The timing wasn’t coincidental. Attracted by cricket at Lords and the Wimbledon fortnight, Indians flocked to London in July, many looking to buy art, boosting demand from the South Asian diaspora. But it must break records for Sotheby’s and Christie’s both to open major exhibitions within three days of each other and then for the Victoria and Albert Museum to unveil sculptures by a leading Indian artist.

The auction houses are reflecting the current boom in South Asian modern art that has been evident in London with numerous exhibitions. Sotheby’s show is mostly for sale, while Christie’s, which is only for display, is a stepping stone for Delhi’s Kiran Nadar Museum of Art to become a leading international institution.

Called The Meeting Ground, it is the latest in Christie’s annual summer series and is probably South Asian art’s most substantial and wide-ranging display ever held in the UK. With a total of 180 works by 67 artists, it beats the 1982 Contemporary Indian Art exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts that was held as part of the UK’s Festival of India with 45 artists and 133 works.

“International engagement is a pillar of our vision, opening up new frameworks for dialogue and scholarship,” says Kiran Nadar, the museum’s founder.

The V&A motivation is more prosaic. Its South Asian gallery is closed for renovation till 2028, so it will be staging regular exhibitions to bridge the gap. It is showing four sculptures by Bharti Kher, a prominent Indian artist, who was born in south London and lives between here and Delhi.

Her newest work, Gaia, that was completed this year, has the prime spot of the V&A’s entrance courtyard. Described as a hybrid Mother Earth goddess, Gaia stands four meters high and depicts a female warrior with a house on her head, inspired by small clay sculptures known as Gulu figurines that are displayed in South Indian homes during festivals.

In the main sculpture gallery (access free), three of Kher’s works blend casually but strikingly with centuries old, mostly white, revered monuments, busts and statues. One of the three, Ghost (2024), shows a translucent shroud or sari enclosing a female figure.

Animus Mundi (2018), which was included in the artist’s large exhibition that ran in Wakefield’s Yorkshire Sculpture Park till April last year, is an armless female body with a buffalo head. The oldest work, the Golden Warrior with Cloud and Shield (2008), stands triumphantly at the end of the gallery looking both powerful and fragile.

“Sculpture is an animist force with energy,” says Kher, who describes such figures as “mythical urban goddesses, creatures who came out of femininity and the idea of womanhood”.

Christie’s handed all its Mayfair headquarters’ galleries to five of the KNMA’s curators led by Akansha Rastogi, an associate director, who worked with Damian Vesey, Christie’s South Asia head in London.

The works, dating from 1950, were transported from Delhi and will return there after the exhibition closes on August 21. About 50% of them have not been seen publicly since they entered Nadar’s collection.

Nadar started buying art in 1990, and the KNMA was established in 2010. A new museum with over 1m sq ft (approx 93,000 sq meters) of space is being built near Delhi airport, transforming what started as a personal hobby into an internationally significant institution.

“The vision is to have South Asian art on a global platform, making it accessible to all, not just in South Asia but globally,” explains Deepanjana Klein, KNMA’s acquisitions and development director, who earlier headed the subcontinent at Christie’s. The new museum would be the world’s “greatest South Asian art institution,” and the Christie’s exhibition was part of an effort to “build an international audience”.

The exhibition consists of five interconnected scenes tracing “themes of memory, migration, labor, borders, body and camaraderie” with works ranging from modern and contemporary to folk and tribal.

At the start, aside from a large and colorful gallery of the most famous auction-topping artists such as M.F. Husain and F.N. Souza, there is a sense of rebellion against destruction of human habitats, demonstrated in various ways (images above).

Montages of photos by Gauri Gill overlaid with ink drawings by Rajesh C. Vangad show scenes such as Factory and River (above) that depicts an industrial complex encroaching on indigenous peoples’ land. Sudhir Patwardhan, a well-known chronicler of Mumbai life, has his The Clearing (2007) on show, depicting open land being swallowed by the relentlessly expanding urban sprawl.

Other artists follow a similar theme which includes Warli indigenous art from Maharashtra. That blends in another part of the exhibition with Gond tribal art from Madhya Pradesh, notably by the most famous Gond, Jangarh Singh Shyam.

Christie’s displays various artists in each gallery to develop its themes, whereas Sotheby’s focuses on a single artist in each of its sections.

Called The South Asia Edit, Sotheby’s has works for sale by five famous artists that span painting, printmaking, sculpture and ceramics, plus four works that are not for sale by Souza, the famous Progressive, from the respected but rarely seen Alkazi Collection in Delhi.

Souza’s dominant work is Crucifixion (1984), a 93in x 54in acrylic on canvas. He has painted this subject several times and he is usually seen as a critic and angry rebel against the Roman Catholic Church, in which he was raised in Goa.

He has, however, given himself a religious role as the priest serving communion in Crucifixion, with his hands showing the wounds of Christ hanging on the cross behind. One interpretation is that this shows Souza’s more tolerant view of religion later in his life, though his face has a rather questioning look that, as one would expect, contrasts and maybe lacks respect for what is happening.

The works of four of the other five artists come from their estates’ collections, providing strong provenance since they will have never been to the market. The artists are India’s Bhupen Khakhar and Mohan Samant, along with husband and wife Zahoor ul Akhlaq and Sherezade Alam from Pakistan whose works have been curated by Amrita Jhaveri of Jhaveri Contemporary. Then there is Indian-American Zarina with works from various private collections.

The focal point for Bhupen Khakhar, India’s most prominent gay painter, is an untitled 36in x 36in oil on canvas (1988). Believed to be priced at £2m, it depicts in classic Khakhar style two men embracing with a rural landscape in the background.

More interesting though is a fascinatingly wide range of Khakhar’s drawings, etchings and prints that have never been seen before, many but not all with gay themes.

The works by Mohan Samant include the artists’ famous music and dance series, while Zarina has a range of printmaking, collages, and sculpture using handmade paper, woodcuts mixed with pewter and gold leaf. Sheherazade Alam’s show consists of 32 small ceramics while Zahoor ul Akhlaq has a range of brightly colored acrylics and other works.

Manjari Sihari-Sutin, who heads South Asian art at Sotheby’s suggests that a for-sale exhibition gives buyers, including top collectors, a chance to acquire instantly instead of maybe losing at an auction. For sellers, prices could be higher because estimates were often pitched low in auction catalogues to draw in bidders.

This has been a hectic five weeks of Indian and other South Asian art in London. It followed on from a Saffronart auction in April, when two Indian tycoons created an $18m record for a single Indian work of art at auction, and began with Christie’s $25m sale of the Bengal-based Goodricke collection by the Camellia group.

Next came the opening of the Anish Kapoor exhibition at the Hayward Gallery and then the London galleries’ weekend splurge of events along with an opening at the Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield. Now there are these high profile and wide-ranging exhibitions that are notable, like the galleries’ weekend, for the growing recognition of work from Pakistan and other parts of South Asia as well as India.

John Elliott is Asia Sentinel’s South Asia correspondent. He blogs at Riding the Elephant. He is the author of IMPLOSION: India’s Tryst with Reality

After millennia of folk belief in the efficacy of rhino horn for fever, tiger bone for strength, and captive bear bile for various ailments, China has emerged as a powerhouse in the global biotech sector, becoming a major player on the world stage through such advances as precision cancer-killing drugs and many others.

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The killing of a police constable in the Kashmir Valley city of Anantnag, allegedly by Islamists militants, has triggered one of the largest security crackdowns since India officially revoked the special status of the region in 2019, arresting more than 2,500 and triggering concern over “collective punishment” amid heightened vulnerability for the ongoing Amarnath Yatra pilgrimage.

The Resistance Front (TRF), a proxy of Lashkar-e-Taiba, claimed the attack, marking the first major insurgent strike in the Kashmir Valley since the 2025 Pahalgam attack which killed 26 people, mostly tourists. It is the latest of a decades-long string of provocations in Kashmir, one of the world’s premier tourism sites, which has been a source of tension since the end of British colonial rule, with both majority Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan claiming the region is their own. It has evolved into a multifaceted crisis involving nationalism, religious identity and military conflict.

Soon after the killing of head constable Ashiq Hussain Qureshi (45) of the Jammu & Kashmir Police, who was shot dead at Lal Chowk in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district on July 22 while on security duty, the family homes of two Lashkar‑e‑Taiba militants were razed with controlled explosives within 48 hours. The demolitions targeted houses of Adil Ahmad Thokar and Haroon Rashid Ganaie, both active militants since 2018, although their family homes had already suffered previous demolitions.

According to police officials, the arrested included suspected above-ground associates of militants, members of banned separatist organizations, former stone-throwing protestors and those whose names have figured in investigations and militancy-related cases in the past. The arrests are meant to “dismantle ecosystem supporting terrorism,” police said, and carried out on “credible intelligence.”

Lieutenant Governor (LG) Manoj Sinha, while strongly condemning the killing, said that the “heinous act will not go unpunished. J&K Police and our security forces are on the ground and will bring those responsible to justice.” The current Chief Minister Omar Abdullah of the former state also condemned the attack but flagged concern over mass arrests following the attack.

“People are angry that a police head constable has been killed so brutally. But when the number of arrests rises from hundreds to 2,000 or 2,500, that public anger risks being redirected against us,” the chief minister said during a press interaction in Srinagar. “So, demolishing houses or making thousands of arrests will not help improve the situation.”

