https://www.scmp.com/rss/9739/feed Phar Kim Beng, PhD, is a professor of Asean studies at International Islamic University, Malaysia. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Phar Kim Beng Phar Kim Beng The Indo-Pacific cannot afford to become collateral damage in America’s descent from diplomacy into dysfunction – a decline embodied by Defence Secretary Peter Hegseth’s sabre-rattling and Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio’s overreach. At the recent Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Hegseth stunned Asia’s defence and diplomatic elite by demanding that Indo-Pacific countries raise defence spending to 5 per cent of gross domestic product to “counter China”. The proposal... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3313397/trump-hegseth-rubio-triple-threat-global-stability-and-asia?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3313397/trump-hegseth-rubio-triple-threat-global-stability-and-asia?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 07 Jun 2025 02:30:07 +0000 For the second time in his political career, US President Donald Trump has triggered a self-made crisis he hopes to walk away from, this time by imposing a 90-day pause on his punishing tariffs – not to reverse his economic nationalism, but to let markets breathe, allies recover and adversaries panic. In truth, this 90-day window is not a thaw. It is a vault. Trump has locked global trade inside it and tossed away the key. The pause is set to expire on July 8 but there is no clear signal Trump... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3307651/asean-must-see-us-tariff-pause-what-it-trade-hostage-crisis?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3307651/asean-must-see-us-tariff-pause-what-it-trade-hostage-crisis?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 26 Apr 2025 21:30:08 +0000 The United States is in a scramble as a record outbreak of bird flu decimates poultry stocks across the country. Egg prices are soaring, with some projections estimating a 41 per cent increase in 2025, and leaving American households reeling. While Washington is looking abroad for relief, current import sources – Canada, Taiwan, Lithuania and Turkey – may not be enough to stabilise prices of what should be an affordable staple grocery item. Enter Southeast Asia: a region with vast agricultural... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3301190/us-eggs-crisis-opportunity-asean-crack-american-market?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3301190/us-eggs-crisis-opportunity-asean-crack-american-market?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 08 Mar 2025 21:30:09 +0000 All agreements involving the European Union, a supranational entity comprising 27 member states, are bound to be complex and laborious. However, China managed to cut through the complexity and concluded an investment agreement with the EU in the last days of 2020. Will the agreement, which follows the Regional Comprehensive Trade Agreement (RCEP) in Asia, lead to a stronger and more coherent EU-China relationship or a more fractious one? Despite the deal, the European Commission has in the past... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3116005/why-eu-china-investment-deal-exposes-european-weakness?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3116005/why-eu-china-investment-deal-exposes-european-weakness?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 01 Jan 2021 21:15:17 +0000 The ink was barely dry on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) when President Xi Jinping signalled at an Apec leaders’ meeting on November 20 that China was already thinking of joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), a trade pact that was conceived by the United States and now favoured by Japan. By opting to show China’s preference for large, regional free trade agreements, even those led by the US or Japan, China is sending... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3111646/forget-decoupling-chinas-economy-wedded-globalisation?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3111646/forget-decoupling-chinas-economy-wedded-globalisation?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 28 Nov 2020 17:15:08 +0000 Professor Redzuan Othman, the vice-chancellor of the University of Selangor, has often insisted numbers do not lie. And that his statistical models are empirically solid. Moreover, based on this week’s move by Prime Minister Najib Razak’s government to change constituency boundaries, he now believes the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition will win big again. Redzuan’s predictions have been right on several occasions, and he is a serious and professional pollster. But there is also a chance Redzuan... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2139668/najibs-election-favourite-theres-malay-tsunami-coming?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2139668/najibs-election-favourite-theres-malay-tsunami-coming?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 30 Mar 2018 09:45:15 +0000 As election season enters full swing in Malaysia, Prime Minister Najib Razak appears to be running low on foreign friends. There has been a distinct lack of VIPs from the region, or the rest of the world, who have pledged to visit Malaysia and give Najib a boost as he prepares his United Malays Nationalist Organisation (Umno) party and the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition for an election that could be called in a matter of weeks or in August at the latest. Many analysts predict this will be the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2139529/why-are-foreign-leaders-snubbing-najib-ahead-malaysias-election?