Month: May 2023

Fake Signals and American Insurance: How a Dark Fleet Moves Russian Oil

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The Cathay Phoenix is not a lone rogue ship, but one of at least three tankers identified by The New York Times taking extraordinary steps to hide their true activity, a practice that helps them to elude U.S. government oversight and puts their American insurer at risk of violating recent sanctions on Russian crude oil. For years, ships wanting to hide their whereabouts have resorted to turning off the transponders all large vessels use to signal their location. But the tankers tracked by The Times go beyond this, using cutting-edge…

One Chinese Netizen’s Perspective on the Ukraine War

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Advertisement When I talk to European friends in Beijing, I am often asked what Chinese people “really think” of Ukraine war. It’s difficult to answer. I can only say that Chinese people have various ideas and do not fully support Russia or Ukraine. There are some polls that have aimed to get a more definitive answer. For example, Tsinghua University recently released a survey purportedly showing that more than 80 percent of Chinese people believe the West is responsible for the war, which is equivalent to supporting Russia. Less than…

Nvidia founder Jensen Huang warns about China’s resolve to build its own advanced semiconductors

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“If you weren’t in the chip industry and you wanted to start a chip company, what company would you start? You would start a GPU [company]. And there’s a whole bunch of GPU start-ups in China,” Huang reportedly said. “The amount of resources that has been dedicated to this area in China … is quite massive, so you can’t underestimate them.” Advertisement Huang made similar remarks in a recent interview with the Financial Times, warning the Biden administration to be “careful” with its semiconductor restrictions, because “if [China] can’t buy…

Amnesty International Says Uyghur Student Feared Missing in Hong Kong Safe and Sound

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Amnesty International says it has heard from a Uyghur student it said had been missing after arriving in Hong Kong earlier this month. The human rights group issued a statement last week saying Abuduwaili Abudureheman had not been heard from after traveling to Hong Kong from South Korea on May 10 to visit a friend. Amnesty said Abudureheman texted a friend telling him he was being interrogated by Chinese police after arriving in Hong Kong. Amnesty demanded authorities in Hong Kong reveal Abudureheman’s whereabouts, citing fears he had been extradited…

The Lex Newsletter: Tokyo comes to Wall Street (again)

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This article is an on-site version of The Lex Newsletter. Sign up here to get the complete newsletter sent straight to your inbox every Wednesday and Friday Dear reader, Mizuho Financial Group is hardly the first foreign visitor to run a little wild in New York City. Back home in Japan, Mizuho is a relatively conservative lender. But its US arm recently provided financing for a $16bn leveraged buyout of TV ratings business Nielsen Holdings. The US is once again the promised land for some of Japan’s largest financial institutions.…

Chinese tech hub Shenzhen pushes action plan to boost city’s computing resources for AI development amid global rush to create more ChatGPT-like services

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Shenzhen’s initiative for more efficient coordination and allocation of AI computing resources reflects the urgency in China to accelerate development in this field amid US trade sanctions, which have blocked mainland firms’ access to most advanced semiconductors and chip-manufacturing equipment. Chinese institutions have so far launched at least 79 LLMs with over 1 billion parameters, a measure of the size and complexity of a model. LLMs, the technology behind ChatGPT, are deep-learning algorithms that can recognise, summarise, translate, predict and generate text and other content based on knowledge gained from…

Jamie Dimon warns against ‘uncertainty’ in China as factory activity declines

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JPMorgan chair Jamie Dimon has warned of the risk for investor confidence of “uncertainty” about the Chinese government’s policies, as manufacturing data showed that the recovery in the world’s second-largest economy is faltering. His comments came as a contraction in China’s factory activity cast doubt over the country’s growth prospects, shaking regional equity markets against a backdrop of worsening relations with the US. “If you have more uncertainty, somewhat caused by the Chinese government . . . it’s not just going to change foreign direct investment,” Dimon told Bloomberg TV, in response to questions…

China facing ‘more complex’ security challenges, President Xi Jinping says, warns of ‘worst-case’ situation

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In March, in a rare public comment on the US tech rivalry, Xi directly named Washington for leading the Western suppression of China. China recently prohibited its key infrastructure operators from buying products made by US memory chip maker Micron Technology, citing “relatively serious” cybersecurity risks. Chinese security officials have also carried out raids on a few foreign and local consultancy and business intelligence firms. Advertisement Minutes from Tuesday’s meeting published by Xinhua said China needed to speed up the modernisation of the national security system and capabilities, to make…

China vows to take ‘appropriate countermeasures’ against India over journalist visas

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The report also said that of the four China-based Indian journalists, two were not granted visas to return to China, and one was told this month that his accreditation had been revoked but he could remain in the country. “What I can tell you is that for a long time Chinese media reporters have suffered unfair and discriminatory treatment in India,” Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said during a regular press briefing, when asked about the expulsions. Advertisement According to Mao, India had in 2017 “without reason” shortened the…

Guards beat prison inmates to death in Myanmar’s Bago region, sources say

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Guards have severely beaten and interrogated 24 inmates of a prison in Myanmar’s eastern Bago region, according to sources close to the prison. Three of the inmates of Kyaik Sa Kaw Prison in Daik-U township were beaten to death according to one source, while others – in critical condition – were put in a dark room without food for four days. The interrogations were held over several days starting May 25. The source, who wished to remain anonymous for safety reasons, said the prisoners were accused of communicating with members…