Asia

When Singaporean Joel Tan stood before fellow Harvard Medical School PhD graduates recently, he recalled how the chance to study biology had once seemed unrealistic because he was told his grades were not good enough. “I often think about how much of my life depended on someone, somewhere, deciding that my past performance did not have to define my future potential,” said Tan, who delivered the student address at the Harvard Medical School-affiliated PhD programmes’ hooding ceremony on May...

A leadership stand-off in the Philippine Senate ended Wednesday with the removal of an ally of former president Rodrigo Duterte as leader of the chamber, which will soon start the impeachment trial of his daughter, incumbent Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio. With 13 of 24 senators backing him, Sherwin Gatchalian, an ally of President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr, was elected Senate president. His rival, Alan Peter Cayetano, a key supporter of Duterte, admitted defeat. “He’s the leader the Senate needs...

The son of Sri Lanka’s former president Mahinda Rajapaksa was arrested on Wednesday on corruption charges, the anti-bribery commission said, the latest case to target the once all-powerful political clan. Yoshitha Rajapaksa, 38, is accused of tapping state funds for overseas training during his career as a naval officer. The Bribery Commission said he was being investigated for having risen through the ranks without the necessary qualifications and going to Britain for government-funded officer...

Fifa has extended an official invitation to a South Korean YouTuber to attend her country’s World Cup match against Mexico on Thursday after she was subjected to a racist gesture during a recent game. The football governing body said the match, which falls on the International Day for Countering Hate Speech, will be used to deliver a “message of inclusion and respect”. The UN established the observance in 2021 to tackle what it called the “exponential spread” of hate speech, xenophobia and...

Indonesia’s rupiah rallied from a historic low this week, its stock market surged and a closely watched sovereign wealth fund bond offering was oversubscribed, offering Southeast Asia’s largest economy a reprieve after months of asset pressure. But economists have warned that the relief may come at a cost as the same forces helping stabilise the rupiah, including higher interest rates and easing external pressure, could deepen financial strain on the country’s shrinking middle class and weigh on...

The US Navy has launched its largest annual humanitarian mission in the Indo-Pacific with a renewed focus on Southeast Asia, in what analysts described as part of Washington’s effort to rebuild confidence and project soft power in a region central to its rivalry with China. Pacific Partnership 2026, the US Navy’s largest annual maritime humanitarian and civic assistance effort in the Indo-Pacific, began after US personnel departed San Diego on May 27 for a mission-coordinating hub in the...

Illegal cyber activities accounted for around a third of all crimes recorded in some Asian countries, with scams the most widespread and financially damaging, according to a new Interpol report. The global policing agency’s latest cyber threat assessment cited the increasing dominance of online crimes compared to traditional illicit activity, describing the activities as “persistent, large-scale challenges affecting multiple jurisdictions” linked to the rapid adoption of digital...

For years, Washington described India as an indispensable partner, a democratic counterweight to China and a strategic anchor in the Indo-Pacific. Then the US Navy killed three Indian sailors and America’s top diplomat could not even bring himself to apologise. India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar raised the deaths directly with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a phone call last Friday, reiterating what he called India’s “strong protest” and declaring, in a later social media...

Malaysia and Thailand are edging closer to resolving a tit-for-tat seafood safety dispute, offering a lifeline to exporters after weeks of halted shipments and retaliatory restrictions on Thai shrimp and Malaysian sea bass. Tentative signs of a way out emerged on Wednesday when Malaysian officials confirmed that their Thai counterparts had returned a completed food safety standards questionnaire for formal assessment. Completing the questionnaire was a condition set by Malaysia for lifting the...

Captain Raman Kapoor was loading oil at an Iraqi port when word reached him that the United States and Iran were at war. Within hours, his tanker was trapped north of the Strait of Hormuz with 24 crew members aboard, as missiles began arcing across the sky overhead. “We were stuck inside the war zone and everyone was so scared and clueless about what to do,” Kapoor, 48, recalled. “We all felt so trapped. We were helpless, totally helpless.” He and his crew would stay that way for 75 days. The...

