Asia - South China Morning Post

Indonesia’s latest plan to clamp down on violent video games in the wake of a mosque bombing has reignited a long-running debate over the impact of digital media on young minds and whether regulation alone can stem an apparent rise in bullying and online radicalisation.

President Prabowo Subianto called for restrictions on games that “normalise violence” following a November 7 blast at a North Jakarta high school mosque that injured nearly 100 students during Friday prayers.

Prasetyo Hadi, head...

China turned a brief but intense India-Pakistan conflict in May into a live testing ground for its advanced weaponry and intelligence systems, and then aggressively marketed those results to undercut Western arms sales, a US congressional panel said in its annual report on Tuesday.

“Beijing opportunistically leveraged the conflict to test and advertise the sophistication of its weapons,” a new report from the bipartisan US-China Economic and Security Review Commission stated bluntly.

It...

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s recent remarks suggesting that Japan could intervene militarily in the Taiwan Strait under the pretext of a “survival-threatening situation” represent a strategic pivot away from Japan’s post-war pacifist ethos.

These statements, explicitly condemned by Beijing as “blatant interference in China’s internal affairs”, transcend mere diplomatic indiscretion. They reflect a calculated alignment with containment strategies aimed at curtailing China’s...

Singapore’s jailing of an Australian man who rushed at singer-actress Ariana Grande at a film premiere has earned near-unanimous applause from locals, reflecting deep frustration with behaviour seen as attention-seeking and disruptive to the city state’s hard-won image for safety.

The nine-day term – which the judge increased from an initial proposal of seven days – was also the first time serial stage invader Johnson Wen has faced custodial consequences, after similar antics across Australia...

Singapore should seek deeper integration of new Chinese immigrants to guard against any possibility that the demographic may be used as instruments for “China’s interests”, a former diplomat from the city state has warned.

In an essay published in the newly launched (Re)Defining Singapore, Bilahari Kausikan, an ex-permanent secretary at Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, argued that the relationship between the city state and China was unique in light of it being the only country outside...

A searing public broadside by Senator Imee Marcos accusing her younger brother, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jnr, of using cocaine and cannabis has stunned the Philippines’ political establishment and intensified a bitter feud inside one of the country’s most powerful clans.

Delivering her claims to a crowd of 600,000 at a rally organised by Iglesia ni Cristo – a religious group with historic ties to the Marcos family whose name translates to Church of Christ – Imee, 70, said she felt...

Philippine prosecutors filed on Tuesday the first criminal charges in a sweeping corruption scandal over bogus flood control projects, promising “many” more indictments in the case that has prompted public ire and protests.

Rage over so-called ghost infrastructure, believed to have cost taxpayers billions of dollars, has been building for months, ever since President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr put the issue centre stage in a July address after weeks of deadly flooding.

Scores of construction firm...

India is unlikely to accept an extradition request for Bangladesh’s former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who is facing the death penalty in her own country for crimes against humanity.

Hasina, 78, has been living in India since fleeing Bangladesh in August last year after the fall of her regime. She was sentenced to death on Monday after being found guilty by a tribunal of incitement, issuing kill orders and failing to stop atrocities linked to last year’s protests in which up to 1,400 people...

Fifa has lodged criminal complaints in five countries and opened its own formal investigation into the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM), after dismissing its appeal over the use of forged documents by seven foreign-born footballers representing the Southeast Asian nation.

In a withering 63-page explanation of its decision, football’s governing body upheld all fines and bans imposed in September against FAM – and the seven players – describing the falsified records allowing the “heritage...

Regardless of the outcome of the challenge to US President Donald Trump’s powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act now before the Supreme Court, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has made clear the administration will continue to use national security rationales to enact its disruptive trade measures.

It was not always thus. Nations have always had national security interests. Major powers have always engaged in espionage targeting adversaries – even allies. But since the...