Q&A with Indranee Rajah on support for young families

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Q. Is cash is the main concern for people to have children, and how has the federal helped?

It’s about the wealth to some extent because the cost of raising a child weighs on a parent’s head. But I think it ( also ) goes way beyond that. We have done quite a bit to increase the help when a family is having a baby, as well as care for the child. We’ve been taking measures to make sure that there is greater mobility to accommodation, because Taiwanese couples are quite rational, they want a house of their own, even before they have a kid. What we hope will be a game change, is the innovative shared parental leave that was announced by Prime Minister Lawrence Wong at the National Day Rally next year– that will be 10 weeks of shared familial leave, by default shared equally between mum and dad, but certainly they can change it.

Q. Is the government looking at specific measures that are going to further support parents, and what can parents expect for 2025?

( They can expect ) increased support for infant care, because the feedback we were getting from parents is that it’s actually the first 18 months ( that’s the toughest ). Because that’s when a child is most dependent on the parents but there’s a period when you still need somebody to look after the very young child as you go back to work. If you have parents and grandparents who are willing to help out, that’s great, but some don’t. The Ministry of Social and Family Development is looking into piloting a new model of infant care. There are infant care centres, but the model that they are looking at is that either somebody comes to your home, or you drop off your child at the home of somebody else. So, infant carers. The other thing that we are looking at, which PM Wong touched on as well, is how can we increase support for large families, because we do recognise that if you have more children, obviously your costs increase with every child.

Q. How do you track the effectiveness of policies that are supportive of families?

From the time that the child is conceived, you have subsidies for healthcare. From the time the child is born, you ’ve got the Baby Bonus cash gift – about S$ 11,000 ( US$ 8,000 ). Then you’ve got the Child Development Account, with the First Step Grant, and then the co-matching amounts, and that takes you through the preschool period. Then, once you enter primary school, education is heavily subsidised. So, I think parents should come away knowing that the government is investing very heavily in the child’s education and giving a lot of support for that. So, when you look at all of these … it’s a whole ecosystem. What we are really building is a society that is supportive of families and puts families front and centre.

Q. Let’s talk a bit about balancing economic success with fertility rate concerns in Singapore– is there a trade-off between them?

Well, there is a trade-off. But what we are doing, with the recent measures, is trying to make sure that the trade-off is not win-lose. Making sure that we have shared parental leave, and dividing it between the mother and the father, because this is a signal to employers that the parents need some time to be with their children. You can’t be working all of the time, and expecting to be with your child all of the time. You’re going to have to give up a little bit of time at work, spend that with your child, but then you can come back, because your shared parental leave can be taken in portions and after that spend time back with your career.

Q. Some people in the workplace may not feel as empowered to necessarily speak up and say what they need and that includes young married women and men. What needs to happen there?

I’ve a message for employers– which I’ve been saying repeatedly, which is that if you want to recruit and retain good people, you must enable them to also have a fulfilling family life, in addition to a good career. And the key to this is a really good HR ( human resources department ) that understands the needs of both. Because if you have a purely transactional relationship, which is that you work for me and I command your hours for x number of hours in the day, and you must devote your whole life to the company, at some point people are going to say: ‘ I can’t do that – I have a family and I have needs of my own’, and they will walk.

Q. A phrase we hear a lot with Forward Singapore is redefining what success means – the pursuit of not just a good life but a life that is good enough. Is that where we want to go as a society?

The question is: how do you balance it, so that you earn enough to provide for yourself and for your family in due course, but at the same time, still have enough bandwidth for yourself as an individual, where you don’t feel so wrung out and hung out to dry. Enough time to breathe, enough time to step back and look at the direction your life is going. And at the same time also being careful not to pressure your children so much. You want their journey in school and in life to be a happy one, not one that is fraught with stress, and where waking up to go to school is much more a chore than a joy. You do have to ask: ‘How can I achieve these things? ’ Also, it ’s not one size fits all. There’re some individuals who thrive on stress and some who just don’t. You need to know for yourself which kind of individual (you are ) and what works for (you ). And because obviously it takes place in a work context as well, you need employers who are understanding, open-minded, progressive, and pragmatic.

Q. It sounds like a mindset shift is required – will we take a long time to achieve that?

It’s going to take some time, but it may not take as long as we think. It’s very important that we need to keep talking about it, keep thinking about it and with these policy moves, nudging people and employers in the right direction.

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Japan boosting long-range firepower with stealthy US missiles – Asia Times

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In response to rising challenges from China and North Korea, Japan’s acquisition of subtle US boat weapons will significantly improve its long-range counterstrike functions. This is a crucial part of the country’s remilitarization. &nbsp,

This month, multiple media outlets reported that the US approved the sale of 16 AGM-158B JASSM-ERs ( Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles-Extended Range ) to Japan.

The US$ 39 million deal includes superior training weapons, anti-jam GPS devices, assistance equipment and software, according to the information. The schedule coincides with rising tensions involving North Korea’s continuous missile provocations and China’s territorial assertiveness.

The US Air Force developed the very developed JASSM-ER air-launched boat weapon. With a range of about 1, 000 kilometers—nearly three days that of its predecessor—it is tailored for perfection attacks against high-value goals.

A 450-kilogram WDU-42/B penetrator weapon guided by INS/GPS techniques and an ultraviolet seeker for end guidance are included in the missile. Its inclusion with Japan’s F-15J and F-35 combatants ensures compatibility with superior platforms, more bolstering its value.

This consolidation coincides with Japan’s broader protection reforms, as outlined in its 2024 annual defence white sheet, which prioritizes the merger of conflict capabilities.

These changes place greater emphasis on counterstrike capabilities and upgraded missile systems as essential components of Japan’s strategy against changing local threats. Nevertheless, achieving these objectives has substantial challenges, particularly in specific detection and tracking.

Analysts like Veerle Nouwens point out that Japan’s ability to use such systems effectively is hampered by gaps in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance ( ISR ) despite the JASSM-ER being a formidable asset.

As noted in a January 2024 International Institute of Strategic Studies ( IISS) report, these limitations necessitate continued reliance on US support.

The report emphasizes Japan’s attempts to close ISR gaps through assistance with the US and investments in business satellite imagery, small-satellite constellations, and superior sensor systems.

Despite these improvements, Japan’s ability to detect nuclear missile launch also depends on US space-based infrared methods, given the exorbitant costs and technical challenges of developing local alternatives.

The margins have increased as a result of new developments in Chinese and North Vietnamese missile systems. The challenge of China’s hypersonic glide vehicles ( HGVs ) and fractional orbital bombardment systems ( FOBs ), which reduce adversaries ‘ response times through quick maneuverability and speed, is highlighted in the US Department of Defense’s 2024 China Military Power Report.

Similarly, North Korea’s increasing reliance on varied launch platforms—including transporter erector launchers ( TELs ), submarines and railway cars—complicates detection and interception efforts, as noted in a September 2024 briefing by Japan’s Ministry of Defense.

