Eva Chin writes for RECATOOLS on business and commerce in Southeast Asia: the commercial decisions small businesses actually face, and the markets and regulation around them. She also covers Chinese naming and cultural practice, education and qualifications across the region, and the arithmetic of a tropical home. Coverage of cultural practice is educational — it explains what a tradition holds and where it came from, and does not make predictive claims.

128
Articles
Business
Primary beat
Jul 2026
Writing since
~862 min
Total reading
All 128 Business 101 Chinese Culture 25 Home & Living 2

Articles Showing 31–40 of 128

A row of Ethernet patch cables in different colours standing upright against a white background with their connectors visible
Business

Equinix's Inference Exchange Arrives in Q1 2027, With No Price Attached

Inference Exchange pairs Nvidia reference architectures with Together AI across Equinix data centres. No price, no launch markets and no committed capacity have been published.

4 Sep 2026 · 6 min read
An empty meeting room with a white table, eight black chairs, a conference telephone and a blank flip chart against a wood-panelled wall
Business

The G20's AI Accord Is Non-Binding, and Two of Its Three Asks Take a Side

All twenty endorsed the Carolina Principles at Chapel Hill. Sector-specific rules, no new regulatory bodies, closer work with industry. Leaders adopt in December.

4 Sep 2026 · 6 min read
A classroom pinyin wall chart headed 声母表 and 韵母表, its cells pairing each sound with a small illustration, hanging beside a blackboard.
Chinese Culture

Half the pronunciation changes people argued about had already happened

The viral lists of Chinese readings the ministry supposedly changed trace to a 2016 draft that was never issued. But the draft is a two-column table with a note saying a blank right column means no change — so you can check entry by entry. Two of the most-quoted examples have blank right columns: they have been the rule since 1985.

4 Sep 2026 · 6 min read
The Taipei skyline seen across the city, with Taipei 101 rising above the surrounding buildings.
Chinese Culture

Taiwan's passport rules name no romanisation system at all

The received account is that Taiwan uses Wade-Giles, or 通用拼音, or has moved to Hanyu Pinyin. Article 14 of the passport enforcement rules names none of them. It fixes a script and a source pronunciation and stops there — so the schemes people observe come from a ministry conversion tool rather than from law, and Macau's statutory table is the exact structural opposite.

4 Sep 2026 · 6 min read
A row of European Union flags flying in front of the curved glass and steel facade of the Berlaymont building in Brussels
Business

Google's 890 Million Euro Fine Is Small. The Daily Penalty After 21 September Is Not.

The EU fine is about two days of Alphabet's revenue. What starts on the 22nd is a periodic payment of up to 5 per cent of average daily worldwide turnover.

3 Sep 2026 · 6 min read
A wooden gavel lying on a light wooden desk
Business

Nobody Could Be Found to Buy AdX, So Google Keeps It

Brinkema rejected the AdX divestiture and ordered behavioural remedies. One stated reason was that no credible buyer for AdX was ever identified.

3 Sep 2026 · 7 min read
The Palace of Westminster under a grey sky, the Union flag flying from the Victoria Tower
Business

The UK Cyber Bill Leaves Out AI Vendors, and Also the Government

The bill can order a power station to stop using a particular AI model, while imposing no duty on whoever built it. Peers challenged that and the minister answered on hostile actors.

3 Sep 2026 · 7 min read
A long flight of stairs photographed from the bottom, rising through tiled walls towards daylight at the top
Business

Uber Is Cutting Management Layers, and 3,300 Roles With Them

Uber is cutting 3,300 roles, 20 per cent of manager positions and every job more than seven layers from the chief executive. That last instruction implies at least eight layers existed.

2 Sep 2026 · 6 min read
Trays of metal letterpress type seen from above, individual raised letter blocks sorted into red compartments, the nearest ones in sharp focus.
Chinese Culture

The letter Chinese passports will not print

Hanyu Pinyin has a letter no Chinese travel document will print: ü. The rule that replaces it is two rules, not one — 吕 becomes LYU but 略 becomes LUE — and the standard everyone cites says only that the change is permitted, while the authority that prints the documents says it is required. Buried in the same notice is a clause letting you keep your old spelling.

2 Sep 2026 · 6 min read
A Chinese calligraphy practice book lying open on a pale desk, its ruled grid squares each holding one traditional character in regular script, with a hand at the right holding a brush pen above the page.
Chinese Culture

花 has seven strokes, and eight, and ten

Count it on the mainland and you get seven. Taiwan's education ministry says eight. A 五格 name reading says ten — a number worked out from an index the Kangxi dictionary never totals, by a method whose own founder said it was not stroke counting at all. Unicode hands your software exactly one of the three and does not say which.

2 Sep 2026 · 10 min read
Editorial Policy →
Advertisement