Are zero-waste bars actually feasible?
For
Amir Javaid , founder of Socio on Staunton Street, running out of stuff is kind of the whole point. Each cocktail on the bar's menu features waste products, or, more palatably, upcycled ingredients, from a nearby restaurant. There's Butter down the street, Hooked on Caine Road and Uncle Miguel on Peel Street.
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Sustainability is a term often thrown around in haughty circles while Hong Kong bars like Socio have been implementing green practices with little fanfare all along. Javaid says he likes 'the idea of not being able to make a drink because there's not enough of something'.
It's an idea that has seen Javaid build a community of F&B venues that, through his cocktails, reduce food waste in their neighbourhood. The furthest collection point is a five-minute walk, he says. Two months ago he launched an eight-drink menu, each tipple featuring an upcycled ingredient from a different SoHo establishment.
Ezra Star, owner of Sheung Wan's Mostly Harmless. Photo: Mostly Harmless
Ezra Star , owner of Sheung Wan's Mostly Harmless, thinks sustainability starts with community.
'A lot of times when people open bars, it affects the entire neighbourhood and puts smaller places out of business,' she says.
Instead, she prefers to work with local businesses such as
traditional Chinese medicine shops to source herbal ingredients for concoctions such as non-alcoholic versions of fernet and chartreuse. The bar also sources everything locally, as opposed to using imported products, thereby reducing their carbon footprint.
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Mostly Harmless is testing the waters as Hong Kong's first bar to serve only
mocktails , and Star leases the whole building, which enables the bar to develop most of its ingredients in-house. For many other Hong Kong bars, however, space is scarce.
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RTHK
12 hours ago
- RTHK
Hang Seng Index ends day on a weak note
Hang Seng Index ends day on a weak note The Hang Seng Index ended trading for the day down 114 points at 23,792. File photo: AFP Hong Kong and mainland Chinese stocks ended slightly lower on Friday, as investors remained cautious after a call between President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, failed to provide clear signals of progress in easing trade tensions. Trump and Xi confronted weeks of brewing trade tensions and a battle over critical minerals in a rare leader-to-leader call on Thursday, leaving key issues unresolved for future talks. "If you look at the conversation between the Chinese and US presidents, there's nothing concrete that's positive. So little impact on stocks," said Guo Jianwen, partner at Shanghai-based hedge fund Haiyi Capital. In Hong Kong, the benchmark Hang Seng Index ended trading for the day down 114.43 points, or 0.48 percent, at 23,792.54. The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index fell 0.63 percent to end at 8,629.75 while the Hang Seng Tech Index fell 0.63 percent to end at 5,286.52. Across the border, the blue-chip CSI300 Index fell 0.1 percent. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index ended up 0.04 percent at 3,385.36, while the Shenzhen Component Index closed 0.19 percent lower at 10,183.70. The ChiNext Index, tracking China's Nasdaq-style board of growth enterprises, lost 0.45 percent to close at 2,039.43. For the holiday-shortened week, the CSI 300 Index gained nearly 1 percent, while the Hang Seng Index rose 2.2 percent. (Agencies)
Asia Times
14 hours ago
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Xi calls Trump's bluff and wins, time and time again
China's Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump spoke over the phone Thursday (June 5), the first known formal contact of the Trump 2.0 era. Though signs of détente were few, the fact that the leaders of the world's two biggest economies are speaking at all marks progress. Essentially, the two presidents talked about talking more down the line to lower the temperature on tariffs and access to rare earth minerals. The exchange fueled hope on Wall Street that a trade war truce might be in the cards. 'The US and China appear to have stepped back from their latest brink,' says analyst Bill Bishop, who writes the Sinocism newsletter. 'Trump and Xi finally had their call, the Geneva 'truce' may be back on track, and to listen to Trump, the [China] halt in exports of rare earth magnets may be ending.' Trump told reporters that the 'very good' call 'straightened out any complexity, it's very complex stuff. I think we're in very good shape with China and the trade deal.' Yet the 'grand bargain' global markets hoped Trump would strike with China still risks becoming more like a grand flop. The Chinese side, for example, seems far less impressed by the Thursday call, which officials suggested was perfunctory and vague. As Cornell University economist Eswar Prasad puts it, the 'asymmetry' in Beijing's and Washington's reporting of the call suggests that Xi held to a tough line and Trump 'didn't get much acquiescence' to his demands. Odds are good that Xi will continue to drag things out, believing time is on China's side. By appearing above the fray, Xi continues to outmaneuver Trump, who often seems to be negotiating with himself. China is also having some success positioning itself as the adult in the room as Trump lurches from one trade stance to another, hour by hour. 