Day: October 30, 2023

Developers and designers hope the government uses its weight to expand Taiwan’s chip market offshore without sacrificing Taiwan’s unique status, built over more than four decades, as a world semiconductor production centre. “I expect to see growth in the integrated circuit design industry across various countries, including India and Malaysia,” said Ben Yeh, a Taiwan-based analyst with the Canalys market research firm. “Whether this specific [government] project will contribute to that trend is yet to be determined.” About 60 per cent of the world’s chips are made on the island,…

Flags across China, including in the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau, will fly at half mast on Thursday, when the body of former premier Li Keqiang will be cremated, according to state media. The requirement for official flags to be flown at half mast applies to all government buildings, as well as to Chinese embassies overseas. 03:31 ‘People’s Premier’: former Chinese premier Li Keqiang dies of a heart attack at age 68 ‘People’s Premier’: former Chinese premier Li Keqiang dies of a heart attack at age 68…

A key gauge of China’s manufacturing activity reported a surprising contraction in October, indicating uncertainty over the economic recovery amid calls for more policy support. The official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) fell to 49.5 in October, down from 50.2 in September, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the non-manufacturing PMI stood at 50.6 in October, compared to 51.7 in September. After better-than-expected third quarter economic growth of 4.9 per cent, year on year, as a result of supportive measures rolled out in the summer, China’s annual…

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s planned trip to Beijing this weekend represents the latest in a series of positive steps towards getting China-Australia engagement back on track. In spite of this, the uncomfortable truth is that, unless Australia rethinks its deep lack of independence from Anglo-American interests, it will be unable to establish itself as a trusted partner to other Asia-Pacific nations, not least China. Australia’s ongoing failure to engage sustainably with China, and Asia in general, stems from its historic inability to build genuine trust with its would-be Asian…

Southwest China’s Guangxi is set to cover in vitro fertilisation (IVF) under its health insurance system, the second of the country’s regions to do so as part of an overall effort to arrest a dramatic slide in the national birth rate. The health department of the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region said on Friday that starting next month, it will include IVF as well as other fertility services under its basic medical insurance. It would be China’s second province-level division to allocate government funds to reimburse medical bills for fertility services,…