The Japanese government’s desire to have long-range counterstrike capabilities reveals fundamental flaws in the country’s security sector. This crucial industry has been hollowed out by decades of neglect, leaving Japan heavily dependent on imported and imported systems from abroad.

Over 100 big Chinese defense companies have left the sector due to poor profit margins and uneven government support, according to Valerie Insinna, who wrote for Breaking Defense in June 2024.

Smaller vendors, in special, have struggled to survive amidst resources swings and an aging labor, exacerbating threats in the supply chain.

Due to its fragility, Japan must rely on the US for both munitions and ISR capabilities. However, the US faces its own challenges in ramping up missile production to counter China’s growing firepower.

As noted by Asia Times, aging infrastructure, limited production capacity, and supply chain constraints complicate efforts to scale manufacturing.

Complex technologies like GPS and inertial navigation systems demand specialized parts and expertise, which further delays production.

These issues are made worse by bureaucratic inefficiencies and budgetary constraints, raising questions about whether the US can meet its demands or even offer sufficient support to allies like Japan.

These restrictions could cause Japan to be without urgent supplies in the event of a US-China conflict over Taiwan. According to Gordon Arthur of Defense News, Japan’s prolonged reliance on the US has hampered its military development, rendering it unable to conduct independent operations in the majority of cases.

Japan’s military modernization does not align with its perception of threats in its current security environment, which its 2024 defense white paper describes as the most severe and complex the nation has faced since World War II, despite having niche capabilities that support US forces.

Japan’s acquisition of long-range counterstrike capabilities has sparked mixed reactions across the Indo-Pacific. Domestically, opinions are sharply divided.

In line with their arguments, Japan’s defense capabilities must be strengthened in order to respond to threats from China and North Korea. Critics, however, worry that such moves risk a return to militarism, clashing with Japan’s pacifist post-war identity.

Internationally, Japan’s remilitarization has elicited varied responses. Allies like the US welcome the development to boost collective security, particularly in light of China’s growing regional assertiveness.

However, neighboring countries such as China and South Korea view Japan’s actions suspiciously, citing historical grievances and ongoing territorial disputes.

These regional tensions underscore the delicate balance that Japan must strike between maintaining diplomatic relations and strengthening its defense posture, according to Alan Callow, in an article for Asia-Pacific Research in August 2024.

Japan’s purchase of JASSM-ER missiles is a significant step in the development of its military and preventing regional threats. The move also highlights significant flaws in Japan’s defense sector and its persistent reliance on the US for military support.

As Japan attempts to redefine its role in the Indo-Pacific security landscape, it will be crucial to balance these needs and priorities.

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Silicon Valley venture capital blowing up the US defense industry – Asia Times

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I’m a propaganda, and if I believe that is going to make people believe what I need them to think, I’ll twist the truth. I’ll just make my own version of it.

This is not a soundbite from a specially exuberant time in the hit television show Mad People. The CEO of Silicon Valley’s hottest company for military technology, Palmer Luckey, uttered these words.

Luckey’s business, Anduril Industries, specializes in unnatural intelligence-enabled systems, including automatic weapons techniques. Anduril is a darling of the defense startup scene and its newly emerging venture capital (VC ) ecosystem, where big promises, big bets, and a bias toward propaganda are a staple required for success, with a valuation of US$ 14 billion.

The integration of artificial intelligence ( AI ) into defense programs, let alone weapon systems, remains controversial. The UK Artificial Intelligence in Weapon Systems Committee has urged caution in regards to the sourcing of AI-enabled arms, but as is frequently the case with Silicon Valley products, the creation, purchasing, and implementation of AI protection programs have quickly accelerated in recent years.

Founded only in 2017, Anduril has already been awarded multiple multi-million dollar contracts by the US Department of Defense ( DoD ), as well as the UK Ministry of Defense ( MoD ). This may not seem like a amazing growth in light of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, the conflict in Gaza, and rising global stress.

In my latest research on defense AI, I identified that one of the key owners of the accelerated purchasing of military company products, such as automatic drones and another AI-enabled systems, is the influx of huge sums of venture capital money and influence.

These venture capital firms must adopt the speed and scale ethos of the technology sector and the appetite for risk and revolution in these venture capital firms. This makes these firms not only financial players but also political ones.

This trend toward creating defense in the vein of Silicon Valley, driven by venture capital interests, is likely to become more pronounced and pervasive, according to my research, which was published in Finance and Society. With this in mind, it’s worth looking more closely at the dynamics in play when venture capital sets its eyes on matters of life and death.

The new financial model for the military

The military AI industry and global defense spending are both booming. The global market for military AI was estimated to be worth$ 13.3 billion in 2024, with a projected growth of$ 35 billion over the next seven years, according to current estimates.

These numbers vary, depending on the market data services consulted, but they have been revised upward on a regular basis in the last 12 months. In the last 24 months, global defense budgets have also increased in response to ongoing conflicts and a general escalation in militarization.

Global defense spending reached a record level of just over$ 2 trillion in 2023. In 2023, the US accounted for nearly 40 % of global defense spending with an$ 877 billion budget. The NATO alliance will be spending US$ 1.47 trillion in 2024. For large tech and finance companies with plans to establish themselves in the defenSe market, these are significant, attractive numbers.

Meanwhile, defense organizations are starting to spend more money on cutting-edge technologies, including, inevitably, AI. According to a report from the Brookings Institute in 2024, defense contracts for AI-related technologies increased by nearly 1, 200 % in the 12-month period from August 2022 to August 2023.

For most new AI products, civilian or otherwise, some form of venture capital funding is often involved, especially if the AI venture in question might prove to be too risky to be funded through bank loans or other financial instruments. Venture capital is prepared to place bets on innovations that other investors would not be able or unwilling to accept.

In the past two decades, this type of funding has primarily focused on Silicon Valley products for the civilian market, where the dynamics have allowed for extraordinary gains to be made for investors.

However, those with large amounts of capital to invest see a new opportunity for huge gains in defense as the defense market is expanding and the opportunities for extraordinary venture capital returns in the commercial spheres diminish.

It is unsurprising, then, that in the past five years, venture capital investment in defense technologies has surged. US venture capital funding for military technology startups has doubled between 2019 and 2022, and since 2021, the defense technology sector has received an injection of$ 130 billion in VC funding.

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Private VC investments are projected to reach a record$ 1 billion, driven primarily by US venture firms, and are also at an all-time high for the European defense sector. There is a palpable buzz in the air about the possibilities for VC-backed endeavors and the possibility to reshape the defense landscape.

The Silicon Valley nexus between venture capital, military, and Silicon Valley

Venture capital has always been connected to the military sector in some way. In fact, venture capital defense investing is experiencing a boom since its infancy.

The origins of venture capital are &nbsp, typically traced back&nbsp, to the American Research and Development Corporations ( ARDC ) founded in 1946, just after the Second World War, in which the US was buoyed by a victory achieved, at least in part, by cutting-edge technologies.