'The overall objectives of the trade aggression, other than the display of raw power, are as muddled as ever,' says Arthur Kroeber, an analyst at Gavekal Research. Kroeber adds that 'fresh hostilities between the US and China show that the many questions left hanging after the Geneva ceasefire in mid-May still have no satisfactory answers. It's not clear whether US trade policy is being run by Trump, his trade negotiators or his national security team.' So far, Xi has taken a go-slow approach to trade deal negotiations. Efforts by US Treasury Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer to convince markets that a pact was in the works, imminent even, haven't been reciprocated from the Chinese side. China has reason to tread carefully. On April 10, Trump hiked China tariffs to a cartoonishly high 145%. Such a levy is 'effectively an embargo,' notes University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers. It's also an action likely to turn off the other side, squandering any remaining goodwill between governments. By the time Trump backed down, cutting the tax to 30% on May 12, it was too late. This likely explains why Team Xi came forward with zero concessions in the days that followed what Trump World called a 'truce' between the two biggest economies. On May 30, Trump declared that Beijing had 'totally violated its agreement with us.' But then on June 4, Trump made it clear Xi's inscrutability is keeping him up at night. In a thirsty 2:17 a.m. social media rant, Trump declared: 'I like President XI of China, always have, and always will, but he is VERY TOUGH, AND EXTREMELY HARD TO MAKE A DEAL WITH!!!.' Gita Gopinath, the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) first deputy managing director, warns that the shock from Trump's trade war is worse than Covid-19. 'This time the challenge is going to be greater for them compared to the pandemic,' Gopinath tells the Financial Times. 'During Covid, central banks were moving in the same direction… easing monetary policy very quickly.' At this point, she adds, monetary authorities are 'steering through the fog' without coordination or a shared crisis playbook. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) thinks global growth will now slow to 2.9% in 2025 from 3.3% in 2024, the weakest pace of expansion since the pandemic. It sees US growth slowing to 1.6% from an earlier forecast of 2.8%. 'Weakened economic prospects will be felt around the world, with almost no exception,' says OECD chief economist Alvaro Pereira. 'Lower growth and less trade will hit incomes and slow job growth.' In a report on Tuesday, OECD said that 'agreements to ease trade tensions and lower tariffs and other trade barriers will be instrumental to revive growth and investment and avoid rising prices. This is by far the most important policy priority.' 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Roach adds that 'I still suspect that tariffs surviving the current legal skirmishes are likely to be onerous enough to have negative impacts on global trade, with especially adverse implications for the US and China.' Trouble is, Roach says, 'in this climate, companies have no idea how to scale and source inputs for their multinational production platforms. The planning exercise has become an oxymoron, with serious consequences for the real economy.' The bottom line, Roach notes, is that a 'protracted period of policy uncertainty essentially freezes business decision-making on capital spending and hiring, with negative repercussions for income generation and consumer demand; consumer purchasing power should be further constrained by tariff-related price shocks. Uncertainty remains the enemy of decision making.' As Xi slow-walks Trump's desire for a big, splashy trade deal, the odds of this fragile truce holding are dwindling even after Thursday's call. For one thing, headlines about Trump's having caved on tariffs as Wall Street stocks plunged are grating on the president and his inner circle. So is the #TACO narrative — the idea that Trump Always Chickens Out on import taxes. Beijing 'successfully called Trump's bluff,' notes Mark Williams, economist at Capital Economics. Eurasia Group founder Ian Bremmer notes that Trump's talk of a 'total reset' with China is really his 'biggest climbdown to date.' Since the 1980s, Trump observers have known that nothing angers him more than being perceived as the 'loser' in any negotiation. This partly explains why he signed — and loudly touted — a trade agreement with the UK, an economy with which Washington has a trade surplus. It betrayed a desperation to highlight a trade deal of any kind, no matter how minor. Japan is proving to be in no hurry to negotiate a bilateral pact, just six years after the last one with Trump 1.0. Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has made it clear Tokyo will negotiate at its own pace — not in haste. Over in Seoul, South Korea's new president, Lee Jae-myung, says he has no intention of rushing to the negotiating table. He's far more liberal than his predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol. Pundits call him Korea's answer to US Senator Bernie Sanders. As such, Lee is unlikely to make quick concessions at the expense of workers' rights in a nation where labor unions wield real power. At the same time, Xi's strategy of playing the long game and not flinching is offering the rest of Asia a playbook for fending off Trump's negotiating team. His tactical retreat sends a message that plunging markets will change Trump's mind in an instant. First, it was swooning stocks that had Trump delaying his 'reciprocal' tariffs. Then, the chaotic surge in US Treasury yields forced Trump to step back from the brink once again. Yet tensions are almost certain to flare up anew once Trump realizes that Beijing isn't coming forward with the concessions Trump thinks he deserves for cutting his China tariff by 79%. From Beijing's perspective, Trump backed off because he'd overreacted in the first place. As JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon puts it, the tariffs were 'too large, too big and too aggressive' for the US economy's own good. Trouble is, Trump has a 40-plus-year track record of arguing that tariffs are the answer to virtually every economic problem imaginable. Trump's most consistent economic view through the decades is that Asia is exploiting the US and only import taxes can save the day. He's called tariffs 'beautiful' and claimed they will 'supercharge' the US economy. Yet as economists know, sizable tariffs can also be stagflationary. Team Xi appears to be following a blueprint provided by former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. In 2018 and 2019, Abe slow-walked negotiations with Trump 1.0. No doubt, Team Xi is busily strategizing on their own Abe-like dodge, minus the aggressive flattery. Xi's Communist Party, of course, does not have to contest mid-term elections 18 months from now. And Xi knows it. As such, Beijing is in no hurry to sign a 'Phase Two' trade agreement with a US leader sure to demand a 'Phase Three' round of talks a year from now. At the same time, US officials are learning that Trump's chaotic Phase One process prompted China to pivot to other markets. Today, China's top trading partner is the 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations, followed by the European Union. Also, China is actively growing its market share among the BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa – and the Global South. Xi's 'Made in China 2025' strategy has been quietly making the nation more self-sufficient. All of which means Trump's hopes of pulling off a massive, world-changing trade deal are slipping away, even after his declaration after Thursday's call that such a deal is on the horizon. And if he's wondering who's to blame, all Trump needs to do is look in the mirror. Follow William Pesek on X at @WilliamPesek
Asia Times
15 hours ago
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Hopes for a Xi-Trump summit are naively misplaced
US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping's surprise phone call—marking the first direct communication between the leaders in months—may signal a temporary thaw in an otherwise frosty and structurally adversarial relationship. While America's restoration of Chinese student visas and China's resumption of blocked critical mineral trade suggest detente, this contact, like others in the history of US-China summits, could quickly prove to be more performative than substantive. The danger lies not in dialogue but in the illusion that the leader-to-leader call, which Beijing insisted Trump requested, will meaningfully alter the deep geopolitical, ideological and economic divergences that define Sino-American relations today. News reports said Xi told Trump to roll back tariffs and other trade measures that are roiling the global economy while warning him about intensifying the dispute over Taiwan. Trump claimed on social media that the call delivered a 'positive conclusion', including on China's restrictions on critical mineral exports, and that lower-level discussions on trade would follow. He said, 'We're in very good shape with China and the trade deal.' Both leaders invited each other to visit their countries. However, reports noted that there