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 111–120 of 128

Ink-wash drawing of a scholar's table: a corded stack of thread-bound volumes, one open beside them, with a brush resting on an inkstone.
Chinese Culture

What Links the 36 Stratagems to the Art of War's 13 Chapters

The two are separate books a thousand years apart, so a stratagem filed under a chapter is a reading aid, not a lineage. Two links quote the stratagem's own characters, one borrows its image, most state the principle it applies — and one of the thirty-six has no honest home in the treatise at all.

13 Aug 2026 · 6 min read
Two people at a glass table, one pointing at a specific line on a printed contract.
Business

Two Offers, the Same Salary, and Opposite Answers

Two Singapore offers at the same S$144,000 a year rank in opposite directions depending on what you count. One wins by S$1,020 on cash reaching the bank; the other wins by S$1,200 once employer contributions are counted. The cause is the CPF ceilings, and the lesson is that the employer's share is real pay no offer letter mentions.

13 Aug 2026 · 8 min read
A worn mid-century booklet of the Thirty-Six Stratagems, of the kind the collection first surfaced in.
Chinese Culture

How Well Attested Are the 36 Stratagems?

The Thirty-Six Stratagems are introduced as ancient military history. Reading all thirty-six origin texts end to end, twenty-seven name a dated episode with named people — but four take their name from a poem or an anecdote and borrow a battle afterwards, two are proverbs with no incident at all, two hedge, and the single most famous entry is the one a named historian examined and rejected.

13 Aug 2026 · 6 min read
Close-up of a green printed circuit board showing surface-mounted components, solder pads and a connector edge
Business

Foxconn Now Earns More From AI Racks Than From Everything Apple

Cloud and networking hit 51 per cent of second-quarter revenue against 29 for consumer electronics - the first time AI servers have outearned the iPhone business. The 2027 ceiling is now TSMC's packaging line, not Foxconn's floor space.

13 Aug 2026 · 8 min read
A weathered enamel 'Sorry We're Closed' sign hanging inside a shop door — illustrative of a customer channel going quiet, which is what an unremoved chat widget does on 5 October.
Business

Microsoft Is Switching Off Teams Live Chat. Small Businesses Get Eight Weeks.

The feature launched in March 2025 and dies on 5 October. It was available only on the Business plans, so the migration lands on the firms least able to absorb it.

11 Aug 2026 · 7 min read
A large industrial building part-built, steel framing and a bare concrete core standing between two tower cranes — illustrative of the phase-one stage the Terafab commitment covers.
Business

Tesla and SpaceX Committed $16.8bn to a Chip Fab. The Rest Is Description.

Phase one is a real number with a decision behind it. The 100 million square feet, the $119 billion and the terawatt of computing capacity are not, and the announcement presents all four the same way.

11 Aug 2026 · 8 min read
An industrial robot arm on a factory line — illustrating the physical-AI market these image sensors are being built for.
Business

Sony and TSMC Are Reported to Be Spending ¥1 Trillion on Sensors. The Reason Is Robots.

A reported ¥1 trillion joint venture in Kumamoto, 60% Sony and 40% TSMC, producing next-generation image sensors from 2029. The stated targets are automotive and robotics, not phones.

11 Aug 2026 · 7 min read
An industrial robot arm on an automation line, illustrating the robotics sector rather than the humanoid machines described here.
Business

Unitree Priced at 36 Times Revenue. The Number to Watch Is 5,500.

Unitree priced its Shanghai STAR Market listing on 6 August at a valuation of about 61 billion yuan, roughly 36 times its 2025 revenue, making it the first mainland-listed humanoid robot maker. It shipped more than 5,500 humanoids last year — the world's largest volume, and a reminder of how early this industry still is.

8 Aug 2026 · 7 min read
An abundant, vibrant fish farm pond teeming with trout, showcasing aquatic aquaculture.
Business

Parliament Asked How Much Temasek Lost on eFishery. The Reply Answered a Different Question

An MP asked whether Temasek invested in eFishery, how much, and whether management would be held accountable. The reply set out the accountability doctrine and left the amount out.

8 Aug 2026 · 8 min read
Colorful street market scene in Jakarta, Indonesia, displaying red and white flags amidst busy traffic.
Business

Indonesia Halved GoTo's Ride Commission. Its Two Profit Guidance Ranges Simply Swapped

A presidential regulation cut the two-wheeler commission cap from 20 per cent to 8. GoTo kept its group profit guidance and exchanged the divisional halves.

7 Aug 2026 · 9 min read
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