Greenland crisis is Asia’s crisis, too

Asia should pay close attention to what markets are signaling on the Greenland crisis. Distance offers no protection in a global system where trade, capital and confidence remain tightly interlinked.  Moves this week across asset classes show investors are treating this episode as more than a political sideshow. Gold hitting record highs alongside falling global equities reflects a judgment call by markets.

Investors don’t reposition portfolios simply because of headlines. They do so when intent appears credible and consequences appear acceptable. Capital shifts when escalation sits within the realm of probability.

Asia faces direct exposure because its economic model remains closely tied to conditions in the US and Europe.  History shows that when confidence weakens across those economies, the effects travel quickly through trade volumes, earnings and investment decisions across the region. Asia doesn’t need to sit at the center of a dispute to absorb impact.

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Torbjørn Færøvik: Persia - Echoes of a Golden Age

After four hours of wandering through the National Museum in Tehran, Rostam and I each ordered a bowl of meat soup.

“Rostam,” I said as I began to glimpse the bottom of my bowl, “when did Iran have its golden age?”

“Two thousand five hundred years ago,” he replied without hesitation.

We were both full—sated by the impressions from the museum and by the rich soup the Iranians call ābgusht. As a guide, Rostam knew the National Museum well, but for me it was a new experience. We could easily have spent several more days in its imposing halls, but new adventures awaited us.

China’s record surplus makes a mockery of Trump’s tariffs

The numbers are in, and they paint a picture that defies the conventional wisdom of Washington’s trade hawks. In 2025, China’s trade surplus surged to a record high of US$1.2 trillion. In December alone, the surplus reached $114 billion, driven by a higher-than-expected 6.6% growth in exports and 5.7% growth in imports.

The trade surplus refers to the amount by which Chinese exports outnumber its imports. And far from being strangled by external pressure – in particular from the US under Donald Trump – China’s export engine is running hotter than ever. This creates a paradox for the ordinary observer. For several years, the narrative has been that the US is locked in a divisive trade war with China. This has brought sweeping tariffs intended to decouple the two economies and reduce American reliance on Chinese manufacturing.

Wrangling following Trump’s liberation day tariff announcement on April 2 2025 was apparently settled in November. This left the average tariff imposed on Chinese goods being imported to the US at 47%, down from 145%.

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Japan prime minister Takaichi to dissolve parliament Friday and call national election

Japanese Prime Minister ‌Sanae Takaichi on Monday called ⁠a snap general election with a vow to suspend an ‍8% food levy for two years, echoing proposals by her rivals despite the potential ‌strain on the country’salready precarious finances. A consumption tax cut that many opposition parties have also proposed would create a huge hole in state revenue at a time when concern over Japan’s fiscal health is pushing up bond yields to multi-decade highs.

Japan levies an 8% consumption tax on food and a 10% levy on other goods and services, helping to fund rising social welfare costs ⁠among a rapidly aging population.

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China’s population falls again as births drop to lowest rate since 1949 communist revolution

How do you persuade a population to have more babies after generations of limiting families to just one?

A decade after ending China’s longtime one-child policy, the country’s authorities are pushing a range of ideas and policies to try to encourage more births — tactics that range from cash subsidies to taxing condoms to eliminating a tax on matchmakers and day care centers.The efforts haven’t paid off yet. At least, that’s what population figures released Monday show for what is now the world’s second-most populous nation. China’s population of 1.4 billion continued to shrink, marking the fourth straight year of decrease, new government statistics show. The total population in 2025 stood at 1.404 billion, which was 3 million less than the previous year.

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Canada’s leader leaves China pronouncing success, but Trump lurks in the background

Canadian leader Mark Carney met China’s Xi Jinping this week. The two statesmen talked. Fractured relationships began to heal. And a third man, though he wasn’t in the room, nevertheless made his presence clearly known: Donald Trump.

The American president — his policies, his approaches to international relations, his freewheeling and provocative statements about Canada — helped inform meetings 8,000 miles (13,000 kilometers) away between two nations working to reestablish ties stalled for nearly a decade as they grapple with the same challenge: wondering what Washington might do next.