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2139529/why-are-foreign-leaders-snubbing-najib-ahead-malaysias-election?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 30 Mar 2018 07:03:17 +0000 It’s election season in Malaysia and it looks like this year’s political hot potato will be the national debt. National debt stands at 684 billion ringgit (US$174.31 billion), putting the country’s debt-to-gross domestic product ratio at 51 per cent. Most countries in the region have a ratio of around 41 per cent. Prime Minister Najib Razak claimed last week that if the opposition came to power on promises to abolish the goods and services tax, the national debt could reach 1.1 trillion ringgit,... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2138657/trillion-ringgit-puzzle-malaysian-election?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2138657/trillion-ringgit-puzzle-malaysian-election?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 24 Mar 2018 01:02:24 +0000 Malaysia’s opposition coalition is known as Pakatan Harapan, or Pact of Hope. It’s fitting for a group that has pinned its hopes on a nonagenarian former prime minister to wrest power from the ruling Barisan National (BN) coalition in a general election due by August but expected to be called as early as the end of the first quarter this year. The naming of Mahathir Mohamad as its prime ministerial candidate, along with Wan Azizah as a deputy prime minister, at last week’s national convention... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2128065/92-does-mahathir-have-enough-left-him-defeat-najib-and-stun?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2128065/92-does-mahathir-have-enough-left-him-defeat-najib-and-stun?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 14 Jan 2018 04:30:30 +0000 North Korea’s hydrogen bomb test has sent shock waves through the world, prompting some Western powers to suggest the country poses a “new order of threat”. But the thermonuclear device it claims to have developed is a case of old wine in a new bottle. Experts suggest the bomb detonated by Pyongyang had a 100-kiloton yield, making it around seven times more powerful than the atomic bomb America dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. But it is still just one-tenth as powerful as the hydrogen bomb tested... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2109820/north-korea-nuclear-crisis-time-panic-yet?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2109820/north-korea-nuclear-crisis-time-panic-yet?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 05 Sep 2017 06:19:46 +0000 An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) travels at six and a half kilometres per second. Or, in other words, twenty times the speed of sound. The North Korean missile that crossed over Hokkaido in Japan before landing in the Pacific wasn’t an ICBM. It was a mid-range missile travelling about half as fast. Given the missile’s trajectory and flight path, it’s fair to see its launch as an open challenge by North Korea to Japan – but not as a challenge to US bases in Guam, or at least, not... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2108973/why-sanctions-will-only-fuel-north-koreas-missile-tests?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2108973/why-sanctions-will-only-fuel-north-koreas-missile-tests?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 30 Aug 2017 08:14:29 +0000 Malaysia is stuck in the middle income trap. And one of the problems keeping it there is the massive size of its civil service – estimated at 1.6 million by Mohammad Sherif Kassim, the former secretary general of the Ministry of Finance. While such a large service has the effect of buttressing the government, making Malaysia more stable, it also hampers efforts to transform the government, making Malaysia more stagnant too. So while Mohammad’s desire to reduce the size of the civil service is... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2105087/najib-cant-afford-keep-malaysias-civil-servants-or-lose-them?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2105087/najib-cant-afford-keep-malaysias-civil-servants-or-lose-them?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 03 Aug 2017 04:00:00 +0000 Rosmah Mansor, the wife of Prime Minister Najib Razak, caused a ruckus when she allowed others in the government to address her as the “First Lady” as early as 2009. Malaysia does not have such a concept, unlike countries with Republican traditions such as the United States or France. Nevertheless, the honorific stuck. If Anwar and Mahathir have kissed and made up, should Najib be worried? While controversial to some, it barely merits mention on a list of unusual factors as voters prep for the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2102963/election-none-other-it-time-change-malaysia?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2102963/election-none-other-it-time-change-malaysia?