Thirteen years ago, Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng walked onto the Shangri-La Dialogue stage and delivered one of the most consequential foreign-policy speeches by a Vietnamese leader in the post-Cold War era. He called for “strategic trust-building” while warning against attempts to change the status quo in the South China …

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Through plans to centralize exports of strategic commodities, expand the authority of state-owned enterprises and place the state back at the commanding heights of development, President Prabowo Subianto is attempting the most ambitious reassertion of economic nationalism Indonesia has seen since the fall of the New Order. Supporters see overdue corrections. Critics see the early architecture of a new state capitalism vulnerable to the same patronage, opacity and rent-seeking that once defined the country’s monopolistic past.

When the president addressed Parliament on May 20, his speech was presented as a roadmap for growth. He spoke of manageable deficits, inflation control, currency stability and ambitions of reaching 8 percent economic growth by the end of the decade. But the speech’s deeper message was not about macroeconomics. It was about power. .In modern Indonesia, economic nationalism has always arrived wrapped in the language of rescue. It promises sovereignty over natural resources, protection from foreign exploitation and a stronger state capable of defending the national interest. But it also awakens an older anxiety — that when economic power becomes too centralized, wealth stops flowing outward to foreign actors and begins concentrating inward among domestic elites.

Throughout the address, the state appeared simultaneously as regulator, financier, trader, industrial planner, welfare provider and guardian of national sovereignty. State-owned enterprises were no longer merely commercial actors but instruments of geopolitical and developmental strategy. Cooperatives were envisioned not simply as rural businesses but as tools for restructuring the national economy itself.

Economists in Jakarta have begun quietly describing Prabowo’s new plan as a signal toward “state capitalism” — a system in which the government becomes the dominant player in strategic sectors. The problem is that state control does not automatically eliminate leakages. If corruption remains embedded in the system, the leakages merely change location. Indonesian history suggests that monopolies without transparency almost inevitably produce new centers of rent extraction.

Prabowo’s belief has deep historical roots. It echoes the economic nationalism associated with Sumitro Djojohadikusumo, Prabowo’s father, who long argued that newly independent nations could not rely entirely on market forces to achieve development.

But history also suggests that state capitalism succeeds only under specific conditions: competent institutions, disciplined bureaucracy, legal predictability and credible accountability. Without those foundations, interventionism risks sliding into patronage politics, opaque decision-making and concentrated economic privilege. Moreover, replicating that old approach ignores the fact that the world has fundamentally changed — globalization, supply chains, capital markets, geopolitics and the demands of foreign investment are vastly different from what they were in earlier eras.

The Return of Commodity Nationalism

Indonesia, Prabowo argued, had spent decades growing statistically while becoming structurally weaker. Export revenues increased, yet prosperity failed to spread evenly. The country remained dependent on foreign capital, vulnerable to currency shocks and unable to retain enough value from its own natural resources. Repeatedly, Prabowo returned to the same argument: Indonesia had surrendered too much control over its national wealth. That diagnosis became the moral justification for a more interventionist state.

For that reason, Prabowo offered a plan to centralize exports of strategic commodities through a state-linked intermediary tied to Danantara. Under the proposal, exports of palm oil, coal and ferro-alloys would gradually move through a “single-gate” system beginning this year before fuller consolidation by late 2026. The government argued that the policy was necessary to stop leakages caused by transfer pricing, under-invoicing and export earnings parked overseas. Prabowo claimed Indonesia had lost as much as $908 billion over the past 34 years through such practices.

In emotional and political terms, the argument resonates strongly. Many Indonesians believe the country has spent too long exporting raw materials cheaply while importing expensive finished goods. Economic nationalism offers a seductive promise: that Indonesia’s immense resource wealth should finally benefit Indonesians themselves.

Yet the idea of centralized commodity control also carries historical memory — and not all of it is reassuring. For older Indonesians, the phrase “single gate” immediately recalls one of the most controversial monopolies of the Soeharto era: the Clove Support and Trading Board, or BPPC.

Officially, BPPC was established in the early 1990s to stabilize clove prices and protect farmers from market volatility. In practice, it became one of the defining symbols of centralized rent-seeking under the New Order. Farmers were forced to sell cloves through the system. Cigarette manufacturers were forced to buy through it. Prices were dictated from above. Competition disappeared. And because the institution was closely associated with Tommy Soeharto, Soeharto’s son, the arrangement quickly became synonymous with political favoritism masquerading as economic management.

The system’s logic was brutally simple. Cloves were purchased cheaply from farmers and resold at higher prices downstream. Profits accumulated at the center while producers absorbed the losses. Families that had relied on cloves for generations saw incomes collapse under a system supposedly designed to protect them. Indonesia Corruption Watch estimated state losses linked to corruption within BPPC at Rp3 trillion — and that was only what investigators could prove.