Kashmir-based politicians from different regional parties, while condemning the attack, also expressed concern over mass crackdowns and arrests following the attack. Former chief minister and President of People’s Democratic Party Mehbooba Mufti and J&K Peoples Conference President and MLA Sajad Lone denounced the mass arrests as measures that “look more like community punishment.”

“As the country welcomes the government of India’s decision to withdraw cases against student protesters elsewhere, one question remains: why is the same compassion denied to Kashmir’s youth?” asked another PDP MLA Waheed Parra.

A political analyst and scholar of Kashmir studies, who wished to remain anonymous, said these actions may deliver short-term security gains but ultimately weaken the prospects for lasting peace by reinforcing resentment instead of addressing the conflict’s underlying political realities.

“The mass detentions following the killing of a policeman and the demolition of houses in South Kashmir reflect a continuing reliance on coercive state practices that have long shaped governance in Kashmir,” the analyst told Asia Sentinel, adding that punishing families and communities for the alleged actions of individuals raises serious constitutional, legal, and human rights concerns. “In a region already burdened by decades of conflict, such measures are widely seen as collective punishment, deepening mistrust and political alienation rather than restoring confidence.”

Praveen Donthi, Senior Analyst at International Crisis Group, who has reported extensively from the Kashmir region in previous years, told Asia Sentinel that New Delhi’s iron-hand security approach to Jammu and Kashmir has created “a superficial calm, allowing it to claim a return of peace and stability to the region.”

“Yet even a single militant attack undermines the narrative, triggering panic among security forces, who then resort to disproportionate responses,” said Donthi. “Such intimidating security tactics, intended to instill fear, don’t counter militancy but end up fueling it. The Pahalgam attack and the Delhi blast prove that the security policy hasn’t yielded dividends after seven years.”

Ultimately, the state’s reliance on coercive, heavy-handed tactics, including mass detentions and home demolitions after every other militant attack, can be counterproductive. While security operations can offer short-term security control, treating the entire population as suspects, going for mass arrests and punitive house demolitions, can fuel deeper alienation on the ground, experts and analysts warn. Disproportionate responses to singular militant attacks, the analysts argue, run the risk of further reinforcing public resentment, raising concerns about violating human rights and shattering prospects of lasting peace in the region.

For much of the past three years, the world’s strategic attention has been fixed on the Red Sea crisis, instability around the Strait of Hormuz, recurring disruptions at the Suez Canal, and Eastern European calamities. Ukraine has even understandably dominated maritime policy. In the process, the Arctic has quietly slipped down the political agenda.

That is a strategic mistake. Whatever its importance to Europe, what is going on in the Arctic today is expected to fundamentally reshape how Asia reconfigures its global supply chains, energy security and geopolitical influence as a northern passage opens, creating a new global ceiling. China, with its massive trade regime, will inevitably be the biggest beneficiary. But every country in Asia is expected to be affected positively, if not environmentally.

The Arctic is often portrayed as a region whose significance belongs to some distant future, to be addressed once geopolitical or climate tensions subside. Yet history suggests precisely the opposite. The most consequential governance decisions are rarely made when new realities fully emerge; they are made years beforehand. By the time commercial opportunities become obvious, institutional choices have already been taken—or neglected.

Nearly two decades ago, Anis H. Bajrektarević, chairperson and professor in international law and global political studies, Vienna, argued that the melting Arctic should not be understood merely as an environmental phenomenon. Rather, it represented the emergence of a new geopolitical and geo-economic space in which climate, commerce, sovereignty and security would increasingly converge. At the time, this appeared a forward-looking proposition. Today it reads less as a prediction than as a description of reality.

Can Europe govern the Arctic?

Aside from Asia, the question confronting the EU and the rest of Europe is therefore no longer whether the Arctic will matter. It already does. The real question is whether Europe is preparing the governance architecture required to manage its long-term implications.

Until recently, the Northern Sea Route—often referred to as the North Passage—was increasingly discussed as a viable complement to the traditional maritime routes linking Europe and Asia. Retreating sea ice, advances in navigation technology, and the prospect of significantly shorter transit times encouraged governments and shipping companies alike to explore its commercial potential. While few believed Arctic shipping would replace the Suez Canal, many recognized that it could eventually become an important element in a more diversified and resilient global trading system.

Then geopolitics intervened: The war in Ukraine fundamentally transformed Europe’s relationship with the Arctic. Trade wars, military tensions and the collapse of political trust have severely constrained practical cooperation across the High North (Arctic/Litoral 5). Since much of the Northern Sea Route to Asia remains under Russian jurisdiction, European commercial engagement (even with Canada’s Hudson Bay) has become increasingly uncertain. As a consequence, strategic debate has largely shifted elsewhere.

This change in political circumstances, however, should not be mistaken for a reduction in the Arctic’s strategic importance.

No pausing climate change

Climate change has not paused because diplomacy has stalled. Arctic ice continues to retreat. Technological innovation continues to reshape maritime navigation. The global race for critical minerals continues to intensify – so does the calamity all over West Asia. Scientific research continues to reveal the region’s growing environmental and economic importance. Whether relations between Europe and Russia improve next year or in the next decade, these structural transformations will continue.

The Arctic therefore represents one of the rare geopolitical theatres where long-term trends are advancing independently of short-term politics. Canadians and Americans are understanding it well. That distinction matters because infrastructure can be built relatively quickly; institutions cannot.

Europe has devoted considerable attention to strengthening supply chains, modernizing ports, improving digital logistics and enhancing maritime resilience. These are essential investments. Yet physical infrastructure alone cannot govern an increasingly complex maritime domain.

The Arctic presents questions that extend well beyond navigation. They concern environmental protection, search and rescue capabilities, digital maritime services, subsea infrastructure, energy security, scientific cooperation, resource management, indigenous communities and the legal frameworks governing international waters. Above all, they concern the ability of states to cooperate under conditions of growing strategic competition.

These are governance challenges long before they become commercial ones. History repeatedly demonstrates that institutional responses tend to lag behind technological and geopolitical transformation. New shipping routes emerge faster than regulatory systems. Commercial interests expand more rapidly than mechanisms for international cooperation. Competition develops long before governance adapts. The Arctic is unlikely to prove an exception.

Waiting for political conditions to improve before preparing governance frameworks would therefore reverse the proper sequence of strategic planning. Institutions should not be improvised once new patterns of trade emerge. They should be designed while options remain open. For Europe, this requires abandoning an increasingly outdated habit of treating the Arctic as an isolated frontier rather than as an integral component of its wider maritime strategy.

Future changes will influence long-term

Developments in the High North are no longer detached from the EU/Europe’s broader strategic environment. Disruptions affecting southern maritime corridors inevitably reinforce interest in northern alternatives (especially under the current situation when the fast and cheap blue and green lanes – such as the trans-Siberian, Hormuz-Red Sea-Suez, or Africa corridor are under question). Likewise, future changes in Arctic navigation will influence Europe’s long-term connectivity, supply-chain resilience and economic security. The Arctic should therefore be viewed not as a distant (mental, geographic or political) periphery but as part of a wider maritime system whose resilience depends less on any single route than on the quality of governance that connects them (see GAFG Connectivity Doctrine).

This carries particular significance for the Nordic countries (not only the Arctic 5). Their geographic proximity gives them an immediate stake in the Arctic’s future, but the implications extend well beyond Northern Europe. The EU (led by Denmark for that matter), Britain and other Atlantic partners all share an interest in ensuring that future Arctic governance is based on cooperation, predictability and internationally accepted (UNCLOS-based) rules rather than strategic improvisation.

Preparing for that future does not require predicting when the Northern Sea Route will once again become commercially attractive. Such forecasts remain hostage to political developments beyond anyone’s control. It requires something more fundamental: recognizing that governance must precede opportunity.

This is precisely the rationale behind the Global Maritime Governance Forum of the Global Academy for Future Governance (GAFG), whose inaugural meeting is planned for Gibraltar this September. Rather than becoming another conference on shipping, ports or maritime security, the GAFG Forum seeks to establish a permanent international platform where policymakers, port authorities, industry leaders, insurers, academics and international organizations can jointly examine the governance of an increasingly interconnected maritime system.

At a time when the Arctic is becoming strategically more significant even as political cooperation grows more difficult, such dialogue is not a luxury—it is an investment in institutional preparedness. Its ambition is simple but timely: to begin shaping the governance architecture before changing geopolitical realities make it indispensable.

No waiting for Russia to stabilize

Europe should therefore resist the temptation to postpone its Arctic thinking until relations with Russia eventually stabilize. Strategic foresight cannot depend upon diplomatic timing. The Arctic will continue to evolve regardless of political cycles, because the forces transforming it—climate change, technological innovation, resource competition and shifting patterns of global trade—operate on a different timeline.

The greatest strategic mistake would not be failing to predict precisely when the Arctic will become Europe’s next great maritime frontier. It would be waiting until that moment arrives before preparing the institutions capable of governing it. The Arctic is not waiting for the world to prepare. Neither should it wait to govern the Arctic.

Maria Elena Ahner is the Copenhagen-based Head of Coherence & Control for the Global Academy for Future Governance

Six hundred miles from its headwaters in southeast China, the Red River flows through Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital city, and then through a broad, fertile delta on its way to the South China Sea. About 45 minutes’ drive downriver from Hanoi is Khoai Chau district of Hung Yen province, long rich in farms and orchards and now the fortuitous site of a US$1.5 billion resort development project with a familiar name floating up around it.