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 18 Jul 2017 07:51:57 +0000 No one was expecting an apology from Mahathir Mohamad to Anwar Ibrahim at all. When Mahathir first showed up at the trial of Anwar in September 2016, in the latter’s legal challenge against Malaysia’s National Security Council Act – legislation that empowers any incumbent prime minister to suspend the electoral process – eyebrows were raised. Tongues were wagging that Mahathir would make amends for firing his one-time deputy when he was prime minister. But days turned into weeks, and weeks into... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2101744/after-18-years-why-malaysias-mahathir-apologising-anwar?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2101744/after-18-years-why-malaysias-mahathir-apologising-anwar?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 07 Jul 2017 12:45:00 +0000 In urging all sides to consider a new policy towards North Korea, including military options, President Donald Trump is signalling his intent to grab the proverbial bull by the horns. But no one should assume that the previous policy of relying on China to bring North Korea to book is already abolished. On the contrary, it will remain alive indefinitely. As things are, Trump does not have a national security team on East Asia. The ability of Defence Secretary James Mattis and National Security... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2100731/what-trumps-new-policy-north-korea-means-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2100731/what-trumps-new-policy-north-korea-means-china?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 30 Jun 2017 08:09:31 +0000 As the Lee Kuan Yew family feud transfixes Singapore, across the causeway Malaysians are marvelling at the manner in which the Lion City’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has addressed what might appear to some to be a private matter. Lee Hsien Loong, the son of Singapore’s founding leader Lee Kuan Yew, is locked in a row with two siblings over the fate of their father’s estate at 38 Oxley Road. Lee Kuan Yew had in his will ordered the bungalow to be demolished, but the prime minister questions... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2099405/what-malaysia-can-learn-lee-kuan-yew-family-feud-singapore?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2099405/what-malaysia-can-learn-lee-kuan-yew-family-feud-singapore?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 23 Jun 2017 05:15:00 +0000 The increasing frequency of suicide attacks in Europe and Asia – as seen most recently in London – suggests a clear degree of failure on behalf of law enforcement agencies to detect and decapitate terrorist networks. It is true that not all attacks are directly the work of terrorist networks – the three men who drove a vehicle into pedestrians on London Bridge before going on a knife rampage at the weekend are understood to have been acting as so-called ‘lone wolves’, for instance. Yet even in... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2097145/london-bridge-terror-what-britain-has-learn-turkey?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2097145/london-bridge-terror-what-britain-has-learn-turkey?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 06 Jun 2017 09:49:38 +0000 Terrorism, despite being a global spectre, tends to be a localised affair. Time and again, it bursts out in areas where the youth bulge and unemployment are the highest. Desperation is the oxygen of terrorism. In this respect, Middle Eastern terrorism isn’t so much due to the violent nature of Islam – a popular yet deeply misinformed narrative – as it is a product of the seemingly hopeless life in the secular realm. But the sudden spate of terrorism in Thailand, Indonesia, and now the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2096714/mindanao-manila-and-dutertes-options?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2096714/mindanao-manila-and-dutertes-options?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 02 Jun 2017 14:15:30 +0000 It is not often one gets to see how the United States conducts its diplomacy from the White House, especially over the phone. Yet, the full transcripts of President Donald Trump’s conversation with the Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte leaked to The Washington Post gave the world a unique glimpse. More importantly, it created a ruckus in the international security community, as Trump, according to Business Insider, did the unthinkable: he revealed the locations of a number of US nuclear... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2095797/how-xi-and-abe-will-interpret-trumps-north-korea-call-duterte?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2095797/how-xi-and-abe-will-interpret-trumps-north-korea-call-duterte?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 28 May 2017 02:00:24 +0000 Not unlike the boy who cried wolf, North Korea’s repeated claims that it has “perfected” its missile technology tend to be dismissed internationally as yet another round of bluster. Part of the process of acquiring a nuclear deterrent – even before it is perfected – is to exaggerate its threat. The goal is to keep Pyongyang’s adversaries at bay, to shock them into a state of strategic immobility. In a multi-party setting, where the United States, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea are all keen... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2095533/north-koreas-passed-dangerous-nuclear-threshold-did-anybody?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2095533/north-koreas-passed-dangerous-nuclear-threshold-did-anybody?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 24 May 2017 11:30:30 +0000 With every missile launch, the risk of an armed conflict in North Korea rises a notch – and so it is with Pyongyang’s confirmation that it “successfully” launched another medium-range ballistic missile on Sunday. The weapon is now ready for military action, according to the state-run KCNA news agency, whose announcement seems to taunt the UN Security Council, which only last Monday warned North Korea to conduct no further missile tests. That demand itself followed a test of what North Korea said... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2095264/opinion-north-korea-addicted-missiles-if-intervention-fails?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2095264/opinion-north-korea-addicted-missiles-if-intervention-fails?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 22 May 2017 13:45:00 +0000 When an action is repeated time and again by any state, its logic must appear compelling and hard to resist, whatever the risk. Thus it is with the strategy of North Korea. Launching missiles forms part of the crucible of Pyongyang’s strategy, alongside the nuclear tests that get ever larger in tonnage, and the morbid killing spree of its own dissidents that extends even to the family members of leader Kim Jong-un. North Korea has carried out more than two dozen missile tests since Kim Jong-un... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2094428/what-north-korea-wants-achieve-nuclear-tests-assassinations?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2094428/what-north-korea-wants-achieve-nuclear-tests-assassinations?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 16 May 2017 04:15:00 +0000 Much of the world heaved a sigh of relief when Emmanuel Macron emerged victorious in France’s presidential election last weekend. His victory over the National Front’s Marine Le Pen was seen by many as a sign that the rise of the far right in Europe had finally been arrested. Even far off places such as East Asia had reason to cheer, as markets responded to the reassurance: stock indexes across the region ticked up. But before the celebrations grow too loud, we should take note: the music stops... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2093942/what-china-east-asia-have-fear-macrons-hollow-victory-france?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2093942/what-china-east-asia-have-fear-macrons-hollow-victory-france?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 12 May 2017 10:00:15 +0000 Foreign policy is made as much by style as substance. That is why the locations of summits are almost as important as the events themselves. In the last three months, US President Donald Trump has met Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Florida. But for German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Theresa May, the meetings were confined to the White House, with the obligatory press conferences that Trump so dreads – and the difference is... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2093011/what-trumps-choice-venue-says-about-invite-philippine-singaporean?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2093011/what-trumps-choice-venue-says-about-invite-philippine-singaporean?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 06 May 2017 08:00:45 +0000 Despite their name, so-called “lone wolf” terrorists need not work alone; they can be organised into “wolf packs”. Both terms describe terror cells that operate without the knowledge or financial support of their parent body. Yet while separated from their central group, Islamic State (IS) lone wolves and wolf packs seem to often strike on cue when called upon, indirectly, by those leading their movement. According to Barak Mendelsohn, associate professor of political science at Haverford... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2092985/islamic-states-lone-wolves-risk-hong-kongs-strategy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2092985/islamic-states-lone-wolves-risk-hong-kongs-strategy?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 04 May 2017 09:30:04 +0000 “An inch ahead in politics is darkness,” goes a Japanese proverb. Not surprisingly, politicians tend to rely instinctively on family members, who they can naturally trust to steer them through the shadows. Hence dynasticism and politics have always gone hand in hand in Asia – and now it seems America, too. Prabowo Subianto, who lost to Joko Widodo in Indonesia’s presidential election in 2014, but whose fortunes seem to be turning with the defeat of Widodo’s ally Basuki “Ahok” Purnama in... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2090865/what-jared-kushner-has-learn-malaysian-indonesian-dynasties?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2090865/what-jared-kushner-has-learn-malaysian-indonesian-dynasties?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 27 Apr 2017 13:30:00 +0000 As his administration prepares to brief all 100 US senators on the nuclear and ballistic missile programmes of North Korea, President Donald Trump continues to heighten tensions along the Korean Peninsula in ways he can’t possibly control – as does Kim Jong-un, the crazed leader of North Korea. But how will the dangerous situation evolve? First, some US senators are likely to come away from the briefing on Wednesday unconvinced, since the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2090425/can-trump-do-anything-stop-war-north-korea?