GPO signs vaccine pact with Korean biotech giant

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SK bioscience to lend expertise to help improve regional vaccine security

Signing the memorandum of understanding on collaboration on vaccines for Thai public health security on Tuesday, from left: Dr Mingkhwan Suphanpong, director of the Government Pharmaceutical Organization (GPO); Dr Opas Karnkawinpong, GPO chairman and permanent secretary of the Ministry of Public Health; Jeon Jo-young, charge d’affaires of the South Korean Embassy in Thailand; and Ahn Jae-yong, CEO of SK bioscience. (Photo: GPO)
Signing the memorandum of understanding on collaboration on vaccines for Thai public health security on Tuesday, from left: Dr Mingkhwan Suphanpong, director of the Government Pharmaceutical Organization (GPO); Dr Opas Karnkawinpong, GPO chairman and permanent secretary of the Ministry of Public Health; Jeon Jo-young, charge d’affaires of the South Korean Embassy in Thailand; and Ahn Jae-yong, CEO of SK bioscience. (Photo: GPO)

The Government Pharmaceutical Organization (GPO) has bolstered its partnership with SK bioscience of South Korea to enhance regional vaccine security, starting with the production of influenza vaccines scheduled for availability next year.

The cooperation is outlined in a memorandum of understanding signed on Tuesday by GPO representatives, led by director Dr Mingkhwan Suphanpong, and SK bioscience under the leadership of president and CEO Ahn Jae-yong.

Dr Mingkhwan said the GPO will receive technology insights from the Korean pharmaceutical giant pertaining to an influenza vaccine production method involving cell-based inactivated influenza for both three- and four-strain viruses.

She said the Korean company would contribute its expertise and technical know-how to augment Thailand’s manufacturing standards, with the goal of attaining World Health Organization (WHO) pre-qualification.

It was also a great opportunity to enhance the country’s manufacturing practices throughout the region, Dr Mingkhwan said.

“We expect to finish the first phase of vaccine production by next year. It is a bulk-refilling process,” she said. “And within the next two years, we will be able to produce the entire vaccine from start to finish.”

Dr Opas Karnkawinpong, the GPO chairman and permanent secretary of the Ministry of Public Health, said Thailand and Korea maintain a robust partnership in fostering regional health security.

Last year the public health ministries of both countries signed the “Thailand-IVI Ratification Ceremony” in Seoul to increase collaboration through strengthening digital health, health promotion and further cooperation on vaccine research and development.

Meanwhile, Mr Yong praised Thailand’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, which included robust governmental technology strategies for vaccine security.

He added that these efforts aligned with SK bioscience’s strategy to foster partnerships with promising sectors across various regions, aiming for readiness against future pandemics.

“We have seen strong potential from the GPO and the Thai government for working together on regionalising the vaccine manufacturing method,” he said. “Our close cooperation on vaccine research and manufacturing will finally help strengthen vaccine security in Southeast Asia.”

SK bioscience showed outstanding ability to produce its own Covid-19 vaccines during the pandemic. The company is planning to expand its vaccine production operations to many parts of the world, including in Asean markets.

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The complicated truth about North Korea sanctions

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On the surface, sanctions seem to have had little impact on North Korea’s behavior. At the time of writing, the world is waiting for the launch of a new North Korean military spy satellite that Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un announced on April 19, 2023.

North Korea is under one of the harshest multilateral sanctions regimes of any country in the world. But the country still circumvents sanctions regularly through complex smuggling operations at which it is by now very adept. This situation raises questions about whether sanctions on North Korea have failed.

It is true that sanctions have not reached the stated political goal of inducing North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons. The country has made impressive advances in missile technology and is evidently capable of acquiring the necessary technology despite sanctions. 

The “spy satellite” launch would be one of around 30 missiles tested in 2023. Though North Korea has ways to evade sanctions, this does not mean sanctions have no impact. 

Sanctions interplay with domestic governance and economic systems in ways that are complex and often hard to fully evaluate. The alternative to sanctions is not an open, liberal and free-trading North Korea, but likely a slightly more well-off version of its current state.

The issue of evasion illustrates why the impact of sanctions is so hard to evaluate. Sanctions-evading actions are not rare events but are institutionalized within North Korea’s economy. 

Since the 1970s, North Korea has systematically smuggled alcohol, tobacco, drugs and other contraband through its diplomatic networks abroad. These activities continue today and with North Korean capabilities expanding into the cyber realm, sources of illicit income will likely continue to constitute an underestimated part of the regime’s hard-currency revenue flows.

But sanctions evasion and smuggling are very expensive activities. For Chinese, Taiwanese and Singaporean trading companies and entities to risk smuggling oil to North Korea, Pyongyang must pay a massive risk premium on its purchases. North Korea has to pay well above market prices to give sellers a reason to take the risk of arrest and prosecution for sanctions violations.