A group of Malaysian tourists is facing intense backlash for filming strangers and mocking locals in China as “smelly”, sparking debate on travel etiquette and national image. The clips, which also appeared to show the visitors shouting insults in Malay while travelling in the country, were allegedly first posted on TikTok by user @ekyn.wong. They were later deleted from the account when checked by This Week in Asia, but not before going viral on Malaysian social media, where users panned what...

With the card-collecting hobby turning into a moneymaking venture with thousands of ringgit moved in single transactions, Malaysia’s tax authorities are keeping a close eye out for any tax discrepancies and doing audits to clarify statuses. The Inland Revenue Board (LHDN) said it was aware of the growing market for high-value collectibles, in particular trading cards, and urged collectors to be aware of tax responsibilities if their hobbies are deemed to be business transactions. “We are aware...

When Celine Teo feels homesick, she visits Singaporean eatery Vanda Room in Beijing’s central business district to enjoy delicacies such as chicken rice and laksa. “Being able to enjoy a familiar dish abroad always brings a sense of comfort and connection to home,” said the 25-year-old undergraduate, who has lived in China for four years. But Teo worries these connections are thinning, as some Singapore-linked F&B players retreat, refocus or struggle to defend their edge in China’s increasingly...

The expected reopening of the Strait of Hormuz under a US-Iran ceasefire framework could ease pressure on South Korea’s energy-dependent economy while creating a thornier diplomatic problem for Seoul: how much should it contribute to securing the waterway? That question is likely to shadow President Lee Jae Myung’s visit to the Group of Seven summit this week in Evian-les-Bains, France, where the wars in Ukraine and Iran are expected to dominate talks among G7 leaders and several invited...

The Russia-India-China (RIC) dialogue is back in the diplomatic conversation. It has not formally restarted, and no summit is on the horizon. But the signals are here. In 2025, Moscow again pushed for reviving the RIC format. India said any meeting would have to be arranged in a “mutually convenient manner”, a cautious but open formula. China said it was willing to maintain communication with Russia and India on trilateral cooperation. This month, Russian President Vladimir Putin again spoke...

The Iran war has exposed major risks for Southeast Asia that could cost the region billions of dollars, if it does not diversify sources of energy more quickly, according to an International Energy Agency (IEA) report released on Tuesday. An overreliance on oil and gas transported through the Strait of Hormuz left the region particularly vulnerable to shocks from the Iran war, a “stark wake-up call” for its energy security, the report says. It notes that rising sales of electric vehicles, a...

A floating Chinese platform at Scarborough Shoal has revived fears in the Philippines that Beijing could be taking another incremental step towards turning one of the South China Sea’s most sensitive disputed features into a permanent outpost. The Armed Forces of the Philippines said on Tuesday it would not allow any structure to be built at the shoal, nearly three weeks after satellite images first showed a possible floating platform there. “We are not allowing that to happen. We’re not...

The judge who convicted former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak over the 1MDB scandal said the plunder of the sovereign wealth fund was so vast that it eclipsed the exploits of Attila the Hun, one of history’s most notorious conquerors. “The scale of the plunder that took place (financially speaking, of course) made Attila the Hun look like a choirboy in comparison,” Collin Lawrence Sequerah said in the introduction to his 809-page grounds of judgment. The written judgment was issued on...

The US military is planning a permanent war-ready weapons stockpile for its Marine Corps on Australia’s southeast coast beyond the range of most Chinese missiles, according to tender documents and officials. The development of the stockpile, a first for the Marine Corps in Australia, came as the US was keen to leverage the continent’s strategic location in the South Pacific to counter China’s rapid military build-up, analysts said. The US Marine Corps began global pre-positioning of military...

Indonesia has vowed to overhaul the country’s ambitious free nutritious meals programme following public pressure and recent allegations of corruption – a move analysts described as a “moderate” concession in lieu of an “embarrassing” discontinuation of President Prabowo Subianto’s flagship initiative. The US$15 billion initiative aims to reach 83 million schoolchildren, pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers, and toddlers to prevent malnutrition and stunted growth. However, it has been dogged by...

