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Mixed messaging from American leader adds to complicated terrain for companies, especially at state level where suspicion can run high

When US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick addressed over 5,000 attendees via video at a major investment forum outside Washington last month, his message was clear: now is the time to invest in the US.

Aimed at a global audience of business leaders and investors, Lutnick’s remarks at the SelectUSA Investment Summit were meant to affirm America’s openness to foreign capital.

Meanwhile, the terrain for Chinese investment on the US state level is as complicated as ever, making it easy to understand why Lutnick’s words might not spur the kind of investment interest seen before Sino-American ties began to fray.

China, once the largest foreign delegation to the annual summit hosted by the US Commerce Department since 2011, sent only about 50 delegates this year.

Fatal industrial accidents have brought scrutiny to firm, which is set to be removed from registered list of contractors on Friday

A Hong Kong construction company has filed an appeal against the government’s decision to reject its licence renewal due to safety violations linked to five deaths in three accidents, including a 2022 crane collapse that killed three workers.

Authorities said on Monday that Aggressive Construction Company had lodged an appeal with the Court of First Instance against the Buildings Department’s move to refuse the renewal application.

“As the case is now undergoing judicial proceedings, the Buildings Department is not in a position to make any comments,” a department spokesman said.

Secretary for Development Bernadette Linn Hon-ho said late last month that Aggressive would be removed from the government’s registered list of contractors on June 20, making it ineligible to carry out works under the Buildings Ordinance.

A day later, the company said that it would file an appeal as it had stepped up safety checks since the fatal 2022 accident.

It also warned that the government’s move would slow the progress of public housing flats and affect the livelihoods of thousands of workers.

The firm, a subsidiary of Great Harvest Group, came under intense scrutiny when a 65-tonne tower crane collapsed at a site on Anderson Road in Kwun Tong in September 2022. Three workers died and six others were injured.

Legal relief now to run until June 23 amid American president’s claim that university’s engagement with China is a national security concern

The order would be in place while Burroughs weighs issuing a longer-term injunction.

In issuing the proclamation on June 4, Trump cited the university’s engagement with China along with other national security concerns. It marked the first time he directly used his executive powers to limit Harvard’s ability to host foreign students.

In an amendment to its lawsuit from last month to challenge the new directive, Harvard said the US president’s proclamation was “an end run around” Burroughs’ previous decision and that it violated the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

US president, at G7 summit in Canada, said several times on Monday that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon

US President Donald Trump abruptly cut short his G7 summit visit to Canada, the White House announced, just minutes after the president issued a stark warning on social media urging the immediate evacuation of Tehran – a city of nearly 9.5 million people – amid escalating tensions in the Middle East.

“Iran should have signed the ‘deal’ I told them to sign. What a shame, and waste of human life. Simply stated, IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. I said it over and over again!” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!”

He then told reporters that he needed to return to Washington “for obvious reasons … as soon as I can”, adding: “I wish I could stay back but [the G7 leaders] understand. This is big stuff.”

Earlier on Monday, Israel’s military issued an evacuation warning affecting up to 330,000 people in a part of central Tehran that includes the country’s state broadcaster and police headquarters. Three large hospitals, including one owned by Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, are also in the area.

Iran state television lost service after an Israeli attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) building in Tehran.

The moves in AI and cloud infrastructure may deepen US concerns about China’s growing digital presence in Latin America

Chinese tech giants Huawei Technologies and ByteDance are planning major investments in Brazil’s cloud infrastructure and artificial intelligence sectors, moves likely to deepen US concerns over Beijing’s expanding digital reach in Latin America.

The Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo reported on Monday that Huawei is set to announce a deal with Dataprev – a state-run technology company that manages the country’s social data systems – to use its data centres. Huawei is also in talks with Edge UOL, a cloud services arm of Grupo UOL PagSeguro, which also owns Folha.

Executives from Huawei and Edge UOL met in May in Dongguan, China, along with Brazil’s secretary of digital governance Ricardo Leite and the Huawei Cloud division’s Latin America president Mark Chen.

