🇰🇷 Publishers Flag Suspected AI Book Buys

South Korean publishers are raising copyright concerns after approaching bookstores for bulk purchases suspected to be tied to AI training. Kyobo Book Centre said 10 overseas companies, including firms in the US and UK, sought one copy each of roughly 100,000 titles since early 2026; the retailer declined requests it could not rule out for AI use.

Yes24 also received an inquiry from a US distributor about large used-book purchases, but talks ended after one meeting. The issue has widened as the Korean Publishers Association surveys bookstores, distributors and publishers on potentially AI-linked orders, while the Literature Translation Institute of South Korea recently identified 21 local books on a compensation eligibility list tied to a US copyright settlement involving Anthropic.

Publishing groups are seeking joint compensation arrangements and legislation, arguing rights holders lack visibility into how AI firms acquire and use book content. More than 240 publishers and organisations and 702 authors, translators, illustrators and publishing professionals had joined a related appeal as of Wednesday.

#SouthKorea #UnitedStates

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🇨🇳 China Tightens Outbound Investment Rules

China’s National Development and Reform Commission has issued revised rules on outbound investment, requiring investors to report major adverse developments more diligently, including foreign demands to hand over technology, data, or dispose of equity stakes and assets. The 76-article regulation was announced in Beijing, takes effect on December 1, and also expands the definition of investors to include individuals.

The NDRC said the changes are meant to improve risk prevention as Chinese firms face greater overseas scrutiny and policy volatility. The revised framework replaces 2017 rules, adds annual reporting for outbound investment, tightens disclosure on reinvestment through offshore entities, and introduces early-stage reporting for some large projects or those affecting China’s diplomatic relations.

China’s outbound investment flows rose from US$158.3 billion in 2017 to US$213.6 billion in 2025, while total overseas investment stock reached US$3.4 trillion. Existing channels for overseas financial investment, including QDII, Stock Connect and Cross-boundary Wealth Management Connect, remain in place.

#China

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🇺🇸🇨🇳 US Eyes Biotech Investment Curbs

The Trump administration is moving to restrict US investment in Chinese biotech companies on national security grounds. The US Treasury on Oct. 22 proposed adding biotech to its sensitive technology list, which would require notification for some transactions with foreign firms developing sensitive technologies and fully prohibit others; the draft also covers Chinese brain-computer interface companies.

The move would extend an existing outbound investment control framework already applied to AI, semiconductors and quantum computing. It comes as Chinese biotech firms have become a growing source of pharmaceutical innovation and US drugmakers increasingly seek licensing deals in China to replenish product pipelines, adding another layer of strain to bilateral financial ties.

The Treasury is now soliciting public comment before final rules are issued and the restrictions take effect. Separate US curbs on investment into China’s semiconductor, AI and quantum sectors are due to start in January 2025.

#US #China

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🇹🇼🇨🇳 TSMC Seeks Rare Earth Alternatives

TSMC is reportedly evaluating alternative factory equipment to reduce reliance on mainland Chinese rare earths, according to three sources cited by the report. The effort focuses on suppliers whose automated systems use motors without rare earth content, aiming to limit disruption risks at fabs producing advanced chips in Taiwan.

Rare earth magnets are widely used in industrial drive systems, including equipment inside TSMC’s highly automated plants. The move follows China’s export controls on selected rare earth minerals, magnets, and processing technologies, and aligns with broader US and Taiwanese calls to reduce dependence on concentrated critical mineral supply chains.

Two sources said the review remains at an early stage and no decision has been made on broad adoption of non-rare-earth equipment. TSMC declined comment.

#Taiwan #China

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🇰🇵🇰🇷 North Korea Expands DMZ Mining

South Korea’s military told the National Assembly that North Korea has planted about 960,000 land mines in the DMZ since 2024, part of a wider border fortification drive. Pyongyang has also cleared vegetation, built barriers, tactical roads and barbed wire, and cut road and rail links across inter-Korean corridors including Gyeongui and Donghae.

The measures accelerated from April 2024 after North Korea redefined inter-Korean relations as those between two hostile states. The new estimate adds to an already heavily mined border zone, where experts had previously put the total number of buried mines at around 2 million, including those planted by South Korea.

