Day: June 26, 2024

Singapore has seized S$6 billion ($4.4 billion) linked to criminal and money laundering activities over the past five years, of which about half of these illicit assets were from last year’s record scandal.

Of the amount that was confiscated between January 2019 and June 2024, some S$416 million has been returned to victims while S$1 billion has been forfeited to the state, according to a report released Wednesday by the government. In last year’s S$3 billion money laundering case, about S$944 million has already been forfeited to the state, the report stated.

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Authorities in the city-state have observed that money laundering activities are increasingly sophisticated, involving swift movement of large sums of illicit funds and affecting many victims across borders, according to the report that sets out the country’s approach toward recovering illicit assets.

Read More: A Wave of Scandals Is Testing the Singaporean Government’s Ability to Take Criticism

“Even the most stringent anti-money laundering regimes can be circumvented by determined criminals who will continuously search for gaps to exploit,” Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said at the opening of the Financial Action Task Force Plenary. Still, measures should not be over-zealous either and stifle legitimate investments, he added.

The global watchdog, which is meeting in Singapore this week, is poised to add Venezuela and Monaco to its “gray list” for not making sufficient progress to stem illicit financial flows.

Among ongoing measures to tackle money laundering risks, the city-state has been demanding more information from family offices and hedge funds while stepping up closures of dormant firms, Bloomberg News has reported. Banks in the financial hub are also ramping up scrutiny of their wealthy customers and potential clients to avoid exposure to illicit flows, people familiar with the matter have said.

OpenAI’s abrupt move to ban access to its services in China is setting the scene for an industry shakeup, as local AI leaders from Baidu Inc. to Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. move to grab more of the field.

The ChatGPT creator this week sent memos to Chinese users warning it will cut off access to its widely used AI development software and tools from July, triggering a scramble to fill the void. Since Tuesday, at least a half-dozen companies and startups including Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Zhipu AI began offering incentives to developers making the switch.

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OpenAI’s shift will accentuate the divide between China and the U.S., which is trying to curb Beijing’s AI and chip efforts. While the startup’s exit offers an opportunity for sector leaders to grow their user base, it also deprives entrepreneurs and cash-strapped startups of some of the best tools available to fine-tune or get their AI applications off the ground.

Read More: OpenAI Says Russia, China, and Israel Are Using Its Tools for Foreign Influence Campaigns

For China, that could help usher out many smaller startups created during the “battle of a hundred models,” in the wake of ChatGPT’s late 2022 debut. And a bigger concern may be whether open-source models like Meta Platforms Inc.’s Llama also cut off access, said Bernard Leong, chief executive officer of Singapore-based Dorje AI.

“There’s probably going to be a bloodbath of the large language models and I suspect that there’s probably going to be very few players left,” said Leong, who’s also founder of the tech podcast Analyse Asia. “There will be very few winners, and those will be the biggest in China.”

Chinese artificial intelligence-related stocks, including Alibaba and Iflytek Co., rose on Wednesday.

The major firms were quick to sense the opportunity. 

For users migrating from OpenAI, Baidu promised free AI model fine-tuning and expert guidance on its flagship Ernie model, along with 50 million free tokens that developers can use to query the bot. Alibaba and Tencent posted ads encouraging the shift. Tech pioneer Kai-fu Lee’s 01.AI touted heavy discounts.

Baichuan, which is backed by both Alibaba and Tencent, offered 10 million free tokens. SenseTime Group Inc. dangled 50 million. Zhipu put forth 150 million tokens and a series of training sessions to ease the transition. Even Microsoft Corp. — OpenAI’s biggest backer — published a step-by-step guide on WeChat on how to migrate to its local service, operated by local partner 21Vianet.

U.S. firms such as OpenAI, Meta and Alphabet Inc. have led the world in generative AI, which spits out text, images and video from simple commands. Underpinning those models are application programming interfaces that developers use to build up and refine their own platforms to integrate services either with the likes of ChatGPT, or their own proprietary models.

