Asia - South China Morning Post

A man who posed as a teenager online to talk to underage girls was sentenced to 11 years’ jail and 10 strokes of the cane on Tuesday.

The Singaporean, now aged 25, who cannot be named due to gag orders protecting the identity of two victims, pleaded guilty to two counts of statutory rape, one count of sexual grooming of a minor and one count of sexual penetration of a minor.

Another 14 charges were taken into consideration for sentencing.

The court heard that the offender held various jobs such...

Despite a decisive election victory built on promises to ease Japan’s cost-of-living crisis, fresh government data released this week suggests voters’ faith in Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s brand of “trickle-down” prosperity may soon be tested.

Preliminary figures from the labour ministry show that inflation-adjusted wages shrank by 1.3 per cent last year, extending a three-year slide in real incomes as rising prices for essentials continued to outstrip pay increases.

The average employee...

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi have pledged to deepen bilateral cooperation after Japan’s ruling coalition secured a landslide victory in the lower house election, even as analysts warn that sharpening China-Japan rivalry and unresolved historical disputes could complicate Seoul’s regional diplomacy.

The result, which consolidates the Liberal Democratic Party’s grip on power, has strengthened Takaichi’s political position – but also revived...

Senior diplomats from China and India met in New Delhi on Tuesday for what Beijing described as a new round of strategic dialogue, emphasising the need to view each other as partners rather than competitors amid shifting global dynamics.

India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri hosted China’s Executive Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu, who was in the country for the Brics Sherpa Meeting from February 8 to 10.

The two sides’ readouts of the meeting, however, revealed a persistent gap in how the...

Economic cooperation between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations is set to deepen despite bloc members advancing trade deals with the United States, Beijing’s ambassador to Asean has said.

At a forum in Indonesia’s Jakarta on Tuesday, Wang Qing urged both sides to remain committed to shared economic success and to oppose external interference, underscoring the importance of ties amid growing protectionism and unilateralism.

Wang delivered a speech at the South China Morning...

The biggest threat to middle powers in the artificial intelligence era is “digital colonisation” from expensive and proprietary AI stacks, an Indonesian telecoms executive has said, adding that China’s open-source sales pitch offers better protection for local sovereignty.

The emphasis on localisation and digital sovereignty comes as major Chinese AI cloud providers look to compete with US rivals in fast-growing Southeast Asian markets such as Indonesia.

“The world is moving out of proprietary...

Indonesia is on track for 10 per cent economic growth by 2029, beyond the 8 per cent target set by President Prabowo Subianto, his climate and energy envoy Hashim Djojohadikusumo has insisted.

Hailing multiple projects in the works such as social housing and the development of boarding schools for low-income families, Hashim told a forum in Jakarta on Tuesday that his elder brother Prabowo had to go up against “a quagmire of bureaucratic inertia and resistance” after winning the top job in the...

India’s government said on Tuesday ‍social media companies would have to take down unlawful content within three hours of being notified, tightening an earlier 36-hour timeline in what could be ⁠a compliance challenge for Meta, YouTube and X.

The changes amend India’s 2021 IT rules, which have already been a flashpoint between Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government and global technology companies.

The amended rules also relaxed ‍an earlier proposal that would have required platforms to...

Asean faces a challenge to remain relevant in light of an increasingly transactional United States under the Donald Trump administration, observers warn, even as they hail the bloc’s large inflows of trade from global superpowers.

At the South China Morning Post’s China Conference: Southeast Asia 2026 in Jakarta on Tuesday, chairman of Malaysian Investment Development Authority Tengku Zafrul Aziz said that Association of Southeast Asian Nations members presented a united front in handling...

Indonesia’s economy stands to gain from its partnership with mainland China and Hong Kong through increased investments and lessons learned from improving capital markets, industry insiders and observers have said.

Shinta Kamdani, coordinating vice-chairwoman for human development, culture and sustainable development at the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin), on Tuesday pointed to financial hub Hong Kong as being able to provide Indonesia access to the sprawling mainland Chinese...