A North Korean coal port is pictured in 2017. Photo: Asia Times Files / AFP / Ed Jones

The same is true for illicit North Korean exports. Sanctions do not stop coal exports entirely, but they slash the prices that North Korea can charge. Any buyer — almost always China — will only risk importing from North Korea if prices are cheap enough to outweigh the risks. 

Even prior to the harsher sanctions levied in 2016 and 2017, China, through its position as a virtual monopoly buyer, consistently paid below-market prices for North Korean coal. This dynamic is likely even stronger today, as Chinese imports of coal and other sanctioned North Korean goods continue but go mostly unrecorded.

Despite North Korea’s evasion tactics, sanctions are indisputably hurting the North Korean economy. The country’s exports are estimated to be worth only a few hundred million dollars per year – much smaller than its trade losses. 

The UN Panel of Experts estimated, for example, that North Korea earned around US$370 million from sanctions-violating coal exports in 2019. This is only a fraction of the $1.19 billion it earned from such exports in 2016, before the harsher sanctions.

The civilian impact of sanctions is unclear. On one hand, sanctions have likely dealt a harsh blow to labor-intensive industries like textiles, where a high proportion of workers are women, resulting in increased unemployment and lower wages. 

The falling incomes of North Koreans working in sanctioned industries substantially dampen the wider economy. On the other hand, there is no evidence that sanctions have driven up the price of food or other essential goods.

Sanctions have undoubtedly worsened North Korea’s food shortage by hindering imports of fertilizer and spare parts for agricultural equipment. North Korea’s own border closure, though, likely also provided an obstacle to foreign trade. 

But the impact of sanctions on North Korea’s food system is minimal compared with the regime’s refusal to undertake basic reforms in agriculture. The government bristles at dismantling collective farms or letting farmers sell their products on open markets.

Trade by evasion should logically become easier and cheaper. For sanctions to be effective against North Korea, China – which constitutes more than 90% of North Korea’s foreign trade – would have to implement them. As US-China tensions continue to grow, reasons for China to implement sanctions on North Korea are diminishing.

Reports of North Korean trade deals in weapons and labor with Russia in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are already circulating. Very little is confirmed about these transactions, but there is evidence to support increased economic exchange between the countries. 

Earlier this year, satellite imagery from the border area indicated that Russia was increasing oil exports to North Korea while exporting unknown goods that could be arms destined for the Wagner Group.

But this does not change North Korea’s situation. Combined with its poor global reputation, sanctions will continue to make North Korea dependent on a very small number of trade partners – mainly China and Russia – who can charge highly unfavorable prices.

None of this is to say that the current thinking on North Korea sanctions is without serious flaws. The demand that denuclearisation should come before any relief on sanctions, for example, is unrealistic. 

People in Seoul on January 1, 2020, watch a television news program showing file footage of a North Korean missile test. Photo: Asia Times files / AFP / Jung Yeon-je

But many also exaggerate the possible gains of abolishing sanctions. A common misperception is that, were sanctions to be lifted, North Korea would open its doors to foreign investors who would flock to the country for its strategic geographic location and cheap labor.

Removing sanctions would not change the basics of North Korea’s economic system. Despite a permissive attitude towards markets during former Supreme leader Kim Jong Il’s reign and the first few years of Kim Jong Un’s, harsh state control over the economy best serves the regime’s political and social goals by allowing it to control the distribution of resources. 

Sanctions hurt, but removing them is no silver bullet for political or economic progress.

Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein is Associate Fellow at the Swedish Institute for Foreign Affairs and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Safra Center for Ethics at Tel Aviv University.

This article was originally published by East Asia Forum and is republished under a Creative Commons license.

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Taylor Swift fans brace themselves as UOB ticket presales start for Singapore concerts

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According to Jacquelyn Tan, UOB’s Head of Group Personal Financial Services, the bank “experienced a very significant surge in card application volumes not just in Singapore, but across markets in ASEAN”. 

She added: “Daily average UOB credit card applications across Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam in the week of 21 to 27 June 2023 increased 45 per cent compared with preceding weeks in the month, with debit card applications in Singapore and Vietnam up nearly 130 per cent as well.”

So if it feels like you’re competing against the world in your quest to get Swift’s concert tickets, you probably are.

If you don’t score tickets during the UOB presale, don’t give up just yet. 

General sales will start from 12pm this Friday (Jul 7) for selected registered fans. These fans will receive an email on Jul 5 with information on how to access general sales tickets, along with a unique access code that allows them to buy up to four tickets. 

Sure, 8 million people reportedly applied during the the fan registration period but who knows? You might be among the lucky few to get the access code.

And if all else fails, you can always hold on to the hope that organisers will release more seats closer to Swift’s concert dates. After all, Live Nation sold additional standing pen spots for Twice’s September concert on Jun 26 and Coldplay currently has a waitlist for tickets to their sold-out shows.