The buildup has increased operational risk along the border. On Sept 21, a South Korean soldier was seriously injured by a mine explosion south of the MDL.

#NorthKorea #SouthKorea

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🇰🇵 North Korea Internet Hit by DDoS

North Korea’s internet suffered intermittent outages over 32 hours from Oct 20, with US network monitoring firm Kentik assessing that a likely distributed denial-of-service attack disrupted multiple state-managed websites. Kentik identified sharp traffic spikes hitting North Korea from locations including Vietnam and Venezuela as more than 40 official .kp sites went down, including the foreign ministry and KCNA.

The cause has not been conclusively established, and South Korean media also cited unstable power supplies as a possible factor. The incident affected a tightly controlled and limited national network that has experienced major outages before, including a complete shutdown in 2014.

The disruption again exposed the vulnerability of North Korea’s state internet infrastructure, even though attribution for the attack remains unclear.

#NorthKorea #SouthKorea

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🇦🇺🇰🇷 AI data centers face market pressure

Asian data center operators are facing sharper public-market scrutiny as stalled IPOs and weak equity performance challenge AI infrastructure valuations. Nikkei Asia reports that setbacks in Australia and South Korea have raised investor concerns over the sector’s pricing and growth assumptions.

The reassessment comes after a regional rush into AI-linked data center capacity, a capital-intensive segment tied to power access, financing costs and demand visibility. Public markets are now testing whether expansion plans and asset valuations can be sustained as investors move beyond the broader AI growth narrative.

The shift could complicate funding for new capacity and delay listings or expansion plans across the region. Companies seeking fresh capital may face tougher pricing and closer scrutiny of execution risk.

#Australia #SouthKorea

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🇯🇵🇻🇳 To Lam to Visit Japan

Vietnamese President To Lam will make a four-day visit to Japan from Nov. 8 for talks with Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, according to the Japanese government. Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara announced the visit in Tokyo on Friday, adding that Lam and his wife will also meet Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako.

Japan and Vietnam are comprehensive strategic partners, with cooperation spanning security, the economy, people-to-people exchanges, and regional and global issues. The visit comes as Japan continues to strengthen ties with Southeast Asian states amid China’s expanding military and economic influence in the region.

According to a source close to the matter, Tokyo is arranging for Lam to address parliament, likely on Nov. 9, at Vietnam’s request. A joint statement is also expected after his meeting with Takaichi.

#Japan #Vietnam

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🇹🇼🇯🇵 Typhoon Champi Disrupts Regional Flights

Super Typhoon Champi made landfall in Taiwan on Friday, forcing airlines to cancel or reschedule more than a dozen flights to and from Taiwan and Japan, with further disruption expected. SCMP reported that the storm is also affecting Japan and eastern mainland China.

Champi is described as the strongest storm of the year worldwide, placing multiple economies in East Asia under simultaneous weather pressure. The impact spans cross-border air travel and coastal areas across Taiwan, Japan, and eastern China, turning the system into a regional disruption rather than a localised landfall event.

Additional transport and weather-related disruptions are likely in the coming days as the storm continues to affect nearby territories.

#Taiwan #Japan #China

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🇺🇸🇰🇵 Trump-Kim summit odds fade

US and South Korean officials see little chance of a Trump-Kim meeting in 2026, with Pyongyang giving no response and the window narrowing before the November APEC summit in Shenzhen. Trump said in August he planned to meet Kim later this year, but officials told Reuters that nothing is scheduled and the White House remains open to talks.

Trump remains the only US president to have met a North Korean leader, holding three meetings with Kim during his first term. The latest assessment marks a shift from South Korea’s intelligence agency, which told lawmakers in late September there was a 50% chance of a meeting on the sidelines of APEC, while North Korea has signalled that any summit could require tough conditions including sanctions relief amid continued tension over its nuclear programme.

Officials and experts cited in the report said a summit could still emerge suddenly, but current odds are low. With no response from Pyongyang and limited time before regional meetings in November, momentum for a 2026 reset has weakened.

#USA #NorthKorea

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🇨🇳 Chinese Stocks Rebound on Support

China’s CSI 300 rose 1.7% to 4,105.33 on Friday after earlier falling as much as 2%, reversing losses that had pushed the benchmark into a bear market. Trading in major ETFs tracking the index surged sharply, including 19.5 billion yuan in turnover for E Fund Management’s CSI 300 ETF, pointing to possible state-backed buying in China.

