Day: November 21, 2025

Taiwan’s military plans to allocate more than NT$1 billion (US$32 million) for drone technology integration as the island scales up its uncrewed platforms and bolsters asymmetric warfare capabilities amid growing pressure from Beijing. Advertisement According to a budget document recently submitted to Taiwan’s legislature, the Armaments Bureau will spend more than NT$1.01 billion from 2026 to 2028 on a “forward-looking multi-integration development project” for uncrewed platforms, with NT$507 million to be executed in the first year. The initiative aims to develop core technologies that would allow drones to operate without…

For Gu Chuan and his wife, relocating from China to Japan appeared to be a logical choice. Advertisement Last year, when China’s economy slowed and optimism about job prospects dimmed, the Beijing-based tech worker did not want his family to put all its eggs in one basket. The couple considered several options. Hong Kong was ruled out as too far from home, and so was the United States because of its myriad disputes with Beijing. They finally decided that Gu’s wife would go to Japan to study for an MBA…

The steep rise in memory chip prices is expected to continue on the back of heightened demand from the artificial intelligence industry, while average consumers are likely to pay more for a new smartphone, according to analysts. Advertisement Memory chip prices were forecast to increase 30 per cent in the fourth quarter this year and a further 20 per cent in 2026, following a 50 per cent surge year to date, Counterpoint Research said in a report on Thursday. The higher cost reflects the rapid shift in strategy for the…

Over the Hexi Corridor, a ribbon of fertile land on the edge of the Gobi Desert blessed by the Yellow River in western China, a gleaming forest of wind turbines and solar farms stretches to the horizon. Advertisement This is Gansu, China’s renewables frontier, a major source of wind and solar energy. And yet, just beyond the dunes, another giant stirs. At the Changle Power Plant, turbines roar to life as another 1-gigawatt coal unit comes online – six reactors now pulsing with the energy that could meet the needs…

Former president Mauricio Macri warned on Friday that Argentina could weaken its export base if it distances itself from China, sharpening his public split with President Javier Milei. Advertisement “China is more complementary than the United States for Argentina. I do not think it is good to interrupt that process,” he said. A long-time Milei ally, Macri was instrumental in the ultra-libertarian president’s 2023 election victory. Known as a moderating voice within the country’s right-wing faction, he is credited by diplomats and media for tempering the president’s harsh rhetoric against…

In 2004, Joshua Cooper Ramo, now co-CEO of Kissinger Associates, coined the term “Beijing Consensus” as an alternative to the Washington Consensus, the neoliberal framework of economic policies devised in the 1980s by the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and US Treasury. Advertisement China had just joined the World Trade Organization and, within the country, there was considerable scepticism that a Beijing Consensus existed. Come 2007, and as the global financial crisis broke out – first with the US subprime and then the European debt crises – the world looked…

The first test for a much-celebrated US–China trade truce is looming. Advertisement US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent hopes to finalise a rare earth deal by next week’s Thanksgiving holiday, but experts say a breakthrough is unlikely as the two sides maintain sharply different narratives of what was discussed and agreed on key issues. From rare earths to soybeans, three weeks after Chinese President Xi Jinping and his American counterpart, Donald Trump, were photographed smiling and shaking hands after a meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in…