Read More: Gen AI Has Already Taken the World by Storm. Just Wait Until It Gets a Quantum Boost

That was a boon to Chinese developers starting from scratch, who accessed OpenAI’s tools through virtual private networks or other ways around the country’s Great Firewall. Many local developers — particularly those without deep pockets — favored training AI systems and applications via OpenAI’s tools, because they were regarded as industry benchmarks.

OpenAI is now threatening to sever the connection. 

“Leading Chinese large language models can benefit from the restricted access to OpenAI, and it will help to filter out smaller, less effective players from the market,” said You Chuanman, head of the Chinese University of Hong Kong-Shenzhen’s IIA Centre for Regulation and Global Governance. “At the same time, it will make it harder for Chinese developers to use the most advanced global AI algorithms.”

OpenAI’s move coincides with rising pressure from Washington to curb Chinese access to the most advanced artificial intelligence and semiconductor technology. The U.S. Treasury Department advanced plans over the weekend to further restrict investments by U.S. individuals and companies into China, with a focus on curtailing next-generation technologies.

In the long run, industry experts say a lack of access to global tools may further impede Chinese AI players in general as they play catch-up to the US. Alibaba Chairman Joe Tsai has said it would take at least two years for homegrown AI models to match U.S. ones.

It could also accelerate a migration overseas by Chinese tech startups seeking faster-growing markets with less political uncertainty. 

“This situation is directly related to the ongoing competition between China and the U.S. in frontier technologies,” said Neil Zhu Xiaohu, the founder and chief scientist of University AI, which trains Chinese companies.

“We had U.S. laws targeting Chinese semiconductors previously and more recently, there are semiconductor and AI work restrictions, so the restriction of China’s API services is not something that happened out of the blue.”

As China’s youth women’s basketball team takes the court this week for the Under-18 Asia Cup, held on home ground in Shenzhen, it’s impossible to miss one powerful weapon in their arsenal: 17-year-old Zhang Ziyu, who at 7-foot-3 towers over everyone on the court.

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Standing taller than any WNBA player ever, she’s been called a “cheat code” and “unguardable” by social media users and compared to Yao Ming, China’s retired 7-foot-6 basketball legend, and Victor Wembanyama, last year’s 7-foot-4 NBA first draft pick from France.

It’s not hard to see why Zhang is attracting attention: in her international tournament debut, she’s already chalking up impressive stats, shooting 9 for 9 to score 19 points during 13 minutes off the bench as China cruised to a 109-50 victory against Indonesia on Monday and helping China beat New Zealand 90-68 on Tuesday.

She scored a combined 55 points across her two games so far this week—and has barely had to even jump at all.

Women’s basketball has been enjoying a global surge in attention, helped in large part by Caitlin Clark, the Indiana Fever guard and WNBA sensation hot off a record-breaking college career. Now, Zhang is having her own moment in the spotlight. 

Born to professional basketballers, Zhang measured 5-foot-2 as a first grader and by sixth grade had grown to a height of 6-foot-9, according to the state-owned Global Times.

Zhang’s performance in China’s youth leagues saw her steadily gain popularity domestically as the sport’s up-and-coming star—particularly in 2021 when footage of the literally outstanding then-14-year-old in China’s U15 National Basketball League went viral—but she soared to international fame this week as video montages of her at the Asia Cup rack up millions of views and many reactions on social media. 

“What the hell am I seeing?” Spanish sports journalist Luis Vallejo posted on X in response to a video of Zhang. “No, this is not AI,” another user posted. Others are already anticipating her potential career in the WNBA when she turns 20 in a few years.

Viewers in her home country are also continuing to enjoy Zhang’s dominance on the court. On Chinese microblogging site Weibo, the topic “Zhang Ziyu is too strong” has over eight million views. “This is bullying. There’s no way to play ball now,” reads one post. 

