40% of Japanese, South Korean firms plan more collaboration with each other
Nikkei and South Korea's Maeil Business Newspaper surveyed corporate chiefs at major Japanese and South Korean enterprises, drawing responses from 181 companies.
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Japan Times
an hour ago
- Japan Times
China stops U.S. Department of Commerce worker from leaving country: reports
China has stopped a U.S. citizen who works for America's Department of Commerce from leaving the nation for several months, according to media reports, an episode that comes as Beijing and Washington try to arrange a leaders' summit so they can address their differences on trade. The Chinese-American individual who works for the Patent and Trademark Office had traveled to the Asian nation to meet relatives, the Washington Post reported, citing four people familiar with the matter. The newspaper said it didn't know the name of the man facing a so-called exit ban, adding that the incident was over a failure to disclose on a visa application that he worked for the U.S. government. The man was detained when he arrived in the southwestern city of Chengdu in April, the South China Morning Post reported Sunday, citing a person familiar with the situation. The man was being prevented from leaving China because his case was "related to actions Beijing deemed harmful to national security,' the newspaper reported, though the specifics couldn't be confirmed. Since the man arrived in Chengdu, he had also traveled to the Chinese capital with a U.S. official, the newspaper reported. Neither the U.S. Commerce Department nor the Foreign Ministry in Beijing responded to a request for comment outside regular business hours. Officials from Beijing and Washington — including in the Commerce Department — are negotiating a trade deal after U.S. President Donald Trump hit goods from China with heavy tariffs that he later paused. Trump also wants a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping to sort through their problems, which also touch on technology curbs, rare earths and the status of Taiwan. To get the sit-down and a trade pact, Trump has recently softened his harsh campaign rhetoric that focused on the U.S.' massive trade deficit with China and resulting job losses. Earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said after meeting his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, that there was "a strong desire on both sides' for a Xi-Trump meeting. China's use of exit bans has been a point of contention between Beijing and Washington. The U.S. State Department has repeatedly advised citizens to reconsider travel to China based on what it called the "arbitrary enforcement of local laws, including in relation to exit bans.'
Japan Times
an hour ago
- Japan Times
Jensen Huang, AI visionary in a leather jacket
Unknown to the general public just three years ago, Jensen Huang is now one of the most powerful entrepreneurs in the world as head of chip giant Nvidia. The unassuming 62-year-old draws stadium crowds of more than 10,000 people as his company's products push the boundaries of artificial intelligence. Chips designed by Nvidia, known as graphics cards or GPUs (Graphics Processing Units), are essential in developing the generative artificial intelligence powering technology like ChatGPT. Big tech's insatiable appetite for Nvidia's GPUs, which sell for tens of thousands of dollars each, has catapulted the California chipmaker beyond $4 trillion in market valuation, the first company ever to surpass that mark. Nvidia's meteoric rise has boosted Huang's personal fortune to $150 billion — making him one of the world's richest people — thanks to the roughly 3.5% stake he holds in the company he founded three decades ago with two friends in a Silicon Valley diner. In a clear demonstration of his clout, he recently convinced U.S. President Donald Trump to lift restrictions on certain GPU exports to China, despite the fact that China is locked in a battle with the United States for AI supremacy. "That was brilliantly done," said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a governance professor at Yale University. Huang was able to explain to Trump that "having the world using a U.S. tech platform as the core protocol is definitely in the interest of this country" and won't help the Chinese military, Sonnenfeld said. Early life Born in Taipei in 1963, Jensen Huang (originally named Jen-Hsun) embodies the American success story. At nine years old, he was sent away with his brother to boarding school in small-town Kentucky. His uncle recommended the school to his Taiwanese parents believing it to be a prestigious institution, when it was actually a school for troubled youth. Too young to be a student, Huang boarded there but attended a nearby public school alongside the children of tobacco farmers. With his poor English, he was bullied and forced to clean toilets — a two-year ordeal that transformed him. U.S. President Donald Trump hosts Huang for an event to discuss U.S. technology investments at the White House in Washington on April 30. | Pete Marovich / The New York Times "We worked really hard, we studied really hard, and the kids were really tough," he recounted in an interview with U.S. broadcaster NPR. But "the ending of the story is I loved the time I was there," Huang said. Leather jacket and tattoo Brought home by his parents, who had by then settled in the northwestern U.S. state of Oregon, he graduated from university at just 20 and joined AMD, then LSI Logic, to design chips — his passion. But he wanted to go further and founded Nvidia in 1993 to "solve problems that normal computers can't," using semiconductors powerful enough to handle 3D graphics, as he explained on the "No Priors" podcast. Nvidia created the first GPU in 1999, riding the intersection of video games, data centers, cloud computing, and now, generative AI. Always dressed in a black T-shirt and leather jacket, Huang sports a Nvidia logo tattoo and has a taste for sports cars. But it's his relentless optimism, low-key personality and lack of political alignment that sets him apart from the likes of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. Unlike them, Huang was notably absent from Trump's inauguration ceremony. "He backpedals his own aura and has the star be the technology rather than himself," observed Sonnenfeld, who believes Huang may be "the most respected of all today's tech titans." One former high-ranking Nvidia employee described him as "the most driven person" he'd ever met. Street food On visits to his native Taiwan, Huang is treated like a megastar, with fans crowding him for autographs and selfies as journalists follow him to the barber shop and his favorite night market. "He has created the phenomena because of his personal charm," noted Wayne Lin of Witology Market Trend Research Institute. "A person like him must be very busy and his schedule should be full every day meeting big bosses. But he remembers to eat street food when he comes to Taiwan," he said, calling Huang "unusually friendly." Nvidia is a tight ship and takes great care to project a drama-free image of Huang. But the former high-ranking employee painted a more nuanced picture, describing a "very paradoxical" individual who is fiercely protective of his employees but also capable, within Nvidia's executive circle, of "ripping people to shreds" over major mistakes or poor choices.
Japan Times
2 hours ago
- Japan Times
China and Vietnam plan first joint army drill amid U.S. tariffs
China and Vietnam plan to hold their first joint army training exercise this month, a sign of deepening military ties as the two countries grapple with U.S. tariff policies. The exercise aims to strengthen practical cooperation between the two militaries, the Chinese defense ministry said in a Sunday statement. It will take place in southern China's Guangxi region, which borders Vietnam. China and Vietnam have carried out joint naval patrols in previous years, but the coming exercise would be the first such exchange between their armies. Vietnam, an export powerhouse that last year had the world's third-biggest trade surplus with the U.S., is seeking to persuade Washington to lower tariffs on Vietnamese goods. The Southeast Asian nation was caught off guard by U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement earlier in July that they had agreed to a 20% tariff, it was reported. Vietnam is also striving to balance relations with its largest trading partner, China, which has warned nations against cutting deals at Beijing's expense. After Trump announced the pact with Vietnam in July, China's commerce ministry said it was "assessing' the situation. Chinese President Xi Jinping called for joint efforts with Vietnam to oppose "unilateral bullying' during his visit to the country in April.
