CNA938 Rewind - India launches strikes on Pakistan, Islamabad vows to ‘settle the score'
CNA938 Rewind - India launches strikes on Pakistan, Islamabad vows to 'settle the score'
India and Pakistan exchanged heavy artillery along their contested frontier on May 7, after New Delhi launched missile strikes on its arch-rival in a major escalation between the nuclear-armed neighbours. Hairianto Diman and Susan Ng get the latest updates from Dr Mustafa Izzuddin, Senior International Affairs Analyst, Solaris Strategies Singapore
13 mins
CNA938 Rewind - Asian currencies rally amid greenback weakness
Asian currencies rallied recently on hopes of a thaw in the US-China trade war and regional tariff deals with the Trump administration. While Tuesday brought a measure of stability, following a stunning 10% two-day leap for Taiwan's currency, Hong Kong's dollar was testing the strong end of its peg and the Singapore dollar has soared close to its highest in more than a decade. How long will this rally be sustained? And what impact does it have on consumers? Hairianto Diman and Susan Ng find out from Saktiandi Supaat, Chief FX Strategist, Head of FX Research & Strategy, Maybank
11 mins
CNA938 Rewind - A Letter to Myself: Oniatta Effendi on the art of batik and bouncing back
Oniatta Effendi is a cultural entrepreneur well-known for celebrating the art of batik through her fashion label 'Baju by Oniatta', which she launched in 2016. Her passion for batik has taken her around the world, including to some of the top fashion capitals. But success did not come easy. Oniatta reflects on the most valuable lessons she's gained on her journey as an entrepreneur, mother of five, and caregiver to her elderly parents.
33 mins
CNA938 Rewind - #TalkBack: If you're using a pram or stroller… stay off escalators?
Last Sunday afternoon, the wheels of a woman's stroller got stuck between the steps of an escalator at HarbourFront Centre, which then became dislodged. No one, including the woman and her baby, was hurt. While there isn't a law disallowing the use of strollers on escalators in Singapore, the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) strongly discourages the practice. Lance Alexander and Daniel Martin discuss further with Teo Orh Hai, Group Director for Electrical and Mechanical Engineering Group, BCA.
28 mins
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How US-China tensions are reshaping Hong Kong's future as a global hub
HONG KONG: Since China imposed a national security law on Hong Kong in 2020, it has steadily increased its control over the city. Beijing has also escalated efforts to strengthen economic and social links between the Chinese special administrative region and the mainland. But with intensifying geopolitical tensions between the United States and China, Hong Kong's proximity to mainland China – which has long been one of its greatest economic assets – is becoming a double-edged sword. DROP IN NUMBER OF REGIONAL HEADQUARTERS One company that has capitalised on this geographical proximity is Micro-Pak, a Hong Kong-based supplier of anti-mold products for the garment and footwear industries. From its global head office in Hong Kong, the company manages product development and coordination with its manufacturing bases in China. Today, it sells 3.5 billion products a year with an annual turnover of US$100 million. 'China can't be beat. That's where you need to be. There's an endless supply of everything in China,' said Micro-Pak's managing director Martin Berman. 'Here, if we have to see a customer urgently – many of our customers, it's just a couple of hours away. Our distant customers may be five hours away in a high-speed train, so if we have to see them today or the latest tomorrow, it's a pretty simple thing.' But there has been growing competition from mainland cities, while Hong Kong's status as a global trade and finance hub has also come under scrutiny amid the US-China rivalry. Official data showed that the number of regional headquarters of multinational companies based in Hong Kong dropped by 13 per cent between 2019 and 2023. Employment by these firms fell even more sharply – down 32 per cent to 132,000 staff by the end of 2023. Professor Heiwai Tang, associate dean of the University of Hong Kong Business School, said he is not so worried about uncertainties or risks, but more about awareness within the city on how it should move on and understanding why it lost business to other places. 'Once companies (have) left, you have to do a lot more to get them back. COVID has led to some foreign companies, especially American firms, to think … this is an opportunity to consider other places in Asia, such as Singapore or Tokyo or some other places in Asia,' he added. He said Hong Kong needs to 'rebrand itself' and 'try to project a better image to foreigners', due to some post-COVID narratives that it is 'just another Chinese city'. 