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MAS posts record net loss of S.8 billion amid rise in Singapore dollar, higher interest expenses

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SINGAPORE: The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) recorded its largest net loss of S$30.8 billion (US$22.8 billion) in the financial year that ended Mar 31, widening from a S$7.4 billion loss in the year before that.

This was due to a rising Singapore dollar resulting in negative currency translation effects, as well as higher interest expenses incurred as part of mopping up excess liquidity in the banking system, MAS managing director Ravi Menon said on Wednesday (Jul 5) at the release of the central bank’s annual report.

MAS said it made a “small” investment gain of S$0.6 billion on the country’s official foreign reserves amid the challenging market environment where both bond and equity markets performed poorly.

But this was outweighed by the appreciation in the Sing dollar and higher interest expenses on domestic money market operations.

The Sing dollar saw a “broad appreciation” against currencies – such as the US dollar and the euro – that the official foreign reserves were held in, as the central bank tightened monetary policy three times during the financial year to tame inflation.

This resulted in “significant negative currency translation effects” as MAS’ financial results are reported in the Sing dollar, it said.

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China squeezes key metal supplies in chip war escalation

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In a chip war twist, China will restrict exports of the niche metals gallium and germanium and certain of their compounds in retaliation against US and Japan export bans on sending advanced chips and chip-making equipment to China.

Beginning August 1, Chinese chemical suppliers must apply for government licenses to export 38 products including gallium nitride (GaN) and germanium dioxide (GeO2), China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a statement on July 3. 

The metals are used in chipmaking, communications equipment and various defense items. Gallium is used in compound semiconductors, which when combined with various other elements are often used to improve transmission speed and efficiency in mobile phone screens, solar panels and radars.

Germanium is used in fiberoptic communication cables, night-vision goggles and the solar cells that are used to power many satellites. US imports of gallium metal and gallium arsenide wafers in 2022 were valued at only about US$225 million, according to US trade data.

China is by far the world’s top source of both metals, accounting for 94% of gallium supply and 83% of germanium, according to a European Union study released this year.

Some analysts have already estimated the impact of China’s bans will be limited as the US and Japan can import the materials from other countries or produce them domestically, although at considerably higher costs.

Chinese commentators said China’s export controls aim at slowing the pace of development of US and Japanese chipmakers, a bid to create the time and space for Chinese players to catch up in the critical race to forge ever smaller chip sizes.

“China is always committed to keeping the global industrial and supply chains secure and stable, and has always implemented fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory export control measures,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said in a media briefing on Tuesday.

“The Chinese government’s export control on relevant items in accordance with law is a common international practice, and it does not target any specific country,” she said.

As germanium prices are expected to rise, shares of Yunnan Lincang Xinyuan, a Chinese supplier of the chemical, surged 10% and triggered a suspension of trading on July 4. Shares of Chihong Zinc and Germanium increased 6.1%.

Tech war tit-for-tat

China’s metal ban came after the Dutch government said on June 30 that it will require ASML, the world’s largest chip-making equipment producer, to apply for export licenses for shipments of its DUV lithography systems, including the Twinscan NXT:2000i and subsequent immersion systems.

The requirement will commence on September 1. Twinscan NXT:2000i can make 38-nanometer chips in a single exposure. Prior to the Dutch ban, the Japanese government said in May that it will restrict the export of 23 types of chip-making equipment from July 23.

A silicon wafer is seen through a scaled lens element. Credit: ASML

US media reported last week that Washington will ban Nvidia from exporting its artificial intelligence (AI) chips, namely the A800 and H800, to China. At the end of July, Biden will sign an executive order banning US funds from investing in China’s high-tech sectors, the media reports said.

Chinese commentators are cheering the tit-for-tat move. “It is necessary for China to take effective measures to form an effective countermeasure against the US chip hegemony,” a Tianjin-based columnist wrote in a July 4 article.

He says the new export license system will allow China to identify the ultimate users and uses of its metal products in order to safeguard its national security and interests.

The columnist also opines that by manipulating the supplies and prices of these key metals, China can exert influence on the costs and profits of US and Japanese chipmakers, thus reducing their competitiveness.

He says the new export controls will also ensure a stable supply of gallium and germanium for Chinese chipmakers.

Global reserves

Among the restricted chemicals, GaN is a raw material used in the production of third-generation semiconductors used mainly in power grids, electric vehicles and telecom base stations.

GaN microwave radio-frequency chips are used in missiles, radars and electronic countermeasures designed to dupe radars through their ability to operate in high temperature and frequency environments.

In 2021, China accounted for 84% of the world’s production capacity of primary low-purity gallium, a byproduct of processing bauxite and zinc ores, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said in a research report last year.

China’s market dominance was established after Japan, South Korea and Russia cut their output after a large surplus of primary gallium flooded markets in 2012. Germany and Kazakhstan ceased primary production in 2016 and 2013, respectively, due to the high supply.