That is the name associated with the family of the President of the United States, in particular the elder sons Donald Jr. and Eric. Following their father’s return to the presidency in 2024, the two assumed managerial control over the global real estate and licensing empire. The brothers have been heavily involved in expanding and operating the family’s vast portfolio, which includes hotels, golf courses, and commercial properties, a progression that has speeded up as the president’s term proceeds.

Plans for the 990-hectare (roughly 2,500-acre) project area include two golf courses, a five-star hotel, and luxury villas. A top Vietnamese firm, the Kinh Bac City Development Holding Corporation, is managing construction and providing capital. The Trump Organization’s ostensible role in the project is simply to provide its good name for a fee of US$5 million for brand use. Across the world, that private business name is becoming associated with the power of the US government.

Directly on returning to power in January 2025, the second Trump Administration, deploring a “lack of reciprocity in bilateral trade relationships,” began pressing trading partners to negotiate and finalize agreements on “reciprocal, fair and balanced trade.” Specifically, it noted that the third largest US goods trade deficit was with Vietnam.

Spooked by worry that Trump, while launching several more ventures in other countries (mostly in the Middle East), might abandon his plans for Hung Yen, provincial authorities have been authorized to fast-track the Trump project, skipping legally required steps in order to shorten project implementation time by six to seven months.

Presuming that (1) American and Vietnamese negotiators can do the larger deal on bilateral trade that they’ve been straining at for the past 18 months, and (2) all agree to pretend that Donald Trump has not benefited personally (i.e., only his sons) from the Hưng Yên mega-resort, the project now seems certain to go forward. Champagne corks have already popped at a groundbreaking ceremony hosted by Donald Jr. and attended by Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính.

Not everyone’s a winner, however. The approximately 5,000 Vietnamese households forced to accept trivial sums for their fields and orchards are unquestionably losers.

If the confiscation of their farmland were treated as a market-value business transaction, they might have received US$30 or more per square meter. The catch is that under Vietnamese law, land that is ‘reclaimed’ by the state is compensated at a far lower rate; less than half what the land would sell for in a private transaction.

It’s no surprise that farmers in the nearly four square mile “Trump International” project tract are both boiling mad and helpless to do anything about the confiscation of their homes, fields and orchards. Or of their family graves, other than to exhume the coffins and rebury them elsewhere if they can afford to do so.

A colleague who spoke to farmers in the tract area earlier this year was told that local authorities have fiddled their compensation, hastily calculating land value at its 2019 price and not the current market price. There were lots of other complaints – that the authorities have failed to distribute documents, missed deadlines, cut short public comment and refused to show how amounts were calculated or to grant extensions. Training for non-agricultural jobs was promised but has yet to be provided. “We don’t oppose the project,” my colleague was told; “we just ask that it be fair, clear and in accord with law and market prices.”

Behind the emotional scenes and confrontations between brutal police and peaceful young demonstrators in Delhi that have gripped international attention in recent weeks, lies India’s unrealized “demographic dividend” which was expected to boost the country’s economy with expertise and drive.

For more than 25 years, India has reveled in the potential benefits of the high percentage of youth in what is now the 1.45 billion population. More than 65 percent (950 million) are under 35 but as many as many as 40 percent (estimates vary) are unemployed or not in education, showing how the dividend has been wasted. Successive governments have failed to rise to this challenge and reform corrupt and ineffective education systems and inadequate skill-learning opportunities. They have also failed to make a priority of generating adequate and appropriate job opportunities at all levels of economic activity.

That has turned the dividend into a social liability and created political risk for the government. It has also disillusioned many of the young aspirational voters who will have voted in general elections for prime minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party but now feel let down.

The bitter frustrations caused by these government failures lay behind the demonstrations that started after more than 2.2 million students sat for an entrance exam for healthcare colleges known as NEET-UG. Just over a week later, the authorities shocked the students when they cancelled the completed exam and ordered a resit because question papers had leaked and been available for sale.

Four days later, on 16 May, the students’ Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) was founded online, satirically named because India’s chief justice had compared unemployed youth to “cockroaches” and “parasites” who drifted into social media and allegedly undermined the Indian constitution. The next move came rapidly when, after just three weeks, the first CJP student demonstrations were held in Delhi, leading to a massive round-the-clock protest.

Students attacked

Widespread support for the protests quickly grew across India, especially when police and a paramilitary force attacked the students violently, using teargas, anti-riot guns and plastic pellets. There was also concern for a veteran education reformer and climate activist, Sonam Wangchuk, who joined the protesters and became a symbol of the campaign when he went on an “indefinite” fast that lasted for 26 days.

This led last weekend to Modi caving-in to mass protests for the third, and most significant, time since he became prime minister in 2014. (The first was in 2019 when protests in north-east India and Delhi led to implementation of controversial citizenship laws being delayed. Then, in 2021, contested agricultural laws were cancelled after over a year of mass protests by Punjab and Haryana famers).

Modi sacked the education minister, which was the students’ primary demand, having already removed the top education bureaucrat. He also tackled the protestors’ original complaint about mass leaking of exam papers and appointed a task force to reform the examination system led by Nandan Nilekani, one of the founders of the Infosys IT company and respected creator of the Aadhaar identity scheme.

Compensation was also agreed for the families of possibly as many as 21 would-be medical students who tragically died by suicide after they were told they had to re-sit the exams.

Wasted dividend

Investment brokers started talking up the demographic dividend in the mid-late 1990s, and in 2005 economists estimated that it opened a 50-year window of potential benefits lasting until 2055.

No government, however, has developed a long-term plan and, with 21 of the 50 years gone, estimates of the numbers who do not have jobs vary from 16 percent aged 15-29, to 40 percent of the 15-25 age group.

The problem affects all levels of employment – at the top, fewer than 7 percent of male graduates find a permanent salaried job within a year of graduating.

For the past 15 to 20 years, there has been speculation about whether – and when – the masses of unemployed youth would erupt into a rebellion, echoing protests that escalated rapidly across the country over corruption and rape in 2011 and 2012-3 and rattled the then Congress-led government.

When the Ministry of Railways announced recruitment drives in January 2022 for low-level entry posts, there were over 12 million applications for just 35,000 jobs. Frustrated youth blocked tracks, clashed with security forces and set train coaches on fire in the poor northern states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

Similarly, the introduction in April 2022 of a new military recruitment policy caused immediate nationwide demonstrations because it replaced a permanent military career that poor rural youth depend on for a permanent one, with four-year contracts. This led to highway blockades, hunger strikes and arson.

Inability to generate jobs

There have been many attempts by governments to generate jobs, but they have not met the main need – to create constructive gainful employment that would reap the dividend.

While economic growth has been strong at around 6 percent, there has been little impact on job creation. Traditional manufacturing industry, which used to absorb surplus labor, has stagnated at around 14-17 percent of GDP. Automation-driven technology and services have limited need for labor and mostly require specialized skills that the vast majority of Indian graduates do not possess due to a chronically and badly targeted education system that successive governments have failed to tackle.

There have been some successful initiatives such as the MGNREGA “right to work” begun in 2005 (replaced recently by a Modi government scheme) that guaranteed 100 days of unskilled labor a year for rural households. There have also been various skill development, micro-lending and other schemes along with macro initiatives such as Modi’s “Make in India” and “Startup India.”

But none of these have tackled the basic tasks of creating a variety of employment opportunities at all levels of the economy and educating youth equipped to take those jobs.

The quality of public education remains poor, ranging from primary schools that lack books and reliable teachers to universities that are inadequate both in numbers of vacancies available and in the qualifications of the graduates they turn out. Interwoven is massive corruption at all levels, illustrated by the leaking exam papers.

Education reform a must

If Modi wants his legacy to be a strong and stable economy along with his Hindu nationalism, he needs to reform the whole of the education system from the bottom upwards. At the top, he needs to ensure it provides graduates and other students with expertise that attracts Indian and foreign investment, while also maintaining social stability.

Nandan Nilekani’s task force on examinations has been created to meet the immediate demands of the protestors, but it only covers a fraction of the overall demographic challenge.

Meanwhile, Modi’s authority has been diminished. The crisis has energized the weak Congress-led political opposition and created a new base for challenging the government, both in parliament, on the streets, and on social media.

Already, an E20 Janta Party has been founded to oppose a widely opposed new fuel blend containing 20 percent ethanol. It gained 34,000 followers within 24 hours of appearing on social media. Whether it can any way near the sort of support won by the Cockroach students remains to be seen, but it shows there is a new feeling of both freedom and confidence to challenge the government.

John Elliott is Asia Sentinel’s South Asia correspondent. He blogs at Riding the Elephant. He is the author of IMPLOSION: India’s Tryst with Reality

Although military rule in Thailand officially ended years ago, its footprint in the boardrooms of the country’s biggest state-owned companies is less well known, with interventions into the economy and in particular the vast state-owned enterprise (SOE) sector replacing dozens of civilian directors with military/police officers since the military coup that ended participatory democracy for more than a decade.

In 2025, the 38-member Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development reported that Thailand’s SOEs generate revenues equivalent to almost one-third of the nation’s GDP, amounting to US$161.3 billion. Thailand has 52 SOEs covering sectors including energy, public utilities, telecommunications, transport, media, finance and banking.