'I'm also concerned about how foreigners see Hong Kong, which may not be neutral, which may not be balanced. And this is up to us to tell – a more neutral and more fact-based story about Hong Kong,' he added. GETTING BUSINESSES BACK The Hong Kong government has stepped up efforts to win back businesses in recent years, particularly from the Middle East and Southeast Asia. The city is promoting itself as a gateway to China's vast consumer market, banking on its longstanding advantages. These efforts appear to be bearing fruit. In 2024, nearly 10,000 companies with overseas parent firms established a presence in Hong Kong - a 10 per cent increase from the previous year. A Hong Kong government survey last year found that foreign companies that chose to base their regional offices in the city cited reasons such as a simple tax system, low tax rate and its free port status. The city believes that despite the geopolitical headwinds, businesses will be able to see the benefits of how global and China advantages can all be found in a single economy in Hong Kong. This is a point that Micro-Pak's Berman agrees with, having operated in Hong Kong for almost 30 years. As an American, he said he believes the Trump administration 'is making it difficult to do business no matter where you are'. Although the city is increasingly being subjected to the same tariffs affecting China, Berman noted: 'If you've decided that this is the part of the world you're dealing in, honestly, I don't see any risk factors beyond what you would see in any (other) place.' But economists warned that as tensions continue to simmer between China and the US, the most viable path forward for Hong Kong may be doubling down on its China advantage – even if it comes at the cost of diluting its status as a global hub. Gary Ng, senior economist at investment banking firm Natixis, said Hong Kong has been one of the biggest winners from the trend of globalisation over the past two to three decades, especially when geopolitical tensions were less. 'But what we see over the past years is that companies start to think and manage the risk between the Chinese market versus the rest of the world. So I think this change is really a very big challenge for Hong Kong,' Ng noted. 'If the world is still interested in the Chinese market, then Hong Kong can still be a greater China headquarters in that essence. So I think it really depends on which sector it is. 'But in general, definitely the attractiveness may be lower than before and the challenges will be more,' he added.
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Huawei chips are one generation behind US but firm finding workarounds, CEO says
BEIJING: Huawei Technologies' chips are one generation behind those of its US peers but the firm is finding ways to improve performance through methods such as cluster computing, Chinese state media quoted CEO Ren Zhengfei as saying on Tuesday (Jun 10). The chipmaker invests 180 billion yuan (US$25.07 billion) in research annually and sees promise in compound chips - chips made from multiple elements - Ren said in an interview with the People's Daily newspaper of the governing Communist Party. There is "no need to worry about the chip problem", Ren said, addressing concerns stemming from US export controls. The article, published on the front page of the newspaper, come as top US and Chinese officials are set to resume trade talks for a second day in London where topics such US tech restrictions on China are expected to be discussed. Since 2019, a slew of US export curbs, aimed at curbing China's technological and military advancements, have restricted Huawei and other Chinese firms from accessing high-end chips and the equipment needed to produce them from abroad. Ren's comments are the first ever from him or Huawei about the company's advanced chipmaking efforts, which have become a flashpoint in US-China tensions. Huawei is just one of many Chinese chipmakers, Ren said in the interview, adding: "The United States has exaggerated Huawei's achievements. Huawei is not that great. We have to work hard to reach their evaluation." "Our single chip is still behind the US by a generation. We use mathematics to supplement physics, non-Moore's law to supplement Moore's law and cluster computing to supplement single chips and the results can also achieve practical conditions. Software is not a bottleneck for us," he said. Cluster computing is when multiple computers work together. Moore's law refers to the speed of chip advancement. HUAWEI'S LAUNCHES Huawei's Ascend series of AI chips compete in China with offerings from Nvidia, the global leader in AI chips. The US commerce department last month said the use of Ascend chips would be a violation of export controls. Nvidia's AI chips are more powerful than Huawei's but the company has been barred by Washington from selling its most sophisticated chips to China, causing it to lose significant market share to Huawei. In April, Huawei launched "AI CloudMatrix 384", a system that links 384 Ascend 910C chips in a cluster that companies can use to train AI models, which has been described by analysts as able to outperform Nvidia's GB200 NVL72 system on some metrics. Dylan Patel, founder of semiconductor research group SemiAnalysis, said in an article that month that it meant that Huawei and China now had AI system capabilities that could beat Nvidia. Nvidia and the US commerce department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Ren's remarks. Ren also said about a third of Huawei's annual research spending went to theoretical research while the rest was spent on product research and development.
