China Proposes Global AI Body to Counter U.S. Monopoly
Li emphasized the importance of keeping AI development open and collaborative, especially for countries in the Global South. He warned that current trends risk making AI a privileged tool for a few countries and corporations. The Chinese leader also reaffirmed support for open-source AI and pledged to share technological advancements with developing nations.
While avoiding direct reference to the U.S., Li criticized restrictions and monopolistic practices that limit access to advanced AI technologies. His remarks were seen as a response to Washington's recent move to tighten export controls on AI chips and equipment, targeting China's tech sector over national security concerns.
Despite U.S. restrictions, Chinese firms like Huawei continue to push forward with domestic AI innovation. Li said global coordination is necessary, calling current regulatory approaches "fragmented" and insufficient. China's Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu added that Shanghai could become the headquarters for the proposed AI body.
The three-day summit included representatives from over 30 countries, such as Germany, South Korea, Qatar, Russia, and South Africa. The proposed AI group aims to facilitate open-source cooperation, global tech exchanges, and discussions around ethical AI use and cybersecurity, marking China's attempt to take a central role in shaping AI's future.
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Straits Times
21 minutes ago
- Straits Times
India holds its ground for now as Trump slaps 25% tariff and threatens penalty for trade with Russia
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox Like Mr Trump, whose policies revolve around his domestic Maga base, Mr Modi is also a nationalist leader who cannot afford to ignore his domestic constituency. – The Modi government found itself in an unenviable position with limited choices after US President Donald Trump levied a 25 per cent tax on India from Aug 1 and threatened India with an additional penalty for doing business with Russia. Still, analysts noted, India's best bet is to continue negotiating a trade agreement, which has been stuck over the quantum of American access into the Indian market, particularly in the agriculture and dairy sectors. After calling India a 'friend', Mr Trump blasted India in a Truth Social post on July 30, saying the South Asian country had 'the most strenuous and obnoxious non-monetary Trade Barriers of any Country'. He also warned that India would have to pay a 'penalty' for buying a large portion of its military equipment from Russia and is 'Russia's largest buyer of ENERGY, along with China'. India had hoped its close ties with the US and shared concerns over the growing assertiveness of China would shield it from the worst of the tariffs. Instead, at 25 per cent, the tariff on India is higher than that for most of its Asian peers, including Japan at 15 per cent, as well as for the EU, also at 15 per cent. India's oil bill is expected to go up and exports to the US in pharmaceuticals and electronics, among others, are set to become less competitive. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore No entry: ICA to bar high-risk, undesirable travellers from boarding S'pore-bound ships, flights Singapore 5 foreign women suspected of trafficking 27kg of cocaine nabbed in Changi Airport Singapore Over half of job applications by retrenched Jetstar Asia staff led to offers or interviews: CEO Singapore 17-member committee to drive roll-out of autonomous vehicles in Singapore Business Singapore gold investment soars 37% to 2.2 tonnes in Q2 while jewellery demand wanes Singapore Underground pipe leak likely reason for water supply issues during Toa Payoh fire: Town council Multimedia 60 years, 60 items: A National Day game challenge Singapore 'Switching careers just as I became a dad was risky, but I had to do it for my family' Modi can't afford to ignore domestic constituency Still, Mr Trump's latest tariff threats are being viewed in India as a negotiating tactic to push for greater access into the Indian market. For now, the Indian government appeared to be holding its ground, saying it would protect farmers and small businesses, underlining how the stakes are high for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. 'The government will take all steps necessary to secure our national interest, as has been the case with other trade agreements,' the ministry of commerce and industry said in a statement on July 30. Commerce minister Piyush Goyal said in Parliament the next day that the government is studying the implications of the US tariffs and assessing how it can protect India's trade interests. Like Mr Trump, whose policies revolve around his domestic Maga base, Mr Modi is also a nationalist leader who cannot afford to ignore his domestic constituency and provide unfettered access to American businesses. Commentators noted that Mr Trump, in all likelihood, is pushing for a deal like the ones clinched with Indonesia or Japan, pushing for zero duties on a majority of goods from the US. A key sticking point in talks has been over India giving the US greater market access in India's agriculture and dairy sectors. Indian farmers, a strong domestic lobby, have opposed the entry of American produce. Given that over 60 per cent of India's population is tied to agriculture, the domestic political fallout for Mr Modi far outweighs the US tariff threats, said Dr Biswajit Dhar, a trade economist and former professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University. 