One of the first businesses to consistently raise money from institutional investors to finance start-up businesses with a lot of potential but too risky for bank loans was ARDC.

With this approach, ARDC was the first venture capital outfit to create investment portfolios that often relied on one or two extraordinary successes in order to offset the majority of companies that only made very modest returns or, indeed, losses. In this way, ARDC was the first “unicorn” company to exist.

Unicorns are young companies that receive a valuation of US$ 1 billion or more (up until recently an exceedingly rare occasion for a startup and something every investor covets in their portfolio ). This is at the heart of investing in venture capital: it is risk-based with potential very high returns.

In the early days, especially just after the Second World War, many investments went toward supporting startups that would deal with&nbsp, military innovation and technologies. This resulted in the development of various analytical tools, high-voltage generators, radiation detection technology, as well as early mini-computer manufacturers, such as the Digital Equipment Corporation.

The digital landscape, as we know it today, has its roots in the military. In the 1950s, advancements in communications theory were intended for military missile technology, and the grandfathers of AI were almost entirely involved in military projects that spanned the course of the internet.

Many Silicon Valley firms remained entangled with the military sector over the decades and, as the anthropologist Roberto Gonzales has written, almost” all of today’s tech giants carry some DNA from the defense industry, and have a long history of cooperating with the Pentagon”. This relationship is then incorporated into the DNA of venture capital.

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But, it is worth stressing that traditionally it was the needs of the military organizations and the governments that largely dictated the pace, structure and process for technological innovations.

A progressively vocal and influential technology startup industry and their funding partners have now launched a raft of” Patriotic capital” initiatives, including American Dynamism, the Special Competitive Studies Project, Rebooting the Arsenal of Democracy, and America’s Frontier Fund.

These enterprises were conceived by a handful of prominent companies and individuals in the new defense tech domain to shape defense and military priorities and make good returns while doing so.

In addition to unicorn companies like Anduril Industries, Shield AI, Skydio, Scale AI, and Palantir ( Palantir is technically no longer a startup since it went public in 2020, but it is still one of a cohort of new military technologies ), unicorn companies are proliferating in the defense sector thanks to large amounts of venture capital funding.

This is a recent development. The venture capital sector concentrated its efforts on a thriving civilian technology landscape over the two decades from the mid-’90s to 2014, where the sky was the limit for returns from technology startups like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and PayPal.

The defense market, in contrast, was considered mature and consolidated, with strict acquisition rules and regulations and too little opportunity for outsized returns on investments. It would typically take several years for a government contract to be completed.

Defense was also dominated by a handful of key industry players – the so-called primes which include Lockheed Martin, RTX Corporation, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, General Dynamics and BAE Systems.

These primes split up the lion’s share of the defense market among themselves, and there appeared to be little room for tech startups to expand without significant investment.

For example, companies like SpaceX and Palantir sued the US Air Force and US Army in 2014, respectively, for the opportunity to bid for certain contracts. Since then, it has become more common to break open defense for military startups.

In addition to these structural hurdles for VC investment in the defense sector, there was a greater nominal moral cost associated with the idea of profiteering from war. There was a perceived reluctance to be viewed as investing in” a defense portfolio” or, to put it another way, in instruments of death because venture capital investors are frequently endowments, foundations, insurance companies, universities, and pension funds. European venture capital investors were particularly cautious.

However, the remarkable speed with which this trepidation appears to have subsided in less than a decade is remarkable, suggesting either that the investors supporting venture capital firms come from diverse backgrounds that might have less hesitation when it comes to gaining from the business of war or that it was always just a matter of math rather than morals.

Unicorns and hypergrowth

Everyone wants to invest in a unicorn today because its valuation potential is so high.

But in order to get a foot in the door with an unproven product or concept, some startups can be motivated to make big, bold claims about the revolutionary, change-making nature of their products. The ethos of overpromising is frequently maintained even after a company has secured funding in order to maintain success toward hypergrowth.

In the worst-case scenario, overpromising is done at such scale that it amounts to criminal fraud, as it was the case with the notorious blood testing startup Theranos, which went from being one of the most exciting healthcare startups, valued at$ 10 billion at its peak in 2015, to a complete bust in four short years.

In the Theranos case, the charismatic founder of the business had overpromised the capabilities of the technology, claiming that it would make it possible to perform a number of tests using only one tiny drop of blood. This ground-breaking technology” could revolutionise medicine and save lives the world over“.

Although the technology was a promise made in the future, it was a lie that the company claimed to already have a functioning testing device. Theranos folded in 2018 and the charismatic founder, Elizabeth Holmes, went to prison.

Selling a fantasy

There are many other, less dramatic stories that play out in a similar, although not fraudulent way: companies that promise to revolutionize the way we do mundane things with ground-breaking technology, which turn out to be unsustainable, unworkable, or simply fizzle out.

However, the outcome is that investors lose money and that, more importantly, that those who have come to rely on the promise of technology suffer.

In the defense context, the promises of new military technology revolve around selling powerful deterrence, of protecting democracy, of being able to have comprehensive, accurate, real-time knowledge, of a fully transparent globe, and, first and foremost of a clean, swift and decisive victory with smooth and effortless connectivity.

This can foster an unrealistic vision of omniscience and omnipresence at worst, and at worst, it fosters a desire for an unthinkable revolution in warfare that is too appealing to resist, which ultimately draws an even wider audience into its wake.

These narratives are often underwritten by a general hype that a future with AI is inevitable. This creates a compelling narrative that mythologizes and valorizes a technology that may never deliver what is promised. It is a potent mix that often resists more sober voices that urge caution.

Although the claims made by defense unicorns frequently seem plausible, they are typically untrue because they relate to the future. And often that future reflects a vision shaped by fiction and science-fiction, which is always some degrees removed from the social and political challenges of reality.

Programs that strive to achieve global transparency and reach quickly are influenced by this temptation to overpromise and the mythologize of potential technology. The Joint-All-Domain Command and Control ( JADC2 ) program is one such effort initiated by the Pentagon. For “predictive analysis” and “high-speed battle,” it aims to unite all domains, including land, air, sea, space, and cyber, into a single network.

To make the program palatable to Congress, JADC2 is often likened to the ride-sharing platform Uber, promising seamless interaction between systems and platforms for speedy interventions.

This brings attention back to AI as a fundamental requirement for all military equipment and platforms. Without expanding military AI, this vision will be impossible. The opportunity for military startups is located here.

Two prominent military tech companies are contractors for JADC2 – Anduril and Palantir. Both businesses keep their ambitions to disrupt the defense sector, unseat the current leaders, and carve out a monopoly share of the market in order to increase profits.

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Palantir has set its eyes on “becoming the central operating system for all US defense programs”, Anduril has declared that it will be going” after everything that’s on the]Defense Department’s ] list” in order to dominate in the sector. This is the battle for growth for both businesses.

