Asian Insider: Asia’s tech hiring boom | Avenging national humiliation

Dear ST reader,

2022 is looking to be a good year for tech talents seeking new challenges in Asia. In Malaysia politics, a Malay unity pact has well and truly fallen apart.

China’s strategies in seeking to avenge its perceived national humiliations could provide lessons for other nations.

Asia’s tech hiring boom

Asia’s tech sector is seeing a hiring boom even as regulatory clampdowns stifle the employment sentiment in China. Firms are dangling big perks and recruiting for remote positions or bringing in expatriates amid the pandemic. Some are even expected to raise salaries and counter offers by as much as 120 per cent, ST correspondents report. Read on for the countries and companies in the contest for the world’s top tech talents this year.

Read more: The Great Resignation: Has the global trend reached Singapore?

Don't miss our interactive: Singapore salary guide: Are you getting paid as well as your peers?


Umno-PAS pact unravels

Any pretence of Malaysia’s oldest Malay Muslim political parties Umno and Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) still working together has evaporated, with their leaders trading insults in recent days. PAS publicly cast its lot with Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia last weekend, indicating the return of open hostility and the end of a marriage of convenience with Umno, Malaysia bureau chief Shannon Teoh reports.


Myanmar, one year on

One year on since the Feb 1, 2021, coup d'etat in Myanmar, a younger generation that came of age in a brief decade of relative freedom and progress remains all the more determined to resist and uproot the army that seized power from an elected government, US bureau chief Nirmal Ghosh writes. With the country mired in political conflict and its economy in a state of collapse, its need for humanitarian assistance has expanded exponentially

Listen: Nirmal and his expert guests discuss potential paths forward for Myanmar 

Also read: US urged to focus on Myanmar at this critical moment


India plays the Taiwan chip

India, which has for years been careful about its relations with Taiwan, has in recent times become friendlier towards the self-ruled island amid tensions with China. There is thinking in New Delhi that if its ties with Beijing worsen, Taiwan could be a lever it could use, writes India bureau chief Nirmala Ganapathy in the weekly Power Play column. The question is whether that will work, and if India can really stomach the consequences.


Asia’s bank scam epidemic

The coronavirus pandemic has sparked an epidemic of bank scams around the world. Scam factories have intensified operations over the past two years, reeling in more victims as remote workers use devices with weaker security and digital fatigue leads to carelessness. From text spamming in the Philippines to voice phishing in South Korea, our correspondents report on the various types of scams and their unsuspecting victims across Asia.


Avenging national humiliation

At the core of the current crisis between Russia and the West over Ukraine lies Moscow’s yearning to avenge its perceived national humiliations – a burning sentiment that China has long been familiar with. While both Russia and China are animated by similar grievances, Beijing’s policy response – to gain respect by way of internal change – has been more successful, global affairs correspondent Jonathan Eyal writes.


 

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