Danny Quah
Economist who studies Third Nation Agency in Geopolitics
- 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
- 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.
- Along with President Xi and PM Lawrence Wong, I'm Team "Mitigate, don't align." Don't even not align. www.straitstimes.com/singapore/po... www.nytimes.com/2025/10/31/w... www.straitstimes.com/opinion/conc...
- The Global Distribution of Authorship in Economics Journals Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and Australia are not developing countries but I reckon the conclusions are invariant if we changed "developing" to "outside the North Transatlantic Axis". www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
- We have learnt that America's elasticity is either zero or negative. Nations that have worked hard have not only gotten nothing in return; in several high-profile cases, their circumstances have instead worsened. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2Yd... open.substack.com/pub/dannyqua...
- Geoeconomics isn't "the economics of the global economy" or "economic security". Instead, geoeconomics is, as economic statecraft, the use of economic tools for foreign policy goals. So, doing geoeconomics means knowing your enemy, or identifying the shocks hitting your economy.
- If economic fetishism prioritized economic efficiency over national security, and economic statecraft reversed that causality, then instead of debating which side is right, we should instead be looking at state extractionism ... www.nytimes.com/2025/05/25/w...
- Princeton classmate, thinker, and professional. So, after Milley left service, many of us recalled: "A nation that makes a sharp separation between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools". www.politico.com/news/2023/09...
- That couple months when I got to meet up with my former students from LSE and LKYSPP, now all across the world, changing it.
- Why capacity-building is great, of course, improving the supply side. But economics also flags the limits to that strategy. Not least in a world of fraying multilateralism and hesitant globalisation, especially if your economy is a billion-people one.
- Facebook reminds me that as recently as nine years ago the world, its universities, and their headlines were very different from today.
- "Tell me you're social media naive without telling me you're social media naive." What's your favorite "tell me without telling me" meme (or collection) that I can show someone who still doesn't get it?
- Economics seminars ain't what they used to be. www.politico.com/news/magazin...
- "If the international system is to endure, it must have more than just great- or middle-power leadership. Incentive compatibility must replace the idea that size matters and will add more to resilience than explicit contractual collaboration agreements." www.imf.org/en/Publicati...
- World Order Minus One In a world of unpredictable great powers, adaptation leaves small states exposed. Mitigation, through proactive economic statecraft and pathfinder multilateralism, offers an attractive alternative. www.straitstimes.com/opinion/conc...
- If major powers are tearing up the global rulebook, what principles might help frame the way forwards? The London Consensus - Oct 2025 Published 16th October, via OpenAccess publishing, will be free to read and download. press.lse.ac.uk/books/e/10.3...
- What The Big Bang Theory and TV drama continue to miss is how in graduate school it is students of public policy that are awesome. Lee Kuan Yew School of Policy
- Unbelievably, it's now 43 years to the month since I first met this man who became my PhD supervisor and taught me so many of the tools and ideas I still use today. And today still he inspires with his humility, his curiosity, and his conviction on the ideals of scholarship.
- Boao Forum 全球南方的多边主义悲剧 | 博鳌发言 where I suggest that multilateralism decays, not passively because of benign neglect, but actively because of the dynamics of costs and benefits. (English links at the bottom) mp.weixin.qq.com/s/lLc3me7B9f...
- Friends are helping me port to my own Weixin official account things I've written they feel should be read in China in Chinese. We agreed to begin with this one 致特朗普：美国不要再沉迷于“世界第一”了 | 狮城来信 mp.weixin.qq.com/s/nBZFGU4x50...
- Meltdown of order is both trope and reality of our time. Does the global economy shift from our lifting others so we raise ourselves, or from keeping others down? Obviously we each said what we thought.
- Correlated Trade and Geopolitics Driving a Fractured World Order This article argues that in a fracturing world order geopolitics and trade align. It is, thus, a fallacy that geopolitics and economics provide a balance through working in opposition. dannyquah.github.io/publications...
- Is the conventional capacity-building of economic development the right response? What can we do better? lkyspp.sg/world-bank-a... including Selina Ho and Saravanan Ravindran from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy
- The China Shock can be viewed as import flow or as price effect. The latter, pricing the China Shock, helps explain why industrial policy attempting to protect specific sectors ends up, in reality, penalizing those same sectors. open.substack.com/pub/dannyqua...
- Thirty years after when we were new full professors at LSE, of traversing the planet physically, Hyunsong Shin and I again got to sit down together and discuss convergent research, this time on geopolitics and world order, multilateralism, and global monetary and financial stability.
- Kanti Bajpai has retired from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. We made him Emeritus Professor. And a farewell video: youtu.be/duZgJF8JMe8
- Elina Noor and I team up with Melisa Idris, and talk new world order and what, when we're outside Great Power frontlines, we should be doing. The new world order is too important to be left to those primed only for conflict and gridlock www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2Yd...
- Why did I write that America needs to stop obsessing about being number 1? And other things we talk about in Asia. mp.weixin.qq.com/s/LlVtU0dy4H... (Chinese text) www.sztv.com.cn/ysz/dsdb/szw... (English video)