Critics have long argued that military-proxy governance often results in national economic stagnation, dampening foreign direct investment and delaying crucial institutional reforms. Sustained high defense spending and complex military procurement – in Thailand’s case accompanied by massive, endemic military corruption – and often protected even during broader national budget austerity, draw public resources away from high-yield investments like education, technology upgrading, and social welfare.

Thailand has become the poster boy for those criticisms. Since the 2014 military coup, its economic trajectory has shifted from healthy growth to structural stagnation. Formerly one of Southeast Asia’s economic powerhouses, its performance has steadily lagged its faster-growing neighbors, reflecting a loss of regional competitiveness. The country has consistently recorded some of the lowest GDP growth rates in the ASEAN-6 major economies.

Strategically important sectors

Several of these SOEs operate in strategically important national infrastructure sectors, with Airports of Thailand (AOT), Thai Airways (TA) and Petroleum Authority of Thailand (PTT) among the most prominent examples. Many are commercially operated corporations listed on the stock exchange with foreign investors. However, because of their strategic importance and state ownership, board appointments carry significance beyond ordinary corporate governance.

The number of senior serving/former military and police officers presently on the boards of Airports of Thailand, Thai Airways and Petroleum Authority of Thailand is striking, particularly when considering the political events of the last 12 years. Both Airports of Thailand and Thai Airways, for instance, have operated with 15 board members since at least 2013. Both have two board members who are senior serving/former military or police officers. Before the 2014 military coup, each had one and in the year after the coup this increased to three each.

The pattern extends beyond aviation. Thailand’s energy giant PTT and its major subsidiaries show an even more pronounced increase in military and police representation, although the group structure makes it less straightforward to summarize. Pre-2014, across PTT’s parent board and its four key subsidiaries PTTEP, PTTGC, Thai Oil and IRPC, there was only one military/police connected board member. Including PTTOR, the retail arm founded in 2018, there are now 12. In the year after the coup, this increased to four. Since that coup and across the existing 52 companies of the present-day SOE sector, dozens of civilian directors have been replaced with military/police officers.

The military takeover

How did the Thai military – who, historically, have had their own business interests in everything from banks to golf courses – take control? On the evening of May 22, 2014, Thais switched on their televisions and discovered that their democratically elected government had been removed, their political and civil rights suspended, and the media placed under military control. Hundreds of activists and political opponents were arrested and the coup leaders, led by General Prayuth Chan-ocha (who was, while commander in chief of the Thai Army, also a director at the Thai Military Bank), created a body entitled the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) and seized power.

Yet the NCPO didn’t just have its sights set on political control. It also had Thailand’s economy as a target, particularly the massive SOE sector. The message the NCPO pushed was “reform” and within a month of staging the coup it created a “superboard” of military officers, with Prayuth as chairman, which brought every Thai SOE under its control. The superboard – officially the State Enterprise Policy Committee – then began pushing out civilian board members and directors from a range of companies. At the same time, according to Thai newspaper Khaosod, the National Anti-Corruption Commission’s deputy secretary general Worawit Sookboon stated there was no basis to investigate the personal assets of junta members who’d taken up these positions.

Not only were the military requisitioning a vast swath of the Thai economy, but oversight had also taken a back seat. The NCPO’s replacement of civilian board members with military and police officers loyal to the junta took place in the context of the complete suspension of political and civil rights. Thais faced military courts if they dissented and those who publicly criticized the junta risked imprisonment in a military barracks. The civilian directors of these companies had little choice but to acquiesce. The generals had not merely seized political power; they had embedded themselves into the leadership of the companies that powered a third of Thailand’s economy. The post-2014 coup Thailand that the generals were in control of was, arguably, less democratic than Myanmar.

Getting away with it

Impunity is written into the Thai system in a manner hard to comprehend for anyone living in a functioning democracy. As Asia Sentinel reported on July 13, (also raised at thaiscamwatch.blogspot.com), senior police and business figures from Thailand met notorious US government-sanctioned cyberscam center criminals Rithy Raksmei and Ly Yong Phat. One complete lack of institutional accountability was by Airports of Thailand (AOT), whose directors were photographed meeting Thai Police General Visanu Prasatthong-Osoth – who has served or is serving on the AOT board, with Visanu as the chairman, with several of its directors replaced with military officers post- coup. AOT has issued no statement, answered no questions and offered no explanation.

The cycling of loyal and unaccountable senior military/police officers through Thailand’s SOE boardrooms continues. At AOT, experienced civilian directors were replaced with senior military officers by the NCPO. In 2023, Visanu, a “loyal” police general, was appointed Chairman of AOT.

The “perk” for well-connected senior police and military officers of a directorship at a Thai SOE continues. External questioning by foreign investors remains limited. Even “ethical” funds fail to address this, including when chairmen and directors of Thai SOEs meet wanted and notorious cyberscam center criminals.

The meetings Kong and Visanu held with Rithy Raksmei and Ly Yong Phat—meetings AOT has never addressed—should not be forgotten. Southeast Asia’s cyberscam industry is associated with rape, murder, confinement, torture, and severe human rights abuses. That the chairman and a leading director of a major Thai SOE could attend such meetings without facing accountability should concern anyone focused on ethics.

The question that remains is whether ethical-investment frameworks are equipped to recognize corruption and governance risks when they emerge, not through a single company’s actions, but through the political capture of an entire state-enterprise system. The effective rule of law - and corporate governance - in Thailand remains a challenge.

Thai Scam Watch has chosen to remain anonymous, saying it is concerned individuals who believe these unanswered questions deserve public scrutiny, and who are committed to exposing organized criminal networks and the corruption that enables them in the face of considerable personal retribution. Asia Sentinel has satisfied itself as to their legitimacy and agreed to publish periodic articles from the group.

The war with Iran has forced an overdue reckoning that reaches well beyond the Middle East, illustrated dramatically when US Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently stated that the United States cannot protect global shipping indefinitely, he was addressing more than the Strait of Hormuz. He was signaling a fundamental strategic recalibr…

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On July 2, began a livestream from his phone, broadcasting the final moments of his life. The frame captured the United Nations Headquarters on the right as he walked forward, carrying the Tibetan national flag. He was wearing his chuba, the Tibetan traditional dress, which had been doused in a flammable liquid. …

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India’s renewed debate over whether passports prove citizenship has revived anxieties among Muslims, particularly as political leaders speculate about a possible nationwide update of the National Register of Citizens that critics say could disenfranchise as many as 80 million people as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 12-year-old Hindutva…

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The US-Saudi nuclear agreement is not really about reactors. It’s about rules and Washington deciding its own rules are negotiable. That decision will ripple through the region soon after the first Saudi reactor breaks ground.

Riyadh is calling this a breakthrough. Washington is calling it a win. Both are missing, or hiding, the point. The deal’s importance is not in how many reactors Saudi Arabia builds. It is in what the deal reveals, and what it sets loose, some of it far from the Middle East.

South Korea has pushed for enrichment rights for years and been turned down on gold-standard grounds. Japan’s plutonium stockpile draws periodic American unease. Brazil has never fully accepted IAEA terms that Washington treats as fixed everywhere else. Each of those governments will read the Saudi file the same way Tehran will: the rule was never about physics. It was about how badly Washington wanted something from you. Riyadh may be where this deal got signed. Seoul and Brasília will be reading it just as closely.

For almost 20 years, the US enforced a “gold standard” on civilian nuclear deals in the Middle East. The 2009 US-UAE agreement is the template. Abu Dhabi gave up enrichment and reprocessing for good. It accepted the IAEA’s Additional Protocol, which allows tougher inspections. This wasn’t meant to be a starting offer. It was meant to be the price of entry, full stop.

The Saudi deal breaks that template. The full text isn’t public. Key details are still contested. But the reported framework doesn’t lock Riyadh out of enrichment permanently. It doesn’t require the Additional Protocol on UAE terms. Instead, it leaves the door open to future enrichment under conditions still being negotiated, wrapped in a bespoke bilateral safeguards regime built for this one deal.

The mixed signals make it worse, not better. First, reports suggested enrichment could eventually be allowed after a joint US-Saudi study. Then Trump said publicly that no enrichment would happen at all. Then he tied the whole thing to Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords. Three positions. Three audiences. No fixed line anyone in the region can plan around.

That instability is the real story. Whether Saudi Arabia ever actually enriches uranium is almost secondary. Trump can change his mind again next month. What can’t be simply undone is the demonstration effect: the gold standard is not a principle anymore. It is a price tag, and the price depends on who is buying. Every government in the region just watched that happen. Every government will now act on it.

From Rules to Leverage: The Regional Fallout

The bigger question is not whether this triggers an arms race. It is how each regional actor’s calculus shifts now that Washington’s non-proliferation standard has revealed itself as leverage, not doctrine. Four reactions matter most.

Iran will use this as evidence, not provocation. Tehran has spent two decades under enrichment limits and sanctions, sold partly on the idea that restraint is a universal rule, not a favor granted to friends. This deal undercuts that pitch directly. If Riyadh — aligned with Washington, hedging against Iran, no special treaty banning enrichment — can plausibly keep a path to enrichment open through friendship rather than years of trust-building, the lesson lands hard: compliance was never about non-proliferation logic. It was about whose side you’re on. Expect Iranian negotiators to cite this deal explicitly in future talks, not to justify a bomb but to argue that “zero enrichment” was always pressure dressed up as principle.

