn/affairs/an-unbalanced-equation/)
Earlier this month I took a flight to Istanbul and journeyed South to the Turkish city of Gaziantep and nearby town of Kilis, which sits on the Turkish-Syrian border. Gaziantep is the capital of Turkey’s verdant south, the proud centre of the country’s olive oil-based Nizip soap industry and a place known for its pistachio orchards.
Nearly 12,000 Syrians live in a refugee camp near Kilis. Yet Turkey’s official (so-called) open-door policy towards its embattled neighbour has led to an ever-growing influx of Syrians to Gaziantep, now in the hundreds of thousands. Some have even started calling the city “Little Aleppo”.
Unsurprisingly, this has caused a host of socio-economic problems. Escalating housing costs and an ultracompetitive job market are testing the limits of Turkish hospitality. In Kilis town square, former rebel soldiers (eager to show me their battle scars: a stab wound here, a gun shot there) sit waiting for odd jobs, mostly in construction.
The Syrian war is a political and humanitarian headache for Turkey – and a security one too. A visible police force is a constant reminder that peace on the Turkish side has to be vigilantly protected. On the border, police cars stand guard and trucks undergoing stringent security checks form a long line, which barely nudged when I visited. A forbidding metal gate to the refugee camp is equipped with electronic fingerprint verification.
One thing I did not expect to find here was the frenzied pace of economic activity. Gaziantep has been embarking on an aggressive economic-development project since before the revolution across the border started. Export revenues from the region reached a record-breaking €4.8bn in 2013, a 10 per cent increase from the previous year. Textile exports represent around €700m alone. Money is also being pumped into the renewable-energy sector.
It is a young city. More than two thirds of the population is under the age of 35 and investors, keenly aware of this, have set up two private universities since 2009 with another on the way. All the while the war rages on.
Gaziantep is also home to a new society of diplomats, journalists and aid workers who want to be as close to Syria as possible. This has been a boon for the city: these expats have deeper pockets. Many shop at the Sanko Park mall, the first of its kind and the biggest in southeast Anatolia. Another macabre reality is that injured fighters seeking treatment in Turkey have driven up demand for doctors and nurses, giving the health sector a boost.
One might think that an economic boon two hours’ drive from Syria is incongruous at best, distasteful at worst. But that's precisely why Gaziantep is, and should be, sticking to its economic plan. Investing in industrial projects and infrastructure will create an environment where both the Turkish engineer and the Syrian labourer waiting at the town square have jobs. After all, the one thing Gaziantep has in abundance, besides pistachios, is an eager workforce.
Preface: The EU, despite its recent nosedive in financial form, has long been the world’s most ambitious attempt at economic union. But a new group of nations led by Russia might be about to give it a run for its money. (First published on monocle.com/monocolumn/business/picking-sides/)
The EU might be suffering from its most serious bout of Euroscepticism yet but the lure of economic unions has not lost its lustre. An ambitious regional project from the East is in the works that could be the EU’s biggest threat, and not in the way you might think.
Russia’s answer to the EU is currently a three-member customs union (the other two being Belarus and Kazakhstan) actively pursuing expansion and deeper integration. They announced that by 2015 the customs union would become the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), modelled after the EU. It already has some semblance of a supranational governing body, the Eurasian Economic Commission.
Armenia’s president Serzh Sargsyan has expressed his desire to be part of it, turning the country’s back on the EU. Other former Soviet states like Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are being courted, or depending on who you ask, bullied to join. Even India and Turkey have received invites, although it’s unlikely either will even entertain the notion.
To me the whole thing reeks of economic imperialism. A World Bank analysis finds that Russia is the biggest winner in its customs union – it “creates an opportunity for Russia to expand its exports and presence in Central Asia at the expense of exports from other regions, such as the European Union and China.”
But that’s not the threat I’ve been referring to. Some, terrified at the prospect of an economically dominant Russia, have called for the relaxation of accession requirements for former Soviet states like Ukraine, which is applying to join the EU. They fear those states falling into the grips of an opportunistic Russia.
But this brute zero-sum mentality should remain in the Cold War. Besides, the Eurasian Economic Union, even with the addition of Ukraine, Armenia and other eastern European countries, will consist of weak states with poor governments. Despite the region’s considerable energy resources, it’s unlikely to attract or sustain the kind of investment needed to generate an economy sophisticated enough to even closely rival Europe.
The EU accession requirements exist so that applicant countries must meet appropriate standards of governance and economic policy. That they do so not only ensures those countries don’t hurt the rest of the Union by dragging them down, but this also protects, and in most cases improves, the rights of citizens in applicant nations.
To remove these requirements to address an as-yet non-existent threat of the Eurasian Economic Union would be hugely problematic in the long run. The EU must stick to its guns.
