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David Pilling

David Pilling is the Asia editor of the Financial Times. He was previously Tokyo Bureau Chief for the FT from January 2002 to August 2008. His column ranges over business, investment, politics and economics.

David joined the FT in 1990. He has worked in London as an editor, in Chile and Argentina as a correspondent and covered the global pharmeutical and biotechnology industry. - -

Obama seeks change Beijing can believe in

The only way to nudge China towards common goals is to draw it in so that its priorities coalesce with those of other nations, writes David Pilling

Okinawa hovers at the negotiating table

Obama should know that there are three – not two – parties to any discussions about the US-Japan alliance, writes David Pilling

Roll up for Japan’s medical mystery tour

With a smaller slice of a shrinking domestic pie, Japanese pharmaceutical companies have had to take the fight abroad. The country’s track record outside manufacturing does not bode well, but it is too soon to dismiss the industry, writes David Pilling

From Marx to Mohammed

Central Asia is now the focus of a new ‘Great Game’ as Russia, China and the US vie for a strategic foothold. David Pilling discusses four volumes that bring to the fore a region that deserves to be better known and convey themes too pressing to ignore
Out of Steppe
Inside Central Asia
In the Bloody Footsteps of Ghengis Khan
Xanadu

The state’s dead hand returns to haunt China

State-led companies that have received massive loans have the means to buy private enterprises, writes David Pilling

Talks with Burma are no laughing matter

Distasteful as it is to sit down with the generals, it is the right thing to do. Isolating Burma has pushed it towards China, writes David Pilling

Optimism endures China’s upheavals

Citizens are aware of their country’s failings and contradictions. Yet a common view is that these are inevitable side-effects of development. They are tolerable so long as tomorrow is better, writes David Pilling

Japan’s poodle strains at the American leash

Given the unspoken tensions over military bases, Japan’s pacifism and relations with China, Washington should be giddy at the DPJ’s promise to build a more equal, open alliance, writes David Pilling

Asia banks for a world turned upside down

If western banks have been turned upside down, in Asia they have been turned downside up. A year after the Lehman implosion, four of the world’s top 10 banks are Chinese, writes David Pilling

Beijing strains to hear the voice of the people

In the absence of elections and free speech, government’s ability to uncover the true state of public opinion is limited, writes David Pilling

A wiser Japan casts its vote without illusions

India needs to put its bleak houses in order

Democracy from above will not work this time

Philippine democracy still awaits its redeemer

Washington risks taking China too seriously

Japan shrinks from the American embrace

Asia will struggle to escape its export trap

Japan is losing patience with politics-as-usual

The truth of the US’ Pakistan clinch

China’s success outstrips democracy for now