Between 2017 and 2021, the US imported 53% of its gallium from China, 11% from the United Kingdom, 9% from Germany and 7% from Ukraine, according to the USGS report. Since the US raised tariffs on Chinese goods including gallium products in 2019, it started diversifying its import sources to Canada, Japan and Singapore.

The USGS also said there are large reserves of zinc concentrates containing germanium in mines in the US states of Alaska, Tennessee and Washington. Between 2015 and 2018, the US imported 59% of its germanium from China, 22% from Belgium and 9% from Germany. Both gallium and germanium can also be recycled from scrap metal.

A gallium oxide wafer. Photo: Novel Crystal

Wang Xinxi, a Guangdong-based technology writer, said in a recent article that China’s export controls cannot completely stop targeted countries from obtaining the two chemical compounds, though it will definitely push up their prices.

He says China can produce gallium at a low cost as it has the world’s largest production capacity of aluminum oxides and gallium extraction know-how. He claims it will be very expensive for Japan and the US to follow suit.  

“In the short run, gallium and germanium prices will increase while Chinese suppliers will benefit from this trend,” Wang says. “But this is not our goal. What we want is to increase the costs and slow the development pace of the Japanese and US chip sectors.”

He said that China could next expand its export controls to include indium compounds, which are also used in semiconductor production.  

The Eurasia Group, a New York-based consulting firm, said in a research note that China’s export controls will only have a limited impact on global supplies given the targeted scope of the bans.

The report said China only wants to remind the US, Japan and the Netherlands that it has retaliatory options if they move to impose further restrictions.

Read: China is raring to go with 3rd-generation chips

Follow Jeff Pao on Twitter at @jeffpao3

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Two new hires bode well for China’s reform

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If “personnel is policy,” as the old adage goes, then two big staffing moves over the weekend suggest China’s financial reform process is accelerating in critical ways.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping signaled as much by elevating protege Pan Gongsheng to Communist Party chief of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) – and likely to the PBOC governorship in short order.

Xi also reportedly named Ding Xuedong, a senior State Council official, as party chief of the National Council for Social Security Fund (NCSSF).

Pan’s promotion was a particular surprise. Last year, he was stripped of his membership in the party’s Central Committee, a status that was held by his PBOC predecessor Guo Shuqing.

Yet, given Pan’s experience and policy preferences, his ascent also suggests Beijing plans to avoid the yuan depreciation markets now fear. And that Xi and Premier Li Qiang are stepping up efforts to repair China’s shaky property markets.

Pan, who’s done stints at Harvard and Cambridge, has led since 2016 the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, managing China’s US$3 trillion-plus in foreign reserves. As such, Pan is thought to favor stabilizing a yuan that’s down more than 5% this year.

Pan, 59, skews technocratic in ways likely to accelerate steps to repair China’s reeling property sector and boost consumer spending. He’s also believed to favor less adversarial relations with the US, significantly on the eve of Janet Yellen’s first China visit as US Treasury Department secretary.

“China’s weak economic recovery and worsening geopolitical tensions likely prompted Pan’s hasty elevation,” says analyst Anna Ashton at Eurasia Group. “He is a proponent of regulatory reform and oversight and boasts strong international knowledge and connections relative to other Chinese central bankers.”

Over the years, Pan understood more than most in party circles that China’s real estate boom might be followed by a dramatic reckoning. Back in 2014, he warned that “if citizens store their wealth by buying houses, it may cause the real estate bubble to burst or even [cause] an economic crisis.”

Yet Pan’s charge to increase consumer confidence could get an important assist from Ding’s arrival at the social security fund. Ding’s promotion seems a sign that Xi and new Premier Li are getting serious about building a deeper and broader social safety net, a prerequisite to a more vibrant, consumer-driven China.

Ding, 63, has served as executive deputy secretary-general in China’s cabinet since 2018. His resume includes stints at the Ministry of Finance, the Financial Stability and Development Committee and state-owned China Investment Corp.

Ding Xuedong knows a thing or two about financial management. Image: CNBC / Screengrab

NCSSF was established in 2000 mainly to act as a reserve to cover shortfalls in pension funds. It stands separate from local government-managed social insurance funds, pensions and health care and unemployment funds.

Tapping Ding suggests the fund’s missions may be getting supersized and turbocharged at the same time. It’s long been known that such a shakeup is needed to encourage 1.4 billion mainlanders to save less and spend more.

“The economic recovery provides opportunities for further reducing financial risks, strengthening the social safety net and implementing market reforms to encourage private investment while putting the economy on a more efficient decarbonization path,” says World Bank economist Mara Warwick.

She adds that “implementation of key structural reforms remains crucial to solidify the recovery and achieve China’s longer-term goals of environmentally sustainable, resilient and inclusive growth.”

The social safety net piece of the puzzle is vital to prod mainland households to increase consumption to facilitate a shift from an export-driven growth model to one powered by domestic demand, Warwick notes.