The rebound followed a broader sell-off tied to growth concerns and pressure on stocks linked to the artificial intelligence trade. Heavy ETF volumes suggested possible intervention by Central Huijin Investment and other state-backed funds to stabilise the market and contain further declines in a key onshore equity benchmark.

The move indicates official support may be re-emerging as market stress deepens. Attention will remain on whether state-linked buying can sustain sentiment beyond a one-day reversal.

#China

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🇰🇵 Kim orders stronger military training

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un told army company commanders in Pyongyang to train for the world’s “strongest” armed forces during a two-day meeting on Oct 22–23, according to state media. KCNA said the gathering was aimed at developing a plan to train the strongest armed forces in the world, while Kim called for all army companies to become elite units with stronger military and technical capabilities.

The meeting came as inter-Korean tensions remained elevated after Seoul proposed military talks to clarify the border following an explosion inside the heavily fortified DMZ. KCNA described it as the first army-wide gathering since a February party congress where Kim called for stronger conventional forces and reaffirmed plans to advance nuclear weapons and missile programmes.

North Korea has recently tested new weapons systems, including a precision-guided torpedo and an intermediate-range hypersonic missile said to use AI technology. The country has also deepened military alignment with Russia while maintaining that its nuclear status is permanent.

#NorthKorea #SouthKorea #Russia

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🇨🇳🇹🇷 China studies Turkey rare earth deposit

Chinese researchers have completed an in-depth geological assessment of Turkey’s Kizilcaoren rare earth deposit, the country’s largest known reserve, according to a new study reported by SCMP. The team mapped the deposit’s complex geological evolution and found that while it clarifies how rare earth elements accumulated in carbonatite-related formations, the site remains limited in scale.

The study indicates Kizilcaoren is unlikely to become a major near-term alternative to existing global suppliers. That matters because governments are seeking to diversify access to rare earth supply chains, but the findings point to persistent geological and economic constraints even at strategically watched deposits.

The assessment tempers expectations around Turkey’s role in reshaping rare earth markets in the short term. It also reinforces China’s central position in the sector as alternative projects face structural limits.

#China #Turkey

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🇮🇩🇸🇬 Indonesia Cuts Gas to Singapore

Indonesia began reducing natural gas exports to Singapore by 31 BBTUD from Oct 24, with supplies from Natuna cut by 15 BBTUD and Sumatra by 16 BBTUD. According to reported details, SKK Migas said the Sumatra reduction would come from the Jambi Merang gas field.

The move follows recent comments by Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Bahlil Lahadalia that Jakarta was considering whether to renew gas export arrangements with neighbouring countries, citing domestic energy security and global geopolitical uncertainty. The affected pipelines are directly connected to Singapore, making the cut specific to the city-state; based on US EIA data cited by the report, the reduction is equivalent to about 8% of Indonesia’s pipeline gas exports to Singapore in 2024.

The cut aligns with President Prabowo Subianto’s stated priority of shifting more gas to domestic use. It also adds pressure to Singapore’s external energy supply management.

#Indonesia #Singapore

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🇨🇳🇺🇸 China AI Compute Still US-Linked

China’s AI compute capacity is projected to rise from 4.6 million to 8.8 million H100-equivalents in 2027, with US-designed chips accounting for about 65% of the total, according to a Washington-based Institute for Progress report tracking China’s AI compute surge. The estimate includes domestic chips, legal imports, smuggled processors, and remotely accessed overseas cloud capacity, with remote access alone expected to reach 2.8 million H100-equivalents by end-2027 from roughly 1 million this year.

The report said the US still holds a roughly 16-fold advantage over China in AI training compute, but leading Chinese models trail US peers by only 6.5 months. It identified distillation and continued access to foreign hardware and offshore cloud infrastructure as key factors narrowing the gap despite US export controls.

Separate Washington-based research said US-designed compute remains legally rentable through cloud channels to foreign entities barred from buying the hardware directly. Both reports called for tighter US restrictions on cloud access, chip smuggling and legal exports.

