China, US a world apart on shaping the future – Asian Media Report

The two superpowers this week laid out sharply opposed views on how to navigate the future, in speeches that were delivered on the same day but were a world apart, in geography and ideas.

In Beijing, Chinese Premier Li Qiang vowed to spend more aggressively to try to drive economic growth.

In Washington, US President Donald Trump pledged to cut back spending to balance the books.

Li said China would be more open to the world and would support the multilateral global order.

Trump in a speech to Congress unveiled a global tariff war against both friends and foes.

This is how Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post depicted the two leaders in its main story on the opening of China's parliament, the National People’s Congress.

“We will remain firm in pursuing a mutually beneficial strategy of opening up, oppose hegemony and power politics, oppose unilateralism and protectionism in all its forms and uphold international fairness and justice,” Li said.

Li once again set the country’s economic growth target at around 5 per cent.

Singapore’s The Straits Times said the central concern of two leaders’ speeches was how to make their countries great at a time when they are engaged in strategic competition.

But the paths they mapped out were completely different. Li was for continuity; Trump was for change.  

“Without naming the US, Mr Li admitted that China faces a challenging international environment fraught with geopolitical tensions that have affected trade, market expectations and investment confidence,” the paper said.

“If China has come up with new tactics to deal with the increased pressures from the US, Mr Li gave little hint of them.”

China’s Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, was due to talk to the press on Friday to give a detailed review of foreign policy.

But Lu Shaye, China’s special envoy for European affairs, gave a small preview of Wang’s talk. SCMP reported Lu said in an informal briefing that America’s treatment of its European allies was quite appalling.

Note: SCMP published a rundown of topics Li discussed on his work report  this week. The topics covered were: fiscal spending; foreign investment; private enterprise; future industries; new role for Hong Kong and Macau; military spending; jobs and consumption; and international friends.

Cybercrime scams ‘Cambodia’s most-lucrative industry’

The human-trafficking ‘scamdemic’ in Myanmar is the focus of international attention but the internet-and-telephone scam and gambling operation in Cambodia is far more intractable, says a transnational crime expert.

Jacob Sims, a columnist with The Diplomat, the Asian online news magazine, says in a long feature article that Thailand earlier this month cut off cross-border telecoms access to the Cambodian town of Poipet, a known scamming hub.

The Cambodian’s Government response was to issue a statement of protest and then claim, against all evidence to the contrary, “that nothing illegal was happening in all those casinos with bars over the windows”.

Thailand is studying the feasibility of building a wall along part of the border with Cambodia to prevent illegal crossings, Bangkok Post reports. The wall would be part of a multinational effort to dismantle the sprawling network of call-scam centres located across Thailand’s borders with Myanmar and Cambodia.

Thailand’s Foreign and Defence ministries have been assigned to discuss the wall with Cambodia authorities, the paper says.

But Sims, who is Cambodian director of the International Justice Mission and who leads a team of investigators in the fight against violent labour exploitation, says Thailand faces a far more sinister and capable criminal adversary in Cambodia than it does in Myanmar.

There, two militia groups control the territory where the online scam operations are located. In Cambodia, the criminal adversary is the state.

“All the evidence suggests that Cambodia’s single most lucrative industry (and the state party’s core patrimonial resource) is a trafficking-cybercrime ring protected by a sovereign shield,” Sims writes.

He says that when Thailand pulled the plug on telecom connection to Poipet, the Cambodian Government took immediate action to protect its top domestic industry. Within days, executives from Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet company were in Phnom Penh and government media were claiming Cambodia had become a priority country for the service (even though Starlink has long been banned there). 

“Establishing reliable connectivity for borderland cybercrime is suddenly a national security priority for the criminal Kingdom,” Sims says.

‘Dunki’ route to US jobs a journey of despair 

India has a huge diaspora of more than 34 million people and the Indian Government views it with pride.

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar once told parliament the diaspora was an asset for the country.

But, asks author Angshuman Kar, is the diaspora always an asset? Do Indians only leave for lucrative jobs?  The issue has arisen with the deportation from the US last month of 104 Indians, shortly before Narendra Modi’s summit meeting with Donald Trump.

Kar answers his questions with a big No.

Writing in The Statesman newspaper, Kar says would-be illegal immigrants to the US travel what is known as the “donkey route” – or Dunki route, a dangerous path that goes through Latin America. Dunki means someone who moves from one place to another.

He tells the story of one of the deportees, Jaspal Singh, a 36-year-old from a Punjab village. It is a tale of exploitation. Singh paid more than $A50,000 to an agent for a promised legal entry to the US but the agent left him stranded in Brazil. He eventually entered the US illegally and was arrested.

Another deportee, Harwinder Singh, paid $A75,000 and was taken on a route that included Qatar, Brazil, Peru, Panama and Mexico. He entered the US and was caught and deported.

Kar recalls a recent incident in which a Dunki flight was stopped in France while refuelling on its way to Nicaragua. On board were 303 Indians and authorities suspected human trafficking. The passengers were labourers working in the UAE and they were being taken to Nicaragua illegally so they could try to enter the US, illegally.

