Akito Tanaka shares his weekly reflections and recommendations
President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping tour the Forbidden City in Beijing in November 2017. The U.S. leader is poised to visit the Chinese capital again next week. © AP
Hello from Tokyo. Last week, I visited Nikkei Asia's editorial headquarters in New York on a business trip. The team there, made up of desks and reporters who handle newsroom operations during Asia's nighttime hours, plays a crucial role in our 24-hour news cycle. Since the launch of the Trump administration, the New York team's hard work has enabled us to deliver high-quality journalism to our readers around the clock.
It's been a year since I last visited New York, and I was struck by how much more difficult daily life seems to have become. To avoid heavy traffic, I took the train and subway from John F. Kennedy International Airport to the city. From the perspective of someone accustomed to newly built Asian metropolises, the rundown public transportation system and road infrastructure stood out. The surge in prices was also striking, making me hesitate before ordering another bottle of beer at a restaurant. It's hard to say that the lives of ordinary Americans have improved under the Trump administration.
A president who appears to neglect domestic affairs while unsettling the world on the diplomatic front will reach a pivotal moment next week. In the latter half of the week, Donald Trump is scheduled to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. With conflicts expanding across the globe, a meeting between the leaders of the two superpowers that divide the world will inevitably have far-reaching implications for Asia.
Ahead of the summit, Nikkei Asia has published an insightful analysis. According to experts, China's priorities are maintaining a truce in the trade war, blunting Washington's economic weapons while sharpening its own, and shaping Trump's approach to Taiwan.
How will the rivalry between the U.S. and China -- one that has long divided Asia -- evolve after this summit? Nikkei Asia plans to provide comprehensive coverage of next week's action, and we hope you will stay tuned.
1. Nearly three-quarters of a century after it was founded by 30-year-old gunpowder engineer Kim Chong-hee, the business that began life as Korea Explosives Co. is leading a charge in South Korea's booming defense industry.
From modest beginnings, Kim built a vast conglomerate that was rebaptized in the early 1990s as Hanwha. Now, as the Iran war jangles nerves in the wake of years of conflict in Ukraine, Hanwha is positioning its shipbuilding operations, including those at the Hanwha Philly Shipyard in Philadelphia it acquired in 2024, at the center of a global maritime defense push, leveraging overseas acquisitions to anchor long-term growth.
2. Malaysia's Sarawak state on Borneo hopes to become the "battery of Southeast Asia" by expanding its hydropower capacity and exporting electricity across the region. Singapore, meanwhile, is looking to import more green energy to meet its climate goals. Their linked ambitions are injecting fresh momentum into the ASEAN Power Grid.
3. Investor interest in nuclear fusion, where small quantities of hydrogen isotopes can produce vast amounts of energy with no carbon consequences, is at an all-time high. But it is a long road to commercialization, and this week's Business Asia looks at how, in the meantime, Japanese fusion startups are sustaining themselves by finding other industrial uses for the technologies they have developed in their quest for the holy grail of power production.
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