As Anduril’s Luckey says: “you have to fight and win across multiple areas“. ( He refers to that in terms of corporate strategy, not actual battlegrounds. ) Similarly, CEO and co-founder of Palantir, Alex Karp, acknowledged that, in order to break defense as a market wide open, he is proud to “have dragged and kicked and cajoled and humiliated” various lawmakers, policymakers and government to help further this goal. Move quickly and damage things.

Making a unicorn requires a concerted effort and an aggressive posture on the part of those who stand to gain the most financially in this domain. It is best to work together with like-minded individuals. In the current defense venture capital landscape, there is a close entanglement of founders and funders.

For instance, Peter Thiel is the co-founder of Palantir. He also oversees the Founders Fund VC company, which has investments in Space X, Anduril, and Scale AI, among others. The VC company Andreessen Horowitz also funds SpaceX, Anduril, Shield AI and Skydio.

These VC companies ‘ managers have close ties to one another. Similarly, there is interlacing between companies. For instance, former Palantir employees who founded Anduril, who applied their knowledge gained from Palentir to the company. Palmer Luckey, formerly of Oculus Rift, was installed as its charismatic and outspoken CEO.

The America’s Frontier Fund is being led by Eric Schmidt and Peter Thiel, who were formerly the CEO of Google and the head of the US National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence.

There is a tightly knit and very well-connected network of financiers and startups that all work to double down on the key driving message: the defense sector is in need of disruption and we are the ones to shake things up.

Representatives of five newly established military organizations were present at a recent panel giving evidence to the US Armed Services Committee. Every single one of the five was either funded by the VC firm Andreessen Horowitz or otherwise affiliated with the firm.

At the US Armed Services Committee hearing, Palantir’s Chief Technology Officer, Shyam Sankar, testified in favor of “letting chaos reign” and “more crazy” in the military acquisition and procurement process so that the necessary incentives can be forwarded for innovation through inter-departmental competition.

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Regulatory limitations, he thinks,” constrains you to oversight” and he “would gladly accept more failure if it meant that we had more catastrophic success”. Although it is unclear what kind of success this might lead to or what might happen if it fails, Palantir’s CTO makes it abundantly clear that he speaks with venture capital logic in mind.

And, according to a recent US Defense Innovation Board report, it seems the government is ready to embrace more risk and provide top cover for such “mavericks”.

The” crisis” narrative

Besides cultivating startups with high potential, there are a number of ways to bend the defense sector to the needs of Silicon Valley contractors and their VC backers. Here, too, storytelling has a lot of power.

Venture capital managers and their startups often pen high-profile op-eds in which the poor state of ( US) defense is lamented, in which the need for accelerated innovation is emphasized, and in which the possibility that the US might “very likely” become embroiled in” a three-front war with China, Russia and Iran” is conjured up. In essence, the urgency is conveyed, which encourages the promotion of businesses that are aware of the coming crisis.

A second pillar in the structural overhaul of defense is to employ an intricate network of former government employees who serve either as lobbyists or as advisers with close links to the government.

For instance, in August 2024, former Republican Congressman Mike Gallagher assumed the role of Palantir’s head of defense operations, and H. R. McMaster, former National Security Advisor, is senior advisor to Shield Capital.

There are many more such “revolving door” moments in which credible experts lend their authority to the new startups. Like most Silicon Valley creations, the military tech startup scene has a certain reputation, and the money is also appealing.

Anduril, having learned from Palantir, hired a slew of lobbyists in the first week, spending more money on “lawyers and lobbyists than engineers” as Luckey noted in a recent interview with The Economist.

With this, Anduril adopts a relatively traditional method of shaping the defense industry, which is also employed by top defense contractors, who are “investing heavily on teams of lawyers and lobbyists to shape program requirements in line with the company’s existing technology,” as Anduril acknowledges in a 2022 blog post.

Anduril, and its backers, are now doing the very same, tailored to their own suite of technologies. The attorneys are frequently employed as a means of using the law as a tool to compel reform as well as to oversee mergers, acquisitions, and partnerships.

The primary goal of the SpaceX and Palantir lawsuits against the US Army and Air Force, which I mentioned earlier, was not necessarily to win ( Space X’s lawsuit was not successful, Palantir’s was ) but to pry open space for acquisitions overhaul and both lawsuits achieved just that.

A strategy of promoting a sense of urgency, working with lobbyists, and creating the structural potential for a defense overhaul is now well underway. To be clear, I am not arguing that the defense sector would not benefit from modernization or restructuring.

I don’t want to say that all new military products are unsustainable or irrelevant. I am also not seeking to pit the primes against the new venture capital dynamics and their focus on growth.

But what I believe is worth looking into are the dynamics at play with these new businesses and their implicit priorities and interests, since they will influence how practices and priorities are decided. And where disruption is at work, some level of breakage is to be expected. In terms of life and death, this has a different tone.

Disruption debris

The disruption in the defense sector is already well underway, and efforts to remake it in the style of Silicon Valley have had a number of positive effects in recent years. The JADC2 program mentioned earlier is one.

Others are evident in programs like the US Department of Defense’s Replicator Initiative, which incorporates the aims, timelines and products that Silicon Valley military startups have to offer.

Defense officials are repeating the venture capital industry’s talking points, and various acquisition programs have changed to accommodate the required speed and scale. These companies have the ear of policymakers and the demands for a quasi-spiritual” Defense Reformation” are finding a growing audience.

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What are the possible effects, then?

When Uber disrupted the private transport industry, it left in its wake a raft of eroded labor laws, worker’s rights and healthcare provisions for drivers. When AirBnB’s industry boomed, rental costs increased in well-known tourist destinations. When you try to create a monopoly, there are always social and political consequences. These effects are frequently predictable, but occasionally not.

Disrupting the defense acquisitions process comes, at the very minimum, at the expense of greater oversight of the acquisitions process. The technology industry is not known for being aware of the limits of regulations. Quite the contrary. Some of the most well-known investors in the new military startup scene are most vehemently opposed to any form of regulation.

VC heavyweight Marc Andreessen, for example, famously penned a Techno-Optimist manifesto in which he names risk management, trust and safety measures and the precautionary principles as” the enemy”.

Less regulation results in less oversight and accountability for spending, as well as for how and where specific technologies are used, and what effects are caused by them. This much is evident.

However, the rapid deployment and deployment of military technologies for battle may have many other, highly plausible, unforeseen effects. One is the refocusing on risk and experimentation.

The most recent crop of military startup technologies, such as AI-enabled drones and AI decision support systems, are being tested and improved both live and during ongoing conflicts, such as the Russia-Ukraine war, as well as in Gaza. This is a form of prototyping which is becoming increasingly prominent and which needs an active battlefield for effective testing, iteration and optimizing of the technologies.

This also means that it is possible to use outdated technologies that will only be tested and improved as you go along. It normalizes, if not promotes, the launch and sale of flawed and possibly inadequate AI products, which will inevitably cause harm to innocent civilians caught in the crosshairs of conflict.

We can already see this as a result of technology companies ‘ efforts to sell their large language models to military organizations. Scale AI, for example, has teamed up with Meta to sell an LLM product, Defense Llama, for defense purposes. The organization claims that the system needs “absolutely to involve people.”