Canada’s reengagement with China, its second-largest trading partner behind the U.S., is unfolding in keeping with a term Chinese media have loved this past week — “strategic autonomy.” Essentially, it means that a nation like Canada, so intertwined with the United States for so long as unswerving allies, needs other pillars to hold up its international foundations given recent speed bumps in the Washington-Ottawa relationship.

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Vietnam party meeting opens with leadership and economic growth on the line

Vietnam’s most important political conclave began Monday, as the ruling Communist Party convened to decide the country’s leadership and broad policy course for the next five years. A total of 1,586 delegates from across Vietnam gathered in the capital, Hanoi, for the National Congress, the party’s highest decision-making body, which meets every five years to elect its top leadership and set priorities shaping the country’s political and economic direction.

Delegates will elect about 200 members to the party’s Central Committee, which in turn appoints 17 to 19 members to the powerful Politburo in a tightly choreographed process.

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Opponents protest against China’s planned UK ‘mega embassy’ as decision deadline loons

Britain’s main opposition leader joined a protest Saturday against China’s planned new embassy in London, days before a deadline for the government to approve or block the project. Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch urged the Labour government to reject the plans, saying the Chinese government had “harassed and sanctioned” members of Parliament and “abused British nationals connected to China.”

“We know that we have to stand up to the abuses of China. And what worries me is that we have a government right now that seems to be scared of China,” she told hundreds of demonstrators who gathered at the site, chanting “no China mega embassy.”

Politicians from several opposition parties addressed the rally.

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Viral app in China taps into national loneliness by asking: ‘Are You Dead?’

In recent weeks, a morbid-sounding app has taken China by storm, tapping into widespread loneliness and youth disaffection in the world’s second most populous country. The app, named “Are You Dead” and aimed at those who live alone, has a simple premise: users must check in on the app every day. If several days are missed, the app will automatically notify the user’s emergency contact.

In recent weeks the app has gone viral, topping Apple’s paid App Store ranking on Saturday, according to state-run tabloid Global Times. It’s since been covered in international media, causing such a surge in downloads that the app has rebranded and introduced a subscription fee.

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Isolated and abandoned: the heartbreaking reality of old age in rural China

The Archeological Menagerie: China Uncovers 3,000-Year-Old ‘Zoo’

Archeologists have uncovered what may be China’s oldest known collection of captive wild animals at a site in the central Henan province, where 3,000-year-old sacrificial pits contain the remains of big cats, Asian water buffalo and other species.

The discovery was announced Jan. 9 by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The pits were uncovered at Yinxu, the last capital of the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 B.C.), a site long known for its royal tombs, oracle bones and ritual artifacts.

Excavations conducted between 2023 and 2024 covered about 1,240 square meters and revealed 19 small and medium-sized sacrificial pits. From them, archeologists recovered large quantities of animal remains, including mammals such as deer, wolves, tigers, leopards, foxes, serows and wild boars, as well as birds including swans, cranes and geese.

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In Wuhan, A Race to Study a 3,500-Year-Old City Between Seasons

For a few cold, dry months each winter at Panlongcheng, conditions briefly align for archaeologists to work on a 3,500-year-old city. That brief reprieve leaves no margin for delay. Archaeologists rush to open trenches, record fragile layers, and gather samples, knowing that spring rain and rising moisture will soon compromise both access and preservation.

Beneath the surface is Panlongcheng, an urban settlement built during the Shang dynasty (c.1600–1046 BC). Discovered in the 1950s near present-day Wuhan, far from the Shang heartland, the site provided the first clear evidence that Shang political power and bronze culture extended south of the Yangtze River.

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Torbjørn Færøvik: China’s Export Trap - Growth Without Consumption

While Donald Trump prepares to conquer the icy wilderness of Greenland, China is advancing on other fronts. In 2026 as well, Chinese export goods will continue to flood global markets. Europe and Norway will not be spared. At the same time, China’s own consumers will keep counting their pennies. Why? Because something is fundamentally wrong with Chinese society, and these problems will not disappear anytime soon.

The eastern superpower expects growth of between four and five percent this year. That would be a respectable performance, and higher than in any Western economy. Yet the growth will largely be driven by exports, not by domestic consumption. This is precisely what makes the situation so unusual – and politically fraught. “We have reached a turning point. China cannot continue on this path,” says European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

There are three main reasons for what is happening.

