[1] The English-language news magazine was based in Hong Kong and published weekly until it converted to a monthly publication in December 2004 because of financial difficulties.

Halpern founded the magazine believing that Asia would become stable after World War II and that English would be widely used in the region among merchants, students and bankers.

[2]: 137  Before the Review, he had settled in Shanghai and worked for Finance and Commerce, a biweekly business magazine that shut down in December 1941 after the Japanese military invaded the city during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

[citation needed] At its peak, the Review had nearly 100 news staff members in 15 bureaus across Asia, making it the largest editorial team of any regional weekly publication.

[4][5] In 1987, Dow Jones, a minority shareholder since 1973, took full control of the Review after it acquired the 51% stake owned by the South China Morning Post.

[citation needed] In November 2001, Dow Jones merged the editorial operations of the Review and the Asian Wall Street Journal to cut costs.

David Plott, the magazine's editor at the time, said the cuts resulted in a loss of one of the "greatest concentrations of knowledge and expertise about the region assembled anywhere".

[1] After the Review became a monthly in December 2004, most articles were contributed by non-staff specialists, including economists, business-community figures, government policymakers and social scientists.

[9][10] The Economist said the Review relied on advertising revenue and its business model failed when Western luxury brands no longer wished to appeal to Asian elites.

In response, Jonathan Manthorpe commented, "As the Review has been in a vegetative state since at least 2004 when it was made a monthly instead of weekly magazine and its staff was cut from 80 to five, only two of whom are journalists, it is hard to imagine the proceeds of closure catapulting anything anywhere.

It was corporate imperialism more than commercial sense which brought Dow Jones to buy control of the Review, which was a direct competitor for niche regional advertising.

When Dow Jones took over the Review it introduced pompous "editorials"; indulged in numerous revisions to the format, each more disastrous than the last; brought in large numbers of American journalists and editors at the expense of well-established writers who knew the region; moved the focus from business and politics to "innovation" and "lifestyle", neither of which was of interest to its core readership; and dramatically reduced the scope of the book review section.

[15] When Dow Jones took control of the magazine, efforts to introduce more lifestyle features sparked protests from Review loyalists—as did its decision to make it into a monthly rather than a weekly title.

It was a failed effort "to lure readers who presumably don't care about thoughtful coverage of politics and economics but do want to know which wine goes with which chili pepper."

Two senior correspondents said they had frequently been asked by executives at Asian corporations they covered why the magazine's advertising staff were hard to reach and would often not return phone calls.

Many of the articles from the first few decades were exclusive sources of information on the development of China, such as the reports on Chairman Mao Zedong, the Cultural Revolution, and the economic opening initiated by Deng Xiaoping.

[25][26][27] Lee Kuan Yew later charged the Review editor, Derek Davies, of participating in "a diabolical international Communist plot" to poison relations between Singapore and neighbouring Malaysia.

In 2007, during the International Bar Association's Rule of Law symposium, then-deputy prime minister S. Jayakumar states that the Review did not satisfy regulations for foreign publications in Singapore such as appointing a representative to accept service of any notice or legal process, and submitting a security deposit.

The purpose of the Awards program was to foster a spirit of scientific invention and innovation among students in the Asia–Pacific regions, including China, Philippines, Singapore, India, and Australia.