But given the well-known fact that LLMs are prone to what are known as hallucinations, the chances that such technologies will work exactly as advertised are slim for a context so complex and dynamic as warfare. People who are in the middle of this experimentation, fine-tuning, and live testing may suffer as a result.

It is a key concern that the technology might not be suitable for the unexpected, for the less calculable or less foreseeable elements in warfare. That includes potential new terrorist threats or actions by those nations that are frequently viewed as irrational, like North Korea, for instance.

Anduril CEO, Luckey, admitted as much in the interview I opened with. He acknowledged that potential enemies who reject the game’s theoretical foundation on which much of the AI logic for defense rests:” Each of whom is responsible for the logic on which his weapons are built falls apart.”

” It’s very hard to engage in game theory with people who pursue the non-game theory optimal strategy…It’s like playing monopoly with the person who is going to drop out and give all their money to somebody else”.

A significant impediment to something that is so rife with chance as warfare. There are also second and third-order effects that emanate from this shift toward venture capital logic.

By presenting an imminent threat, the global risk and security landscape may change, by placing greater emphasis on weapons technologies, funding for alternative approaches to conflict might be restrained, and by dedicating more money to technologies that are still being tested and may not have permanence, significant amounts of money that would be better spent elsewhere might be wasted.

But this is a land of make-believe and unicorns, where such considerations are as speculative as the much-hyped promises of AI weapons as the defenders of democracy.

The “move fast and break things” motto in Silicon Valley implies that issues that arise during the development of the technology can always be addressed and resolved later. In the world of defense and war, the harm produced by this kind of risk-taking cannot so easily be undone.

Elke Schwarz is a lecturer at Queen Mary University of London’s Political Theory program.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the article’s introduction.

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Beijing calls Biden a ‘liar’ and says hello to Trump – Asia Times

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After incoming US President Joe Biden’s current moves to enact a stronger trade restrictions against China, Beijing has launched fierce protests against the US. &nbsp,

Biden made three significant goes against China during the last year before handing his control to Republican President-elect Donald Trump on January 20.

While China’s Foreign Ministry criticized Biden for failing to “have a correct strategy perception and match words with actions”, Chinese media and commentators directly called Biden a “liar” and a “villain” .&nbsp, &nbsp,

The state-owned China Daily reported in an editor on January 15 that the Biden presidency has been taking the last few times before it leaves business to significantly worsen for blind economic abuse and coercion.

President Biden proclaimed from his first day in office that he would handle the country’s” complicated and significant relations with China” in a “responsible” manner, but over the past four years he has veered resolutely to a very careless way.

Meng Yan, a Shanxi-based military journalist, says in an article that Biden has” entirely torn off the face of dishonesty, revealed a violent encounter and stabbed China time and again since previous November”.

” We don’t need to explain how dishonest and obscene he was in the past.” His new behavior demonstrated that he did not possess kind deeds and thoughts,” Meng says. ” He is a villain”.

He claims that during this four-year name, Biden has broken his promise to stop fighting a “new Cold War” and overhaul China’s program.

Nevertheless, Chinese President Xi Jinping on January 17 held a phone call with Trump to discuss business, Taiwan and other problems, Xinhua reported.

Xi told Trump that it is obvious that China and the US, two main countries with different national circumstances, have some variations. He claimed that the secret to understanding each other’s main concerns and interests is to find the best ways to solve problems.

Trump stated in a post on Truth Social that” the visit was a very good one for both China and the USA.” I anticipate that we will work together and begin right away to address some issues.

He added:” We discussed balancing business, fentanyl, TikTok and many other topics. I pledge to make the world more quiet and secure under President Xi.

Biden’s last goes

Biden unveiled the regulatory framework on January 14 that did start limiting imports of British AI chips and models on January 31.

The regulatory model could:

  1. If high-end AI cards are sent to foreign countries outside of the US, US companies must qualify for trade licenses.
  2. If businesses want to buy US cards for their data centers, &nbsp, or other closely related countries, they must apply for validated end-user position.
  3. If closed-source AI models that have been trained on a high level of computing power ( more than 1026 operations ) are shipped to foreign countries, US companies are required to apply for export licenses. (” Open-weight” AI models allow developers to build upon and adapt previous work while” closed-source” AI models, such as ChatGPT, keep their code and training data confidential. ) &nbsp,

In brief, the US will allow unrestricted access to its high-end AI systems for America’s closest friends, cap the number of Artificial cards that can be exported to most places and forbid China, Russia, Iran and North Korea from obtaining the systems.

” This coverage will help develop a trusted technology habitat around the world and allow us to safeguard against the national security risks associated with AI,” said US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. &nbsp,

With this guideline,” We’ve done that, and it will help protect the most cutting-edge AI systems and keep the benefits from our foreign opponents,” according to the statement.

This did not go over well in Beijing. In a press briefing on January 16, Guo Jiakun, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, stated that” the US keeps overstretching the concept of regional stability, politicizing and weaponizing commerce and technology issues, and using sanctions as a go-to tool.” What the US does is common abuse and economic force. China is deeply opposed to it and deplores it.

The most recent round of US chip restrictions, according to Sidley Austin LLP, differs from previous ones in many ways. &nbsp,

It said the biggest shifts of the US device restrictions apply to nations” in the middle,” those that are neither clear US friends nor obvious US enemies. Additionally, the US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security ( BIS ) chose to “regulate first, collect comments later” toward a significant revision of US export controls.

It claimed that the new regulations represent a significant change in how to control quantitative inputs for an AI concept itself.

ASML is affected

On April 1, the French authorities announced that it would change its regional trade power measure for advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment on January 15. It stated that more types of technology will be subject to a national authorization requirement as of that time.

Reinette Klever, the government’s foreign trade and development minister, claimed that the government had noticed increased security risks linked to the unrestricted export of chip-making equipment. &nbsp,

ASML, the world’s largest chip-making equipment maker, is expected to be hurt by the Dutch government’s latest decision. &nbsp,

Additionally, on January 15, the BIS made 25 Chinese companies and two Singapore-based companies members of its Entity List in two final rules. &nbsp,

It accused them of supporting China’s development of advanced weapons systems, weapons of mass destruction, and high-tech surveillance applications, as well as of supporting advanced AI research and development.

Among the sanctioned, Sophgo was accused by the US of having ordered AI chips from Taiwan’s TSMC for Huawei. &nbsp,

Yong Jian contributes to the Asia Times. He is a Chinese journalist who specializes in Chinese technology, economy and politics. &nbsp,

Read: Why China’s Ice Silk Road has Trump up in Arctic arms

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Stagnant pay, skills and jobs mismatch: How can Malaysia tackle these 3 ‘paradoxes’?

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Edwin Oh Chun Kit, a researcher at the Institute of Strategic Analysis and Policy Research ( INSAP ), a Malaysia think tank, warned that these paradoxes, if unaddressed, will increase the risk of further long-term economic stagnation.