'The government of India actually stood up to the pressure by Trump and the American administration. We sort of walked down the path that China had done. This is what is expected of a large country,' noted Dr Dhar, echoing the widespread sentiment that India had to stand up to the bullying tactics. 'It is impossible for the Indian government to accept opening up these two areas (agriculture and dairy). The political consequences would be huge. The Indian government's resistance in negotiations was entirely justified. It makes good economic sense.' Any cards left to play? Analysts noted that Indian negotiators in trade talks would be banking on an assessment that Mr Trump would not want the cost of drugs or iPhones to go up in the US market due to the 25 per cent and above tariff. The US is India's largest export market, with exports to the country reaching US$79.44 billion (S$102.9 billion) by 2024. India's exports to the US – accounting for 18 per cent of its total exports – include gems and jewellery, pharmaceuticals and textiles. 'India will be hoping that at least pharmaceuticals will be spared, as they were earlier,' Dr Amitendu Palit, senior research fellow and research lead (trade and economics) at the NUS Institute of South Asian Studies. 'The other hope is that negotiations are continuing and a breakthrough is possible in the coming weeks,' he added. India also has some room to manoeuvre – unlike export-oriented South-east Asian countries, India still remains a services-led economy. Over half of India's GDP comes from the service industry, compared with just about 17 per cent from the manufacturing sector. Ms Radhika Rao, a senior economist and executive director at DBS Bank, assessed that, ultimately the US tariff would come down through negotiations. 'Factoring in sectoral exemptions (such as pharmaceuticals) and the likelihood of follow-up discussions, the effective rate might settle into the new indicative baseline range of 15 to 20 per cent, levelling the field with (India's) regional competitors,' she said. Mr Goyal had stated over the weekend that trade discussions between India and the US had been 'progressing very well'. Mr Trump himself said on several occasions that a deal was imminent. One sector with large exposure to the US market is smartphones, where India has overtaken China to become the top exporter of smartphones to the US, according to research firm Canalys on July 28. The firm noted that smartphones assembled in India accounted for 44 per cent of US imports of the device in the second quarter of 2025, up from 13 per cent for the same quarter the previous year. 'This likely means iPhones will become more expensive for Americans, but there is a high chance that this might not be the final tariff number, as we have seen with other countries like Japan,' said Mr Tarun Pathak, research director at Counterpoint Research, a global technology market research firm. 'For India, we believe that it will continue to gain more production volume for iPhones – the cost difference between China and India is still there due to tariffs and other variables. Since iPhones are not yet manufactured in Vietnam – which still has a 20 per cent tariff – the main implication is that unless Apple decides to absorb the extra cost or gets an exemption, it will likely be passed on to consumers,' he added. Apple assembled US$22 billion worth of iPhones in India in the 12 months ending March 2025 – a 60 per cent increase over the previous year – according to earlier reports. Mr Trump has also threatened Apple with additional tariffs and urged the company's CEO Tim Cook to make iPhones domestically. Penalty for ties with Russia a 'blackmail' Mr Anup Wadhawan, a former commerce secretary, said the most 'alarming' part of Mr Trump's litany of complaints against India is the penalty for doing trade with Russia. 'We are a low per capita economy; incomes are low and we have a poverty challenge. It is a lifeline to get cheap oil. And as far as defence procurement from Russia is concerned, it is age-old. We cannot accept his kind of blackmail,' he said. Mr Trump has not revealed the details of the penalty yet. In a separate post on Truth Social on July 31, a day after Mr Trump announced tariff of 25 per cent for India, he said: 'I don't care what India does with Russia. They can take their dead economies down together, for all I care. We have done very little business with India.' India has long practised a policy of strategic autonomy, refusing to be drawn into a formal alliance with the US, while maintaining longstanding relations with Russia, dating back to when they were