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Fast-fashion retailer Shein Global Holdings is planning to take investor orders for its Hong Kong initial public offering (IPO) as soon as next week, aiming for a valuation of US$35 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The Singapore-headquartered company, which was founded in China, aims to raise as much as US$2.8 billion and began gauging investor demand last week, said sources ...
Havelock Palace has apologised for cooking foraged seafood in Singapore. The apology comes weeks after the Chinese restaurant received online flak and a barrage of one-star Google reviews for its involvement in a video showing a group of individuals foraging for seafood in mass quantities at Changi Beach. In the video, the foragers are seen collecting various marine life in large quantities, inclu...
On the southern edge of China, near the border with Vietnam, a breathtaking array of wall art stretches 260km and is over 2,000 years old. This extraordinary collection, known as Huashan rock art after its most notable site, is celebrated for its vivid imagery depicting humans, animals, boats, weapons, and musical instruments. Located in Guangxi autonomous region, the site was designated as China’...
A summit next month by the Brics grouping of nations has raised hopes that major players India and China will align to rally member states to resolve the Strait of Hormuz crisis, with the United States making little headway. Analysts say the forum from September 12 to 13 amid the global energy crisis wrought by the Middle East conflict could see parallel diplomacy, given the 11-member grouping’s e...
Hong Kong authorities are considering lowering the threshold for activating higher-tier heat stress warnings during abnormally hot weather, following public criticism that the system failed to escalate as the city sweltered through its hottest day on record. Commissioner for Labour Sam Hui Chark-sam said on Tuesday that the warning system was currently more responsive to “muggy weather” than condi...
South Korea is working to close a legal loophole that allowed people sharing AI-generated pornography featuring fictional personas to go scot-free. The move by lawmakers came after a court in Goyang, Gyeonggi province, acquitted a man accused of distributing deepfake images of nude women in a Telegram chat room. Despite prosecutors presenting the evidence under a law carrying up to seven years in ...
Hong Kong’s privacy watchdog has arrested a man on suspicion of doxxing a former restaurant owner and a business consultant following a financial dispute over unpaid bills. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data (PCPD) said on Tuesday that the suspect, a 37-year-old wholesale food businessman, allegedly disclosed the personal data of two victims without their consent. The PCPD’s ...
Hong Kong’s privacy watchdog has arrested a man on suspicion of doxxing a former restaurant owner and a business consultant following a financial dispute over unpaid bills. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data (PCPD) said on Tuesday that the suspect, a 37-year-old wholesale food businessman, allegedly disclosed the personal data of two victims without their consent. The PCPD’s ...
We have selected seven stories from the SCMP’s coverage of Asia over the past week that resonated with our readers and shed light on topical issues. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Anger in Malaysia as Liow pays fine, has money-laundering charges dropped The revelation that an alleged Malaysian scam kingpin was released after paying 10 million ringgi...
The likelihood that US electric vehicle (EV) giant Tesla will obtain Beijing’s approval for higher-level autonomous driving remains a distant prospect, according to analysts. Though Tesla recently hired people to test its Full Self-Driving (FSD) system in China, many obstacles remained, with data regulation a core issue, they said. Earlier this month, China outlined its first mandatory standards f...
Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby has pressed Southeast Asian nations to join a “flexible realism” strategy in the Indo-Pacific, as the United States prioritises practical defence cooperation and deterrence over ideology. Speaking at a forum in Manila on Monday, Colby said he would travel to Jakarta, Bangkok and Phnom Penh as part of his first official trip to Asia, delivering a message he call...
Chinese scientists have created a diamond with no Achilles’ heel – one that cannot be broken, even by a hard knock with a hammer – according to a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Synthesis. While a diamond is the hardest natural material on Earth, it has a major weakness. It is brittle, like glass, and a sharp blow can shatter it. For years, scientists have tried to make diamond...
US President Donald Trump secretly flew out of Turkey last month on a smaller plane than previously known due to an assassination threat from Iran, The Washington Post reported on Monday. According to an anonymous US official who spoke to the Post, Trump boarded an Air Force One jet in Ankara on July 8, but then moved into a catering container attached to the plane. The container then ferried him ...
The South China Morning Post has signed three memorandums of understanding (MOUs) in Kuala Lumpur aimed at deepening regional cooperation and serving as a bridge between Hong Kong, Malaysia and the wider Asean region. SCMP publisher Tammy Tam on Tuesday signed the MOUs with the Southeast Asian Futures Initiative Centre (SEAFIC), a leading think tank; Star Media Group Berhad, publisher of Malaysia’...
US Undersecretary of Defence for Policy Elbridge Colby avoided naming Beijing or addressing escalating tensions in the South China Sea during a speech in Manila on Monday, adopting a measured tone weeks before an expected meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Despite speaking in the capital of Washington’s oldest treaty ally in Asia, Colby made no direct referenc...
