Latest news with #US-centered
Korea Herald
3 days ago
- Business
- Korea Herald
Time to pivot to China, India and move beyond US: Mirae Asset vice chairman
As cracks emerge in the US-centered investment landscape -- driven by geopolitical uncertainty and waning global confidence -- Mirae Asset Securities Vice Chairman Heo Sun-ho called for a strategic rebalancing toward China and India. Speaking at a global asset allocation forum hosted by Mirae Asset in Seoul on Thursday, Heo said the global financial market has relied heavily on the US as its primary growth engine over the past three years. However, with the return of President Donald Trump and the onset of a high-tariff era, he warned that the global trade order is being reshaped. 'The recent depreciation of the US dollar reflects weakening global confidence, spurred by growing nationalism and ballooning fiscal deficits,' Heo said, urging investors to pivot from a US-centric strategy and realign their portfolios with the shifting global innovation landscape. China and India, he said, represent promising alternatives. 'Innovative technology that once fueled US growth is no longer its exclusive domain,' he added, pointing to China's accelerating technological self-reliance, supported by pro-market policy shifts. He cited examples such as Chinese AI startup DeepSeek positioning itself as a challenger to OpenAI, and BYD, which in April overtook Tesla in the European electric vehicle market for the first time. Meanwhile, India is emerging as a vast consumer market, Heo said, powered by robust digital infrastructure and a rapidly expanding population. His remarks come amid a noticeable cooling of Korean retail interest in US equities following a period of record buying. As of May 26, Korean individual investors had sold a net $1.065 billion (1.46 trillion won) in US stocks -- their first net sell-off in seven months. Even longtime favorites like Tesla and Nvidia saw combined net sales of about $306 million during the week of May 19-23. Echoing the call for a diversified investment strategy, Lee Phil-sang, director and head of Asia Pacific Research at Mirae Asset Hong Kong, highlighted China's healthcare tech sector as a compelling opportunity. He cited the country's deep talent pool as a key factor driving its progress toward catching up with the more established US biopharmaceutical industry. 'China has made significant strides in new drug development over the past four years. In 2010, its output in this field was minimal, but it now ranks second globally,' Lee said. Chinese biotech firms such as Beigene, Akeso, Hansoh, and Eccogene have been expanding globally through out-licensing deals and international clinical trials. Lee said that China is also taking the lead in advanced drug modalities, including antibody-drug conjugates, targeted cancer therapies linking antibodies to toxic agents, and bispecific antibodies, designed to bind two different antigens for enhanced efficacy. Policy shifts in China are also creating a more favorable environment for foreign investors, Lee said. Whereas past periods of double-digit economic growth often led to excessive government investment and harmful oversupply, a slowing Chinese economy is now helping to differentiate true market leaders. 'China's slow growth isn't necessarily negative,' Lee said. 'It's in low-growth conditions that world-class enterprises emerge. When a leading company dominates the domestic market and expands overseas, it sets the stage for the rise of truly global champions.'
Asia Times
13-05-2025
- Business
- Asia Times
China paves path for South America's break from US
South America's largest trading bloc, Mercosur (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay), recently inked a comprehensive free trade deal with the European Union after more than 20 years of negotiations. The deal now awaits ratification and implementation. On the other side of the Andes, Chile is negotiating a comprehensive economic partnership with India, the world's fourth-largest economy. Meanwhile, American trade policy is undergoing major shifts characterized by less free trade and more protectionism. But what's striking is South America's unchanged advance towards multi-alignment and away from a US-centered hemisphere. When I visited Santiago in 2018, I noticed something I hadn't seen before – Chinese cars. Brands I hadn't heard of, such as Changan, Maxus, Great Wall, and Haval. Today, Chinese cars account for 40% of automotive sales in Chile. What was once a budding trend is now an avalanche. Who could have imagined such a rapid reversal of the United States' position in the region 20 years ago? The US was simply too close, too big a market, and too powerful. It remained, in the words of more than one Latin American writer, 'The Colossus of the North.' Then came China's meteoric industrialization of the early 21st century and its voracious appetite for copper, tin, oil, iron ore, timber and soybeans. Strong Chinese demand raised prices for South America's commodities and that boom helped pull millions out of poverty. Between 2000 and 2014, Latin America's poverty rate decreased from 27% to 12%, according to the International Monetary Fund, an extraordinary achievement and one tied to China's rising fortunes. During the same 2000 to 2014 period, the American political system became significantly more dysfunctional and polarized amid two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and an opioid epidemic that claimed 500,000 American lives. Of course, the American market remains massive and indispensable for countries in the Caribbean Basin, but the United States isn't the giant that it once was. And China is the principal reason why. In 2013, Chinese leader Xi Jinping announced the Belt and Road Initiative, a massive campaign to build infrastructure worldwide, from bridges and power plants to stadiums and port facilities. Today, Peru's Chinese-funded Port of Chancay is poised to become the largest deepwater port on the Pacific side of South America, while Bolivia's El Mutún Steel Plant is just the latest geopolitically significant China-funded megaproject in the region. When China replaced the United States as South America's largest trading partner in 2020, that tectonic shift received scant US media attention. Instead, immigration and drug cartels or