“Ukraine today may be East Asia tomorrow,” Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida recently told an international security gathering in Singapore, a catchphrase that speaks to the harsh lessons learnt over the past few months. Better deterrence and response capabilities, he told a room packed with defense officials and diplomats, will be “absolutely essential if Japan
China appears to be shifting its strategic focus toward Southeast Asia and Africa, Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa said, noting that South Asian countries in financial trouble aren’t getting the same attention from Beijing as before. In an interview Monday, Rajapaksa said that Sri Lanka couldn’t tap a $1.5 billion credit line from Beijing and
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought to the fore U.S.-China frictions with no end in sight, analysts warned, while a former Asian leader cautioned about the risk of a new world war. “I am afraid that wars have a habit of beginning small and then grow into world wars,” former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad
Singapore’s prime minister warned Thursday that trade and security were being put at risk by U.S.-China tensions and urged better communication between Washington and Beijing to maintain stability and growth in Asia. “If U.S.-China relations continue on this path, it will lead to further bifurcation of technology and splitting of supply chains or even worse,
Russia’s arms sales to Southeast Asia have plummeted due to international sanctions imposed since the start of the Ukraine crisis in 2014 and the ongoing war will likely lead to a further decline, creating market opportunities for countries like China, a new report says. An article in the bulletin ISEAS Perspective published by the ISEAS
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is planning to visit Southeast Asia during the Golden Week holidays starting in late April, seeking to strengthen cooperation amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s growing assertiveness in the region, diplomatic sources said Tuesday. Kishida is planning to travel to Thailand in early May during his trip that will include
Japan, which is keeping in step with the United States and European countries in maintaining strong sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, also wants Southeast Asian nations to join the effort in order to ratchet up the pressure and prevent Moscow from finding loopholes that allow it to circumnavigate the punitive measures. But
4 Southeast Asian foreign ministers are traveling to China today while a U.S.-ASEAN summit that was because of occur in Washington appears to have been delayed forever, prompting Chinese state media to carp that the area prefers to speak with China rather of the U.S. Chinas Foreign Ministry announced on Monday that the top diplomats
PICTURE GALLERY (CLICK TO ENLARGE). The National Unity Government of Myanmar, a group formed in the wake of last Februarys coup to represent the pro-democracy motion in its fight against the junta, sent out a letter last month to Japan asking to be acknowledged as a genuine governing body, sources close to the matter said