was nothing in either side's official statements to indicate the critical mineral issue had been resolved. And China has reasonable cause to remain on guard despite Trump's post-call positivity. Let us count the many impediments to real and lasting reconciliation: The most acute danger stems from Trump's lack of strategic coherence. Unlike the Kissinger-Nixon doctrine of detente, which was structured, calculated and guided by a realpolitik vision of global balance, Trump's approach is reactive and transactional and thus prone to Chinese manipulation. Concessions, including the reopening of student exchanges on the US side and lifting critcal mineral restrictions on China's—appear to be issued in exchange for vague 'reciprocity' rather than any long-term strategic realignment. For Beijing, such inconsistency is easily exploitable. Xi understands that Trump is prone to tactical surprises and policy reversals, allowing China to notch one-by-one concessions while offering minimal structural reforms or broad policy changes in return. This understanding of Trump's tactics and views may also embolden China to keep testing US resolve and commitment in the Taiwan Strait, East Sea and South China Seas, knowing that by doing so it strengthens its negotiating leverage in wresting future US concessions. Much has been made of US-endorsed 'de-risking' from China without actually 'decoupling.' The resumption of trade in critical minerals—crucial to US defense and clean energy sectors—signals a potential pause in America's techno-economic containment of China, which if lasting, would contradict the bipartisan consensus in Washington that China poses a 'systemic challenge.' This could also send mixed messages to allies such as Japan, South Korea and key ASEAN economies, many of which are now being pressured to restrict technology transfers to China, particularly in regard to AI and quantum computing. If Trump reverses this posture, potentially at a Trump-Xi in-person summit, it would necessarily undercut the anti-China coalition the US has been trying to build since 2017 and signal a climbdown of epic proportions. An in-person summit with Xi would give both leaders global optics, something they arguably both need as their hardline stances cause political tremors at home and restlessness abroad. Yet symbolism without substance carries its own risks. The 2019 Mar-a-Lago summit and the 2018 G20 truce in Argentina were celebrated photo ops that ultimately yielded few strategic gains. Indeed, they were followed by tariff escalations, cyber accusations and deepened distrust. Xi, ever conscious of China's 'national rejuvenation' drive, may use a summit with Trump to signal that China is not isolated—even amid Western efforts to contain it – and that he brought the US to heel through his tough negotiating posture. Should he succeed in presenting Trump as a president willing to do business without political preconditions, it will bolster China's power on the world stage. This symbolism would serve Xi well amid research that shows China is straining under the weight of assisting various countries when its own economy remains fragile. There will be a temptation to portray a Trump-Xi summit as a return to the two sides' previous 'managed rivalry' model. Yet this notion is predicated on mutual trust, which no longer exists. A brief thaw may offer breathing space for both, but there is no sign yet of lasting strategic stability. During the previous Cold War, the US and Soviet Union were able to negotiate arms control and crisis management protocols. No such guardrails exist between the US and China today. The resumption of critical mineral trade and educational exchanges, while welcome, won't be enough to reverse mutual mistrust, especially when military encounters in the Taiwan Strait or the South China Sea could easily still spiral out of control. Increasingly politicized charges against Chinese nationals in the US are fueling that mistrust. Those include new accusations that China is involved in 'agro-terrorism' that aims to wipe out US barley, wheat and corn yields by up to 50%. A PhD researcher of Chinese origin at the University of Michigan has been arrested in this connection. A potential Trump-Xi summit – despite stage-managed positive vibes and smiles for the cameras, could be yet another empty ritual—a theatrical handshake over unresolved and deep contradictions. To be sure, both leaders have reasons to engage. Trump seeks headlines as his popularity slips ahead of 2026 midterm elections; Xi seeks legitimacy for his tough negotiating posture that risks millions of Chinese factory jobs. But neither is offering a strategic roadmap that can reassure domestic or global audiences. Without a shared understanding of what strategic competition entails, and without mechanisms for escalation control, the optics of detente will only mask a rivalry that still threatens to spiral deeper and deeper into conflict.