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2090425/can-trump-do-anything-stop-war-north-korea?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 25 Apr 2017 12:00:30 +0000 Anyone vaguely familiar with Turkey will know that it’s a geopolitical cauldron. The issues that buffet the leadership in Ankara will change swiftly, often on a week-to-week, or even day-to-day, basis. The speed and scale of the changes often manifest themselves in violence and war in Turkey’s contiguous regions. Not surprisingly, the Turkey dossier in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in China has been thickening. China also made some serious breakthroughs in Turkey’s high-speed railway. After... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2089541/what-stronger-erdogan-means-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2089541/what-stronger-erdogan-means-china?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 22 Apr 2017 04:31:45 +0000 Their stares are cold, tenacious and emotionless. They appeared bent to rip each other’s jugular out at the drop of the proverbial hat. The irony is that they didn’t ­­– and haven’t, since 1953. US President Donald Trump promised to send the “powerful” USS Carl Vinson carrier group to the Korean Peninsula last week; after some misstatements and bad press about the “missing armada”, the strike group is now expected to arrive in the Sea of Japan sometime next week. But one can only suspect that... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2088894/dont-mess-n-koreas-kim-he-thinks-hes-his-grandfather?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2088894/dont-mess-n-koreas-kim-he-thinks-hes-his-grandfather?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 19 Apr 2017 12:00:30 +0000 Predicting the outcome of major summits is not an exact science. And the Mar-a-Lago huddle between Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and US President Donald Trump is no different. Summits, as Henry Kissinger would say, embody “high politics”, by way of the history-altering dynamics they unleash. In case of Mar-a-Lago, a 100-day programme has been rolled out to improve Sino-US trade, four channels have been formed to discuss security, economic policy, and cultural and people-to-people exchanges.... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2087428/trump-and-xi-sherpas-not-summits-make-difference?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2087428/trump-and-xi-sherpas-not-summits-make-difference?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 15 Apr 2017 11:03:14 +0000 Almost all nuclear scientists agree that land-based or underground nuclear detonations are no longer necessary. These fission activities can easily be done with computer simulations. This has been the case since the end of the Cold War. The science of using artificial intelligence to gauge the destructiveness of each bomb, however, is not something North Korea seems interested in, even though Pyongyang has access to super computers. Why? Xi-Trump summit ‘beats expectations’ but North Korea still... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2087724/will-china-stand-aside-if-north-korea-wants-talk-trump?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2087724/will-china-stand-aside-if-north-korea-wants-talk-trump?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 14 Apr 2017 08:20:31 +0000 Viewed from afar, Malaysia’s ruling party, the United Malays National Organisation (Umno), might seem nigh-on unchallengeable in the general election expected as early as this year. After all, it has been in power since the country’s first such election in 1955 – two years before the country’s independence from Britain. Yet, while it is undeniably strong, its armour is not without chinks. The party cannot afford to lose the support of Malaysia’s rural constituencies – a dependency that has... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2085695/how-ill-fated-stock-listing-could-sway-malaysias-election?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2085695/how-ill-fated-stock-listing-could-sway-malaysias-election?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 09 Apr 2017 04:30:15 +0000 With the release of nine Malaysians from Pyongyang yesterday – three diplomatic staff and their family members – the geopolitical saga over the assassination of Kim Jong-nam on February 13 appears to have come to an end. At the heart of the issue was not the possession or transport of Kim Jong-nam’s body – now returned to Pyongyang – but rather the two North Korean suspects who were holed up in their embassy in Kuala Lumpur. The pair have since been put on a flight back to Pyongyang via Beijing... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2083846/how-north-korea-got-away-murder-malaysia?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2083846/how-north-korea-got-away-murder-malaysia?