When the ground tore open beneath the Philippines last week, Roldan Dante was working in a nearby town. By the time he could return, his home in Glan, Sarangani province, had collapsed. His wife and two young children were gone. “If only I had known this was going to happen, I would have picked them up,” he told This Week in Asia, as social workers pressed government cash aid into his hands. “I feel traumatised. I’m in shock and I still can’t accept what happened.” Dante’s loss speaks to the...

A 6.7-magnitude earthquake shook part of central Indonesia’s Sulawesi island on Tuesday, causing scattered damage and rattling residents of a city devastated by a quake and tsunami eight years ago. The initial quake was centred inland about 43km (30 miles) east-southeast of Palu, and the US Geological Survey said it was about 10km deep. The strong shaking sent people fleeing into open areas in and around Palu, a city of about 400,000 people and the capital of Central Sulawesi province. Several...

Nisa Mohd did not send her daughter to boarding school unprepared. Before the now 17-year-old left for Melaka, her mother enrolled her in silat, the Malay martial art, and made one instruction clear: report any trouble immediately. She still watches for shifts in her daughter’s mood each time they speak. Millions of parents across Malaysia recognise her vigilance, with the country still following the inquest into the death last year of 13-year-old Zara Qairina Mahathir and a steady succession of...

We have selected seven stories from the SCMP’s coverage of Asia over the past week that resonated with our readers and shed light on topical issues. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Singapore PM Lawrence Wong to visit Russia, first since Ukraine war sanctions Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong is set to visit the Russian city of Kazan in a trip that would mark the first high-level talks between leaders from both sides since the city state...

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s debut at this week’s G7 summit is an opportunity to turn her rapport with Donald Trump into a bridge between the US president and the bloc’s leaders, analysts say, as she seeks to cement her image as Japan’s “Iron Lady”. At a working dinner on Monday – the opening night of the three-day meeting in Evian, eastern France – Takaichi also proposed a joint strategic stockpile partnership to bolster critical mineral supply chains and reduce China’s dominance in the...

When Singaporean Kristen Chng watched Chinese indie film Dear You with his father in Suzhou last month, he was reminded of his grandfather’s journey of sweat and hardship after leaving his ancestral village in Guangdong province with little to his name. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room, he said, as cinema-goers followed the story of a man uncovering his family’s past by tracing remittance letters sent home from Thailand. “My grandfather moved to Singapore in his teens and had a habit of...

North Korea’s latest spirited defence of its nuclear arsenal signals a strategy that goes beyond rejecting international calls to disarm and instead leans into mounting global superpower rivalry to legitimise its weapons build-up. The verbal offensive comes as North Korea could soon face renewed pressure to return to the negotiating table. Analysts say the winding down of the Iran conflict may allow Washington and its allies to refocus attention on the Korean peninsula. Pyongyang has also seized...

British prosecutors have charged with sanctions contravention offences the Indian captain of an interdicted alleged Russian shadow fleet vessel seized in the Channel, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said on Monday. It follows British armed forces on Sunday intercepting the sanctioned oil tanker Smyrtos – said to belong to Russia’s shadow fleet – in a dramatic operation hailed by Kyiv and London as a blow to Moscow’s war machine. British commandos boarded the ship off the southern English coast...

When it comes to the performance of real estate markets in the Asia-Pacific, Japan reigns supreme. Asia’s second largest economy is the deepest, most widely traded, and the safest market in the region. Last year, Japan accounted for 28 per cent of direct investment in Asia-Pacific commercial real estate, data from MSCI shows. The average vacancy rate for grade A offices in Tokyo was 0.7 per cent in the first quarter of this year. Rents have risen for nine straight quarters, increasing 13.2 per...

The US-Iran peace deal is likely to bring immediate relief but not yet reassurance for Asia, as leaders across the region watch whether the Strait of Hormuz reopens, oil prices ease and the agreement can withstand the nuclear talks and geopolitical distrust still ahead, analysts say. The agreement, mediated by Pakistan and scheduled to be signed on Friday in Switzerland, is intended to end more than three months of war in the Gulf, halt the US blockade of Iran and reopen one of the world’s most...