“Reaching a Latin American country is often easier than securing a US visa, so agents first send Dunkis to Latin America,” he writes. “These agents… are known as Dunkars. The cost of using a Dunki route… can be several lakhs (hundred-thousands) of rupees and, in some cases, these agents are also involved in human trafficking.

“…[W]hen it is being claimed that the Indian economy is on its way to becoming one of the largest in the world, why are so many people still leaving the country in search of work abroad?”

Tech wizards grew up in Deng’s reforming China

America has its Tech Titans, sometimes known as the Magnificent Seven*. Now China has the Fantastic Four, symbols of a new generation of entrepreneurs who are reshaping the technological landscape – and helping China compete with the US.

The new tech tsars were born after China, under Deng Xiaoping, began its reform and opening up process. Class struggle was pushed aside and private enterprise was encouraged.

The South China Morning Post lists the Fantastic Four as Liang Wenfeng, founder of AI start-up DeepSeek; Wang Xingxing, founder of Unitree Robotics; Zhang Yiming, of the internet technology company Bytedance; and Wang Tao of DJI, maker of 90 per cent of the world’s consumer drones.

Liang was born in 1985, Unitree’s Wang in 1990, Zhang in 1983 and DJI’s Wang in 1980.

Their upbringing largely coincided with the era of rapid globalisation, the SCMP story says, a time when Western influence left its mark on Chinese society.

It says a key factor in their success was having to survive in China’s highly competitive marketplace. 

“Compared with their Silicon Valley peers, they have been shaped by a local upbringing that fostered competitiveness in a brutal market environment,” the story says.

Winston Ma, an adjunct professor at New York University, says the entrepreneurs were good at taking existing technologies and rapidly testing and scaling them with an attention to detail that improved the user experience and lowered the cost of delivery. 

“If not, you will become history,” Ma says.

Jeffrey Towson, founder of the digital strategy consultant TechMoat, says the Chinese entrepreneurs definitely could compete in global markets if they could survive in China.

“If US business is like soccer, then Chinese business is rugby,” he says. “They are used to playing a rougher sport.”

*The Magnificent Seven are: Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla

Government investment fund backs state-owned business

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto has set up a sovereign wealth fund, with the stated aim of helping the country achieve developed economy status.

But the fund has already come under fire from critics who say it will compete directly with private funds and could discourage them from investing.

“The fund is set to be the biggest in Southeast Asia’s largest economy and will give the ex-general great control of the country’s coffers,” said an article in The Jakarta Post. 

The fund is committed to optimising the role of state-owned enterprises as the backbone of national development, the commentary said. That might contradict previous statements by Prabowo calling for a bigger role for private enterprise.

Prabowo launched the fund late last month. Its formal name is Daya Anagata Nusantara – shortened to Danantara. It has started with a budget of $US20 billion and it plans to build up its assets to $US900 billion.

The fund will report directly to Prabowo.

According to another Post story, Prabowo has floated a plan to place representatives of religious organisations on Danantara’s advisory board. Analysts warned this might be an attempt to dampen criticism of the fund.

Several members of Indonesia’s largest Muslim group, Nahdlutal Ulama, welcomed the suggestion, saying it would have a positive impact on the moral choices of the fund’s executives.

The Indonesian Communion of Churches also welcomed the idea but its chairman said the body was not competent to take part in the oversight of a financial institution. The Indonesian Bishops’ Conference was cautious, saying it had not decided how it might respond.

The Post in another story quoted businessman Hashim Djojohadikusumo as saying China and European countries were interested in collaborating with Danantara.

Hashim, who is Prabowo’s brother, said the fund would serve as a co-investor with foreign companies, to gain their trust.

“Danantara’s role as a co-investor guarantees foreign investors that the state is also taking a risk and […] is responsible for the success of these projects,” he said.

Court annuls ‘good boys and girls’ rule

Thai officialdom values conformity among the young. 

University students wear uniforms and Education Ministry rules insist that schoolgirls’ hair cannot grow below their ears, while schoolboys must put up with short back-and-sides haircuts.

Girls cannot wear make-up and boys cannot sport beards or moustaches.

That was the case until this week, when the Supreme Administrative Court threw out a 1975 regulation that restricted the ways students could style their hair.

The regulation was based on an order imposed by a military junta in 1972, Bangkok Post reported. Its aim, the paper said, was to groom school students to be good boys and girls for their parents and teachers and good citizens for the nation. 

The court annulled the regulation with immediate effect, saying it violated individual freedoms protected by the constitution and was out of touch with a changing society. It was also contrary to provisions of the Child Protection Act of 2003.

The Post said 23 students brought the court action in 2020. The Education Ministry last year had started allowing some flexibility in hairstyles and dress codes.

But Thai Enquirer news site said some teachers still forcibly cut students’ hair.

“This suggests that some teachers fail to recognise the legal issues, which led to the lawsuit,” it said.

David Armstrong has worked in Asia for more than 20 years. He is a former chief editor of The Bulletin, the Canberra Times, The Australian and the South China Morning Post. He is a former president of the Bangkok Post company and lives in Bangkok. 

This article first appeared in Pearls and Irritations.