Israel now has to choose between alignment and precedent. Israel has quietly welcomed a Gulf security architecture built against Iran. But this deal forces a real trade-off. Closer US-Saudi ties strengthen the anti-Iran coalition Israel has bet on for a decade. But accepting a more permissive nuclear posture for an Arab state — one that goes beyond the 2009 UAE baseline — chips away at a core Israeli doctrine: no regional actor, however friendly, gets nuclear-adjacent capability. Israeli planners now have to weigh not just Saudi intentions, which may be entirely peaceful, but a harder fact that the ceiling has been moved. A ceiling that moves once tends to move again.

The UAE just got handed leverage it didn’t have yesterday. This is the most overlooked piece. The UAE accepted real limits in 2009 to be first, and to be the “responsible” nuclear partner in the Gulf. But Article 12 of that agreement lets Abu Dhabi revisit its own commitments if another regional state gets better terms. If Saudi Arabia secures a more permissive deal, the UAE does not just lose relative standing. It gains a legal opening to walk its own restraint back. Watch Abu Dhabi use that leverage, not necessarily to pursue enrichment, but as a bargaining chip with Washington and with rival vendors (French, Russian, Chinese) who would happily offer terms the 2009 deal never allowed. Washington may end up costing itself its most cooperative nuclear partner in the Gulf, not because the UAE wants a bomb, but because playing by the old rules stopped paying off.

Turkey and Egypt now have a “why not us” case. Ankara is already building reactors with Russian help at Akkuyu. Cairo is building with Rosatom. Neither trusts Washington’s rules to hold steady, and this deal proves the point. Both have less reason than ever to accept US conditions when a state with a similar regional profile got more flexibility. The likely result isn’t a weapons race. It’s a scramble, with regional states shopping American, Russian, Chinese, and French vendors against each other, using Washington’s own precedent as the opening bid in every negotiation.

Military Alliance to Technological Entanglement

There’s a deeper shift underneath all four of these reactions. For 70 years, US Middle East strategy ran on a simple formula: security guarantees and arms sales, in exchange for basing rights, oil stability, and alignment against ‘common’ threats. That formula assumed the US had no real competitor for the role of guarantor.

That assumption is gone. China buys most of Saudi Arabia’s oil and is its largest trading partner. Russia remains a security hedge Riyadh keeps as insurance against American unreliability. The Gulf states have spent the last five years proving they will hedge—regardless of how Washington feels — through OPEC+ decisions, a Chinese-brokered rapprochement with Iran, and deepening BRICS ties.

This is also why treating the deal as a simple energy play, or a simple anti-China play, sells it short. Reactors create decades-long dependencies — fuel supply, safety regulation, technician training, waste management — that arms sales do not. Washington is betting that this slower, thicker entanglement binds Riyadh more tightly than security guarantees alone, at exactly the moment those guarantees have looked shakiest. Washington’s muted response to the 2019 Abqaiq attacks made that shakiness visible to everyone in the region. The nuclear deal is, in part, an attempt to substitute technological dependence for military credibility that has already been called into question.

Abraham Accords Linkage: Second Gamble

Tying implementation to Saudi normalization with Israel adds a risk the administration may not have fully priced in. Riyadh has long insisted that normalization follow real progress on Palestinian statehood. This is a position that has got hardened, not softened, by the war in Gaza and its aftermath. By conditioning the nuclear deal on normalization with Israel, Washington has handed Saudi Arabia new leverage to extract concessions on Palestine as the price of a deal it already believes it earned on the merits.

It has also handed critics — from Islamist opposition inside the kingdom to Iran’s propaganda machine — a ready-made story: that Riyadh’s nuclear cooperation is being traded for recognizing Israel, with nothing for Palestinians in return. Whether or not the deal ever gets implemented, the linkage itself sends a signal. Washington now treats nuclear cooperation, regional security, and Arab-Israeli normalization as one bargaining space. Everything is up for trade. Every actor watching has taken a note.

Dr. Salman Rafi Sheikh is a longtime commentator on diplomatic affairs for Asia Sentinel. He is an Assistant Professor of Politics at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS).

Last week’s successful maritime strike carried out by US Central Command against Iran’s major Bandar Abbas Naval Base is a significant maturing step for US naval drone warfare capability, with the US Navy finally beginning to make serious progress out of its naval drone R&D efforts. These efforts have been lackluster at best and to…

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As escalating hostilities between the US and Iran push crude oil to multi-week highs - with Brent futures surging toward US$98 a barrel - motorists across Asia and other major markets remain trapped paying elevated prices at the pump. While crude had eased since mid-May from its wartime highs, gasoline and diesel costs consistently refused …

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For a head of state who has spent years as the West’s favorite pariah, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, in early July, received the diplomatic equivalent of a royal flush. Sukhoi combat aircraft roaring overhead. An 80-member cavalry escort thundering down Medan Merdeka Utara. The traditional Enggang dance from East Kalim…

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Baghdad, in a tenuous recovery and increased internal peace after the chaos of its post-2003 conflict years, is now trying to be Washington’s partner, Tehran’s neighbor and the Gulf’s investment prize all at once. But the war next door is making that math impossible to solve.

Shia businessman-banker Ali al-Zaidi didn’t rise to Iraq’s premiership in May through the usual channels of patronage and coalition-building. He was, in a real sense, installed by veto. When Iraq’s dominant Shia bloc, the Coordination Framework, moved to back a Tehran-aligned candidate for prime minister, Washington drew an explicit line: no government seen as captured by Iran-linked factions would retain US security cooperation, and Treasury officials warned that anyone enabling militia violence “will be held accountable.”

After a first attempt to push through an alternative ally of former premier Nouri al-Maliki collapsed, the Framework capitulated in a single, 25-minute session and unanimously approved al-Zaidi. He is a 40-year-old banker with no prior political office, chosen precisely because he apparently belonged to neither camp.

That origin is the key to understanding everything al-Zaidi has done since. His mandate doesn’t come from an Iraqi electoral coalition; it comes from the narrow space Washington and Tehran have each agreed, however reluctantly, to tolerate. He has spent his first 10 weeks in office trying to widen that space rather than being crushed by it. His maneuvering has included attending Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s funeral procession in Tehran after Khamenei’s assassination in the opening days of the war, and then, days later, shaking hands in the Oval Office with the man responsible for it.

Trump’s Praise

The five-day Washington visit in mid-July produced the kind of imagery Iraqi diplomacy rarely generates: US President Donald Trump praising “tremendous chemistry” with al-Zaidi, and Iraqi officials announcing a pipeline agreement linking Basra’s oil fields to Turkey’s Ceyhan port, backed by Chevron, TI Capital and Qatar’s UCC. Al-Zaidi’s office framed the trip around economic partnership, attracting American investment, expanding US corporate involvement in Iraqi infrastructure, and deepening the energy sector. On departure, he thanked Trump’s administration for what he called a new era of strategic economic partnership.

But the goodwill has a price tag Baghdad hasn’t yet paid. Washington’s support for al-Zaidi has always been conditioned on visible progress toward disarming Iran-backed militias and folding their weapons under state control, a demand that predates his premiership and has outlived several of his predecessors’ promises. Several factions pledged in June to begin disarming; by mid-July, little progress had been made.

Iraqi militias aren’t just militant groups. They are embedded in politics. After last year’s parliamentary elections, the militias’ political wings hold a quarter of the seats in parliament, control ministries, influence the judiciary, and command significant economic resources. It took Iraqis six months to reach consensus on an untested new prime minister who serves at the pleasure of these powerful militia-aligned groups. Removing them from state institutions is therefore not a straightforward law-enforcement exercise but requires a fundamental restructuring of Iraq’s post-2003 political order. It is a venture that a leader like al-Zaidi, new to Iraqi politics, may not be too willing to undertake.

The recent killing of an Iraqi intelligence officer in a drone attack, which Iraq’s own foreign ministry attributed to “factions from the inside,” is a preview of how dangerous that confrontation could become if al-Zaidi pushes harder. He knows the cost of doing that—a calculation that may have influenced Iraq’s decision that al-Zaidi must visit Tehran. He doesn’t want his ties with Washington to be seen as a rupture with Iran.

External Events May Hold Key

Timing has made the balancing act more precarious, not less. The ceasefire that Pakistan brokered between the United States and Iran in April has collapsed again, with fresh strikes on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz in early July prompting Trump to declare the truce over even as Qatari and Pakistani mediators scramble to restart talks. Washington, meanwhile, is planning a further reduction of its troop presence in Iraq by the end of September, removing leverage and protection from Baghdad at precisely the moment the region is escalating again.

The US withdrawal is a double-edged sword. It cuts the risk of American soldiers being sitting targets, but it also cuts the one thing that kept Washington genuinely invested in Iraq’s stability. What is left is a relationship held together by Trump’s fondness for al-Zaidi and a handful of oil deals, which is a much flimsier thing to build a foreign policy on. Iran, for its part, is not going to read this as America stepping back in good faith; it’s going to read it as an opening.

And al-Zaidi is the one left holding the bag: he no longer has “the Americans are still here” as his excuse for not disarming the militias, but he has not gained anything that would actually let him do it either. Push too hard, and Tehran makes him pay. Don’t push at all, and Washington loses patience. Either way, the cushion he used to have is gone.

Betting on a Fractured Gulf

Al-Zaidi’s outreach has not stopped at Washington. Baghdad is simultaneously courting the Gulf states, structuring a new energy and development fund that it hopes Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar will help capitalize alongside American and European investors, part of a broader push to rebuild trust with Gulf capital after years of underinvestment. This is a rational hedge, but it assumes a coherence in Gulf policy toward Iran that no longer exists.

