Taiwan lawmakers risk provoking Trump’s ire with defence funds freeze

Good morning. In at the moment’s publication:

• Huawei challenges Nvidia in China

• Land disputes maintain again India’s inexperienced power revolution

• Malaysia ties its fortunes to Singapore

Taiwan’s parliament has frozen important elements of the 2025 defence funds, heightening the chance that the nation provokes the ire of US President Donald Trump at a second when it wants agency assist from Washington towards safety threats from China.

Taipei has been wanting to reveal to the brand new US administration that it’s stepping up efforts to strengthen its defences. Trump claimed in July that Taiwan “doesn’t give us something” and in contrast the US to “an insurance coverage firm” for the island nation’s safety.

However simply hours after Trump was inaugurated to a second time period on Monday, Taiwan’s opposition-controlled legislature voted to freeze half the nation’s funds for its submarine programme, 30 per cent of the army’s operations expenditure and one-third of the funding for a drone trade park. It additionally reduce 60 per cent of the defence ministry’s publicity funds.

Taiwanese authorities officers and ruling social gathering lawmakers accused the Kuomintang, the most important opposition social gathering, of serving to China by undermining President Lai Ching-te’s minority authorities.

“Our defence will transfer backwards this yr,” mentioned Po Horng-huei, vice-minister of defence. Read the full story.

• US-China relations: Trump mentioned that tariffs on China might hinge on a deal over TikTok’s ownership, as he signed an government order on Monday to maintain the favored short-form video platform on-line within the US for 75 days.

Right here’s what else we’re holding tabs on at the moment:

• Financial knowledge: Taiwan stories December labour market figures and Malaysia publishes month-to-month inflation knowledge.

• Financial coverage: Malaysia broadcasts its fee determination.

5 extra prime tales

1. Unique: Huawei is looking for to seize a bigger share of the Chinese language marketplace for synthetic intelligence chips dominated by Nvidia. As a substitute of difficult the US chipmaker in coaching giant language fashions, Huawei is positioning its newest Ascend AI processors because the {hardware} of selection for the computation utilized by LLMs to generate responses to prompts — or so-called “inference” tasks.

2. Panama’s authorities on Monday started an audit of Hong Kong-based Hutchison Ports, the corporate that operates ports at both finish of its canal, in a transfer seen as a concession to US President Donald Trump. The brand new president has threatened to take again the waterway, which handles about 3 per cent of worldwide seaborne commerce annually, over alleged Chinese language affect.

3. Trump has threatened to double tax charges for overseas nationals and corporations within the US to hit again at “discriminatory” levies on American multinationals, as he primed his administration for a wide-ranging international tax fight.

4. Goldman Sachs has promoted a brand new technology of executives to go its key funding banking and buying and selling companies because the financial institution prepares to capitalise on an anticipated Wall Avenue growth beneath US President Donald Trump. Read more about the overhaul of Goldman’s top ranks.

5. Saudi Arabia’s funding mining fund is ready to purchase a stake in Pakistan’s Reko Diq undertaking, which will likely be one of the world’s largest copper mines as soon as full. The dominion plans to purchase 10-20 per cent of the $9bn advanced, which is being developed by Barrick Gold, because it appears to be like to speed up its diversification away from oil.

• Extra mining information: Indonesia is contemplating potential cuts to nickel ore supplies to assist increase costs amid a worldwide glut, in a transfer that would put the brakes on speedy manufacturing progress within the south-east Asian nation.

The Huge Learn

In India, the third-biggest carbon polluter globally, billions of {dollars} are being poured into initiatives to fulfill authorities targets to greater than double its non-fossil gas sources of energy by the tip of the last decade. However this breakneck effort to construct clear power infrastructure is sparking bitter land disputes between firms and the individuals who depend on farming to make a residing.

We’re additionally studying . . . 

• ‘Will Trump even discover Europe?’: Ukrainian chief Volodymyr Zelenskyy delivered an unflinching critique in Davos of the continent’s weak spot.

• Is Hamas again?: The sight of militants on the streets of Gaza for the reason that ceasefire took impact raises the chance that they could once more run the enclave.

• Conflict on medicine: Liberal reformers have been too hesitant to spell out the unfavorable penalties for others, writes Stephen Bush.

Map of the day

As tensions ratchet up between two of Malaysia’s greatest buying and selling companions, the US and China, the south-east Asian nation is more and more trying to hitch its wagon to its extra profitable neighbour, Singapore. A special economic zone straddling the two countries is one in every of a number of initiatives designed to assist the pair stand up to harder world financial buying and selling circumstances.

Take a break from the information . . . 

Nearly 19,000 video games had been launched final yr by way of digital distribution platform Steam, and 2025 guarantees way more. In an age of unprecedented gaming abundance, FT online game critic Tom Faber writes it’s time to rethink how and what we play.