Big Take Asia
We’re taking The Big Take to Asia. Each week, Bloomberg’s Oanh Ha tells a story from the home of the world's most dynamic economies - and the markets, tycoons and businesses that drive the ever-shifting region.
Episodes
An interim deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz offers relief, but Asia’s economic woes are far from over. Beyond the chokepoint, the conflict has forced long-lasting shifts in Asia’s food and energy flows.
On today’s Big Take Asia podcast, Oanh Ha joins Odd Lots co-hosts Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal to discuss why Asia is reeling from the conflict and what the “new normal” looks like for global sup...
Offshore trading has long given Chinese investors access to global markets — often through legal gray areas. Now, Beijing is stepping in with its biggest crackdown in decades.
On today’s Big Take Asia Podcast, host K. Oanh Ha speaks with Bloomberg’s Lulu Chen about the sweeping restrictions and why Beijing is tightening controls over money leaving the country. We have a special Bloomberg subscription offer for pod...
Samsung recently made headlines when it narrowly averted a strike by offering eye-popping bonuses to its chip workers. But the move has seemingly backfired—sparking deep resentment in other corners of the company and fueling a wider debate over wage equity in South Korea.
On today’s Big Take Asia podcast, host K. Oanh Ha and Bloomberg’s Yoolim Lee break down how the wage dispute took hold in South Korea and discus...
Indonesia’s free lunch program is a massive operation, feeding tens of millions of people every day across a vast archipelago.
On today’s Big Take Asia podcast, host Rebecca Choong Wilkins talks with Bloomberg’s Rosalind Mathieson about the challenges facing President Prabowo’s flagship program and whether it can survive the strain.
Read more: Handing Out $15 Billion of Free Meals Strains I...
Beyond this month's talks between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump, there’s an epic tale that has been unfolding for decades. It’s a battle to be the world’s number one power and a much bigger story than the latest meeting of these two men.
Kishore Mahbubani is a former Singaporean diplomat who served as president of the United Nations Security Council. For two decades, he h...
SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son has made a $60 billion bet on OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman – a commitment that has some insiders worried.
On today’s Big Take Asia Podcast, host K. Oanh Ha speaks with Bloomberg’s Min-Jeong Lee about how Son became captivated by Altman and what’s at stake for his reputation – and the company – as the AI race intensifies.
Tensions between the US and China have deepened since the last time a US president traveled to Beijing for a summit, in 2017. President Trump’s return to China, in a swirl of dinners and festivities, generated positive optics for host and guest alike, but brought less apparent progress on some of the biggest bilateral sticking points, from tariffs and trade to US arms sales to Taiwan.
On today’s Big Take podcast, Big Ta...
Despite India facing economic headwinds, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party defied expectations with a stunning state election sweep — capped by a historic win in opposition stronghold West Bengal.
On today’s Big Take Asia Podcast, host K. Oanh Ha speaks to Bloomberg’s Menaka Doshi about how the BJP secured a shock victory and what an emboldened Modi might mean for India and the world.
As a high-stakes Trump–Xi summit looms, tensions over the Iran war and defiance of US sanctions threaten to derail what could be one of the year’s most consequential meetings. On Trumponomics, Bloomberg's Stephanie Flanders is joined by Jennifer Welch, chief geoeconomics analyst for Bloomberg Economics and Bloomberg News executive editor Dan Ten Kate to unpack whether the talks will happen—and what’s really ...
China’s decision to block Meta’s $2 billion acquisition of AI startup Manus stunned the global AI industry.
On today’s Big Take Asia podcast, host K. Oanh Ha speaks with Bloomberg’s Newley Purnell and Lulu Chen about how the deal crumbled and what it signals for Chinese startups trying to go global.
Read more: China’s Meta Backlash Renders Manus Model ‘Officially Dead’
Hosted by K. Oa...
For more than 30 years, the Indian-born writer Amitav Ghosh has built a global following with novels that draw on deep historical research.
But his latest offering, Ghost-Eye, is more esoteric. The plot moves back and forth between India and the US, using past lives to explore the ties between the personal and the political.
The plot centers on a psychiatrist treating a 3-year-old who shocks her family by insisting she rememb...
As global attention is focused on war in the Middle East, North Korea has been accelerating its nuclear and missile program — testing new weapons and producing more warheads.
