Asia In Brief A SpaceX executive has claimed that a Chinese satellite launch came within 200 meters of hitting a Starlink satellite.

“A few days ago, 9 satellites were deployed from a launch from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Northwestern China,” Michael Nicolls, a vice president of Starlink engineering at SpaceX wrote on Saturday.

“As far as we know, no coordination or deconfliction with existing satellites operating in space was performed, resulting in a 200 meter close approach between one of the deployed satellites and STARLINK-6079 (56120) at 560 km altitude,” he added.

Nicolls linked to a China Daily report describing a launch by Chinese commercial space outfit CAS Space, seemingly suggesting it was the source of the near-miss.

“Most of the risk of operating in space comes from the lack of coordination between satellite operators,” Nicolls added, before concluding “This needs to change.”

Drugs in ink cartridges

Australia’s Border Force last week revealed the arrest and charging of a man accused of importing heroin and cocaine in air cargo packages.

“The illicit drugs were concealed in consignments labelled as mashed potato packets, ink cartridges and coffee machine parts,” Border Force wrote.

The agency arrested the suspect on December 9th and seized a mobile phone that, after forensic investigation, was found to run an encrypted messaging application in which the man discussed delivery of consignments to locations around Sydney.

Big tech to spend $50 billion in India

India last week attracted over $50 billion in AI investment from Microsoft and Amazon.

On December 9th, Microsoft announced a plan to spend $17.5 billion in India over four years “to advance the country’s cloud and artificial intelligence infrastructure, skilling and ongoing operations.”

Plenty of that cash will go towards completing Azure’s India South Central cloud region, which Microsoft expects to come online in mid-2026, plus expansion of three other Azure regions across India. Microsoft also announced the adoption of Azure OpenAI services by two major Indian government platforms that serve over 300 million citizens.

Amazon announced a plan to spend $35 billion between now and 2030 on “AI-driven digitization, export growth and job creation.”

The e-tail giant promised its efforts will be “ strategically aligned with India’s national priorities and will focus on expanding AI capabilities, enhancing logistics infrastructure, supporting small business growth and creating jobs.”

Coupang CEO resigns after data breach

The CEO of Korean e-tail giant Coupang last week resigned in the wake of the company’s massive data breach.

A company statement says “CEO Park Dae-joon has resigned in connection with the recent personal information leak incident.”

The incident saw Coupang lose information on over 30 million customers, more than half the population of South Korea.

A canned quote from Park says he is “deeply sorry for disappointing the public with the recent personal information incident.”

“I feel a deep sense of responsibility for the outbreak and the subsequent recovery process, and I have decided to step down from all positions,” he added.

Coupang appointed Chief Administrative Officer and General Counsel of Harold Rogers as interim CEO. The company apologized for the incident and promised to “significantly enhance our information security to prevent recurrences and will do everything we can do to recover trust.”

Free speech protestors claim Vultr binned their website

Anti-censorship organization GreatFire.org, which monitors and protests China’s Great Firewall, has accused web hosting business Vultr of deplatforming it.

One of GreatFire’s activities is a site called FreeWeChat.com where it posts content it claims Chinese authorities removed from WeChat, the social network run by Chinese web giant Tencent.

GreatFire has previously claimed that Tencent engaged Singapore-based infosec company Group-IB to lodge complaints of trademark and copyright infringement, cybersquatting, and unfair competition, in the hope of shuttering FreeWeChat.com.

Last week, GreatFire claimed that one organization Group-IB targeted on behalf of Tencent is US-based cloud operator Vultr.

“After months of behind the scenes negotiations and requests for transparency, on November 28, 2025, with many of our questions still left unanswered, Vultr closed GreatFire’s account at Tencent’s request,” GreatFire’s post claims. “In doing so, Vultr acted as Tencent’s vehicle to extend Chinese censorship well beyond the borders of China.”

The Register sought comment from Group-IB and Vultr, but has not received a response at the time of writing.

GreatFire argues that FreeWeChat.com does not abuse Tencent’s trademarks or copyright and attacks on the site are acts of censorship.

AI is a divine gift

The Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences last week staged an event titled “Artificial Intelligence and Pastoral Challenges in Asia” at which Hong Kong’s Cardinal Stephen Chow used his homily to state “I think AI is not from the devil. AI comes from God, who helps us.”

Other speakers at the event cautioned against “deepfakes, unverifiable sources, algorithmic filtering, and the opaque logic by which digital platforms shape information flows,” according to reports. ®