Chinese EVs are making inroads in North America. That worries industry experts

Chinese automakers have been making inroads around the world with growing sales of their high-tech, stylish and affordable electric vehicles. That has had competitors concerned even before Canada this week agreed to cut its tariffs on Chinese EVs in exchange for concessions on Canadian farm products.

Experts now say an easier path into Canada could be a big boost for Chinese carmakers looking to dominate the global market — particularly as their domestic market weakens. That poses a threat to other auto manufacturers, particularly American companies.

U.S. officials acknowledged that in remarks at an assembly plant for Jeep-maker Stellantis in Toledo, Ohio on Friday. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the Chinese Communist Party invests in its auto industry to “control this industry.”

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Trump’s protectionist trade policies allow China to swoop in

America’s top trading partners are responding to President Donald Trump’s belligerent and unpredictable trade policies by trying to take their business elsewhere.

Canada broke with the United States Friday, slashing its 100% import tax on Chinese electric vehicles in return for lower tariffs on Canadian farm products, particularly canola seeds.

“It’s a huge declaration of realignment in Canada’s economic relations,” said Edward Alden, who studies trade issues as senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “The economic threat from the United States is now perceived by Canadians as far bigger than the economic threat from China. So this is a big deal.’’

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Beijing Won Its War for Blue Skies, but Villagers Are Paying the Price

The temperature was 28 degrees, but Dong Tongzhou had turned off his heat at home and was standing in the village square wrapped in a tattered black coat, trying to soak up the midday sun. He wasn’t alone — other villagers sat on folding chairs and at a card table, as chickens strutted around and clucked.

Mr. Dong, 68, used to warm his one-room home by burning coal, he explained on a recent afternoon. Then the government banned that for environmental reasons, and offered natural gas as a replacement. But that could cost three times as much. To save money, Mr. Dong often sunbathed for warmth.

Even so, Mr. Dong said he spent about 1,000 yuan, or about $143, each winter to heat his home in Quyang county, in northern China’s Hebei Province. On a monthly basis, that works out to over a third of his pension of 800 yuan as a retired farmer and former soldier.

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US Secures Historic Chip Deal Amid Tech War With China

The United States has clinched a sweeping agreement with Taiwan that would reduce tariffs on the "Silicon Island" in exchange for up to a quarter‑trillion dollars in investments, a move that carries significant security implications for Taipei amid mounting pressure from China.

The deal follows similar arrangements Washington struck last year with Japan, European countries and China that brought down trade duties Trump had ratcheted up since April as part of a campaign to cut trade deficits and revive American manufacturing.

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Why Cambodia deported scam boss Chen Zhi to China, not the US

On January 7, Cambodian authorities announced they had detained and deported Chen Zhi, founder and former chairman of Prince Group, a multinational conglomerate accused of fronting a global multibillion-dollar fraud operation.

Chen, a former advisor to ex-Prime Minister Hun Sen, became a key figure in a joint US-UK response last year when he was personally indicted for wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy charges and included in an unprecedented sanctions program targeting the Prince Group and other organized crime syndicates in Southeast Asia. Chen’s arrest — and his subsequent extradition to China — surprised many because he had such powerful backers in Phnom Penh. He held the government’s bestowed honorific neak oknha, meaning “prominent tycoon”, and had long been allowed to operate largely unrestrained at the head of a burgeoning network of scam centers.

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China's condom tax no way to pump up low birth rates

Once the world’s most populous nation, China is now among the many Asian countries struggling with anemic fertility rates. In an attempt to double the country’s rate of 1.0 children per woman, Beijing is reaching for a new tool: taxes on condoms, birth control pills and other contraceptives.

As of January 1, such items were subject to a 13% value-added tax. Meanwhile, services such as child care and matchmaking remain duty-free.The move comes after China last year allocated 90 billion yuan (US$12.7 billion) for a national child care program giving families a one-off payment of around 3,600 yuan (over $500) for every child age three or under.

I have studied China’s demography for almost 40 years and know that past attempts by the country’s communist government to reverse slumping fertility rates through policies encouraging couples to have more children have not worked.

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