Commentary: Asian consumers could soon be paying with stablecoins

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By working with Ant Group and Grab Holdings, StraitsX, the lender of XSGD, may end the&nbsp, pay loop. The Singaporean merchants wo n’t need to maintain an a&nbsp relationship with Ant, and the Chinese tourists will no longer have to deal with &ndbp, Grab.

Cross-border deals will be processed instantly, saving small businesses from having to pay high credit card fees. At the same time, regulators will make sure that stablecoins do n’t end up becoming new channels for money laundering by specifying the payment purpose&nbsp and imposing prudential limits on transfers.

People will generally have three options in addition to standard payment methods, like as&nbsp, bank accounts, or actual cash. Once they&nbsp, central bank digital currencies ( CBDCs ), became available, they could use them to settle claims.

Alternately, their lenders might permit them to tokenize deposits and make advance payments, such as toward&nbsp or a rental contract, but only after the other party has fulfilled its contractual obligation. As an alternative, payers and payees may use stablecoins to maintain their value even if their personal issuers filed for bankruptcy, so long as they trusted them.

Client PROTECTION AND Clarity

Because of this, the focus of the new stablecoin regulations in Asia ( and Europe ) is on consumer protection and transparency. &nbsp,

Issuers may be required to disclose the value of their assets and liabilities each and every day, according to the papers that Hong Kong has circulated for public discussion. Every week, they are required to breakdown the makeup of their reserve assets and create an auditor’s report andnbsp, once a month.

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Commentary: ‘Like it was with Jack Ma’: China puts world’s biggest Apple supplier in its crosshairs

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IRKED BY TERRY GOU’S PRESIDENTIAL BID

Beijing has made clear that Gou – who stepped down from Foxconn’s board last month but still holds a 12.5 per cent stake – has violated that rule.

His presidential bid has irked the Chinese leadership because it further fragments votes for Taiwan’s opposition and makes a victory for the Democratic Progressive party – which refuses to define the island as part of China – more likely, said a person close to Foxconn.

China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and threatens to annex it militarily if the island resists unification indefinitely.

A person familiar with Foxconn said management was not overly worried about the investigation because China’s frequent tax audits of foreign enterprises regularly hit its affiliates, simply due to the scale of its business. “But the link to the election is concerning because it drags us into politics,” he added.

On Wednesday, the Chinese government’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) said in its first comment on the probe: “While enjoying the dividends of economic growth, Taiwanese companies on the mainland also need to assume appropriate social responsibilities and play a constructive role in promoting peaceful development in cross-strait relations.”

The same phrase appeared in the state media report that publicised the investigation last weekend. This, and the fact that the news was leaked by the Communist party tabloid Global Times citing a Taiwan affairs scholar, pointed to an attempt by the TAO to send a political message, said a senior Taiwanese government official.

China has frequently leaned on Taiwanese businesses to support the Kuomintang, the opposition party that views Taiwan as part of a greater Chinese nation, in past elections. But apart from small-scale tax, labour or environmental audits, Beijing has reserved crackdowns for enterprises viewed as pro-DPP.

The fact that the Chinese leadership is now giving similar treatment to Foxconn and Gou – viewed in Taiwan as the most pro-China on the spectrum – speaks of the dramatic changes under way in Beijing, Taiwanese observers said.

“Such rough treatment of a foreign company would have been unthinkable under Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin or Hu Jintao,” said a senior government official, referring to Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s three predecessors.

Beyond politics, Foxconn executives believe Beijing wants to warn the company not to shift too much production capacity out of China, which could threaten hundreds of thousands of jobs at a time when the country is under growing economic stress.

“Other Taiwanese companies have been moving out gradually, quietly, but Foxconn is an elephant – they are just too big to do that,” the government official said.

Others believe the opposite could be true. “As supply chains split, the goal is to have their own companies take over electronics manufacturing in China,” said Liu, the CIER economist. “The Chinese government may just have concluded that they do not need Foxconn any more the way they did.”

With Taiwan’s election less than three months away, Gou has resorted to a low profile and suspended all campaign activity since the probe was announced. But he will have to reappear in four weeks at the latest, when all presidential hopefuls have to register their candidacy.

“On Nov 24, we will see if Gou keeps his word and cannot be threatened by the Chinese Communist party,” said the Taiwanese government official.

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Commentary: Will a rare strike threaten the ‘buy Japan’ moment?

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LABOUR STRIKES RARE IN MODERN JAPAN

The rage of the retailers is real. Customers hoping to visit the Seibu Sogo flagship in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro on Aug 31, possibly for its autumn Journey of Beauty Maquia Fair, can forget it: The workers’ white gloves, silk scarves and pocket squares will be downed, and the mighty store plunged into darkness.

The planned one-day stoppage, by around 900 workers in just one of the Sogo & Seibu chain’s 10 stores, may look puny in comparison with the global industrial actions this year by nurses, teachers, transport workers and even Hollywood screenwriters.

