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Global enterprise: gunning for the future
Nury Vittachi
April 19, 2026Every so often, I ask business people what they think should be done to enable children trapped below the poverty line in Asia to get food, shelter and a proper education.
A horrifying number of people give the same answer: It will happen by itself, as business prospers in Asia.
Some people even quote evidence to support this ludicrous theory. One yesterday pointed to the findings from those smart lads at Jardine Fleming Research in Singapore.
The guys have stumbled upon a new financial indicator: The Nike Nod. If the US sports shoe company gives an Asian country the okay as a production base, citizens there start to become richer.
"Nike's arrival usually corresponds to an economic boom, while its departure usually signals the time has arrived for a country to move up the development scale," says the report by Li Tong and Robert Zielinski of JF's Singapore office, quoted in yesterday's Business Post.
Not mentioned is the fact citizens get rich at a negligible rate compared to the speed at which Nike shareholders and their money managers become wealthy.
Companies such as Nike read economic research reports to work out where to put their factories. Now research report writers are studying where Nike goes as an indicator on which to base their research.
Bit cosy, isn't it? It reminds me of the time in 1989 I was writing an analysis of the Hong Kong property scene based on a report just issued by a local real estate dealer. I recognised several sentences and phrases lifted from a piece I wrote in the previous week's newspaper.
I discovered I was plagiarising myself. I narrowly managed to stop myself taking out a lawsuit against my own fingers.
The arrival of the Nike hypothesis follows the recent emergence of the McDonald's theory of non-conflict.
Neighbouring countries which both have McDonald's don't have wars, according to the New York Times. They are too rich and sophisticated.
What does all this mean?
Only 10 years ago, international economics was easy. Western and most northern hemisphere countries were rich. Asian and most southern hemisphere countries were poor.
Today, some Asians deliberately present that false image.
My friend Stephanie Cheng, aged 10, got stuck at the immigration gate at Kai Tak airport on the way back from Australia recently.
She had lost her previous passport, and her new one did not have her permanent right of abode stamp on it. "I don't want to come to Hong Kong. They are so mean," she wept.
Her mother, a non-Chinese, asked the immigration officer: "Don't you have a computer you can just look her up on?"
"No," explained the immigration officer. "Because the Hong Kong Government is so poor."
This was the wrong line to use. Stephanie's mother Margaret may be a gweipoh , but she is a well-read one. This took place just after the Budget. "What about the reserves of $ 330 billion the Hong Kong Government has?" Mrs Cheng asked.
There was no answer.
Moral of this story: Don't plead poverty when all the newspapers have headlines pointing out you have $ 330 billion in your back pocket.
Many business people think the factor which may finally bring about global peace is not communism, capitalism, authoritarianism or democracy. It is "yupward" mobility.
Yuppies are not interested in wars and conquests and all that other stuff that dominated human societies in the pre-yuppie period known as "the rest of history". Yuppies just want to wear designer sports shoes and eat burgers.
This is a neat theory, but flawed. There are simply not enough resources for everyone to be a yuppie, assuming you would want to be.
The truth is, the power of business in Asia in the 1990s is something to worry about and even legislate against.
A global survey in 1992 found 70 per cent of all international trade was controlled by 500 corporations.
Boardrooms have more power over our lives than elected or unelected governments.
The most dangerous threat comes in areas where the private sector and governments work hand-in-hand for the benefit of business, rather than people.
"It would cost US$ 6 billion a year, on top of what is already spent, to put every child (in the world) in school by the year 2000," wrote Chris Brazier in the New Internationalist recently.
That is the sum borrowed for financial gambling purposes by Hong Kong companies every three months.
It is the sum involved in a single lawsuit last week against Freeport-McMoRan, a mining giant operating in Indonesia.
It is less than 1 per cent of what the world pays every year to arms manufacturers to buy weapons.
GRAPHIC: Life-cycle This is the school bus, Vietnam style. The bus system in Hanoi has certain shortcomings, so parents have adopted the American "car-pooling" system - but with rickshaws.
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