The Gulf Cooperation Council states have responded to the war in starkly different ways: the UAE, having absorbed the most direct attacks of any GCC member, has taken the most confrontational posture and reportedly welcomed direct Israeli defense cooperation. Saudi Arabia has pushed for de-escalation through the same Pakistan-mediated channel while reserving the right to strike back. Qatar and Oman have positioned themselves as the region’s diplomats, hosting Iranian officials for talks even as the war continues. Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, once tightly aligned, have grown into rivals rather than partners on the core question of how to handle Tehran.

Iraq is, in effect, asking a fractured Gulf to fund a state that hasn’t resolved its own fracture with Iran. There exists a dependency that extends well beyond politics into the physical grid, since Iraqi electricity generation still relies in part on Iranian gas and power imports that no amount of Gulf capital has yet replaced. Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Doha each have their own reasons to keep investing regardless of the war’s trajectory: Gulf sovereign wealth funds have grown enormous over the past decade, and Iraqi reconstruction offers returns that data-center and tourism megaprojects alone cannot match. But the same governments financing Baghdad’s pivot toward Washington and the Gulf are also, individually, hedging their own exposure to Iran through separate military and diplomatic channels. Iraq cannot borrow a unified Gulf position on Iran, because no such unity currently exists to borrow.

What Baghdad’s Bet Actually Wagers

The temptation is to read Iraq’s position as passive; a country buffeted between larger powers with no real agency of its own. That undersells what is happening. Al-Zaidi’s government has made an active, calculated bet: that enough visible alignment with Washington and the Gulf can be sustained without triggering the kind of rupture with Tehran that would destabilize Iraq’s own security architecture, still built substantially on Iran-aligned militias embedded in the state itself.

That bet has a shelf life, and the war is shortening it. Every additional round of US-Iran strikes narrows the middle ground Baghdad is trying to occupy, and every month the militias remain armed is a month Washington’s patience compounds against al-Zaidi rather than for him. If the current escalation in the Strait of Hormuz hardens into a longer war rather than another fragile pause, Iraq won’t be able to remain a hinge state indefinitely; it will be forced into a choice its founding transaction with Washington was specifically designed to avoid. The more interesting question for the region is no longer whether al-Zaidi can keep Iraq out of the war; it is which of Iraq’s external patrons will get tired of the balancing act first.

Dr. Salman Rafi Sheikh is an Assistant Professor of Politics at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). He holds a Ph.D. in Politics and International Studies from SOAS, University of London. He is a longtime regular contributor to Asia Sentinel.

As China’s rapacious miners increase their resource extraction in various countries to feed an economy that is the world’s biggest consumer and producer of transition minerals, allegations of human rights abuses and environmental damage have increased across the globe. Ironically, some transition materials mined by Chinese polluters are …

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit to Manila this week— attending the ASEAN Post-Ministerial Conference, the East Asia Summit Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, and the ASEAN Regional Forum — highlights a crucial geopolitical reality: while the Taiwan Strait and the first island chain remain vital to regional security, the long-term balance of power in the Indo-Pacific may ultimately depend on strategic choices made across Southeast Asia.

Global attention centers on China’s military modernization, America’s alliances, and Taiwan risk. Less examined is China’s quieter contest to shape ASEAN’s strategic orientation. Beijing’s approach appears pragmatic: not expelling the United States from Asia but preventing a cohesive regional coalition capable of balancing Chinese influence, preferring to deal with Southeast Asian nations on a bilateral basis rather than as a unified bloc, which allows it to leverage its immense economic size.

By forging closer ties with more receptive or dependent states such as Cambodia, Laos, and Malaysia, Beijing is ensuring that the bloc is stymied in attempting to achieve consensus needed to issue unified criticisms or counter-pressures. By benefiting from ASEAN’s preference for strategic autonomy and non-alignment, China is advancing its interests without directly confronting Washington’s alliance network.

This competition transcends military power. It focuses on economic influence, political credibility, technological partnerships and the shaping of regional norms and institutions.

The United States holds strong cards. Alliances with Japan and South Korea remain enduring pillars of its Indo-Pacific strategy. Security ties with the Philippines have deepened significantly, and Australia continues as a vital partner. These relationships anchor the first island chain. Yet they cannot alone determine the broader Indo-Pacific order. ASEAN is central.

ASEAN’s Strategic Weight

ASEAN is neither a military alliance nor a unified bloc. It is a diplomatic community rooted in consensus, sovereignty, and strategic autonomy. Its 11 member states span diverse political systems, economic priorities, and threat perceptions. What unites them is not a common security policy, but a shared commitment to regional stability and resistance to excessive dependence on any major power.

The Philippines has strengthened defense cooperation with Washington as a treaty ally. Singapore maintains close security ties with the United States while avoiding formal alliances. Thailand balances its longstanding US alliance with diversified engagement. Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, and others prioritize strategic autonomy and diversified partnerships.

For Beijing, outright alignment is unnecessary. It may be sufficient that ASEAN sustains its aversion to great-power rivalry and avoids the formation of a unified balancing coalition, a preference that aligns naturally with ASEAN’s longstanding doctrine of flexibility and non-alignment.

The Weight of Economic Geography

China enjoys significant structural advantages in Southeast Asia. As ASEAN’s largest trading partner, China is deeply embedded in regional supply chains, manufacturing, infrastructure, energy and digital networks. Geography reinforces this advantage: China is a permanent neighbor, while the United States remains an external Pacific power. When neutrality pairs with deepening economic interdependence with Beijing, Washington’s military strengths become harder to translate into sustained political influence.

Deterrence remains essential, but long-term leverage demands economic engagement, technological cooperation, institutional trust, and persistent diplomacy.

The key question is not whether ASEAN states will choose Washington or Beijing, but whether they can preserve real space for independent decisions. If that space narrows under the weight of economic dependence, neutrality may gradually evolve into de facto alignment—even without formal treaties or political declarations.

Three Models of Strategic Hedging

Vietnam, Indonesia, and Singapore exemplify distinct hedging approaches, with Vietnam confronting direct maritime pressure in the South China Sea.

Hanoi balances growing economic ties with China against deepened partnerships with the United States, Japan, Australia, India, and Europe. Its “Four Nos” policy — no formal alliances, no foreign bases, and no alignment with any major power — safeguards autonomy. However, flexibility without domestic resilience and credible alternatives risks turning into vulnerability. Vietnam remains one of the most important counterweights to Chinese maritime assertiveness among ASEAN claimant states. Sustaining this role requires ongoing modernization, institutional strength, and economic capacity.

Indonesia represents autonomy rooted in scale and leadership. As ASEAN’s largest member by population, economy, and territory, Jakarta follows its “free and active” foreign policy tradition. It avoids alignment while preserving ASEAN centrality and preventing any single power from dominating the regional order. Although facing fewer direct confrontations than Vietnam, particularly around the North Natuna Sea, Indonesia wields influence through demographic weight, diplomacy and institutional shaping.

Singapore builds autonomy on institutional strength and global connectivity. It welcomes a sustained US security presence while maintaining deep economic links with China. Singapore’s leaders reject Cold War binaries, positioning the city-state as a pragmatic bridge and global hub, a model that maximizes maneuverability in an increasingly competitive environment.

Together, these cases demonstrate that hedging is not indecision. It is deliberate statecraft — tailored efforts by large and small states to maximize agency amid great-power rivalry.

Washington’s Diplomatic Imperative

Rubio’s visit highlights the distinct challenge for US diplomacy. Reassuring allies is familiar terrain. Engaging non-aligned partners requires nuance. Most ASEAN governments prioritize development, stability, and autonomy. They view China as a neighbor, competitor, and vital economic partner simultaneously.

The United States need not create an anti-China bloc. It must demonstrate that closer partnership expands — rather than restricts — Southeast Asian choices. This calls for initiatives beyond defense: resilient supply chains, digital governance, technological standards, infrastructure, education exchanges, and support for maritime rights. The goal is an open, independent ASEAN capable of resisting coercion while preserving strategic flexibility.

The Decisive Arena

ASEAN’s refusal to choose sides may prove one of the defining factors in the Indo-Pacific balance. Neutrality is not pro-China. Yet under conditions of China’s economic weight and geographic proximity, it can produce asymmetric outcomes. Southeast Asian states seek neither dependence on Washington nor Beijing. Meaningful autonomy requires economic resilience, diversified partnerships, and institutional credibility.

The institutional and economic rules that solidify in this decade will shape not only the regional balance of power, but also the range of choices available to the next generation of Southeast Asians.

The region’s future will not be settled by naval power or alliances alone. It will be decided in ASEAN’s diplomatic, economic, and institutional space — the true strategic center of gravity in US –China competition. The first island chain remains indispensable for security. But the broader contest for regional order will increasingly be shaped in Southeast Asia, the strategic center of the Indo-Pacific century.

Khanh Vu Duc is a frequent contributor to Asia Sentinel. He is a lawyer and part-time law professor at the University of Ottawa who researches on Vietnamese politics, international relations, and international law.

What began as an investigation into a series of nationwide power outages has rapidly evolved into a rare confrontation between Indonesia’s two most powerful law enforcement institutions. Indonesia’s National Police, through its Anti-Corruption Task Force (Kortastipidkor), is investigating alleged corruption and money laundering in coal procurement for state-owned power plants between 2018 and 2026. Investigators suspect manipulated contracts, falsified coal quality and supply records, and illicit financial flows that may have caused state losses of roughly US$300 million.