But it stands out for its rarity.

At Japan’s peak bolshiness in 1974, when the country was gripped by an oil price-driven cost of living crisis, there were 5,197 strikes that lasted more than half a day. By 1993 there were 251. In 2022 there were 33.

That decline, in all its starkness, demands its own analysis. For many workers in Japan, the past three decades have provided what might, in other eras or in other countries, have seemed ample ammunition for labour disputes.

A bruising assault of restructurings, lay-offs, systemically enforced overwork, unpaid overtime and long stagnant wages might appear powerful propellants of industrial action. But they have largely failed to trigger the sort of collective anger or panic that would cancel trains or halt a production lines.

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Commentary: China property giant Country Garden’s woes - the good, the bad and the very ugly

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But does billionaire businesswoman Yang Huiyan, who held a 52.6 per cent stake as of the end of July, still have faith in Country Garden’s turnaround, despite a history of funding support? Her outsize ownership can materially change the builder’s financial policy and its attitude toward bond holders. 

In China, capital-intensive real estate development is long past its prime, while property management and services are the future. Indeed, in the first half, Country Garden Services Holdings Co is expected to report up to 2.6 billion yuan in net profit, while the troubled development unit may see up to 55 billion yuan in net loss.

To figure out whether the distressed tycoons are willing to negotiate on debt, it’s important to look at the relationship between their business divisions. 

END OF THE ROAD

Call me hard-nosed, but Yang may no longer care. Country Garden and Country Garden Services are sister companies, both ultimately controlled by Yang.

In late July, the 41-year-old gave about 55 per cent of her personal stake in the property management unit to a charity founded by her sibling, while keeping the voting rights. The charity will hold the shares for 10 years. 

This corporate structure is in stark contrast to, say, Sun Hongbin’s empire. Sunac Services Holdings is controlled by the development unit, Sunac China Holdings. As such, the billionaire has a financial incentive to restructure Sunac China and even offer sweeteners. 

Whatever happens to Country Garden, most investors can agree on one thing: For two years, the builder has tried hard to honour its obligations even as others became delinquent amid the government’s harsh regulatory crackdowns. Country Garden is just at the end of the road. 

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Commentary: Smart-toilet market will be a measure of China’s economic resilience

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TOKYO: In its capital research, Goldman Sachs does not frequently mention the fickle, cleanliness-obsessed Chinese kawayakami toilet gods. Even less frequently does it mention the worship of these gods while arguing for an investment case for a Foreign bathroom fixtures business.

However, these are definitely difficult times to pitch Shenzhen-listed stocks to anxious, anywhere-but-China global investors. It is obvious that this is why an elaborate map comparing” toilet culture and key penetration drivers in China vs. Japan and the US” was created.

This is intriguing information for those who believe that different parts of the world are ripe for different types of Japanification. & nbsp,

The gist of the message is that Goldman thinks a toilet-friendly Chinese culture is ready to embrace bright toilets, the kind of seat-heating, rear-washing, fundament-drying marvels pioneered in Japan as an alleged extension of its kawayakami worship.

TOILET’S MARKET POTENTIAL SMART – nbsp,

According to the word, toilets are considered” safe and comfortable place for me – time” in China.

The next phase of smart-toilet deployment in China is anticipated to attract younger buyers, despite the fact that middle-aged women from the middle class have been driving it for the past ten years. & nbsp,

The beneficiaries, according to the Goldman analysts, will be less expensive home offerings from companies like Arrow Home, a local sanitaryware behemoth, as opposed to pricey foreign ones from businesses like Toto, which are echoes of the trend in many Chinese industries.

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Commentary: Management 101 - don’t drain a reservoir to find your phone

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LONDON: How bad was your week? Well, fear not. Rajesh Vishwas is here to make you feel better. 

The Indian government official was recently suspended after he ordered a reservoir to be drained so he could retrieve his mobile phone, which had fallen in when he tried to take a selfie while picnicking with friends.

Taking the old “but I need it for work” excuse to whole new levels, Vishwas, a food inspector, claimed his Samsung mobile held sensitive government data and therefore had to be found. 

It took three days to pump 2 million litres of water out of the reservoir, enough to irrigate over 400 hectares of farmland in a country suffering from water scarcity. The phone was found but was, unsurprisingly, waterlogged and unusable.

Leaving aside the question of whether he tried the old “put it in a bag of rice” trick, the entire scenario is undoubtedly farcical. But there are also easy lessons from this victory in the abuse of power stakes that should apply to anyone in a position of authority facing a management decision.

BASIC REQUIREMENTS OF A LEADER

Lapses in judgment and a sheer lack of integrity fly in the face of the most basic expectations of what it means to be a leader. 

There is a fundamental requirement to not be selfish, to think of others and to try your very best to do no harm – for example, by depriving a scorching country of a much-needed resource or by throwing a party in the heart of government when your nation is under pandemic lockdown rules. Employees, clients and the public tend to demand it.

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