ASEAN: From ‘Circumvention Export Hub’ to ‘Value Creation Hub’

U Kyaw Moe Tun has kept a low profile at the General Assembly for years, part of an arrangement to keep his post despite the military-backed government’s efforts to remove him.

US President Donald Trump has sold shares worth tens of millions of US dollars in major tech companies, including Microsoft, Amazon and Meta Platforms in July, a move that may reveal some of his views on the sector, especially as competition with China intensifies. Microsoft topped the list of sales transactions, with six trades totalling up to US$31 million, according to filings disclosed by the US Office of Government Ethics on Tuesday. The data detailed Trump’s trading activity in July,...

While starting salaries for fresh graduates and entry-level workers in Singapore continue to creep upwards, the number of people in entry-level roles is shrinking, according to new data, indicating an increasingly tough job market for those at the start of their careers. Data published last month by global professional services firm Aon showed a 2.5 per cent year-on-year salary increase for entry-level employees, alongside a 3.2 per cent drop in entry-level headcount. The findings come as...

Chinese storage makers, long known for packaging chips into modules, have been moving up the value chain into wafer-level operations, with the latest firm to make the jump investing 4.5 billion yuan (US$672 million) in an advanced packaging project. The sum, which Shanghai-listed Biwin Storage Technology will pour into the third phase of its advanced packaging and testing project in Dongguan, in southern China’s Guangdong province, will exceed the 3.09 billion yuan it put into the first two...

Inside a car wash lounge in the southern Philippine city of Davao, Shenilane Formento scrolls through messages on her Chinese-made Oppo phone as she waits for a customer to pay. Formento, 29, has worked as a cashier for about a year. She follows developments in the South China Sea through news reports shared on her social media feeds, including frequent confrontations between Philippine and Chinese forces in the disputed waters. While she found such incidents “disappointing”, she ultimately...

India has joined a new multilateral grouping comprising a cross-regional mix of middle powers, in a move analysts say reflects New Delhi’s efforts to broaden its diplomatic options as it pushes for changes to the global order. External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar co-chaired the inaugural Partners for Multilateralism (P4M) Summit on Monday, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. “We meet at a time when the global order is under stress,” Jaishankar said...

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said the United Nations should scrub the World War II-era designation from its Charter. China and Russia have used the term recently to attack Japan.

Brunei’s measured defence ties with Beijing reflect its low-key approach to South China Sea disputes, with analysts saying that goals such as peacekeeping offer the safest room for both sides to maintain diplomacy. A meeting between Bruneian and Chinese defence officials in Beijing last week, when both nations pledged closer practical cooperation and support for regional stability, underscored that tact. But observers also expect ties to remain modest, constrained by maritime claims and Bandar...

The Philippine government is exploring nuclear power options to guard against global energy shocks. One proposal is to switch on a plant in Bataan that has been mothballed for 40 years.

The lawyer for an Indonesian businessman arrested in Singapore for allegedly using counterfeit S$10,000 (US$7,830) notes at a casino has said his client was a victim of fraud himself. The businessman, identified only as Steven, is accused of exchanging 34 fake S$10,000 notes for chips over three visits to the Resorts World Sentosa casino in June. The notes were accepted but later found to be counterfeit. His lawyer, Dosma Sijabat, told Tempo news magazine on Tuesday that the fake bills did not...

The U.S. Embassy said a draft law allowing users to opt out of systems that choose what they can see in their feeds could amount to censorship.