As the investigation has expanded, police have searched more than a dozen locations in Jakarta and nearby cities last week. Several of the properties were linked to Febrie Adriansyah, the former head of the Special Crimes Unit (Jampidsus) of the Attorney General’s Office (AGO), transforming what appeared to be a procurement case into a much broader inquiry into the relationships among Indonesia’s law enforcement elite.

A Prosecutor under Investigation

Police have named Febrie a suspect in corruption and money laundering investigations tied to three separate cases: a scandal involving state-owned insurance company PT Asabri, alleged corruption involving state-owned PT Krakatau Steel, and the coal procurement case. Don Ritto, a lawyer described by investigators as one of Febrie’s close associates, was also named as a suspect. Investigators allege that Febrie accepted illicit payments through the extortion of suspects in those major corruption cases. He has since resigned from the Attorney General’s Office.

The allegations mark a dramatic fall for one of Indonesia’s best-known anti-corruption prosecutors. Since taking charge of the Special Crimes Unit in January 2022, Febrie led investigations into some of the country’s largest corruption scandals, including the tin trading case, the crude oil governance scandal, and the controversial and politically charged Chromebook procurement case involving former Education Minister Nadiem Makarim. Most recently, his office was handling corruption cases involving the government’s massive Free Nutritious Meals program.

Police searched 13 locations linked to Febrie, including his residence in suburban Jakarta, and several businesses in Jakarta. Officers seized 74 kilograms of gold, hundreds of billions of rupiah in cash, and other evidence. They also searched Koin Money Changer, where they confiscated cash in 16 foreign currencies worth about 7.2 billion rupiah. “There are strong indications the location was used for money laundering,” said Senior Commissioner Budi Hermanto, the Jakarta Metropolitan Police spokesman.

Soon after videos of the raids circulated online, prosecutors – accompanied by dozens of armed military soldiers – arrived at the Jakarta Metropolitan Police headquarters demanding the return of the seized evidence. At the same time, Indonesian military personnel guarded Febrie’s residence in South Jakarta. Military spokesman Brig. Gen. Muhammad Nas said the deployment was carried out at the request of the Attorney General’s Office. What appeared to be a stand-off between the police and military was alarming – and huge news nationwide.

According to Inspector General Totok Suharyanto, head of the National Police’s Anti-Corruption Task Force, investigators are focusing on three cases. The first concerns alleged corruption in coal procurement that investigators believe contributed to electricity shortages and widespread blackouts. The second revisits alleged corruption and money laundering connected to PT Asabri and another state-owned insurer, Jiwasraya. The third involves the settlement of debts between two subsidiaries of Krakatau Steel.

Although the investigations concern separate legal matters, police have linked them in pursuing Febrie, leaving unresolved questions about the precise role prosecutors believe he played in each case, which has since been handed over to the attorney general’s office, prompting concerns that the institution is being asked to investigate one of its own and will potentially shield senior officials from independent scrutiny.

The Curse of the Free Meals Program

The bitter feud between Indonesia’s police and prosecutors didn’t begin with the coal investigation. Its roots lie in a far more politically sensitive case: alleged corruption in President Prabowo Subianto’s flagship Free Nutritious Meals (MBG) program.

Far from becoming the signature social program Prabowo envisioned, the free lunch initiative has increasingly become synonymous with allegations of corruption. What was designed as a nationwide effort to improve child nutrition and ease widespread stunting has instead exposed weaknesses in governance as the program expanded at remarkable speed.

Since mid-June 2026, the attorney general’s office has instructed prosecutors nationwide to investigate suspected corruption in the program’s rapidly expanding network of community kitchens. Prosecutors have examined allegations ranging from the sale of operating permits and kitchen locations to inflated procurement costs, illegal commissions and the misuse of government incentives.

The investigation soon reached senior officials with close ties to the police. Among those arrested was Sony Sonjaya, the deputy head of the National Nutrition Agency and a retired police inspector general. Investigators allege that Sony implicated other police officers involved in the program, including Brig. Gen. Lalu Muhammad Iwan Mahardan, an active-duty officer who was later named as a suspect.

Police officials were outraged, arguing that prosecutors had designated Lalu a suspect without coordinating with the force. They also accused the attorney general’s office of selective prosecution, saying it targeted kitchens operated by the police while leaving untouched hundreds of facilities affiliated with the Indonesian military. More than 1,000 MBG kitchens are currently managed by the national police.

The police response was swift. Soon afterward, investigators unveiled corruption and extortion allegations involving one of the Attorney General’s Office’s most influential figures, former Special Crimes chief Febrie.

Exposing Each Other’s Secrets

Indonesia has witnessed recurring rivalries among its law enforcement institutions since the police were separated from the military in 1998. Previous clashes – including the long-running conflict between the police and the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), as well as periodic tensions between the police and the armed forces – have repeatedly tested the country’s justice system. This time, however, the rivalry has escalated into competing corruption investigations, with each institution exposing alleged wrongdoing by the other.

The military’s involvement reflects the political alliances surrounding both institutions. Febrie serves as executive chairman of the government’s Forest Area Enforcement Task Force, which is led by Defense Minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, a retired army general with considerable influence within the armed forces.

Legal scholars argue that the escalating conflict underscores the need for an independent referee. They say Prabowo could ease the institutional deadlock by transferring both the MBG investigation and the allegations against prosecutors to the KPK. Although many KPK investigators come from the police and the prosecution service, the agency operates independently of the institutions now locked in conflict.

Without an impartial investigation, they argue, the greatest casualty will not be either institution but public confidence in the rule of law.

Calls for Anti-Graft Agency Intervention

Hendardi, chairman of the National Council of the influential SETARA Institute, said the KPK should immediately exercise its statutory supervisory powers to take over – or at least oversee – the investigations. Allowing the attorney general’s office to investigate allegations involving its leadership, he argued, “simply makes no sense. The Attorney General’s Office would effectively be investigating itself.”

Hendardi also criticized the police’s willingness to hand the case to prosecutors, saying the move deepened public distrust and fueled suspicions of a political bargain between the two institutions. If the decision resulted from political pressure by the executive branch, he said, it would blur the boundary between law enforcement and political interests.

“The more political actors intervene in an ongoing legal process, the greater the risk that justice will be sacrificed for political expediency,” he said.

Hendardi warned that appeals to national stability must never become a justification for shielding corruption or manipulating legal proceedings. Stability built on impunity, he argued, ultimately weakens the legitimacy of the state. He also questioned the military’s involvement in a civilian law enforcement process, saying such intervention had no legal basis.

Finally, he said that investigators should not stop with Febrie alone. They should follow the chain of command, trace financial transactions and identify all beneficiaries of the alleged corruption, including, if supported by evidence, other senior officials within the Attorney General’s Office, or even the government’s Forest Area Enforcement Task Force.

“Corruption at this level is rarely the work of a single individual,” Hendardi said. “If the investigation ends with one suspect while protecting those above him, it will amount to sacrificing one person to preserve a corrupt system.”

Kenneth Jeyaretnam, a trained economist who gave up a career in finance to take over his father’s opposition Reform Party as secretary-general to tilt at unassailable Singaporean political windmills, died in London on July 18 at age 67, leaving a fragmented and cowed opposition with one less voice.

Mr. Jeyaretnam’s wife, Amanda, announced his death after a lingering illness in a Facebook post on July 19. She said her husband had “died peacefully in his sleep surrounded by family.” Funeral details for a small family service are still being finalized, she told local media, and that a memorial to celebrate his life will be arranged at a later date.

“Kenneth was inured to the prospect of personal or political hardship and failures from watching his father’s dogged perseverance and political persecution as Singapore’s first elected opposition MP since its independence in 1965,” Amanda Jeyaretnam told Asia Sentinel. “Both father and son viewed political pluralism and civic participation as principles worth advancing regardless of personal electoral success. They believed that Singaporeans should have meaningful electoral choices and opportunities to exercise their democratic rights, even in a political landscape dominated by the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) and their unbroken supermajority in Parliament.”

The opposition figure, his wife said, had been anxious to return to Singapore to face charges brought against him by the Singapore government and to return to the political fray, a wish he also expressed in conversations with Asia Sentinel, but as his illness progressed, he was never able to do so.

Although the Reform Party found little success at the polls, Mr. Jeyaretnam remained a tenacious critic of the Singapore government, and paid for it with numerous correction demands under the country’s controversial false news statute, the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act, which gives individual ministers the power to decide what constitutes a “falsehood” and issue correction directions, rather than submitting the issues to a test by impartial legal bodies when evaluating criticisms.

He was under constant investigation by the police and the POFMA office for possible offences as well as possible contempt of court. Officials issued at least 10 such POFMA demands between 2023 and 2025 regarding government spending, lucrative property rentals by cabinet ministers, the National Investment Returns Contribution (NIRC), and auxiliary police hiring, many of his criticisms issued from his bed in London, where he suffered from deep vein thrombosis and bilateral pulmonary embolism that ultimately contributed to ending his life.

Mr Jeyaretnam never managed to secure a full-time career in Singapore despite his double first-class honors in economics from Cambridge, facing multiple rejections from various government agencies and civil service departments, according to recently disclosed details online, which said he lost his first and only full-time job working as an assistant manager in HSBC’s merchant banking arm, Wardley, in 1987. Mr Jeyaretnam was reportedly compelled to resign after only weeks in his job following political pressure applied through one of Lee Kuan Yew’s permanent secretaries, according to the report.