Cold War allies. Under Mr Trump, this policy of strategic autonomy has come under pressure, as he has also targeted the Brics grouping – which counts India, Russia and China as members – for its efforts to look for dollar alternatives. Russia had also provided India with military equipment when the West refused to do so. India's External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar had said that Western countries opted for a military dictatorship in the region as its 'preferred partner' and did not supply arms to New Delhi for decades, in a thinly veiled reference to the US' ties to Pakistan. An estimated 68 per cent of Indian weaponry is still of Russian origin even though defence imports from Russia have been declining as India has expanded its procurement to include countries such as Israel and the US. Amid the US threats, India's Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri had earlier said that India is prepared to diversify oil imports if Russian supplies are affected by sanctions. Ties with Pakistan The India-US trade deal has also come under intense domestic scrutiny in India, following Mr Trump's repeated assertions that he engineered a ceasefire between India and Pakistan with the threat of cutting trade with both countries. India and Pakistan were embroiled in a four-day military conflict in May after India blamed Pakistan for a terror attack in Kashmir, in which 26 people were killed. The Indian government has continued to deny that Mr Trump brokered the ceasefire or that it was related to trade issues, but it has come under fire on this issue in Parliament, which discussed the military conflict with Pakistan this week. 'I think the government is also stuck after Pakistan. They wouldn't like to take on another political problem,' said Dr Dhar. Mr Trump said on July 30 that Washington has reached a trade deal with Pakistan. But neither side has disclosed the agreed tariff rate. Still, Mr Wadhawan noted that India-US ties would ride out this difficult phase. 'He can't afford to destroy a relationship that is very old and deep across all dimensions. There is a huge people-to-people element to it; there is a huge Indian diaspora (in the US). It is a blip,' he said. 'But there will be short-term pain.'
Straits Times
an hour ago
- Straits Times
Trump's call broke deadlock in Cambodia-Thailand border crisis
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Manet (left) and Thailand's Acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai (right) agreed to a ceasefire in talks mediated by Malaysia's Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim on July 28. BANGKOK – First came a push from the Malaysian premier, then China reached out, but it was only after US President Donald Trump called Thailand's leader last week that Bangkok agreed to talks with Cambodia to end an escalating military conflict . A flurry of diplomatic efforts over a 20-hour window sealed Thailand's participation in ceasefire negotiations with Cambodia, hosted in Malaysia, halting the heaviest fighting between two South-east Asian countries in over a decade. Reuters interviewed four people on both sides of the border to piece together the most detailed account of how the truce was achieved, including previously unreported Thai conditions for joining the talks and the extent of Chinese involvement in the process. When Mr Trump called Thai Acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai on July 26, two days after fighting erupted along a 200km long stretch of the border, Bangkok had not responded to mediation offers from Malaysia and China, said a Thai government source with direct knowledge. 'We told him that we want bilateral talks first before declaring a ceasefire,' the source said, asking not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue. Thailand had already made it clear that it favoured bilateral negotiation and initially did not want third-party mediation to resolve the conflict. On July 27, a day after his initial call, Mr Trump said Cambodia and Thailand had agreed to meet to work out a ceasefire, and that Washington would not move ahead with tariff negotiations with both until the conflict had ended. The source said as the Cambodian and Thai foreign ministries started talking, following Mr Trump's call, Bangkok set out its terms: The meeting must be between the two prime ministers and at a neutral location. 'We proposed Malaysia because we want this to be a regional matter,' the source said. 'The US really pushed for the meeting,' a second Thai source said. 'We want a peaceful solution to the conflict, so we had to show good faith and accept.' Cambodia had accepted the initial Malaysian offer for talks, but it was Thailand that did not move ahead until Mr Trump's intervention, said Mr Lim Menghour, a Cambodian government official working on foreign policy. Prime Minister Hun Manet's government also kept a channel open with China, which had shown interest in joining any peace talks between the neighbours, he said, reflecting Phnom Penh's close ties to Beijing. 