Yoon Jin-woo had never gone to Seoul World Cup Stadium to watch FC Seoul, the city’s team and the club that calls South Korean football’s symbolic home its own. But on Sunday night, he made the pilgrimage from the suburbs of Gimpo to see Manchester City and Atletico Madrid, two European clubs whose pull in South Korea rivals, and often overwhelms, interest in the domestic game. The 21-year-old and...
Hang Seng Indexes Company plans to expand the Hang Seng Tech Index (HSTECH) to 50 constituents and introduce “sales growth” as a selection criterion to strengthen market representation, according to a consultation paper released on Monday. Hong Kong’s major stock index compiler proposed increasing the number of HSTECH constituents from 30 to 50, using a dual-selection framework. The top 40 stocks ...
China’s rapidly expanding aircraft carrier fleet may be vulnerable to attack from submarines – an area where its defensive capacity lags behind that of the United States – according to a new report. This gap is drawing increasing attention as Beijing builds more sophisticated carriers and sends them deeper into the western Pacific, where the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN)’s knowledge of the ...
A father in northwestern China embraced a challenge posed by his teenage daughter during a heated argument and ultimately earned a spot in an MBA programme. Zhang Zhiqiang, 44, living in Xian, Shaanxi province, works in the health and wellness industry, as reported by mainland media outlet Dawan News. Having graduated from university two decades ago, Zhang typically spends up to 300 days a year tr...
When S* enrolled at Newcastle University Medicine Malaysia (NUMed Malaysia) in the Southeast Asian nation, the British-born Pakistani student believed the five-year medical degree would give him a realistic route into Britain’s National Health Service (NHS). The pathway was never formally guaranteed, but S said NUMed had highlighted a decade-long record in which students who applied for the UK Fou...
Despite representing nearly half the world’s population, accounting for about a quarter of the world’s gross domestic product and covering more than 60 per cent of the Eurasian land mass, the role of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in the international arena remains relatively limited. While the SCO has long been a priority in China’s neighbourhood diplomacy, the grouping also serves as a pl...
A former Hong Kong justice minister who now heads an intergovernmental mediation body based in the city has said the organisation is ready to handle state-to-state disputes, with six countries having nominated more than 100 mediators from the legal, diplomatic and academic fields. Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah, secretary general of the International Organisation for Mediation (IOMed), told the South China...
A former Hong Kong justice minister who now heads an intergovernmental mediation body based in the city has said the organisation is ready to handle state-to-state disputes, with six countries having nominated more than 100 mediators from the legal, diplomatic and academic fields. Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah, secretary general of the International Organisation for Mediation (IOMed), told the South China...
China’s civil aviation authority has dialled up its safety-focused communications with some foreign carriers from Southeast Asia in recent months to enhance ties, communication and oversight. An aviation analyst said the move was made in light of changing operational practices, adding that air travel in the country remained safe. In one recent interaction, the Civil Aviation Administration of Chin...
South Korea may have been steadfast in its support for Ukraine against Russian and North Korean forces, but Kyiv’s request for air defence systems could prove to be a step too far for Seoul to accept. In addition to South Korea’s legal and policy limits on arms transfers to countries at war and its own defence needs, providing such weapons to Ukraine could further strain its ties with Russia, acco...
“He who has never been to the Great Wall is not a true man,” former Chinese leader Mao Zedong wrote in a poem while passing through the Liupan Mountains in Guyuan, Gansu, during the Long March of the Red Army in October, 1935. The Great Wall he mentioned refers to the Qin Great Wall built during the Warring States period of Qin (325-251 BC), which has a history dating back 2,300 years. It is one o...
Hong Kong’s commercial property investment more than doubled to US$3.1 billion in the second quarter, making it the fastest growing investment market in Asia-Pacific thanks to a strong increase in retail and office deals and a low base effect, according to JLL. The 129 per cent growth from a year earlier beat other top-performing markets including Singapore with 108 per cent growth and Australia w...
US President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order calling for revamped childhood vaccine recommendations that promote his long-held but discredited theory that childhood vaccines should be spaced out into separate medical visits. The order advocates separating the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine into three different single-disease shots and administering all childhood immunisa...
US President Donald Trump has extended for 90 days a waiver allowing foreign-flagged ships to transport oil and other commodities between US ports but imposed new limits after shipbuilders and their allies in Congress argued the policy was undermining the domestic maritime industry, the White House said. The extension, finalised on Monday, comes as the war with Iran disrupts global crude flows an...
China has asked to join World Trade Organization consultations that Brazil opened against US tariffs of up to 37.5 per cent. Beijing filed the request in Geneva on Monday, telling the trade body it held a substantial commercial interest in the case. The move was first reported by the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo and independently confirmed to the South China Morning Post by a Brazilian go...