The damage extended beyond economics. BPPC permanently altered how many Indonesians viewed state intervention itself. It left behind a lingering suspicion that monopolies justified in the name of nationalism often become mechanisms for elite enrichment once transparency disappears. That historical memory now shadows Prabowo’s proposal.

The Problem of Trust

There are, of course, important differences between BPPC and the current policy. BPPC controlled the domestic clove trade, while the new system focused on exports. The operator is not a semi-political body from the authoritarian era, but a state-owned enterprise with a formally modern oversight structure. The government has also yet to implement the policy fully and continues to speak of phased execution.

Those distinctions matter. But they do not erase the central concern. Whenever a single entity gains authority over strategic exports, it also gains immense influence over margins, contracts, market access and pricing mechanisms. Even if the intention is to reduce leakages abroad, centralized control can easily create new leakages at home.

That concern surfaced almost immediately in financial markets. Even before Prabowo formally unveiled the policy, investors had already begun reacting nervously. Indonesia’s benchmark stock index fell sharply on May 19, while coal and energy-related shares slid in tandem.

The reaction highlights the broader challenge facing Prabowo’s economic project. Nationalism can mobilize political support, but long-term growth still depends on investor confidence, institutional credibility and legal predictability. Without those foundations, aggressive intervention risks undermining the very growth it seeks to accelerate.

Questionable Pattern

The concern surrounding the export proposal does not emerge in isolation. It is reinforced by broader patterns already visible within the administration. Several flagship programs introduced under Prabowo have faced scrutiny almost immediately after launch. The free meals initiative raised questions surrounding procurement oversight and budget management. The Merah Putih Village Cooperatives program drew criticism over expensive procurement plans and operational efficiency. The People’s School initiative has also encountered suspicions regarding inflated budgets.

Indonesia’s own experience offers repeated warnings. The country’s state enterprises have often struggled under the combined weight of corruption, political interference and inefficiency. Massive public projects routinely encounter procurement scandals. Regulatory systems remain vulnerable to elite capture. And perhaps most importantly, implementation frequently lags far behind political ambition.

Controversy has also begun to surround Danantara, the institution expected to become the backbone of Prabowo’s industrial and investment strategy. Critics have questioned its transparency and oversight, particularly given the enormous assets and authority it is set to manage. Concerns have grown further because Danantara has yet to publish a comprehensive public report on its investments, asset management or internal governance. In Indonesia, where state enterprises have long been vulnerable to corruption and elite capture, such opacity inevitably raises suspicion.

The issue is not the state’s ambition to play a larger role. The issue is what happens when the state expands its power faster than it strengthens accountability. In Indonesia, policies rarely fail because their stated goals are inherently wrong. They fail because too much darkness exists between noble intentions and actual implementation. And history suggests that rent-seeking flourishes most easily in the dark.

The unprecedented participation of 1,400 Japanese combat soldiers in the seven-nation Balikatan Exercise 2026, the longstanding annual drill between the Armed Forces of the Philippines and US allies, marks a first for the region and as such demonstrates the newly aggressive foreign policy of Japanese Premier Sanae Takachi, who has already raised hackles in Beijing by asserting that a hypothetical Chinese military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” in the region.

The closing ceremony for the multinational exercise, involving 17,000 personnel from the US, Philippines, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, and Japan coincided with the Asean 48th Summit that was also held in the Philippines on May 8. While on paper the purpose is to improve interoperability between the participating militaries, the narratives calling for the destruction of enemy (read China) assets on land, at sea, and in the air, have quietly generated geopolitical ripples throughout the region. The arrival of Japanese troops to join the exercise isn’t quieting those geopolitical ripples. The exercise was concluded just shortly before U.S. President Donald Trump arrived in Beijing to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Balikatan is touted as a significant event in US-Philippine military relations dating back to when both signed a Mutual Defense Treaty in 1951 prior to the Philippines achieving the status of an archipelagic state in 1982. The Philippines has included the Kalayaan Islands – also known as the West Philippines Sea – as its territories since 1974. China has long contested the Philippine ownership of these territories.

What started as a bilateral arrangement now involves seven other militaries. However, the participation of Japanese soldiers, marks a new beginning in regional geopolitical security dynamics considering Tokyo’s decision to take up arms again. The decision to arm has sent prickly signals to many in the region, especially after Japan raised military expenditure to two percent of GDP, amounting to a US$58 billion defense outlay in the 2026 fiscal year. This makes Japan the third-largest defense spender in the world, after the US and China.

Japan’s participation in Balikatan thus signals that the exercise is evolving from a bilateral alliance drill into a broader strategic alignment of US proxies aimed at countering China, with a newly energized Japan’s participation. Even prior to Takaichi’s ascendancy to the premiership, Japan had been rapidly expanding its defense footprint in Southeast Asia, shifting from a strictly pacifist stance to actively partnering with regional nations. This buildup centers on securing the First Island Chain and countering Chinese maritime expansion in the South China Sea. Tokyo’s strategy includes relaxed arms exports, security pacts, and joint exercises.