To ensure position with market demands, he told CNA,” The management may try to optimize inter-ministerial coordination and strengthen oversight for both TVET and higher education.”

Companies may also consult with the government and collaborate with educational organizations to “provide real-world insight into evolving workplace needs,” Oh remarked.

MAKING TVET MORE ATTRACTIVE

TVET aims to produce grads in fields like manufacturing, design, medical and data technology with skills related to business needs.

TVET classes, which range from amounts 1 to 5 with the highest being similar to an innovative certificate or associate degree, are offered at public and private universities, colleges and community schools across Malaysia.

” With greater collaboration in these attempts, Malaysia can successfully bridge the skills imbalance, improve labour market results, and drive sustainable socioeconomic growth”, Oh added.

Malaysia produces about 100, 000 TVET graduates each year. According to Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who is also the chairman of the National TVET Council, the government is aiming to attract 500, 000 students this year to all 1, 398 TVET institutions nationwide.

” The courses provided are tailored to meet employer demands, particularly from industries, and Memorandums of Agreement have been signed between TVET institutions and employers”, he said on Jan 11 as quoted by Bernama.

This implies that TVET graduates will immediately be employed by these employers after finishing their courses.

In a bid to make TVET more attractive, Sim said he had proposed to the Cabinet to introduce levels 6, 7 and 8 for the programme,” sort of” equivalent to a bachelor’s degree, master’s degree and a doctorate.

Other plans include promoting access to TVET through the creation of a “skill university” without a fixed term schedule and racial quota, Sim said, adding that students from all backgrounds can enroll at any time.

TVET NOT LIKE UNIVERSITY EDUCATION

Sim did warn that the changes are not intended to make TVET more like a university education, noting that the latter is not designed to meet the demands of the day.

” We have to rethink university. I think, essentially, university is for you to go ( for ) four years ( of ) deep thinking. Consider the purpose of life. What is love? What is pain? What is death? Where is God? Who is God”? he said.

However, such a training model may not necessarily benefit the industry. Which is why the obsession with making TVET to be like university, I think we should change”.

Sim later clarified that a university education was still required for such philosophical training but not for current industrial requirements.

” What I’m trying to say is this: If you believe the current university model will be able to meet the demand for your job market, then you are delusional. Because universities … (are ) not created for the industrialised world”, he added.

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China plans to blow Starlink out of the sky in a Taiwan war – Asia Times

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The important part place would play in a Taiwan Strait conflict is highlighted by China’s strong moves to counter Starlink’s martial applications with cutting-edge satellite disruption methods.

This month, the South China Morning Post (SCMP ) reported that Chinese scientists have developed a method to target SpaceX’s Starlink satellite constellation. According to SCMP, the technique is used to simulate a space mission that could use 99 Chinese satellites to view nearly 1,400 Starlink satellites in less than 12 hours.

The study, led by Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics director Wu Yunhua, features Starlink’s martial applications as seen in the Ukraine conflict.

According to the Chinese team’s computer model, China could effectively monitor and control the functional status of Starlink satellites, which are equipped with lasers, microwaves, and other types of reconnaissance and tracking equipment. The SCMP report cites a fresh linear AI engine that was used to mimic the whale hunting strategy.

Wu’s team claims to have created an unheard technology that makes it possible for computers at the surface command center to create a detailed and trustworthy action strategy in less than two hours.

Additionally, it states that the Harbin Institute of Technology, which is also a member of the job, has received significant funding from the Foreign government and military.

China is officially developing anti-satellite systems to counteract the Starlink network’s perceived military threat, which has shown geopolitical utility in Ukraine by enabling real-time battle coordination.

Foreign researchers advocate” soft and hard remove methods” to destroy Starlink’s distributed star, which provides resilient connection through over 2, 300 satellites.

Targeting individual Starlink satellites is deemed inefficient, instead, China has explored disruptive technologies, including the Relativistic Klystron Amplifier ( RKA ), a high-power microwave weapon capable of disabling sensitive satellite electronics. But, deploying for techniques faces challenges, including dish heat and power demands.

China is also developing advanced directed-energy arms like solid-state laser mounted on spacecraft and is exploring the potential of X-ray beams, which are concepts from the US Strategic Defense Initiative ( SDI) to destroy some satellites simultaneously. This strategy aims to remedy the standard anti-satellite arms’ cost-exchange imbalance.

The logic for these programs stems from Starlink’s confirmed defense advantages, such as boosting US drones ‘ and cunning fighters’ data speeds by 100-fold, and its important role in Ukraine’s field successes, including the sinking of the Russian cruiser Moskva.

China’s rely on such technology reflects a broader strategy to mitigate Starlink’s features and maintain space superiority, especially in scenarios like a Taiwan issue.

Noting Starlink’s effectiveness in the Ukraine war, Juliana Suess mentions in a January 2023 article for the Royal United Service Institute ( RUSI) that Taiwan, inspired by Ukraine, is developing its Low-Earth orbit ( LEO ) satellite communications system.

According to Suess, the project was announced by the Taiwanese Space Agency in December 2022 and aims to give Taiwan a sovereign capability for independent communications in the event of a Chinese invasion.

She points out that the system is designed to protect Taiwan’s undersea cables, which currently serve as the backbone of its external communications, from potential attacks.

In a July 2024 report for the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, Charles Mok and Kenny Huang highlight the vulnerability of Taiwan’s undersea cables, which the island relies on for its internet connectivity.

Mok and Huang point out that Taiwan has 15 submarine cables that connect it to international digital networks and carry over 99 percent of the world’s data. The risk of unintentional or deliberate cable damage is increased, however, because its location in an earthquake-prone region and its proximity to geopolitical tensions.

They note recent incidents of severed cables near Taiwan, which are believed to be involving Chinese ships, have raised concerns about potential digital blockades. They point out that fixing undersea cables takes time, and that having a few global repair fleets adds to this.

In line with the vulnerabilities of Taiwan’s undersea cable infrastructure, The War Zone reported this month that Taiwanese authorities have accused a Chinese-owned vessel, the Shunxin-39, of severing an undersea communications cable near Keelung Harbor.

According to The War Zone, this incident is the most recent in a line of similar events affecting Taiwan’s underwater infrastructure. The Shunxin-39, which is registered in Cameroon but controlled by a Hong Kong company led by a Chinese national, was discovered to be operating under multiple identities, raising questions of deliberate sabotage.

According to the report, Taiwan’s coast guard attempted to intercept the vessel for investigation, but rough weather prevented boarding. The ship then mentions that it continued its journey to South Korea, where Taiwanese authorities requested assistance with the investigation.

According to The War Zone, the damaged cable from the Trans-Pacific Express network is essential for connecting East Asia to the US West Coast. The report says that although communication was rerouted with minimal disruption, the incident highlights the vulnerability of Taiwan’s undersea infrastructure.

Although satellites are immune from these flaws, Mok and Huang contend that undersea cables cannot be replaced due to their high cost and limited data storage.