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 31 Mar 2017 11:33:25 +0000 Hong Kong has long been at the forefront of globalisation, exposed and vulnerable to its disruptive forces; a bellwether city struggling to stay ahead of an ever-changing curve. Yet its importance is too often relegated to a mere footnote in the grand scheme of regional analysis. Take the Asia Development Bank (ADB) 2050 report, for example. This report envisages the emergence of seven economic stars to lead Asia’s rise: China, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Thailand. But it... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2081887/hong-kongs-future-bridge-china-southeast-asia?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2081887/hong-kongs-future-bridge-china-southeast-asia?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 25 Mar 2017 04:01:24 +0000 In January, Hong Kong Commissioner of Police Stephen Lo Wai-chung said during his year-end briefing on the city’s crime situation that there was “no intelligence to indicate that Hong Kong is under imminent threat” from terrorists. While the terror threat has been “moderate” the past few years, the preparation against global terrorism has still been long in coming. Francis Shun Leung, superintendent of the force, affirmed that all 30,000 police have to act as a counter to any threat of... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2081576/hong-kong-ready-combat-global-terrorism?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2081576/hong-kong-ready-combat-global-terrorism?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 23 Mar 2017 10:36:28 +0000 As the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) reaches its 50th anniversary it would do well to consider the irony that as it celebrates its golden jubilee, the entity that inspired its creation in 1967 is losing one of its most important members. With the British parliament this week passing the Brexit bill, the way ahead is clear for Prime Minister Theresa May to trigger the two-year divorce process that would remove Britain from the European Union. May has vowed that will happen by the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2079954/why-brexit-strengthens-beijings-hand-south-china-sea?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2079954/why-brexit-strengthens-beijings-hand-south-china-sea?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 18 Mar 2017 06:00:15 +0000 It is often said that North Korea is like a hermit, a solitary state seldom glimpsed, sealed in time and wrapped in myth. It is an angry recluse, too, given to periodic outbursts that punctuate the whispers of its neighbours with demonstrations of its power – reminders of why it should be feared, not ridiculed. This is a country that uses the threat of modern nuclear weaponry to keep others at bay and appears to be growing bolder by the day. Last year Pyongyang conducted two nuclear tests and... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2077917/madness-kim-jong-un-what-pyongyang-hopes-gain-standoff?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2077917/madness-kim-jong-un-what-pyongyang-hopes-gain-standoff?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 11 Mar 2017 04:00:30 +0000 With Pyongyang’s declaration on Monday that all Malaysian citizens were banned from leaving North Korea, a dangerous hostage situation has erupted from the assassination of Kim Jong-nam. The two countries are at loggerheads over the killing on February 13 of the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Kuala Lumpur – an act Pyongyang is widely considered to have orchestrated, despite its claims of a conspiracy against it. Since then, a downward spiral has set in. At first, each country... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2077054/north-koreas-game-chicken-malaysia-over-hostages-who-will?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2077054/north-koreas-game-chicken-malaysia-over-hostages-who-will?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 08 Mar 2017 06:15:45 +0000 Thailand's caretaker prime minister paid a high price for his trip to the United Nations to address the General Assembly - an institution he is not known to respect at the best of times. But Thaksin Shinawatra was lured by the prospect of meeting US President George W. Bush at the event, and so abandoned all sense of caution. He lost his office to a group of military officers whose actions must have been quietly approved by revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Rumours of a coup have been rife... https://www.scmp.com/article/564847/thaksins-step-too-far?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/564847/thaksins-step-too-far?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 21 Sep 2006 16:00:00 +0000 Global protest is increasingly the norm. During the weekend after America's invasion of Iraq, March 21-23, over 5 million people protested in anti-war demonstrations around the world (see table). East Asia is not immune to the waves of protests. In April, hundreds of thousands of protesters in South Korea hit the streets to oppose the heavy military presence of the US military command in the heart of Seoul. On Tuesday, Hong Kong had its largest rally since 1989: About 500,000 people packed the... https://www.scmp.com/article/420691/widening-gulf-between-people-and-states?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/420691/widening-gulf-between-people-and-states?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 04 Jul 2003 16:00:00 +0000