China’s Record Trade Surplus and the New Five-Year Plan: What It Means for Asia China’s trade machine has not blinked. Despite US tariffs reaching effective rates above 30 percent on Chinese goods by early 2026, the trade surplus hit a record $1.2 trillion in 2025. In January and February alone, the combined surplus came in…

South Korea’s Stock Market Leapfrogs the UK — and What’s Driving It South Korea’s equity market has had a remarkable year. The benchmark KOSPI surpassed 5,000 in 2026 — a target President Lee Jae-myung had set publicly when he took office — and total listed market capitalisation has surged more than 45 percent to $4.04…

Vietnam Leads the Way: Southeast Asia’s First AI Law Enters Force Vietnam has become the first country in Southeast Asia to move AI governance from aspiration to law. The AI Law, adopted by the National Assembly in December 2025, came into force in March 2026 under a four-year phased implementation schedule. It takes a risk-based…

ASEAN’s Digital Economy Pact: A $2 Trillion Milestone Within Reach After more than two years of negotiations and fourteen formal rounds of talks, Southeast Asia’s ten-nation bloc is close to signing what may be its most significant trade agreement in recent history — one with nothing to do with tariffs on physical goods. The ASEAN…

Digging the ore is the easy part. Processing it is where China has built a near-unassailable lead — and the rest of the world is scrambling to respond. Introduction Rare earth elements (REEs) — a group of 17 metals with names like neodymium, dysprosium, and terbium — are foundational to the technologies defining the 21st…

Singapore’s Variable Capital Company has been a magnet for global fund managers. Now regulators are warning it has also attracted something less welcome. Introduction When Singapore launched the Variable Capital Company (VCC) framework in January 2020, it was widely hailed as a landmark reform — a flexible, internationally competitive fund structure designed to attract asset…

Digging the ore is the easy part. Processing it is where China has built a near-unassailable lead — and the rest of the world is scrambling to respond. Introduction Rare earth elements (REEs) — a group of 17 metals with names like neodymium, dysprosium, and terbium — are foundational to the technologies defining the 21st…

A region of extraordinary economic ambition is being tested by the realities of conflict and geopolitical fracture. Introduction For professionals operating across Asia, the Middle East has never been more relevant — or more complicated. The Gulf states are executing some of the most ambitious economic transformation programmes on earth, deepening trade and investment ties…

Singapore’s Copyright Act 2021 reversed who owns commissioned creative work — but for software developers and their clients, the position is more complex, and potentially more perilous, than many realise. Introduction A significant but under-publicised change in Singapore’s intellectual property landscape came into effect on 21 November 2021, when the new Copyright Act 2021 commenced.…

China is winning on volume, speed, and spectacle. The United States still has advantages — but the window may be narrowing. Introduction In April 2026, a humanoid robot from Chinese tech company Honor crossed the finish line of a Beijing half-marathon in 50 minutes and 26 seconds — faster than the human world record. The…