Asian Tech Roundup: ‘Goodbye to my Chinese spy’ TikTok, hello Xiaohongshu

Plus: Meta threatens to roll back features for Indians in response to antitrust ruling

Welcome to Computing's weekly roundup of tech news in Asia. This time we look at TikTok refugees finding a potential new home and Meta’s menaces to India.

A new buzzphrase is circulating among US TikTok users as they face the banning of their favourite app: ‘Goodbye to my Chinese spy’. In addition to cocking a snook at what they see as a confected moral panic among their politicians over supposed malign Chinese government influence, the app’s mainly young user base has turned in vast numbers to Xiaohongshu (aka RedNote), an Instagram-like app that definitely does have connections to the Chinese authorities (it literally means “little red book”) and adheres to Beijing’s censorship laws. Ironically, this week has seen both Joe Biden and Donald Trump are apparently rowing back from the proposed TikTok ban, which both had pushed earlier and which enjoyed broad partisan support, just as the Supreme Court appears likely to approve it. So strong has been the uptake of RedNote, posts on which are mainly in Chinese, that language learning app DuoLingo has seen a 216% uptick in new students for Mandarin. RedNote itself is scrambling to hire English speaking moderators.

Meanwhile, Meta has warned India against antitrust action preventing it from using personal data from WhatsApp for advertising: “Nice little service you’ve got there. Would be a shame if something happened to it”. We expect more such tactics once Trump returns to the White House.

Australia

• The cybersecurity posture of government departments is getting worse, according to the Australian Signals Directorate, which said that only 15% of entities achieved Maturity Level 2 on Australia’s cybersecurity framework in 2024 — a drop from 25% in 2023. Source
• Australian asset manager Macquarie is to purchase a 15% stake in Applied Digital and invest up to $5 billion in its AI datacentres. Source
• A new law to penalise underpayments is driving Australian businesses to consider proactive payroll compliance tools, according to one study. Source

China

• TikTok has said it may shut down immediately over the weekend if the US Supreme Court rules on a ban. Source
• Meanwhile, TikTok’s CEO plans to attend Trump's inauguration, according to the New York Times. Source
• Anticipating a US ban on TikTok, US citizens have been downloading a similar video app called Xiaohongshu or RedNote, making it the number one free app on the US App Store. Source
• The take-up of RedNote has seen Duolingo report a 216% spike in US users learning Chinese. Source
• China is to launch an investigation into US government subsidies of its semiconductor sector. Source
• DJI, China's foremost drone manufacturer, is removing geo-restrictive safeguards that prevent its devices sold to the US from flying over military bases and airports. These restrictions had been voluntary and other drone manufacturers have not applied similar restrictions. Source
• China’s Vivo and Huawei both outsold Apple in the country’s smartphone market last year, for the first time. Source
• Privacy activist firm noyb has launched a complaint with the EU against TikTok, Shein, Xiaomi, AliExpress, Tencent and Temu for allegedly transferring Europeans’ data to China contravening the GDPR. Source
• AI firm Zhipu Huazhang Technology has complained about a US plan to place it on its proscribed export control entity list, ostensibly for security reasons. Source
• Another AI firm, MiniMax, which is backed by tech giants Alibaba and Tencent, claims its new models are competitive with systems developed by OpenAI and other US-based AI companies . Source

India

• Meta has threatened to "roll back or pause" some features for Indian customers after the country ruled against it sharing users’ WhatsApp data for advertising purposes. Source
• Indian space-tech startups Pixxel and Digantara have launched India’s first private-sector satellite constellation. Source
• Amazon is to acquire Indian buy-now-pay-later startup Axio as the country’s appetite for consumer debt steps up. Source
• Microsoft insists it has no plans to lay off any Indian employees amid reports that it is planning another round of job cuts. Source
• HCLTech posted disappointing quarterly revenue figures, up 5.1% to Rs 298.9 billion ($3.45 billion) compared to analysts’ average estimate of Rs 300.68 billion. Source

Singapore

• By 2030 one in four Singaporeans will be over 65 and the country is turning to AI to look after them, reports Rest of World. Source
• US manufacturer Micron Technology has started building a $7 billion high-bandwidth memory (HBM) packaging facility in Singapore. The factory is scheduled to start operations in 2026. Source

South Korea

• Nokia has signed a patent licensing deal with Samsung, for the use by the South Korean giant of Nokia's video technologies in its TVs. Source
• The US and South Korean governments have accused North Korea of stealing $659 million in cryptocurrency hacks over the past year. Source

Taiwan

• The exclusion by the US of Taiwan from tough new laws regarding the export of semiconductors will benefit the country, according to its government. Source
• TSMC has lowered its profit forecast over the need to diversify geographically, but demand remains strong thanks to the AI surge. Source
• Taiwan is dropping a rule that prevented TSMC from building advanced production facilities plants overseas, opening the door for 2nm chip process technology to be used in the US. Source
• Taiwanese iPhone assembler Foxconn has reportedly ceased sending Chinese workers to its factories in India, possibly because of restrictions by the Chinese government. This is likely to have a negative impact on iPhone production in the county. Source
• Nvidia is backing Taiwanese startup MetAI in first round of funding to the tune of a $4 million. MetAI specialises in digital twins. Source

Other Asia

• Microsoft has advised users of a steep price rise for its M365 suite for users in Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand to fund AI features. However, customers can choose to subscribe to a version of M365 without Copilot, which will not be subject to the cost increases, according to The Register. Source
• Real estate developer ESR Group and datacentre provider CloudHQ are to develop a $2 billion data centre campus in Osaka, Japan. Source
• Economy minister Rafizi Ramli said that Chinese chipmakers are looking to invest billions of dollars in Malaysia as they seek to offset the effect of US sanctions. Source