“We want to be the bridge between China and Latin America,” Chen said, calling the Brazilian firm a “strategic service partner”.

Edge UOL Chief Operating Officer Rodrigo Lobo said that the partnership aimed to expand into infrastructure, cybersecurity and AI operations across Brazil.

The planned expansions come as the United States has stepped up warnings about Chinese investments in critical tech infrastructure across Latin America, citing risks of data theft, surveillance and strategic leverage.

Trump’s unpredictability is well known, but his treatment of his erstwhile ally will make Beijing extra cautious about agreeing to a summit

Musk, who was Trump’s biggest political donor and his self-proclaimed “first buddy”, said the American leader “would have lost the elections” without him, and alleged without evidence that Trump was named in the sealed files of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Trump retaliated, saying he was “very disappointed” by Musk’s comments and threatening to terminate the Tesla chief executive’s government subsidies and contracts. “Elon and I had a great relationship. I don’t know if we will any more,” he said.

Sun Chenghao, a fellow at Tsinghua University’s Centre for International Security and Strategy, said the fallout was not entirely unexpected but Trump’s behaviour was in line with how the Chinese public and government saw his character.

“Many people believe that Trump is a transactional president who is accustomed to using tactics such as probing and pressure to determine the other party’s bottom line and maximise his own interests,” he said.

Rare earths are vital components used in various modern technologies, including smartphones, EV batteries and precision-guided missiles

‘Striving to be a top global chip supplier, we need to expand from the China market to the global market,’ general manager Eugene Wang says

Chinese automotive chip firm SemiDrive will start supplying its cockpit system-on-a-chip (SoC) to an undisclosed European carmaker late next year, marking its first collaboration on the continent to push for global sales, a senior executive said.

The chips would be used in several of the carmaker’s models including sedans and SUVs produced and sold in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region, general manager Eugene Wang said. The vehicles were expected to feature its X9 SoC, which integrates high-performance CPUs, GPUs, AI accelerators and video processors designed for advanced cockpit applications, he added.

“It will be the first time we supply our chips to foreign OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] in their mass-produced vehicles overseas,” Wang said on the sidelines of the four-day International Automotive & Supply Chain Expo in Hong Kong. “Striving to be a top global chip supplier, we need to expand from the China market to the global market.”

SemiDrive, founded in 2018, specialises in developing high-performance automotive-grade chips for smart cockpits and microcontroller units (MCUs). SAIC Motor, Sequoia Capital, Walden International and Matrix Partners participated in its fundraisings since 2019. The firm is based in Nanjing in the eastern province of Jiangsu.

It has produced four chip series to date, including the X9, the smart-driving chip V9, the central-gateway chip G9 and the high-performance MCU E3. The firm has supplied more than 8 million chips since 2021, used in more than 100 models produced by Chery Auto, Chang’an Auto, SAIC Motor, GAC, BAIC and Li Auto, Wang said.

Fewer than 10 per cent of these chips were used in vehicles bound for export markets, Wang said. As such, the tie-up with the European carmaker represented a significant milestone in its global expansion plans as the company aims to “connect with foreign carmakers and reach a bigger marketplace”, he added.

Analysts say Kim views the 2019 summit’s failure as a personal insult and is now more focused Russia, despite Trump’s continued overtures

Trump has signalled fresh interest in direct engagement with North Korea, with the White House confirming last week that “the president remains receptive to correspondence with Kim Jong-un” following reports that Trump had sent another letter to Pyongyang – which North Korean officials declined to accept.

But analysts say Kim is increasingly unwilling to risk another high-profile encounter, citing lingering scepticism after the collapse of the 2019 Hanoi summit, which damaged his domestic standing and deepened distrust of Washington’s intentions.

“There is little possibility of the North returning to talks in the foreseeable future, as Washington has yet to present any concrete policy towards Pyongyang,” Hong told This Week in Asia.

Sohu.com founder Charles Zhang says college students need to ‘gain some real experience’ by working for a company

Zhang, 60, suggested that college graduates can “think about starting some business”, as they gained know-how from working at a company.