Elitza Mileva, also a World Bank economist focused on China, notes that “as in the past, robust economic growth that creates jobs and boosts household incomes will remain important for shared prosperity.”

Equally important, though, Mileva adds, is that “policy, both revenue and spending measures, can be effective in promoting more equitable income distribution among China’s population.”

Economist Sophie Wieviorka at Crédit Agricole notes that the “problem is that China doesn’t currently wield the right drivers for public policy in these areas.”

“As of now, intervention is focused on purely Keynesian measures – including vouchers to pay with at local stores – for short-term use instead of developing a real social safety net, which could be implemented by the central government since it still has some room for maneuver with regard to debt,” she adds.

Chinese authorities, Wieviorka says, “are caught in the middle” in part because of the “problem with over-indebtedness, which also partly explains the limited response of authorities regarding the budget.”

Wieviorka adds that “aware of its limited resources, China is painstakingly shedding its growth model, which is extensive – and based on an accumulation of labor and capital, and intensive – based on the optimization of existing resources. It’s a necessary move, but not always a winning strategy, as the middle-income trap is never far behind.”

So, building a better network of social safety nets has never been more important, as Ding’s arrival seems to suggest.

It’s more complicated than that, of course. As economist Brad Setser at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank observes, “China’s high domestic savings rate allows it to sustain higher debt levels than most emerging economies. No need for imported capital, and the state system can avoid internal confidence crises most of the time.”

China needs its consumers to save less and spend more. Photo: Facebook

Yet Japan reminds Asian peers about the evils of excessive savings. Zhu Min, a former deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), notes that China needs to fix the confidence gap to prod households to spend more. That, Zhu says, means better social safety nets by improving pensions and health care.

“I understand there is a lot of fear,” Zhu said. “We need really to take the fear away, rebuild the confidence. This is the most important thing.”

Current IMF economist Thomas Helbling notes that “expanding social safety nets, for example, by further increasing the adequacy and coverage of social assistance benefits and introducing a dedicated unemployment benefit system, would help enhance the automatic stabilizer role of fiscal policy.

“A comprehensive tax reform over the medium term to broaden the tax base is imperative to provide a stable source of revenue to meet long-term spending needs while ensuring fiscal sustainability.”

In general, Helbling says, the “prioritization of spending on households over investment would also deliver larger stabilization benefits. For example, means-tested transfers to households would boost aggregate demand 50% more than an equivalent amount of public investment. To ensure consistency across policies, fiscal policy should be undertaken within a medium-term fiscal framework.”

Helbling argues for “an ambitious but feasible set of reforms can improve these prospects, importantly in a way that is inclusive by raising the role of household consumption in demand.

“Reforms such as gradually lifting the retirement age to increase labor supply, strengthening unemployment and health insurance benefits, and reforming state-owned enterprises to close their productivity gap with private firms would significantly boost growth in coming years.”

As these vital reforms begin in earnest, Pan now has an opportunity to tap into what he recently termed China’s “rich experience” in responding to economic shocks using “plentiful macro-prudential tools.”

Initially, markets will be expecting Pan’s promotion to signal a “clearing of the way” for fresh stimulus moves, notes economist Hao Hong at GROW Investment Group.

Yet markets are also unclear about the big-picture meaning of Pan’s appointment. One source of confusion: does his relatively modest Communist Party ranking mean the PBOC is being downgraded in terms of its role in overall policymaking?

Already, the PBOC reports to Premier Li and the State Council, requiring their approval on managing the yuan or setting interest rates. Yet, on the other hand, indications are that Pan is on track to be both party chief and governor of the central bank. This, Eurasia’s Ashton notes, “will mark a return to the ‘single-head’ leadership structure that was the norm at the PBOC prior to 2018.”

From 2018 to 2023, she notes, current Governor Yi Gang and outgoing PBOC party chief Guo ran things as dual heads: Yi as governor and deputy party chief and Guo as party chief and deputy governor.

People's Bank of China Deputy Governor Yi Gang. Photo: Reuters, Aly Song
Governor Yi Gang shared power at the PBOC. Photo: Agencies

“Re-merging the roles of party secretary and governor,” Ashton says, “concentrates decision-making power and would ensure Pan greater authority within the central bank system.”

Either way, Pan seems a solid choice. PBOC leadership could do worse than being led by a Western-trained and battle-tested economist – one with in-the-trenches experience working at some of China’s ‘Big Four’ state-owned commercial banks. This includes experience at the Agricultural Bank of China.

And it includes an important changing of the guard at China’s social security apparatus that dovetails with new leadership at PBOC central. And by all past and present indications, both staffing moves bode well for China’s financial and economic reform prospects.