Furthermore, Marc Julienne mentions in a November 2024 report for the French Institute of International Relations ( IFRI ) that while ambitious, Taiwan’s LEO satellite program faces several key challenges.

First, Julienne makes a note of the fact that the use of foreign partners for satellite launches highlights the lack of local launch capabilities, a significant impediment to achieving full space power status. Although autonomous launch vehicles are in the works, he claims that development is still slow, with test flights only scheduled for 2028.

Second, he claims that efforts to create a domestically controlled LEO broadband satellite constellation are hampered by the limited experience in space-based communications among Taiwan’s traditional space actors and the lack of satellite communication expertise within its industrial base.

Julienne says these challenges are compounded by Taiwan’s geographic and geopolitical vulnerabilities, such as reliance on submarine cables for internet connectivity, which are prone to natural disasters and potential sabotage by adversaries.

He makes the point that Taiwan’s efforts to improve” communication resilience” through satellite constellations are important but require significant financial and human capital investments. However, he says Taiwan’s burgeoning space sector struggles to attract and retain talent, with many engineers favoring higher-paying opportunities in semiconductors or working overseas.

Finally, Julienne says navigating the geopolitical sensitivities of space development, particularly in maintaining civilian oversight and avoiding provocative military applications, adds complexity to Taiwan’s ambitions.

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Thai cabinet approves controversial casino Bill

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BANGKOK: &nbsp, Thailand’s cabinet approved a controversial Bill on Monday ( Jan 13 ) to legalise gambling in designated “entertainment complexes” to boost tourism and create jobs. The proposed legislation would permit games to be built within resorts and other entertainment complexes, including water parks, hotels, and shopping malls. IllegalContinue Reading

Philippine sect gathers to oppose VP Duterte impeachment

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More than a million members of a powerful religious sect gathered in Manila on Monday ( Jan 13 ), according to police, in opposition to Vice President Sara Duterte’s election campaign. For the “national rally for peace,” organized by the conservative Iglesia ni Cristo ( Church of Christ ), crowdsContinue Reading

Will Japan win or lose under Trump 2.0? – Asia Times

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Japan is experiencing something of an economic judgment that government officials seem to be omitted yet before Donald Trump’s resumption of office.

In at least four of the last five weeks of the year, Japan’s household saving fell. ” At least” is used here because the December numbers aren’t yet known. In November, real spending dropped 0.4 % year on year. There is no compelling reason to believe that stuff improved in the final 30 days of 2025.

The point is that the “virtuous cycle” Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba‘s Liberal Democratic Party ( LDP ) has promised since 2012 still hasn’t arrived. That’s despite all the vodka cork-popping from the flower when labor organizations received their biggest increase in 33 years.

Ishiba has merely led since October 1st. And with approval ratings in the mid-20s, he might not be about much longer. Maybe that’s why Ishiba didn’t even get a meeting with Trump, despite meeting with nearly every planet leader imaginable, including Prince William. Just not that of Japan, Trump 1.0’s leading supporter among democratic governments.

It’s on Ishiba’s see, nevertheless, that Japan’s pre-existing financial circumstances are catching up with the area. These include obstinate efforts to increase productivity and meritocracy in the labour force, lessen bureaucracy, revive the innovation that Japan Inc. was again famous for, empower women, and encourage more foreign corporations to relocate to Tokyo.

More than address these financial problems, the LDP continues to fiddling with the signs. Look no further than the Bank of Japan’s ( BOJ) interest rate policies, which have been stifled around zero for 25 years. The BOJ still lacks the will to raise rates above the current 0. 25 %.

Whatever happened to Shinzo Abe’s strong prepare 12 years ago to recreate Japan’s economic model? Sure, the late prime minister cajoled companies to increase shareholder price, driving the Nikkei 225 Stock Average to all-time peaks. However, as 2025 draws near, worldwide investors are realizing that their optimism is not being matched by recent and bold reform initiatives in Tokyo.

Nor is Asia’s second-biggest business firing on some cylinder. Regular wages aren’t keeping up with inflation, which is one reason why house spending is sluggish. What makes everyone believe they’ll feed their paychecks as the Trump 2.0 era begins if CEOs were unwilling to do so in 2024?

According to Takafumi Fujita, an economist at Meiji Yasuda Research Institute,” It’s feared that higher taxes that President Trump has promised on China and other nations could stifle the global business and eventually hit Japan.”

Along with financial stability, international cooperation initiatives seem very much at risk.

” The US, Europe and Japan reconnected in a revitalized, cohesive G7 on issues such as financial sanctions, cybercrime, anti-money laundering and helping Ukraine against Russia”, says Mark Sobel, &nbsp, US chairman at the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum ( OMFIF ). ” But that unification, too, is likely to fight as Trump 2.0 introduces uncertainty and fluctuation”.

The same holds true for governmental evils that threaten the global financial system. As Sobel puts it:” Public debt is high in the US, many of Europe, Japan and China. In the US, the macroeconomic direction is unsustainable. Trump is likely to increase imbalances from the already excessively high level of 7 % of GDP, pushing up longer-term rates, hurting funding and causing business nausea. Does bond vigilantes gain”?

The BOJ is in a specially difficult status because of this. It is possible for the BOJ to delay the rate increase and maintain the policy for a while if the Chinese economy is adversely impacted by the US price boost without a matching depreciation of the yen, according to Hitoshi Asaoka, senior strategist at Asset Management One.

Frank Benzimra, mind of Asia capital approach at Societe Generale, notes that “in the coming months, the capital markets look set to be shaped by China –the level of governmental support – the US – the dollar, trade, diplomacy and the Bank of Japan – the possible catalyst for carry-trade sleeping – policies. The goal won’t have to be “bearish” in any way.

However, optimism abounds in Asian business circles. According to a Kyodo News survey, nearly 80 % of Japan’s top companies believe that the local market will continue to grow in 2025 as wage increases stimulate consumer spending.

However, every zig-and-zag may require a lot of market adaptation. ” Markets will be quite volatile but without much significant net direction, as the perceived odds of these different]tariff ] scenarios oscillate”, says Phil Suttle, principal at Suttle&nbsp, Economics.

That goes, also, for northern banks from Tokyo to Washington. According to Daniel McCormack, head of research at Macquarie Asset Management,” a significant amount of core bank easing is currently priced into most rates markets, while credit spreads have tightened in recent months and are now somewhat thin by traditional standards.”

This, according to McCormack, “limits the upside in terms of returns for bonds, and equity asset classes are likely to benefit more from the macroeconomic environment that we anticipate seeing in 2025.” That said, yields have improved significantly in recent years, and absolute returns in 2025 should be healthy by historical standards.

Bond markets have moved to price in aggressive easing cycles by most major central banks in the upcoming quarters, with the notable exception of the Bank of Japan, for which further increases are priced, following clear signals from central bank officials that further easing is likely.

As such, many BOJ watchers still think it’s full speed ahead for rate hikes. Takeshi Yamaguchi, chief Japan economist at Morgan Stanley MUFG, says”, we retain our base-case forecast of a rate hike in January.”