On today’s Big Take Asia podcast, host K. Oanh Ha speaks with Bloomberg’s Jon Herskovitz on Kim Jong Un’s aggressive nuclear buildup and the strain that puts on US defenses.
India wants to become a manufacturing powerhouse to rival China — but its reliance on the Chinese supply chain for things like batteries and semiconductors makes for a complex and exceedingly difficult puzzle to untangle.
On today's Big Take Asia Podcast, host Oanh Ha and Bloomberg’s Alisha Sachdev on how corporate India is struggling to navigate this unique geopolitical landscape.
Read more: China’s Control ...
With the war in Iran creating a shortage of the fuel and fertilizer that farmers across Asia need to plant and harvest rice, many smallholders are seeking alternative supplies or pondering whether to plant at all.
On today’s Big Take Asia podcast, agriculture reporter Hallie Gu tells host Oanh Ha what the bottleneck in the Strait of Hormuz means for rice farmers from Cambodia to India — and how the fate of the region&rs...
日本のアパレル王者、ユニクロ。アジアや米国の沿岸部で成功を収めた同社が、今まさに挑もうとしているのが、ブランド認知がまだ低い「フライオーバー・カントリー（内陸部）」と呼ばれる広大なエリアです。ここを制覇することは、創業者の柳井正氏にとってグローバルNo.1への「最後の難関」を意味します。
今回のエピソードでは、テキサス州ダラスの店舗取材に加え、銀座の旗艦店で柳井氏の買い物に同行した様子を披露。柳井氏本人のインタビュー音声を交え、なぜこのエリアを攻略しようとしているのか、そしてなぜ経営の第一線に留まり続けるのか、その真意に迫ります。
関連記事：ユニクロ柳井正、不屈の野心－米国攻略に向けた成長戦略の真髄「売上3兆円はいける」
ユニクロの東京旗艦店を柳井氏と歩く「買う立場で考える、全部」−世界26市場を支える経営哲学
制作・ホスト： 野上英文、 取材：リード・スティーブンソン 、編集：岩井春翔 、ファクトチェック：香月夏子 、サウンドデザイン・エンジニア： 安澤隆...
Japan’s richest man — Uniqlo founder Tadashi Yanai — has struggled to win over the US, despite owning the world's third-largest clothing retailer by sales.
On today’s Big Take Asia podcast, Yanai takes Bloomberg’s Reed Stevenson to a store in Tokyo and explains why he’s betting big on America one more time.
Read more: Uniqlo's Billionaire Founder Wants Tenfold US Growth. Early Signs Are Good...
Fueled by a powerful mix of FOMO and a government drive to accelerate AI adoption, OpenClaw has exploded in popularity across China. But as these agentic systems gain sweeping access to personal data, reports of them “going rogue” are beginning to surface.
On today’s Big Take Asia podcast, host K. Oanh Ha sits down with Bloomberg’s Luz Ding and Bloomberg Opinion’s Catherine Thorbecke to dig into the ra...
BTS is back. After a near four-year hiatus, the K-pop icons returned with a historic Netflix event – the platform’s first concert live streamed from Asia.
On today's Big Take Asia Podcast, host K. Oanh Ha joins Bloomberg’s Sohee Kim and Lucas Shaw to discuss Netflix’s power move and how global streamers are fighting for dominance in the competitive Asian market.
Hosted by K. Oanh Ha Produced by Naomi N...
In Episode 6 of The Sixth Bureau, a series from The Big Take,with spy Xu Yanjun in prison, the US government pursues some of his collaborators. Plus, host Jordan Robertson gets an unexpected call which leads to a big discovery.
The Sixth Bureau from Bloomberg News follows an MSS intelligence officer whose mission was to acquire the crown jewels of American aerospace companies. With aliases, blackmail and the occasional break-i...
From soaring fuel prices in Pakistan to a shortage of cooking gas in India, Asia is bearing the brunt of the energy crunch sparked by the Iran War.
On today’s Big Take Asia podcast we look at how war in the Middle East has pushed Asia to the forefront of a global crisis. Host K. Oanh Ha speaks with Bloomberg’s Faseeh Mangi about the impact of soaring fuel prices in Pakistan and Clara Ferreira Marques about how the least...
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