Follow William Pesek on Twitter at @WilliamPesek

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Commentary: Upcoming Malaysia state polls will test PM Anwar’s appeal among ethnic community

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Kedah is emerging as a crucial fight, where PH leaders hope to demonstrate that the coalition may reclaim political ground or even narrowly win in an area that is more than 80 % Malay-dominated. & nbsp,

VOTE FOR THE YOUTH RACE

The decline in popularity that UMNO has experienced in recent years does never appear to be abating, according to nearby officials of the top. To give his alliance a chance to keep his financial promises, Mr. Anwar is counting on first-time electors and the younger Malay people.

The younger voters have no ingrained loyalty to UMNO, in contrast to earlier generations who usually supported the party because it was credited with achieving independence from the British, resolving cultural pressure in the late 1960s, and implementing comprehensive programs that helped common Malays progress financially.

Following Malaysia’s decision to raise the voting age from 21 to 18, 5 million new voters were added to the political rolls in November 2022. & nbsp,

On this storm, Mr. Anwar is counting.

Senior correspondent Leslie Lopez for CNA Digital covers political and economic matters in the area.

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To decouple or to de-risk – that is the question

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As is frequently the case in diplomacy, the communique that the G7 leaders released in May following their meeting in Hiroshima omitted a crucial question: What is the distinction between” de – risking ,” which it expressed approval of, and” decoupling ,” which it disapproved?

These words weren’t defined in the G7 speech. It didn’t even mention that China is the main target of both decoupling and de-risking. For you, that is politics.

The United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Germany, France, and Italy’s officials merely stated that they were coordinating their strategies for economic resilience and economic protection” based on diversifying partnerships and de-risking, no decoupling.”

The ambiguity was deliberate, as is frequently the case in geopolitics. Distinctions between the US and some of its allies were quickly covered up. Economic resilience and” economic security” are diplo-speak terms for preventing an excessive reliance on China( and, to some extent, Russia ) for essential goods and avoiding providing those nations with strategically important technologies.

Dispersion, the term that was popular up until recently, appears to mean taking a deeper break from China than de-risking, according to the president of the European Commission. De-risking suggests diversifying, putting an end to the sole reliance on China, more than withdrawing.

But in reality, expansion has also played a significant role in the decoupling to date. The distinction between coupling and de-risking for statement purposes is semantics. Because of this, despite the fact that there are significant differences between the US and its supporters in regards to their reliance on China, they were able to agree to the statement.

Leaders of the G7 nations decided to” de-risk” their ties to China at their summit in Hiroshima rather than” recouple.” Website for Hiroshima Summit

These variations are a reflection of their various political circumstances, particularly with regard to Taiwan. The likelihood of a Chinese military assault on the island is growing, to the point where US officials must make preparations despite their best efforts to prevent it.

Friends of Washington don’t. Japan might, at least economically, support the US in the event of an attack. It is imprisoned by its geography and history. A China strike on Taiwan would be much less likely to be perceived as a difficulty by Western allies. They might be persuaded to join a coalition of the willing, but that is not inevitably going to happen.

Therefore, the US is more concerned about giving China military-strengthening technology. It is more concerned about China cutting off vital supplies during warfare.

Federal protection is more important to governments when they are making war plans than economic efficiency. Those who, like many exporting industries like farming, think that financial markets allocate money more effectively than governments and that free trade results in the best financial outcomes may find this difficult to swallow.

However, it explains why some Republican supporters of free markets supported industrial policy efforts put forth by the Biden administration. And why, in spite of warnings from US high-tech firms that restrictions may include long-term financial repercussions, Republicans are firmly behind the Biden administration’s stepped-up efforts to block export of the most advanced semiconductor technology to China.

Although they have some of the same worries about China as the US, Western nations are not nearly as concerned about national security. Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, has cautioned Europe not to become” caught up in problems that are not ours” in reference to Taiwan.

Europeans are unhappy with the high-tech grants and buy-American regulations of the Biden administration because they believe they are deterring purchase from them just as much as from China.

Some Europeans are also wary of US work to obstruct China’s exports of high-tech goods. However, the French government gradually joined the US in limiting French companies’ exports of the most cutting-edge semiconductor manufacturing machinery to China.

In conclusion, Europe prefers” de-risking” because it opposes the US’s desire for financial isolation from China. Because it is properly ambiguous to allow allies to march to various drummers, the Biden administration accepted” de – risking.”

In actuality, but is dissipating. US-China trade in goods set a document in 2022, as did US exports to China, despite all the talk of it over the past few years, the president’s industrial policy changes, export restrictions, and company disclosures of plans to move production up to the US or to Eastern countries other than China.

In 2019, freight vessels from China are unloaded at the Port of Los Angeles. AFP pictures by Mark Ralston

At$ 36.4 billion, US farming exports to China even broke a record for the fiscal year 2022.

Despite being competitors, National companies’ supply stores are firmly established in China. China is the US’s and approximately 120 other nations’ largest trading partner, including American allies like Japan, South Korea, and Germany.

In some product categories, such as drones and thermal panels, China holds a disproportionately large market share worldwide. It is also an essential provider of countless thousands of other products. China may undoubtedly stop exporting goods to the US in a battle, so it makes sense to reduce reliance on China.