flamboyant leaders like Jair Bolsonaro and Nayib Bukele dominated headlines. But sometimes impersonal, transformative processes are the real story. China developed its position of strength over two decades and the rise of China has been broadly good for the region. What was once a rising trade in commodities between China and Latin America turned into a very different kind of relationship in which China builds hydroelectric dams and installs 5G internet. Although a shadow of China's presence, India aims to deepen economic ties with South America in pursuit of 'strategic autonomy' or avoiding overreliance on any single global power. And South America welcomes India's push for diverse trading partnerships, as it wants the same thing. During the 20th century, Latin American governments often viewed European or American capital with suspicion. There were ideological reasons for that position, but it also had to do with the lack of options. In a multipolar world, trade and capital investments are no longer essentially Western, which makes for a far more balanced economic outlook. To be sure, some things haven't changed. South America is still reliant on commodity exports and foreign capital continues to raise issues related to national sovereignty (as they do anywhere else). But it's an era that looks remarkably different from the late 19th century when British capital prevailed or the mid-20th century when American capital predominated. As the US-China trade war unfolds, South America's economies seem destined to emerge more diversified and balanced. US tariffs have increased the impetus for EU countries to ratify their deal with Mercosur. Brazil's exports of meat and grain to China have already surged in the wake of the new US tariffs. Amid the current unpredictability of US trade policy, one thing seems clear: South America will continue to diversify its trade relationships and there are many new options for navigating the future. Dr John R Bawden teaches Latin American history at Oregon State University. He is the author of ' The Pinochet Generation: The Chilean Military during the Twentieth Century .'
Asia Times
08-05-2025
- Business
- Asia Times
Dollar demand shrinks with tariff tug-of-war
Subscribe now with a one-month trial for only $1, then enjoy the first year at an exclusive rate of just $99. Dollar demand shrinks with tariff tug-of-war David Goldman analyzes the rally of Asian currencies amid mounting US tariff threats, arguing that a structural shift in global trade patterns away from US-centered supply chains is weakening the traditional relationship between US real yields and dollar strength. Germany's Deep State moment Diego Faßnacht assesses Germany's deepening political crisis following Friedrich Merz's unprecedented second-round election as chancellor, a signal of internal coalition fractures, looming legislative gridlock, and strategic paralysis. The Japan that must say 'No' Scott Foster details how Japan's ruling coalition is under intense domestic pressure, especially after electoral setbacks, and that Tokyo is firm in rejecting any trade agreement with Washington that does not include a full review of tariffs on autos, auto parts, steel, and aluminum.
Time of India
28-04-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Trump's visa crackdown will scare future world leaders off US campuses
Here's yet another way in which President Donald Trump is making America neither Great Again nor strong, but weaker, and for a long time to come: He's sabotaging the US-centered transnational intellectual and personal networks that have amplified American power, by breaking the pipeline of future leaders of foreign countries who were educated and shaped in the United States. #Pahalgam Terrorist Attack India stares at a 'water bomb' threat as it freezes Indus Treaty India readies short, mid & long-term Indus River plans Shehbaz Sharif calls India's stand "worn-out narrative" His administration was doing that by expelling, harassing or intimidating foreigners at US universities. It revoked the visas of more than 1,400 international students on American campuses. In some cases, the government alleged that students were pro-Palestinian protestors, in others that they committed 'crimes,' even if those turned out to be unpaid parking tickets or non-existent. Many of the revocations had no clear rationale at all. As part of the specific showdown between the White House and Harvard University, the administration even threatened to stop the institution from enrolling international students altogether. ALSO READ: European universities struggle to stay neutral amid global political crises Play Video Pause Skip Backward Skip Forward Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration 0:00 Loaded : 0% 0:00 Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 1x Playback Rate Chapters Chapters Descriptions descriptions off , selected Captions captions settings , opens captions settings dialog captions off , selected Audio Track Picture-in-Picture Fullscreen This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Text Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Caption Area Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Drop shadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Join new Free to Play WWII MMO War Thunder War Thunder Play Now Undo That caused enough lawsuits and chaos — have we seen this phenomenon before in this administration? — that the government last week promised to restore due process to its review of student visas. Whether it does or not, though, the damage may already be done. (Join our ETNRI WhatsApp channel for all the latest updates) ALSO READ: 'We carry visa papers, practise scripts.' International students' lives now marred by anxiety in the US Live Events No matter how many students this bureaucratic jihad ultimately forces to go home, it will dissuade myriad other young talents abroad from applying to study in America in the first place. Why should they subject themselves to legal risk or hostility (on top of America's outlandish tuition costs) when they could instead get their degrees in Canada, the UK, Australia, China or some other place? And among those bright young things forming new ideas, expertise and friendships outside rather than inside of the US will be some of tomorrow's world leaders. ALSO READ: US-born children with cancer to be deported with undocumented parents, sparks concerns To grasp what America in the coming years will miss out on, consider the subtle but influential webs of soft power that have long been among the boons of America's status as an educational superpower. When covering the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, or again the global one of the late aughts, I often heard that negotiations among the various countries and institutions went better than expected — and better for the US, in particular — because a lot of the people in the meetings had spent time on the same campuses, studied under the same professors or even sat in the same classrooms. They wore different garb and spoke English in different accents. But they shared, for better or worse, the language and mentality of, say, Harvard's Kennedy School, or the economics departments at MIT or the University of Chicago. Mario Draghi, for example, has been an Italian and a European central banker (as well as a prime minister of Italy), just as Raghuram Rajan ran India's central bank and the research side of the International Monetary Fund, among other things. But both got their PhDs at MIT, and were influenced by Stanley Fischer, a titan of finance (and himself a former central banker of Israel). As a professor at MIT, Fischer in fact mentored future central bankers on most continents except Antarctica, from Australia to Brazil and Japan. Mark Carney, a former central-bank governor in Britain and Canada (and Canada's current prime minister), is not among them — he went to Harvard instead. In some cases, these biographies make for stories of stunning success for the individuals as for the world and the host country, the US. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is a Nigerian who studied at Harvard and MIT, then went on to reform Nigeria's economy in two stints as finance minister, before working at the World Bank and running the World Trade Organization . She's still Nigerian, but now a US citizen as well. The list of US-educated heads of state is also long. For ambitious Latin Americans and Africans, a stint or two on an American campus is practically a rite of passage. The founding father of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, sent his younger son to Stanford and the elder to Harvard's Kennedy School; that one later became Singapore's third prime minister. Taiwan's current president got his master's degree from Harvard; his predecessor got hers from Cornell. The Jordanian king also studied in America (Georgetown), as did much of his policy elite. Saudi Arabia's crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, did not, but that makes him an outlier among Saudi royals. The Israelis love to to take a swing through an American campus or two, including the incumbent prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu (MIT and Harvard). On it goes, from Moldova to South Korea and Indonesia, where the current president did not study in the US but his influential finance minister, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, did (University of Illinois); she has called her American years formative. Whether an American education always makes foreign leaders more pro-American or pro-Western, or even just more capable, is moot. At a minimum, though, it lets international students see the world and their own countries through American eyes, narratives, metaphors and references. It gives them a literal and figurative vocabulary with which they will later run international organizations or negotiate with the White House. The scholar Joseph Nye defined soft power as the ability to get others to want what you want. To the extent that a US education gets others to think as Americans think, it is the ideal tool of soft power, if you choose to see it that way. There are of course many other reasons for the US to host international students — about a million a year as of last count. Foreigners who study in America go on to invent and pioneer new technologies and business models at disproportionate rates, and most do it in and for the US. If the Trump administration pushes them away, those talents will innovate in and for China instead, or other adversaries and competitors. But the ability to form intellectual and personal networks across the world is enough reason to keep American education cosmopolitan, as opposed to barricading the ivory tower and closing American minds. In that way, education is like trade: enriching when it's open, corrosive when it closes. The benefits I'm describing pay out slowly, admittedly, and Trump isn't known for his attention span or long-term planning. But some rewards can be immediate, even if hard to quantify. Bilal Erdogan (Indiana University and Harvard) has surely talked at least some sense about America into his father, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. And as relations between the US and China become ever tenser, it surely helps both countries that Xi Jinping can turn to his daughter Mingze for discreet pointers about the Yanks. She too reportedly went to Harvard, though under an alias. Little else is publicly known, not even whether she paid all her parking tickets.
Bloomberg
28-04-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Stop Scaring Future World Leaders Off US Campuses
Here's yet another way in which President Donald Trump is making America neither Great Again nor strong, but weaker, and for a long time to come: He's sabotaging the US-centered transnational intellectual and personal networks that have amplified American power, by breaking the pipeline of future leaders of foreign countries who were educated and shaped in the United States. His administration was doing that by expelling, harassing or intimidating foreigners at US universities. It revoked the visas of more than 1,400 international students on American campuses. In some cases, the government alleged that students were pro-Palestinian protestors, in others that they committed 'crimes,' even if those turned out to be unpaid parking tickets or non-existent. Many of the revocations had no clear rationale at all. As part of the specific showdown between the White House and Harvard University, the administration even threatened to stop the institution from enrolling international students altogether.
