Taiwanese teams think about back-up headquarters in case Chinese language assault

Keep knowledgeable with free updates

Merely signal as much as the International Financial system myFT Digest — delivered on to your inbox.

Good morning. A number of giant Taiwanese producers are contemplating organising a second headquarters abroad to make sure they will maintain working within the occasion of a Chinese language assault on their nation.

The plans, which stay preliminary typically, spotlight how international efforts to safe provide chains are forcing firms that play a significant position in manufacturing networks, particularly for tech merchandise, to make in depth adjustments.

Rauniei Kuo, a companion and head of the household workplace enterprise at KPMG in Taiwan, stated his purchasers trying to arrange abroad headquarters are in manufacturing and are contemplating different places in south-east Asia.

“[J]ust in case an emergency occurs in Taiwan, to offer them an alternate command system overseas that they will instantly activate”, Kuo stated.

The nation head of 1 international consultancy in Taiwan stated whereas many firms have been nonetheless largely centered on geographically diversifying manufacturing, “discussions about back-up headquarters have began on the high within the largest teams”.

The FT’s Kathrin Hille has extra on the heightened contingency planning in Taiwan.

And right here’s what else I’m protecting tabs on at this time:

• US-Japan relations: President Joe Biden hosts Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for a state go to. The 2 nations plan to improve their safety alliance to answer what they view as a rising menace from China.

• South Korea parliamentary elections: Polls forecast that the nation’s leftwing events will retain their majority within the Nationwide Meeting, an consequence analysts stated may threaten conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol’s financial reform efforts.

• BBC’s India operations: The British broadcaster will break up off its India information operations after coming underneath regulatory scrutiny from Indian authorities after it aired a controversial documentary about Prime Minister Narendra Modi. 

• Financial knowledge: The US publishes inflation knowledge for March. Economists polled by Reuters anticipate the patron worth index to rise to three.4 per cent.

• Vacation: Monetary markets are closed in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and several other different Asian nations for Eid al-Fitr, which marks the tip of Ramadan.

5 extra high tales

1. Unique: OpenAI and Meta are on the point of releasing new synthetic intelligence fashions that they are saying will probably be able to reasoning and planning, key steps in direction of attaining human-level cognition in machines. Meta’s vice-president of AI analysis Joelle Pineau stated the corporate was working “to get these fashions not simply to speak, however really to motive, to plan . . . to have reminiscence.” Learn the total story.

2. China and Russia have pledged to take care of “industrial provide chain stability” simply days after US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen warned Beijing towards supporting Moscow’s conflict effort. Russian overseas minister Sergei Lavrov’s go to to Beijing — which included conferences along with his Chinese language counterpart Wang Yi and President Xi Jinping — provided the newest indicators of the rising partnership between China and Russia.

• Extra China information: Chinese language anti-corruption authorities are investigating a senior govt at one of many nation’s high army gear suppliers in a new signal of turmoil within the nation’s defence institution.

3. Unique: TikTok employees within the US have been saddled with thousands and thousands of {dollars} in tax liabilities on shares they’re unable to promote, at a time when the Chinese language-owned video-sharing app is battling a possible US ban. ByteDance, the app’s Beijing-based mum or dad, is dealing with a backlash from US staff over its inventory awards programme, in line with interviews with greater than a dozen present and former employees.

4. Imported autos are piling up at European ports amid a slowdown in gross sales and logistical bottlenecks together with the dearth of truck drivers. Port and automobile trade executives have pointed to a pile-up of Chinese language electrical vehicles as one of many main causes of the issue. “Chinese language EV makers are utilizing ports like automobile parks,” stated one automobile provide chain supervisor.

5. Myanmar’s insurgent forces claimed to have seized a army base close to a key city on the Thailand border, within the newest blow to the ruling army regime that has been shedding floor to opposition teams for months. Some neighbouring nations have known as for a rethink on the right way to cope with the regime, which got here to energy in a 2021 coup, given its weakened place.

Visible story

Vans stuffed with tonnes of help are caught on Gaza’s border because the Palestinian enclave nears famine. Obstructions are legion: bombardment from Israeli forces, insecurity inside Gaza, an absence of safety employees, unpredictable Israeli checks, only a handful of overloaded entry factors, shortages of supply autos, corruption and the numerous miseries of conflict. The FT’s newest visible story traces the every day wrestle to feed Gaza.

We’re additionally studying . . . 

• Japan’s tremendous practice: There was scoffing in regards to the want for a 500km/h practice in a rustic that’s, by strain of demographics, shrinking and slowing down, writes Leo Lewis.

• Variety: Stephen Bush explores what a latest photograph of the Arsenal Ladies’s soccer staff can educate us about illustration and success.

• WeightWatchers: Recasting the corporate for the period of weight-loss jabs is akin to Fb overhauling its social media website for cellular, or Netflix transferring from DVDs to streaming, CEO Sima Sistani argued.

Chart of the day

Nissan and Honda, Japan’s second- and third-largest carmakers (behind Toyota), are planning to mix forces to develop electrical vehicles in a bid to outlive the approaching wave of high-tech, low-cost fashions from China. Kana Inagaki’s newest column examines the unlikely partnership between the rival Japanese carmakers.

Take a break from the information

V-necks have been verboten for so long as most of us can bear in mind, writes Teo van den Broeke. However with menswear runways stuffed with them, celebrities sporting them on the crimson carpet and shops putting them on the coronary heart of their new choices, is the fashion again?

Further contributions from Tee Zhuo and Gordon Smith