The BOJ will need to raise the policy interest rate and adjust the degree of monetary accommodation, according to BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda, who recently stated that “if economic activity and prices continue to improve, the BOJ will need to do so.”

And that “uncertainties regarding the incoming US administration’s economic policies” and how the annual Spring labor management wage negotiations will develop will have the final say on Japanese rates.

Izumi Devalier, an economist at Bank of America, says that Ueda’s comments” gave a stronger indication that the central bank may need to wait until at least the March&nbsp, monetary policy meeting to gain&nbsp, sufficient information&nbsp, to make the judgment for a hike.”

With a BOJ rate hike unlikely until March at the earliest, says Tony Sycamore, market analyst at IG Australia”, the risk of dollar-yen testing extending its rally towards 160/162 in early 2025 remains elevated “from 157 now.

Asaoka anticipates that the BOJ will increase the policy rate, which is regarded as neutral, to 1 % by the end of 2025. ” He adds that” if the Trump administration’s policies lead the Federal Reserve to pause rate cuts in 2025, the BOJ will find it relatively easier to proceed with rate hikes.”

Some investors are betting on the return of the good times for Japanese stocks given that scenario.

” We expect the Nikkei 225 will reach 45, 400 and TOPIX to 3, 190 by the end of 2025 “from 39, 190 now, says Hisashi Shiraki, strategist at Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management.

He continues,” While foreign investors ‘ appetite for Japanese stocks appears sluggish, a sizable amount of share buybacks, up to 17 trillion yen in fiscal year 2024, could protect the downside and boost the stock market going forward.”

There’s an argument, too, that Japan Inc could benefit from deeper troubles being suffered elsewhere, says Junichi Inoue, head of Japanese equities at Janus Henderson Investors.

” Due to Japanese stocks ‘ comparatively low valuations versus global equities, and ongoing governance reforms contributing to return-on-equity improvements, we expect the market to demonstrate a certain level of resilience,” Inoue says.

Inoue also points out that” for these reasons, we think that Japanese equities can be seen as attractive risk-reward asset classes, deserving of an allocation in a diversified portfolio, particularly those that are exposed to global markets and global growth.”

However, such views may be deflated by global risks. Japan would absorb a lot of economic shrapnel, perhaps even more, despite Trump’s threatened trade war targeting China. For all China’s challenges, Xi Jinping’s team has been busily diversifying exports to Global South economies around the globe.

Shunsuke Kobayashi, chief economist at Mizuho Securities, acknowledges hope that Trump’s proposed tax reductions will help Japanese companies with significant US exposure offset the risks and increase profits. But either way, a giant trade war would slam Japan’s gross domestic product.

According to Kobayashi,” If that happens, capital investment would decline because we anticipate that exports will decline, ultimately affecting the broader economy.”

That could make Japan Inc. even less willing to raise wages. Japan has been more reluctant to turn its back on the American consumer. In Tokyo, there are no signs that the Fed will not be cutting interest rates as quickly as it had hoped.

Indeed, the Trumpian headwinds to come make 2025 a perilous time for Japan. Last month, the BOJ chose not to hike rates, which it later confirmed. Ahead of that December 19 decision, traders were primed for Ueda to tighten. Many felt its refusal to act smacked of fear, not pragmatism.

For the first time since 2011, traders last week pushed 10-year yields above 1.1 %, a clear indication that the BOJ erred by not raising.

” It’s like the rug was pulled out from under us,” Kazuhiko Sano, chief bond strategist at Tokai Tokyo Securities, tells Nikkei Asia.

Why should corporate executives and global investors if the BOJ doesn’t believe Japan is ready to abandon its financial training wheels?

Granted, there are legitimate arguments to support Japan Inc. companies that are cash-rich in their governance positions. Japan, after all, has carved out a place for itself as an Asia-region safe haven as deflation plagues China.

However, there will come a point when investors examine the underlying economy and wonder whether policy changes are keeping up with the level of optimism that is pervading the market.

A lack of household demand may give too many investors pause about Japan’s chances in the Trump 2.0 era as more and more investors look for an answer.

Of course, surprises are always possible. On the eve of July elections, Ishiba might find his reformist sea-legs and cling to power.

Trump might choose to prioritize a trade agreement with Xi’s China over a tariff-free arms race. Or perhaps the newly elected president will treat ally Japan favorably in the marketplace while punishing China.

But as a highly uncertain year begins, Japan’s past could catch up with it just as Ueda’s BOJ and Ishiba’s LDP stumble in the present.

Follow William Pesek on X at @WilliamPesek

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Bangkok unveils work-from-home policy amid air pollution

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PUBLISHED: 13 Jan 2025 at 08: 34

Thick smog shrouds Bangkok on Jan 9. (Photo: Pattarapong Chatpattaraprasill)
Bangkok is covered in thick haze on January 9. ( Photo: Pattarapong Chatpattaraprasill )

On Monday, Bangkok government Chadchart Sittipunt will make an announcement regarding a new work-from-home plan and expanding the city’s fresh air house project, which aims to prevent PM2.5 fine dirt pollution.

Mr Chadchart on Sunday reported improvements in the city’s air quality, with PM2.5 levels averaging 24.9 microgrammes per cubic metre (µg/m³ ) due to favourable weather conditions, strong winds and high ventilation rates. However, he said sand levels are expected to rise suddenly on Wednesday.

The government also mentioned programs to reduce work-from-home measures to encourage voluntary cooperation, which will also reduce traffic congestion, one element driving up PM2.5 amounts. On Monday, facts of the rules may be revealed. The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration ( BMA ) is preparing to use three strategies to address the PM2.5 dust problem. We will work from home if the PM2.5 amount reaches a critical stage that threatens open heath, he said.

Additionally, BMA will shut down schools and forbid traffic entering internal Bangkok on wheels of lorries. BMA spokesman Aekvarunyoo Amrapala highlighted the BMA’s work with various organisations, including the Thai Health Promotion Foundation ( ThaiHealth ), the Public Health Ministry’s Department of Health and Fulfill Social Enterprise Limited Partnership.

These actions are intended to inform individuals about the dangers that air pollution poses for their wellbeing. Initial involvement for the program is 32 BMA universities, and it will grow to 437. As part of the project, 405 air quality panels may be provided to classrooms by the Fulfill Social Enterprise Limited Partnership. To day, 382 panels have been handed over, with 17 products in the shipping process.

The BMA’s Department of Education even plans to create dust-free rooms for school students in 429 institutions in the 2025 fiscal year, covering 1, 996 rooms. Improvements include air-conditioning, air systems and carbon monoxide displays. In order to promote green city development, renewable energy, and environmental sustainability, the BMA is also working with the Metropolitan Electricity Authority ( MEA ) to install solar panels in schools.

The program is targeting medium and large colleges, and will start with a test at 50 with regular energy bills exceeding 50, 000 ringgit later this month, said Mr Aekvarunyoo.

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