Asian tech players react to US tariffs with delays, doubts, deal-making
Asia In Brief Asian nations and tech companies are trying to come to terms with the USA’s new universal import tariffs and additional “reciprocal tariffs”.
Taiwanese contract manufacturing giant Foxconn, a supplier to Apple, Dell, Amazon and HP, has warned shareholders that “the impact of evolving and economic conditions will need continued close monitoring”, but also forecast quarter-on-quarter and year-over-year growth when it next reports quarterly results.
Vietnam, which was hit with a 46 percent reciprocal tariff, sent its deputy prime minister to the USA for negotiations it hopes will see tariffs reduced to zero.
Plenty of other tech companies – among them Samsung, Intel, and Canon – will hope Vietnam succeeds, as they have manufacturing facilities in the country.
Vietnam has promoted itself as open to investment, and as a capable and cost-effective alternative to manufacturing in China that can help companies looking for a geographically diversified post-COVID sourcing strategy. High tariffs put that strategy at risk.
Japanese gaming giant Nintendo’s response to tariffs was to delay the start of pre-orders for its forthcoming Switch 2 console.
Nintendo planned to open orders on April 9th but late last week suspended that plan to give itself time “to assess the potential impact of tariffs and evolving market conditions.” The company still plans a June 5 launch, but is yet to set a new date for pre-orders commencing.
Qualcomm acquires Vietnamese AI outfit
Qualcomm last week announced it acquired AI assets operated by Vietnamese conglomerate Vingroup.
The US chip design firm acquired teams with expertise in generative AI, machine learning, computer vision, and natural language processing, and said combining those assets with its own R&D efforts “will expand [Qualcomm’s] ability to drive extraordinary inventions.”
China claims USA and Singapore attacked winter games
China’s National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center (CVERC), which has previously claimed the USA created the Volt Typhoon cybercrime gang to discredit China, has now claimed America ran cyber-attacks against February’s Asian Winter Games
In a six-page report [PDF] CVERC claimed it detected abnormal network traffic including “network asset discovery and massive port scanning” targeting “Information Systems of Competition” – which we think means applications used to manage the games.
CVERC also spotted “a large number of exploitation attempts.”
The attacks included exploitation of file read vulnerabilities, SQL injection attacks, and cross-forwarding HTTP requests in an attempt to spoof traffic.
The USA was identified as the source of 170,864 attacks, ahead of Singapore’s 40,449, while the Netherlands made it onto the podium with 12,414 attacks.
It’s alleged that the attacks from the Netherlands were really the work of America, which relayed its own attacks through cloudy resources.
CVERC reckons its report shows “foreign hostile forces spare no effort to destroy and interfere with the normal operation of the sports events through cyber attacks, and even try to create chaos and steal sensitive information by attacking critical network infrastructures in China.”
It’s safe to assume the US and China almost constantly try to steal information.
It’s harder to find a reason why America, Singapore, or the Netherlands would want to attack the games, which attracted 34 competing nations.
China uses big events like multi-sport festivals to promote itself, so telling domestic audiences it pulled things off perfectly despite cyberattacks from its foes plays well at home.
Controversy follows India’s web browser challenge
India’s competition to promote development of domestic web browsers have delivered a controversial sequel, after a developer alleged first runner up Team PING’s entry was not much more than a rebranded version of the open source Brave browser.
Team PING responded by pointing out its entry met the competition’s criteria, was assessed several times, and that it plans to use the prize money it won to add further features that will make its browser ideal for Indian users.
Local media has labelled the situation and embarrassment to India’s IT ministry, which ran the browser development competition. The Ministry is reportedly investigating the situation.
The Register does not anticipate a swift resolution, as the competition ran late and organizers did not respond to multiple inquires about when or if they would announce winners.
China’s latest content crackdown tackles toxic sports fans
China has announced yet another online content crackdown, this time targeting sports fans who take things too far online.
The Cyberspace Administration of China last week announced an effort to curtail sports fans who insult each other, players, and coaches.
Meme-makers have also been told to get off the field, as have those who run fake social media accounts that purport to represent athletes. Those who post fake news about player selection have been warned they face punishment and their accounts could be closed.
Authorities also closed online vendors of counterfeit team clothing.
Sporting organizations have been told to step in and ensure that online fan communities are more wholesome. ®
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