Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (李克強) yesterday said that Beijing would further open up its economy in the face of rising protectionism, as he headed for meetings with Asia-Pacific leaders in Singapore that are expected to focus on trade tensions.
Li’s remarks in an article in Singapore’s Straits Times newspaper, ahead of his arrival in the city-state later in the day, came as Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) called for more regional integration, saying multilateralism was under threat from political pressures.
“China has opened its door to the world; we will never close it, but open it even wider,” Li said in the article, in which he called for an “open world economy” in the face of “rising protectionism and unilateralism.”
He did not directly refer to China’s trade war with the US.
Notably absent from this week’s meetings is US President Donald Trump, who has said several existing multilateral trade deals are unfair, and has railed against China over intellectual property theft, entry barriers to US businesses and a gaping trade deficit.
US Vice President Mike Pence is to attend instead of Trump, and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are among those also expected to join Li and the 10-member ASEAN.
It was not clear if Li and Pence would hold separate talks on the sidelines of the meetings, which would be a prelude to a summit scheduled between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the end of the month in Buenos Aires.
The encounter, if it happens, would come on the heels of high-level talks in Washington, where the two sides aired their main differences, but appeared to attempt controlling the damage to relations that has worsened with tit-for-tat tariffs.
Meanwhile, in remarks at a business summit yesterday ahead of this week’s meetings, Lee said that “ASEAN has great potential, but fully realizing it depends on whether we choose to become more integrated, and work resolutely toward this goal in a world where multilateralism is fraying under political pressures.”
Lee has previously said that the US-China trade war could have a “big, negative impact” on Singapore, and the city-state’s central bank has said it could soon drag on the economy.
Both Singapore and China are expected to rally support for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) pact being negotiated, showcased to be the free trade deal that would encompass more than one-third of the world’s GDP.
The pact includes 16 countries, including China, India, Japan and South Korea, but not the US.
Li said China would work to “expedite” RCEP negotiations this week.
Also yesterday, ASEAN reached its first-ever deal on e-commerce aimed at helping boost cross-border transactions in the region.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to