For her part, Zhang remains humble about her rise. “I regard it as a gift to me,” she said of her height, in comments published by the International Basketball Federation. “I can easily reach the basket. But basketball is definitely more than that. I have to learn a lot.”

Elections in the Philippines may be a year away, but the politicking has already begun, with one particular family keen to take up as many posts as possible.

When Rodrigo Duterte handed over the presidency to Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. in 2022, he embraced the son of the country’s former dictator as a vehicle for extending his own legacy. Duterte’s daughter, Sara Duterte-Carpio, joined Marcos Jr.’s ticket and was elected Vice President.

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The alliance, however, between two controversial yet powerful Philippine political dynasties, which was shaky from the start, has since frayed as Duterte-Carpio’s ambitions for the highest office continue to grow more apparent.

But it’s not just Duterte-Carpio who is gunning to govern. This week she confirmed to local media that her father and two brothers are all planning to run for Senate in May 2025.

“All of them are raring to run,” she said Tuesday, referring to the former President, Congressman Paolo Duterte, and Davao City Mayor Sebastian Duterte. Duterte-Carpio added that her mother has advised her to run for mayor of Davao City, the post currently held by her brother Sebastian, previously held by Duterte-Carpio from 2016 to 2022, and before that by her father for more than 20 years across three separate stints until he became President in 2016. Duterte-Carpio also said Sebastian will run for the presidency in 2028, though many believe that she is setting herself up for the same bid.

The surprise revelation of the Dutertes’ political plans comes just days after Duterte-Carpio stepped down from her position as Education Secretary last week (while remaining Vice President)—a move widely perceived to be in preparation for a run for the presidency in 2028.

Democracies around the world are no stranger to dynasties—from the Kennedys and Bushes of the U.S. to the Nehru-Gandhis of India—but the Philippines stands out for how pervasive a handful of families are across local and national government, despite “political dynasties” being technically prohibited by the country’s constitution. Still, should the three male Dutertes succeed in being elected to the 24-member Philippine upper legislative chamber next year, it would represent one of the country’s biggest power grabs in recent history.

As Marcos Jr.’s approval ratings have fluctuated—taking a hit as inflation spiked last year—the Dutertes, particularly former President Rodrigo Duterte, have spent months rallying against his government, which has charted a markedly different path Duterte’s, especially on relations with China and the U.S. as Marcos Jr. edges closer to conflict with a hostile Beijing that Duterte largely deferred to.

Duterte has accused Marcos Jr. of being a drug user and plotting to hold onto power despite the Philippines’ one-term limit for Presidents.

And the mounting challenge to Marcos Jr. and his allies in government is not necessarily an empty threat. Domestically, the Trump-like Duterte left office as one of the most popular leaders in Southeast Asia, as much of the public revered his hardline approach to crime and perceived relatability to the common person—despite international criticisms of a brutal drug war that extrajudicially killed tens of thousands, his quelling of opposition figures, and a controversial admission of sexual assault. (Conveniently for Duterte, his family getting a greater foothold in Congress could help hinder probes into his alleged wrongdoing.) 

Yet, there remain reasons for skepticism. The candidacies of the three Dutertes aren’t official as filing doesn’t take place until October, by when they may have changed plans given the historic volatility the family has evinced when it comes to political maneuvering. Former President Duterte, for example, had filed for candidacy to run for Senate in 2022, only to withdraw his bid in December 2021.

For Richard Heydarian, a Manila-based geopolitical analyst who wrote The Rise of Duterte: A Populist Revolt Against Elite Democracy, Duterte-Carpio’s announcement this week is less an outline of specific plans and more an assertion of the family’s desire to remain important. “This is kind of a desperate move, because they can see that the sharks are smelling blood, that the Dutertes are marginalized,” he tells TIME. “She wants to remind everyone that the Dutertes are still a force to reckon with.”