“I admired Kenneth for his convictions — for his belief in fighting for the underprivileged and for those on the margins of society,” said Lim Tean, Secretary-General, People’s Alliance for Reform, another splinter opposition party. “When he believed in something, he never wavered, no matter how unpopular that cause might be. That was the measure of the man, and it was his father’s spirit living on in him. On behalf of the People’s Alliance for Reform, I extend our deepest condolences to his wife Amanda and his son Jared. Our thoughts and prayers are with them at this most difficult time.

Other opposition leaders issued similar accolades.

Mr. Jeyaretnam was the eldest son of the late opposition icon J.B. Jeyaretnam – popularly known as JBJ –the first opposition politician elected to the post-independence Singapore Parliament in 1981. JBJ established the Reform Party in 2008 after Singapore government officials repeatedly sued him, harassed him with legal actions, bankrupted his original Worker Party, and sought to put him in jail. The father was a mortal foe of Singapore’s modern founder Lee Kuan Yew and jousted with him on the floor of parliament repeatedly. After his father’s death, Mr. Jeyaretnam contested three general elections against then Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s team but was unsuccessful.

He didn’t contest in the 2025 election, explaining that he decided against doing so after “the advice of doctors over some recent health issues,” which he didn’t specify. Deep vein thrombosis, which often occurs during long-haul international flights, involves the formation of a blood clot that forms in a deep vein, usually in the calf, thigh, or pelvis. It is dangerous because the clot can break loose, travel through the bloodstream to the lungs, and block an artery—a life-threatening emergency known as a pulmonary embolism.

Jeyaretnam studied at the United World College of South-East Asia and the Charterhouse School in England. In 1983, he graduated from Cambridge and went on to pursue a career in finance, first as a credit analyst at Wardley, HSBC’s merchant banking subsidiary, before moving to Continental Bank, Banque Indosuez, Lehman Brothers, and Nomura International.

In a letter to members and supporters posted on Facebook late on July 19, Reform Party chairman Mahaboob Batcha said RP was “deeply saddened” by Jeyaretnam’s passing. “Throughout his political career, he fiercely championed democracy and consistently put the needs of Singapore above his own political ambitions,” he said.

Besides his wife Amanda, Mr. Jeyaretnam is survived by their son Jared and his younger brother, High Court judge Philip Jeyaretnam.

Since Chinese President Xi Jinping launched his anti-corruption campaign in late 2012, millions of Chinese officials have been taken down, including “flies” (minor officials) and “tigers” (senior officials). Recently, complications have emerged in Xi’s crusade, involving a tiger who got caught and the apparent disappearance of a general in charge of fighting corruption in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

After a decade and a half in power, with waves of sweeping purges to protect his position, there’s little evidence that Xi faces any genuine rival, but internal power struggles nevertheless remain fierce. It is also an indication, however, of the difficulty of eradicating corruption that continues to pervade the Chinese political establishment. The recent snared tiger, Ma Xingrui, is a former head of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and a former member of China’s Politburo, the country’s highest policy-making body– and an acquaintance of President Xi’s wife.

On June 30, the state-owned People’s Daily announced that Ma had been expelled from the Chinese Communist Party and dismissed as a member of the National People’s Congress. Ma’s ill-gotten gains were confiscated and he faces trial, People’s Daily added. He is the first civilian Politburo member to be taken down for corruption since July 2017.

“Politburo members typically enjoy an informal layer of political immunity and are rarely ever removed while in office,” said a report of SinoInsider, a China-focused political risk consultancy based in New York, on July 16. “Since the end of the Cultural Revolution, very few sitting Politburo members have been publicly expelled and criminally prosecuted solely for conventional corruption or personal misconduct. Ma Xingrui’s downfall suggests that he was deemed guilty of serious transgressions.”

What makes Ma’s case unusual is his long association with Xi’s wife, Peng Liyuan, growing up together in Yuncheng County, Shandong Province. When she was a child, Peng frequently spent time in the Ma family home, according to media reports. Ma’s wife, Rong Li, is reportedly close to Peng. Despite Peng’s associations with Ma and his wife, there is no evidence of wrongdoing by China’s first lady.

“The case is significant as it marks the first visible crack in the implicit social contract between Xi and his top lieutenants,” tweeted Henry Gao, a law professor at Singapore Management University, on July 15.

Some overseas Chinese media outlets and commentators have argued that the purge of Xi “confidant” Ma is a sign that Xi is “losing power,” said the SinoInsider report. “A closer examination of Ma’s career, however, shows no special connection between Ma and Xi,” adding that Ma didn’t receive special promotion or treatment while being elevated in the officialdom, “unlike those who were actually longtime Xi allies such as Cai Qi or Li Qiang.”

“Ma Xingrui turned his back on the party’s principles, seriously violated the party leadership’s political requirements for senior officials…. The nature of his case is extremely severe, creating an extremely bad influence,” said the People’s Daily. He was also accused of trading power and money for sex. He was charged with accepting gifts and money and was accused of helping relatives buy property at below-market prices, helping relatives obtain huge benefits and “committing rampant family corruption.”

Ma’s “rampant family corruption” largely involved his wife Rong Li and younger brother Ma Xingquan, reported the Hong Kong-based Chinese-language daily Ming Pao. Rong distributed Hong Kong-registered insurance policies to families of senior Chinese officials, alleged several media reports.

A July 17 report by the Chinese financial publication Caixin on Ma “has uncovered a sprawling political-business syndicate that extracted billions of yuan from real estate deals and dumped toxic assets onto property giant China Vanke Co. Ltd. (which is listed in Hong Kong and Shenzhen).”

Ma was close to Hui Ka Yan, a former chairman of the now-defunct China Evergrande Group, once China’s biggest property developer, which collapsed last year in a sea of red ink. In April, Hui pleaded guilty in a Chinese court to fraud, embezzlement and bribery in relation to his formerly Hong Kong-listed company.

Disappearing generals

Although Ma has been expelled from the NPC, two generals, Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, remain members, five months after the announcement of corruption investigations against them in January. Zhang Youxia and Liu were formerly members of the Central Military Commission (CMC), China’s most powerful military body, headed by Xi. After their removal from the CMC, the commission shrank from four members to two –Xi and General Zhang Shengmin, the PLA’s top anti-graft official. Strangely, Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli remain listed on the CMC, although the weblinks to their names are no longer there.

“Zhang Youxia’s fall represents far more than another corruption case. It marks the culmination of a multi-year power struggle between competing princeling factions for control of China’s military,” said a report of the Institute of Security Development & Policy based in Stockholm, Sweden, on January 30, 2026.

In another unusual development, a few weeks after two other Chinese generals were appointed to important posts, all mention of them was deleted from the Chinese Ministry of Defense website and the People’s Daily Chinese-language website.

According to an announcement on China’s Ministry of Defense on July 3, at a ceremony in Beijing on that day, Xi promoted Zhang Shuguang to full general and appointed him as head of the CMC anti-corruption department. At that ceremony, Xi promoted Wang Gang to full general and appointed him the chief of China’s air force, said the defense ministry announcement.

“That means Zhang Shengmin will retire soon and Zhang Shuguang will likely become new Vice Chair of CMC. Wang will likely be part of new CMC lineup in 2027,” tweeted Lyle Morris, a senior fellow of the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis.

Subsequently, the announcement on the defense ministry website has been shortened such that the names of Zhang Shuguang and Wang Gang were obliterated, only stating Xi promoted unnamed generals. The names of Zhang and Wang can no longer be found on the defense ministry website at this time of writing. The latest mentions of Zhang Shuguang and Wang on other Chinese state media websites like China Daily and the English version of People’s Daily occurred on July 3 and 4

On July 11, Morris tweeted, “Interesting. News of this has been scrubbed from the PRC MND website and the PLA Daily. It’s like it didn’t happen. Are they purged already?”

“The strange goings-on around Zhang Shuguang and Wang Gang further illustrates the fact that while Xi remains top dog overall, his influence on PLA high-level personnel developments is less than total, in fact, subject to disruptions by generals who do not see eye to eye with Xi, but who publicly dare not openly contradict Xi,” Willy Lam, a senior fellow of the US think tank Jamestown Foundation told Asia Sentinel.

The photograph of the promotion ceremony showed an unsmiling Xi, who looked unhappy, standing with Generals Zhang Shengmin, Zhang Shuguang, and Wang Gang.

A possible clue to why references to Zhang Shuguang and Wang were deleted from the defense ministry’s website lies in the identity of their ultimate backers. Wang is believed to be a protégé of former Chinese President Hu Jintao, who was unceremoniously escorted from a meeting by Xi in October 2022. Wang’s major promotions came while Hu was China’s leader. Zhang Shuguang spent years as a PLA anti-corruption investigator under Zhang Shengmin and is therefore considered his protégé. He also served for a time in the northern Chinese command under Zhang Youxia.

Zhang Shengmin is believed to be an ally of Zhang Youxia (they are not related), Asia Sentinel reported on June 5, 2025. Both men belong to the “Shaanxi gang,” since Zhang Shengmin was born in Shaanxi province while Zhang Youxia was born in Beijing, but his ancestors hailed from Shaanxi, raising the likelihood that Zhang Shuguang is possibly an ally of Zhang Youxia.