Asia In Brief China's Ministry of State Security has asked citizens to stop posting info about the nation's spy satellites and national security installations online.

State-controlled media yesterday covered the Ministry's call for netizens to stop marking the location of military installations on maps and discussing military topics in online forums.

"All of this has opened a window for foreign forces to peek into China's core secrets, posing unprecedented challenges to national security," the reports state, adding that space is now a critical strategic domain and loose lips -or posts - can sink spaceships.

Chinese netizens have had plenty to consider over the weekend. Major social media platforms WeChat, Douyin, and Weibo all announced crackdowns on hate speech after an incident in which a bus taking children to a Japanese school in Suzhou city was attacked by a man wielding a knife. A Chinese bus attendant, Hu Youping, defended a Japanese family, but sustained fatal wounds.

She has been hailed as a national hero and flags flown at half-staff in her honor.

- Simon Sharwood

Singapore's central bank debuts global financial services blockchain plan

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has detailed [PDF] its exploration of a multi-purpose shared ledger infrastructure it envisions will be jointly developed by regulated financial institutions, and used to oversee their affairs.

"The legacy infrastructure underpinning global financial markets was developed decades ago, resulting in siloed databases, disparate communication protocols, and significant cost incurred maintaining proprietary systems and bespoke integrations," explained MAS. "While global financial markets have remained robust and resilient, the needs of the industry have grown in sophistication and scale."

Due to this fragmentation, the central bank reckons all would be served best by an entirely new interoperable system, and aims to foster the development of a shared layer infrastructure for hosting tokenized financial assets and applications.

The planned system has the lofty assignment of standardizing the way digital assets, smart contracts, and digital identities are managed, while unlocking funds that are currently stuck in separate systems and also reducing costs. Financial institutions are expected to use this shared platform to issue, trade, settle, and manage digital assets, while also streamlining cross-border transactions.

"By tapping into the capabilities in the broader financial ecosystem, financial institutions can provide a richer and wider suite of services to end users and get to market faster," explained the central bank.

India's 5G spectrum auction fizzles

India last week conducted a spectrum auction that did not go as planned.

All the spectrum in the 800MHz, 900MHz, 1800MHz, 2100MHz, 2300MHz, 2500MHz, 3300MHz, and 26GHz bands were put on auction. However, buyers only bid for the 900MHz, 1800MHz, 2100MHz and 2500MHz bands, according to India's Ministry of Communications.

"A total quantum of 141.4MHz (26.5 percent) was sold from the balance 533.6MHz Spectrum," stated the Ministry. "This is despite the fact that a very large amount of spectrum - 51.2GHz of spectrum - was sold in August 2022."

The unsold spectrum will be auctioned again at an undisclosed date.

India's last spectrum auction, in 2022, yielded just short of $18 billion.

The total amount of revenue garnered by this auction was Rs113.4 billion ($1.35 billion). Bharti Airtel took the biggest chunk - a total of 7MHz spectrum in the 900MHz, 1800MHz and 2100MHz bands, for Rs68.57 billion ($820 million). Much of that was to renew spectrum rights expiring this year.

Vodafone Idea and Reliance Jio also made purchases.

Chinese rocket debris lands near people

The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation declared last week's launch of the joint Sino-French SVOM a success, despite reports that toxic debris resulting from the flight fell onto a populated area.

Space is hard - as further demonstrated by North Korea, which also spewed its own midair launch debris on Wednesday. The Hermit Kingdom was testing a hypersonic missile when it exploded, again making a mess on Earth.

President of Sharp steps down

The president of Japanese electronics company Sharp, Robert Wu, announced [PDF] he would depart his role. His replacement is fellow Sharp exec Masahiro Okitsu.

The change comes after a period of losses for Sharp - ones that shareholders would not let Wu forget as they reportedly hurled abuse at him at the company's annual shareholder meeting.

Losses have largely been attributed to underperforming liquid crystal display panel operations.

China names new SciTech boss

China's first-ranked vice-premier, Ding Xuexiang, was named as the head of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Science and Technology Commission.

The Commission was first introduced last year. Ding's appointment is believed to be a sign that Xi Jinping is willing to participate in government leadership delegation.

According to state-sponsored media, Ding gave a speech at the second plenary session of the National Science and Technology Conference in Beijing last Tuesday.

APAC Dealbook

Recent alliances and deals spotted by The Register across the region last week include:

• Australia's Space Machines Company inked [PDF] a deal to send its satellite-repair satellite into orbit into on an Indian rocket in 2026.
• State-backed Singapore Technologies Engineering (ST Engineering) began construction of a new datacenter within the city-state's borders.

  The facility is scheduled for completion in 2026 and is one of the first new datacenters to be built in Singapore since it suspended construction in 2019 over environmental concerns.

• Datacenter provider Equinix announced last Tuesday it would open a "strategic interconnection hub" in Chennai, India.

  Called CN1, the facility is designed to support the needs of enterprises and hyperscalers, including AI deployments in the area. It is expected to open in Q4 2024.

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https://www.theregister.com//2024/07/01/asia_tech_news_roundup/