Asia - South China Morning Post

The new Japanese government has moved swiftly to make it clear that it intends to relax the rules covering exports of weapons abroad at a time of worsening global insecurity and rising defence spending.

Shinjiro Koizumi, who was named defence chief when Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi announced her new cabinet on Tuesday, used his first press conference the following day to lay out the administration’s aims, adding that the revised policy had the full support of the ruling Liberal Democratic...

India and China resumed direct flights on Sunday after a five-year suspension, a move important both for trade and a symbolic step as Asia’s giants cautiously rebuild relations.

IndiGo flight 6E1703 from Kolkata touched down in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou just before 4am, officially resuming non-stop air links that had been suspended since 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent geopolitical tensions.

The neighbours – the world’s two most populous nations – remain...

Nepal’s Prime Minister Sushila Karki on Sunday expanded her interim cabinet which was formed in the wake of a youth-led uprising last month, inducting two ministers seen as popular among young people.

The unrest on September 8-9 was triggered by a brief ban on social media but fuelled by long-standing frustration over economic hardship and corruption.

Violence during the protests, which led to the collapse of the previous government, killed at least 73 people and left parliament, courts and...

The United States and Vietnam will finalise a trade agreement in the coming weeks that will maintain 20 per cent tariffs on most Vietnamese goods but lift duties on certain products that will be decided at a later stage, the White House said on Sunday.

In return Vietnam committed to offering “preferential access” for most all US goods.

The two countries have agreed to a framework for the agreement on “reciprocal, fair and balanced” trade between the two nations, the countries said in a joint...

When the red, black and yellow flag of East Timor was hoisted alongside the colours of its new Southeast Asian peers inside the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre on Sunday, several Timorese journalists in the media gallery broke into tears.

After more than a decade of waiting since it first applied in 2011, the small half-island nation – Asia’s newest country – on Sunday formally joined Asean as its 11th member.

The ceremony at the 47th summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, hosted...

India has taken a big step in enhancing its military’s deterrence capabilities along its borders with Pakistan and China through the creation of new commando and drone units.

The army will also be equipped with carbines designed for close-quarter battles and the latest anti-tank weapons, in a move that analysts say will significantly strengthen the country’s border security and defence sector.

Speaking at a press briefing on Wednesday, Lieutenant General Ajay Kumar, director general in the...

A triumphant Donald Trump on Sunday presided over a peace deal between Thailand and Cambodia on the first trip to Southeast Asia in his second presidency, applauding his own peacemaking skills while warning that American trade was contingent on the durability of the truce between the two nations.

Dubbed the Kuala Lumpur Peace Accords, the declaration calls for a demilitarisation of the tense Thai-Cambodia border and a loosely worded commitment towards reaching peace to end a border dispute,...

Thousands of grieving Thai royalists lined the streets of Bangkok on Sunday, saluting a procession bringing former Queen Sirikit’s body to lie in state for a year-long funeral at the capital’s Grand Palace.

Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semidivine figures and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide.

Former Queen Sirikit, the mother of the current King Vajiralongkorn and wife...

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi faces the first major test of her diplomatic skills on Monday when US President Donald Trump arrives in Tokyo for a three-day visit, with the Japanese leader using her first week in office to institute policies designed to please her American counterpart.

In a policy speech to the Diet on Friday, Takaichi vowed to bring forward a goal of defence spending matching 2 per cent of gross domestic product to the current financial year ending in March, two years earlier...

In the Solomon Islands, where memories of civil unrest and ethnic violence are still fresh, the government’s plan to create a defence force has raised both hope and concerns.

For some, it is a step towards stability; for others, it is a potential flashpoint in a region increasingly pulled between China and the West.

Jimson Tanangada, the Pacific nation’s police and national security minister, told parliament earlier this month that the government was exploring the creation of a defence force as...