'We exchanged regular communication,' Mr Lim Menghour said. Good faith On July 28, Mr Phumtham and Mr Hun Manet went to the Malaysian administrative capital of Putrajaya, where they were hosted by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, also the current chair of the 10-member Association of South-east Asian Nations. At the end of their talks, the two leaders stood on either side of Datuk Seri Anwar, who read out a joint statement that said Thailand and Cambodia would enter into a ceasefire from midnight and continue dialogue. The rapid parleys echoed efforts to diffuse severe border clashes between Cambodia and Thailand in 2011, which took several months, including mediation efforts by Indonesia, then chair of Asean. But those talks had not directly involved the US and China. The fragile ceasefire was holding as of July 31, despite distrust on both sides, and neither military has scaled down troop deployment along the frontier. Cambodia and Thailand have, for decades, quarrelled over undemarcated parts of their 817km land border, which was first mapped by France in 1907 when the latter was its colony. In recent months, tensions began building between the neighbours after the death of a Cambodian soldier in a skirmish in May and escalated into both militaries bolstering border deployments, alongside a full-blown diplomatic crisis. After a second Thai soldier lost a limb last week to a landmine that Thailand alleged Cambodian troops had planted, Bangkok recalled its ambassador to Phnom Penh and expelled Cambodia's envoy. Cambodia has denied the charge. The fighting began soon after. Since the ceasefire deal, Mr Hun Manet and Mr Phumtham have been effusive in their praise for Mr Trump, who had threatened 36 per cent tariffs on goods from both countries coming to the US, their biggest export market. The Thai sources did not say whether tariff talks had been impacted by the border clashes. Mr Lim Menghour said after the 'positive talks, President Donald Trump also showed positive developments' regarding tariffs, without elaborating.
International Business Times
an hour ago
- International Business Times
Justin Trudeau Spotted at Katy Perry's Montreal Concert, Fueling Dating Rumors
Justin Trudeau's appearance at Katy Perry's Montreal concert has set the internet abuzz, with fans sharing viral photos and videos of the former Canadian Prime Minister enjoying the show. The sighting comes just days after the pair were seen dining together, fueling fresh rumors about their relationship. Several posts show Justin watching Katy's event at Bell Centre in Montreal on Wednesday (July 30), accompanied by his daughter Ella-Grace. The politician, 53, looked captivated as he watched the American singer, 40, perform. In a viral video, the former Canadian Prime Minister can be seen mouthing several words from the song "Dark Horse" as Katy Perry performed live on stage. He was totally enamored watching the singer rock the stage with her hits. At one point, the politician seemed completely mesmerized when Katy demonstrated an impressive pose on stage. Justin Trudeau attending Katy Perry's Montreal Concert X Fans' Reactions After watching the viral posts of Justin smiling while watching Katy's live performance, social media users began speculating on the possibilities of a romantic relationship between the American singer and the former Canadian Prime Minister. "Katy Perry's new man, Justin Trudeau, is already showing up for her a DAY after their first date, meanwhile Orlando Bloom took 2 years to attend her tour. This is a HUGE upgrade," a social media user wrote. "Justin Trudeau, knowing the words to Katy Perry's songs, meanwhile, Orlando Bloom wanted her to retire... THE UPGRADE," another user stated. "Bro must be DOWN BAD if he's willing to go to Lifetime's concert," a post read. "Imagine getting good seats at a concert and you see a former head of state just hanging out to support his new girlfriend," a social media user stated. "Wait, is she gonna be the president of Canada now?" a user asked. "This is genuinely the happiest he's been in a while," the next one stated. The dating rumors about Katy and Justin started doing the rounds online after the two were filmed dining together at the Le Violon restaurant in Montreal on Monday (July 28). A video of the politician and the singer captured the moment they leaned towards each other over a table for an intimate chat. The former Canadian Prime Minister and the American singer reportedly spent nearly two hours in the restaurant, according to a communications consultant for the restaurant Le Violon. But the report suggests that they were chilling at the fine dining spot without any visual signs of PDA or anything. The American singer called it quits with her former fiancé, Orlando Bloom, last month. She began dating Bloom in 2016 and got engaged in 2019. The former couple shares a daughter, Daisy. Katy was married to Russell Brand in 2010 and they divorced in 2012. Justin officially announced his split from Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, after their 18 years of marriage. They share three children together -- Xavier, 17, Ella-Grace, 16, and Hadrien, 11.
