Asia - South China Morning Post

At the bustling Han Market in central Da Nang, two Vietnamese vendors tease a middle-aged South Korean tourist by calling him harabeoji, or “grandfather” in Korean.

“I’m offended!” he jokes.

The women grab his arms and laugh. “It’s OK, it’s OK.”

The man had returned to their stall after buying 200,000 dong (US$7.60) worth of macadamia nuts the day before. It is a small moment of banter, repeated dozens of times a day in a city that many people from South Korea jokingly call their own unofficial...

The United Arab Emirates has asked South Korea to accelerate deliveries of Cheongung-II surface-to-air missile batteries to help intercept incoming attacks, officials familiar with the matter said.

The request comes as Iranian forces have launched retaliatory strikes across the Middle East following continued attacks on Iran by the United States and Israel.

The system, sold to the UAE in recent years as part of Seoul’s expanding defence exports, has been integrated into the country’s broader air...

Pakistan can ill afford to go to war. Neither can Afghanistan. Yet here they are, trading blows across one of South Asia’s most combustible borders – just as a team of International Monetary Fund inspectors arrived in Islamabad to decide on the country’s next financial lifeline.

The inspectors had come for a third-round review of Pakistan’s economic recovery programme: the kind of visit that, if it went well, would unlock the next tranche of rescue funding and steady the nerves of skittish...

Indonesia went to Washington to negotiate a trade deal and came home with more than 200 obligations to America’s nine.

A day after the signing, the US Supreme Court struck down the legal basis for the tariff threat that had driven the whole exercise – for a time, at least.

Detractors have likened this “agreement on reciprocal trade” to a blank cheque and a surrender of Indonesia’s sovereignty. The government, for its part, calls it a win-win.

The deal was signed by President Prabowo Subianto on...

My grandma, now in her 90s, has long held together an extended family including four children and six grandchildren. As a Chinese saying goes, “Having an elder in the family is like having a treasure.” While my aunt, father and two uncles all live near her in the same city in northern China, my generation has ventured out to different places. Yet no matter where we have settled, no trip home is complete without a visit to Grandma.

When I first moved to Beijing, I had to travel about five hours...

Singapore’s real estate giants are taking hits as China’s property downturn drags into another year, with declining rents, emptier buildings and falling values weighing on their results.

But analysts say Beijing’s huge market and recent policy support mean most investors are unlikely to pull back entirely, instead becoming far more selective about where they invest.

Recent earnings from several Singapore firms show the pressure building across their China portfolios, even as investors watch for...

⁠Australia has raised concerns with ⁠China following an “unsafe and ⁠unprofessional” encounter between two military helicopters, the defence department said on Friday.

An Australian military helicopter was flying over international waters in the Yellow Sea when it was intercepted by a Chinese helicopter on Wednesday, a statement ‌said.

The Chinese helicopter matched the Australian aircraft’s altitude before “closing in to an unsafe distance”, increasing speed and then rolling towards it,...

Indonesia will begin restricting access to some social media platforms for users under 16 from March 28, marking one of the region’s toughest moves yet to curb children’s exposure to harmful online content.

Communications and Digital Affairs Minister Meutya Hafid announced the measure on Friday, saying the government had signed a regulation that would gradually stop children under 16 from holding accounts on platforms deemed “high risk”.

Hafid said the rule would apply to platforms such as...

Mutilated human remains, including a severed head, that were discovered on a Bali beach last month have been identified through DNA testing as those of a Ukrainian tourist who police say was kidnapped earlier in the resort island’s south, according to Indonesian authorities.

Bali police said forensic analysis had confirmed that body parts found near Ketewel Beach in Gianyar Regency belonged to Ihor Komarov, a 28-year-old Ukrainian national who had been reported abducted in mid-February.

The...

Two tankers loaded with fuel from Reliance Industries in India ⁠that were headed to Europe ⁠made U-turns and are now bound for ⁠Asia, according to two trade sources and ship-tracking data, as the refiner capitalises on firm Asian margins with the Iran war squeezing supply.

The Advantage Life, which loaded around 100,000 metric tons (745,000 barrels) of diesel at Reliance’s Jamnagar refinery on February 28, is currently bound for Singapore, ‌according to Kpler, LSEG data and two trade...