Regardless of which political euphemism is used to identify it, it is unclear how much today’s supply chains can or will be untangled outside of war.

Urban Lehner, a longtime editor and correspondent for the Wall Street Journal Asia, is now the editor-emeritus of DTN / The Progressive Farmer. & nbsp,

Copyright 2023 DTN / The Progressive Farmer is the title of this article, which was first released on July 3 by the latter news organization and is now being republished with authority by Asia Times. All right are reserved. Urban Lehner follows @ urbanize on Twitter.

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US-China chip war crossfire hitting smaller powers

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There was a time when spending by the government to support specific sectors was widely criticized for being useless and interfering with free markets.

not longer. Government incentives to industries have significantly increased in China, the US, and the EU, often promoting the creation of cutting-edge technologies. These grants are occasionally supplemented by measures intended to prevent technological advancements from reaching rival economy.

According to a Global Trade Alert report, the three economic powers implemented 18, 000 business payment programs, almost distributed equally, in the years following the 2008 financial problems.

The sector payment plans of the major three are now jointly larger than the Economy of four out of every five countries in the order of US$ 361 billion per year. These massive initiatives, according to the global institutions, present a unique challenge for smaller markets because they are unable to compete with them.

Today’s incentives are more likely to help industries focused on a global market, especially high-tech businesses, in contrast to earlier protectionist applications for import-competitive home industries.

Rebate programs are becoming more and more entangled in national security issues, which are frequently justified by a stated need to maintain an advantage over rival nations or gain independence from them through the development of new technologies.

While WTO partnerships forbid specific subsidies where it is possible to show a negative impact on rivals, the new subsidies are frequently outside the purview of international agreements.

The fierce conflict between the United States and China over advanced cards is the most expensive and magnificent example of the new incentives. Washington works to keep away while Beijing has long been determined to get up in device technology.

The CHIPS Act, proposed by Joe Biden, aims to increase US developing. Twitter / Screengrab picture

Although neither country produces cutting-edge cards in business levels on its own soil, both China and the United States today richly support the development and manufacturing of advanced cards.

In accordance with plans unveiled in October 2022, the United States has adopted twin policies of subsidized domestic sophisticated device manufacturing while making arrangements with safety friends to deny China exposure to cutting-edge chips and chip-making equipment.

Taiwan is relying on the United States to refuse to make cutting-edge chips for Chinese companies and the Netherlands in order to prevent them from receiving advanced chip-making equipment because the US does not already produce either cutting edge chips or the machinery necessary to make them.

Washington is also funding advanced chip-making foundries in the United States with billions of dollars from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company( TSMC ) and Samsung in South Korea.

More than the United States, China already produces 16 % of the world’s cards. However, it is still unable to make the sophisticated cards that the United States wants to deny it in large quantities.

It is well known that the US’s goal is to obstruct Chinese advancements in artificial intelligence technologies, despite being presented as a rejection of one of” a small set of sympathetic technologies” in the G7 communiqué dated May 20, 2023.

These technologies are now commonly used in martial applications like self-guided drones and eavesdropping, but more importantly, they have the potential to revolutionize commerce on a large scale. Greg Allen, a CSIS specialist, stated in 2022 that the US’s strategy has changed from sluggishly attempting to halt Chinese advance to constantly working to change it.

In terms of the quantity and caliber of artificial intelligence research papers, China is not far behind the US. However, due to the lack of sophisticated chips, Chinese companies are having a difficult time training big language versions of the caliber being developed by their US counterparts.

There are logical indications that Chinese companies can now design cutting-edge chips, despite the common belief that China is 10 years after in chip manufacturing. China’s production value-add is almost the same as that of the United States, Germany, Japan, and South Korea combined, despite having a slightly smaller market than the US.

Smaller powers face challenges as a result of the financial superpowers’ new level of industry subsidization and beautiful scale, as well as the fact that these programs are entangled in national security justifications.

For instance, Australia is unable to match the new levels of market subsidies. To the expense of Australia’s much larger economic relationship with China, there is also a significant risk of getting caught up in what is essentially corporate competition on the US side.

In the Australia-United States materials treaty, which was signed in May 2023, there are already indications of that. Numerous research collaboration contracts between China and Australia are in jeopardy, particularly if the United States expands its chip protestations to another frontier technologies regions, as the Biden administration hinted.

China is reducing its own chip-making functions, but it might not be successful. Photo: Twitter

Large swaths of industrial policy are now being shifted into the realm of national security, having previously been dominated by business objectives and financial bureaucrats. Technology is” the center of gravity in this new political challenge ,” according to Andrew Shearer, director-general of Australia’s Office of National Intelligence, who made this observation in March 2022.

Canberra’s policy process has been reorganized to apply a national security camera to what were previously considered monetary policy choices.

