Asia - South China Morning Post

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi hailed increasing defence cooperation with the UK during a meeting with her British counterpart Keir Starmer on Sunday, amid uncertainty about a new fighter jet programme.

“The UK is a very important partner to Japan given the deepening of ties across a wide range of fields, including security and defence,” Takaichi said as she met with Starmer in London. “Given the GCAP project, I think we have reached a level that we can call a near-alliance,” she said,...

A powerful earthquake that killed at least 61 people in the Philippines this week raised the seabed by as much as two metres (6.6 feet), exposing coral and harming marine life, the environment department said on Sunday.

The 7.8-magnitude tremor in southern Mindanao island on Monday has also left at least 40 people missing, according to updated tolls from the disaster agency.

Local residents first reported the geological phenomenon known as “coastal uplift” two days after the quake, which...

The sudden viral rise of India’s Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a satirical movement seeking to push young Indians from online protest into politics, has fuelled speculation that it could mark the start of broader youth-led unrest, similar to the uprisings that shook Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal.

But while political analysts say the party reflects a deep undercurrent of anger among young Indians, they argue it is unlikely for now to become a mass movement on that scale because it has yet to...

The drowning of two university basketball players in the Philippines has raised concerns about the extreme training conditions and pressures surrounding student athletes in the country’s highly commercialised collegiate sports industry.

Incoming rookie player Rene Baterbonia, 19, and Nigerian student-athlete Divine Adili, 21, died on Monday during a school-sanctioned “team-building activity” in Dipaculao, Aurora, on the east coast of Luzon island.

Both played for the Blue Eagles of Ateneo de...

South Korean first lady Kim Hea-kyung remains largely out of the spotlight one year into President Lee Jae Myung’s administration, adopting a low-key public role that contrasts sharply with the high-profile approach of her predecessor, Kim Keon-hee.

Kim Hea-kyung has limited her public appearances and stayed away from political issues – a strategy political observers describe as prudent, given that presidential spouses, despite holding no official constitutional role, can shape public...

In the contest for influence in Southeast Asia, the United States and China agree on one thing: the region is indispensable. Yet beneath the flurry of high-level summits lies a quieter divergence in how each cultivates knowledge about the region.

The US is hollowing out the university-based programmes that have long trained its students in Southeast Asian languages, history and politics. China, conversely, is elevating area studies into a top-tier, state-backed academic field. Beyond a shift in...

It was a gesture that was equal parts diplomacy and theatre: Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul coaxing a melody out of a traditional Vietnamese t’rung xylophone at a Hanoi state banquet on Monday.

The real music, however, had been made in the meeting rooms.

Two days of talks between Anutin and his Vietnamese hosts produced a pledge to nearly double bilateral trade to US$25 billion within four years – and eventually to double it again. Supply chains would be stitched together across...

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s latest message of reassurance to Russian President Vladimir Putin, coming shortly after Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Pyongyang, constitutes a form of strategic hedging, according to observers.

The letter suggested that Pyongyang-Moscow ties were evolving beyond a largely transactional relationship into a firm military alliance, even as North Korea sought to rekindle its traditional “blood alliance” with China, they said.

In a congratulatory message...

Indonesia sits at the confluence of the world’s busiest sea lanes. Its coastline stretches nearly 55,000km (34,000 miles) and its waters encompass the Malacca and Lombok straits, chokepoints through which trillions of US dollars in global trade pass annually.

Yet for years the nation’s navy has lacked the subsurface awareness to monitor, let alone counter, what moves beneath the waves.

Japan intends to change that. Tokyo confirmed on June 5 that the two countries had agreed to begin formal talks...

Five Indian air force personnel were killed when a military plane crashed while landing at a base in the country’s remote northeast on Saturday, the military said in a statement.

“The Indian Air Force deeply regrets the loss of five personnel in the An-32 accident at Jorhat”, a city in Assam state, the air force said in a statement.

It did not say how many people were on board at the time, or whether there were any survivors.

However, an air force official, speaking on condition of anonymity as...