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This Week in Asia /

Opinion

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(From right) Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin during the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Tianjin on September 1, 2025. Photo: EPA

Asian Angle | China has a worthy blueprint to improve the UN. Why is the West ignoring it?

China’s Global Governance Initiative seeks to end ‘might is right’, but the West insists on viewing it through a dusty Cold War lens.

18 Jan 2026 - 10:30AMvideocam

Asian Angle | To win the future, Southeast Asia must rewrite its industrial rule book

17 Jan 2026 - 10:30AM

Asian Angle | Indonesia’s digital 2045 ambition rests on a fragile seabed spine

11 Jan 2026 - 11:00AM

Protests around the world

Opinion | From memes to the streets: Gen Z’s fight back against corruption

Youth-led movements are too often treated as fleeting emotional outbursts, even though they express structured political demands.

10 Jan 2026 - 4:00PM

An activist holds a poster next to a flag bearing an image of the “Jolly Roger” from popular Japanese anime “One Piece” during a protest in Jakarta, Indonesia, in September. Photo: AP

Asian Angle | How uneven borders fuel Myanmar’s vast and resilient scam economy

Fieldwork along the borders of China and Thailand reveals how uneven controls allow fraud networks to thrive despite crackdowns.

4 Jan 2026 - 1:00PMvideocam

Asian Angle | Bangladesh needs ‘structural’ change, but how will it get there?

As Bangladesh heads into elections next year, it must tread the challenge of political transition with more care and thoughtfulness.

3 Jan 2026 - 4:00PM

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Asian Angle | Sabah’s election proves Malaysians want results, not slogans

Local parties crying ‘Sabah First’ largely flopped as voters rejected empty identity rhetoric for proven service records.

21 Dec 2025 - 10:30AM

Officials from the Sabah People’s Coalition, or Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS), hold a launch event on October 20 in preparation for the 17th Sabah state election. Photo: Facebook/grs.sabah

The Philippines

Asian Angle | Greed and pork barrel politics fuel the Philippines’ fatal floods

Filipinos are paying the ultimate price for a system that favours corrupt lawmakers’ pet projects over scientifically sound flood control.

20 Dec 2025 - 12:00PMvideocam

The Philippines

Asian Angle | Is the new Philippines-Germany defence pact built to last?

Rising anxieties over Beijing and Moscow have united Berlin and Manila in an axis that must now be institutionalised to ensure it endures.

14 Dec 2025 - 10:30AM

Opinion | From Singapore to Taiwan, Japan must face its past for Asia’s future

Lasting peace in Asia demands that Tokyo abandons its historical revisionism and refusal to acknowledge past crimes.

13 Dec 2025 - 11:00AM

A man displays a Rising Sun Flag, the Japanese naval ensign, at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on August 15, the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. Photo: Reuters

Asian Angle | Vietnam’s anti-drug police are speaking Gen Z, and it’s working

Ho Chi Minh City’s police have found a way to wrap dry state messaging in viral humour, mirroring China’s digital playbook.

7 Dec 2025 - 10:30AM

A viral social media post showing a faux wedding proposal created by an anti-drugs police unit photo in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Facebook/PC04.CATP

Asian Angle | The Thai influencer bringing viral warfare to Cambodia’s border

Gun Jompalang is a self-styled ‘justice crusader’ with over 9 million followers but no commander. He’s not a soldier, but he is waging war.

6 Dec 2025 - 11:00AM

Opinion | Why China is succeeding in Myanmar while the West has been sidelined

The West’s incoherent strategy is no match for a ruthless, integrated Chinese approach that leverages economic links to its advantage.

30 Nov 2025 - 1:30PM

Asian Angle | The hidden domestic agenda behind Vietnam’s baffling foreign policy

To Lam’s recent pilgrimages to North Korea and Cuba signal ideological loyalty, even as he pushes a hard-nosed reform agenda at home.

29 Nov 2025 - 1:30PM

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Vietnam’s To Lam (left) talk before a meeting in Pyongyang, North Korea, last month. Photo: VNA/AP

Opinion | Self-interest is now the main driver of Britain’s Asia policy

There are a great many reasons why the UK government should pay more attention to the Asia-Pacific, but that does not mean that it will.

24 Nov 2025 - 9:21AM

UK military personnel stand on board Britain’s HMS Prince of Wales aircraft carrier as it arrives in Tokyo, Japan, in August. Photo: Reuters

Opinion | Reinventing Kaohsiung: Taiwan’s port city transcends its industrial past

From shipyards and smokestacks to a smart, green metropolis, Kaohsiung shows urban renewal can succeed in the unlikeliest of places.

22 Nov 2025 - 1:30PM

The Philippines

Opinion | The Philippines’ political chameleon: Juan Ponce Enrile’s complicated legacy

His journey from martial-law architect to defector reveals the shifting loyalties that shaped his career and the nation’s history.

18 Nov 2025 - 10:00AMvideocam

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Asian Angle | Thailand’s youth mental health crisis is fuelled by neglect and legalised weed

Young Thais are beset by anxiety and debt – and turning to readily available cannabis to self-medicate their isolation and despair.

16 Nov 2025 - 10:00AM

Deprived of robust family or societal support, many young Thais are left to navigate stress, loneliness and relentless academic pressures alone. Photo: Shutterstock

Asian Angle | Nepal found out what Thailand already knew: digital repression is risky

The tactics vary, from Myanmar’s internet blackouts to Indonesia’s subtler control, but the results are the same: resentment and resistance.

15 Nov 2025 - 1:00PMvideocam

Asian Angle | Malaysia is not Palestine. False equivalence fuels ethnic polarisation

Such rhetoric paints Malays as the dispossessed natives of their own land and non-Malays as the occupiers.

9 Nov 2025 - 11:00AM

Asian Angle | Thailand’s ‘China plus one’ successes mask a middle-income quagmire

FDI figures hide the painful truth: an ageing workforce, structural challenges and low-value assembly threaten economic stagnation.

8 Nov 2025 - 12:00PM

Workers on an assembly line at the Great Wall Motors manufacturing plant in Rayong, Thailand. Photo: Xinhua

Opinion | Diplomacy in the age of populism is fast, fickle and unbound by the rules of old

Swift, informal deals can quickly defuse crises, but without a new rules-based order, global stability is being held hostage to chance.

2 Nov 2025 - 10:00AMvideocam

US President Donald Trump meets Russian President Vladimir Putin for a summit in Alaska in August. Photo: AFP/Getty Images/TNS

Opinion | What Syria’s post-war pivot to China reveals about the new world order

Damascus views engagement with Beijing as a pathway to legitimacy, leverage – and the US$216 billion it needs to rebuild.

1 Nov 2025 - 1:30PM

Asian Angle | Why Malaysia’s fuel subsidy reform is stuck in the slow lane

Fears of a 2008-style backlash and poor public transport are keeping Anwar’s government from slashing the huge, regressive fuel subsidy bill.

26 Oct 2025 - 12:00PM

China-Asean relations

Asian Angle | How China can anchor Southeast Asia’s future in an uncertain world

The promise is simple: a trajectory of growth with fewer surprises, built on China’s pillars of capital, diplomacy and shared development.

4 Nov 2025 - 4:15PM

China’s Premier Li Qiang (left) shakes hands with Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, the 2025 Asean chair, on the sidelines of an Asean summit in May. Photo: Handout

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