This is apparent in organizations like the Treasury, Foreign Investment Review Board, and Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, as well as in the Office of National Intelligence and the Departments of Home Affairs’ increased importance and Five Eyes’ shifting intelligence-sharing team focus.

At Curtin University, John Edwards holds the positions of Senior Fellow at the Lowy Institute and Adjunct Professor of Public Policy at CURTIN University.

This andnbsp, post, and was originally published by East Asia Forum and are being reprinted with a Creative Commons license.

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WeChat flows across the Great Firewall of China

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In: Asia

People can easily discuss opinions and information on WeChat, a platform for information sharing and information distribution. People and organizations have used the software as a successful promotion, communication, and publicity tool despite the worries about censorship. & nbsp,

This has made it necessary to take a more subtle approach to the censorship debate and take into account its social, economic, and cultural benefits.

Tencent, a Chinese company, owns the functional communication and social media app WeChat and its Chinese counterpart Weixin. Content is produced and distributed in a jumble of open and public societal circles. & nbsp,

Customers can choose which companions they want to stop from seeing their” Times” in private and group messages. Without the need or consent of the account holders, it is possible for a consumer to locate and adopt any Official Account or Channel in public places.

For server-based political censorship & nbsp, for WeChat and Weixin users, and for semi-public spaces like chat groups and Moments. For instance, a information sent from one WeChat accounts to another account based in Australia is not censored politically because it passes through Tencent’s host in Singapore. & nbsp,

However, if the same message is sent to a Weixin account, Tencent’s site in Shenzhen, which merely enacts political censorship for the account in question, receives it. If the text contains keywords that are blacklisted, the Weixin user might not get it. & nbsp,

A person passes a WeChat advertisement in Hong Kong. Richard A. Brooks, AFP, and Asia Times Records

This results in a conversation gap in group conversations where WeChat users can see everything that has been posted but Weixin people might not be able to see all of it.

WeChat users have been linked to the Weixin government system by China’s social censorship regime. When chatting to Weixin accounts, WeChat users must not only learn how to self-censor or creatively & nbsp, avoid being censored, but also abide by China’s internet governance rules when using the official accounts and channels of WeCuhat, as well as gaming, and WeCart Pay. These limitations are stated in the WeChat Privacy Policy and the & nbsp.

Analytic content management on WeChat is focused on public spaces. Chinese laws and content moderation laws apply to official records and channels. WeChat Official Accounts come in two varieties. Weixin account buyers with matching Taiwanese authorities verification are eligible for free membership accounts. & nbsp,

Service transactions are made available to business account holders, including those from other countries, through a paid verification process. Personal content producers who cater to Australia’s Mandarin-speaking people use membership accounts. These transactions are subject to Weixin information restraint and terms of service and are registered under the names of Foreign individuals or organizations.

The WeChat accounts of former Australian prime secretary Scott Morrison falls under this heading. Australian media framed his account in terms of WeChat censorship and foreign interference in Australian politics when it was” hacked” in January 2022. Critics and nbsp called for the ban on WeChat. & nbsp,

The event was actually caused by administrative carelessness in managing his bill, which was registered and owned by a Chinese national who later sold it to an organization that provides tech companies based in China. The Australia Broadcasting Corporation created a company account on WeChat in response to this incident in order to continue providing information to Mandarin speakers.

WeChat’s data flow is clearly a politically driven experience, according to research. Organic systems and their varying degrees of affinity and trust determine the roads and fault lines of information as well as & nbsp, misinformation. WeChat is made for people who use the software in a variety of cultural settings, interests, and contexts.

WeChat’s use reflects the” circle culture”( quanzi wenhua ) of China on social media, where people frequently congregate in like-minded groups. The relationships between people are stronger the smaller and more shut the lines are. & nbsp,

On September 23, 2016, a foreigner visited the Weixin, or WeChat, messaging app stand in Fuzhou town, southeast China’s Fujian province. Asia Times Files / AFP image

The need for regulator monitoring or user self-censorship increases with the size and openness of the loops. This can be seen on WeChat in a variety of settings, as well as in subculture groups like online & nbsp, fan circles, and the new forums where young people can engage in propaganda and influence campaigns against the Chinese government.

Tencent is a participant in the global push for & nbsp, automated content moderation, and algorithmic social media platform recommendations. To accommodate various person behaviors and program governance regimes in foreign markets, WeChat adopts differentiated content moderation practices. & nbsp,

A top-down, one-size-fits-all platform of understanding censorship not only simplifies a very complicated mechanism but also runs the risk of ignoring the countless ways that WeChat can be used for political engagement, cultural integration, and municipal dialogues.

Haiqing Yu is a teacher and ARC Future Fellow at RMIT University’s College of Design and Social Context and School of Media and Communication.

At the University of Technology Sydney’s Faculty of Arts and Social Science, Wanning Sun teaches media and communication research.

This andnbsp, post, and was initially published by East Asia Forum and are being reprinted with a Creative Commons license.

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