Asia - South China Morning Post

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...