#China #UnitedStates

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🇺🇸🇨🇳 Pentagon Flags Confucius Institutes

The US Pentagon has designated China-funded Confucius Institutes on American campuses as a national security threat, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announcing the move in a video posted Friday. He said the institutes had reappeared under different names and forms, and claimed the Pentagon had identified 80 such organizations across 30 universities and eliminated them over the past two months.

Washington has long treated Confucius Institutes as instruments of Chinese state influence. A 2019 US Senate report said China spent more than $158 million to establish the centers in US universities, while in 2020 the US required the Confucius Institute US Center to register as a foreign mission; Beijing rejected those accusations as politically motivated.

The Pentagon said on Monday that 30 universities had completed initial research security reviews and fully ended ties with foreign entities listed under Section 1286 of the National Defense Authorization Act, terminating more than 80 partnerships.

#USA #China

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🇯🇵 Japan probes app-linked cyber breaches

Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology said vulnerabilities in smartphone apps may be behind a recent wave of cyberattacks on Japanese firms, with Android apps specifically targeted and iPhone apps also seen as likely targets. The institute’s analysis, pointing to app weaknesses, follows multiple reports of unauthorized access and data leaks involving companies in Japan.

According to the institute, attackers analyzed app programs to identify flaws in connected servers, then forced unintended actions or deployed malware to access confidential data. The government has already urged businesses to tighten security, while the institute said the spread of the attacks suggests possible AI-enabled automation.

Recent breach cases have involved Times Car operator, East Japan Railway, Yamaha Motor and travel agency H.I.S., which reported a passport data leak late last year. The pattern indicates a broader enterprise cybersecurity issue extending beyond single-company incidents.

#Japan

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🇹🇼 Typhoon Champi Hits Taiwan

Typhoon Champi swept past Taiwan on Oct 24, killing one person and injuring 527 as strong winds brought down trees, damaged buildings and cut electricity to more than 288,000 homes. The storm brushed Yilan County before weakening and moving north, with gusts near its centre still around 126kmh, according to official storm updates.

Authorities cancelled 242 flights and extended school and office closures for a second day across northern and central Taiwan. Champi had earlier intensified into a super typhoon and remained one of the strongest Pacific storms of 2026, with some coastal areas recording gusts of about 227kmh as the system looped offshore before turning away.

The storm is now tracking north toward China’s coast and southern Japan, though it is not expected to make landfall in China. Chinese authorities have deployed rescue teams, readied 41,000 firefighters, and evacuated people and boats in Zhejiang.

#Taiwan #China #Japan

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🇰🇵🇨🇳 Kim Enters China via New Bridge

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un arrived in Dandong, China, after crossing the New Yalu River Bridge from North Korea, according to South Korea's Yonhap News Agency citing a government source. The bridge linking Dandong and Sinuiju opened last week, 12 years after completion, and local authorities had imposed strict traffic controls amid signs of a high-level visit.

China and North Korea inaugurated the bridge on Oct. 15 as a new cross-border route expected to expand trade and personnel exchanges. The visit comes as bilateral ties have strengthened since Kim traveled to Beijing in September last year and met Xi Jinping for the first time in more than six years, with China also set to mark the 76th anniversary of its Korean War entry on Sunday.

The arrival gives immediate political visibility to a newly opened piece of cross-border infrastructure. It also reinforces the recent upward trajectory in China-North Korea engagement.

#China #NorthKorea

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🇪🇺🇨🇳 EU Weighs Broader China Curbs

EU member states said they prefer dialogue with Beijing to address trade imbalances, but do not rule out unilateral steps as Brussels considers widening import restrictions on Chinese goods. After an EU ministerial meeting in Dublin, Irish Foreign Minister Helen McEntee said all members backed the European Commission’s continuing talks with Beijing and expanding discussions beyond hybrid cars to chemicals, machinery, and agri-food.

The EU and China agreed earlier this month to cut EU imports of Chinese hybrid vehicles by more than half, a model Brussels wants to extend as its trade deficit with China has exceeded €1 billion per day. Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic said plastics is the most advanced sector for a possible safeguard probe, with PET imports under review, while member states have urged faster action to protect domestic manufacturing.

EU leaders also want Beijing to cooperate on applying similar limits to other Chinese products, while keeping unilateral trade defense tools available if talks fail. European industry has linked the latest surge in Chinese exports to factory closures and job losses across the bloc.

#EU #China

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