While many countries feeling the heat of China’s overpowering presence in the South China Sea welcome Japan’s new activism, however, there are long memories of its invasion and occupation of Southeast Asia from 1941 to 1945 that claimed an estimated 4.4 million civilian lives due to forced labor, famine, and violence. Postwar aid which began in the mid-1950s through war reparations, evolving into massive Official Development Assistance (ODA) and private investments that built foundational infrastructure and fostered deep economic interdependence with ASEAN hasn’t completely erased concerns that a remilitarised Japan could provide a pretext for a new round of defense spending and procurement.

The objections generally don’t run to governments. While Beijing frequently objects, governments in Southeast Asia generally extend a welcome, often viewing Japan as a vital, stabilizing partner and a regional counterweight. The big concern is how much Japan’s growing military presence raises the temperature across an increasingly volatile region. The 2026 Balikatan military exercise itself can no longer be described as an ordinary conventional military training exercise. It has evolved into a rehearsal preparation for a coordinated conventional warfare against China’s military bases in the South China Sea and a planned rescue of Taiwan by the US and its allies in the event of a Chinese attempt to invade the island, the consequences of which could engulf the entire region into a political quagmire. If a real conflict were to happen, it could hasten the collapse of the US military preeminence, already imperiled by the inconsistent foreign policy of the Trump administration.

Such a conflict would also fracture Asean security architecture and undermine its importance as a regional institution which has been experiencing internal fissures even before Trump imposed tariffs and sanctions on the member states more than a year ago. The ongoing tensions in West Asia that led to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have disrupted energy supplies across Southeast Asia exposing their vulnerabilities. Countries like Indonesia and the Philippines have taken unpopular steps to mitigate dependence on oil from Iran whose rising prices have put a strain on government popularity in many other Asean member countries. Many view the unpopular policies as necessary to contain public dissatisfaction and protect regime legitimacy.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr was the first in the region to declare a state of national emergency after local diesel and petrol prices more than doubled since the war in Iran broke out on 28 February. Filipinos are generally unhappy with government policy, with some civil society groups staging strikes against the presidency. This situation has complicated the fragile political situation as the country prepares for the next general election in June 2028.

The war in West Asia has also forced Jakarta to navigate the global power rivalry as it seeks to ensure stable oil supplies amidst a chaotic economic downturn marked by weak currency, widening fiscal deficit, rising unemployment, and capital flight which could undermine the authoritarian leadership of President Prabowo Subianto. The decision that looks like it is to curry favour with Washington by giving a blanket overflight clearance (later denied by Departmen Luar Negeri) to the US military has unsettled many in the region.

Some believe the overflight arrangement is in exchange for a highly confidential defense arrangement with Washington that has not gone down well with some critics in Indonesia. The defence arrangement with the US has also raised eyebrows in Beijing which funded the construction of the Jakarta-Bandung High Speed Railway, a flagship infrastructure project under China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

By itself, the Balikatan Exercise doesn’t change the geopolitical equation in this part of the world just yet. However, over time, the involvement of external parties at the time of rising tensions between the US and China that could clash over Taiwan is unsettling. Behind closed doors, several ASEAN policymakers worry that Exercise Balikatan has evolved beyond traditional alliance military exercises into a form of operational rehearsal against China, which does not augur well with regional geopolitical dynamics.

B A Hamzah comments regularly on Southeast Asian military and diplomatic affairs.

When General Secretary and State President Tô Lâm steps onto the stage at the 2026 Shangri-La Dialogue, Vietnam’s “bamboo diplomacy” will once again be presented as a model of strategic flexibility. Supporters praise its ability to balance relations with competing powers while preserving national sovereignty and political autonomy. Tô Lâ…

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Japan and South Korea have agreed to set aside their frequent diplomatic frissons over past history and launch a wide-ranging energy cooperation deal under which they will share information regarding their respective crude oil and LNG capacity in order to help the two nations tide over energy supply chain threats stemming from the Hormuz Strait crisis. This follows an agreement signed earlier in March under which the two countries have pledged to cooperate in stockpiling and swapping petroleum information and products in times of crisis.

Under the terms of the agreement, the two are to share crude oil, liquefied natural gas (LNG), and petroleum products from national stockpiles in the event of an emergency supply disruption and will cooperate under Tokyo’s newly introduced “Partnership on Wide Energy and Resources Resilience” framework, coordinating to back a US$10 billion financial mechanism aimed at helping other Asian countries secure crude supplies.

While details remain mostly undisclosed, the fact that Tokyo and Seoul come to share information regarding the energy supply chain amounts to a significant cooperative deal, as it comes against the backdrop of never-ending diplomatic tensions impeding bilateral economic cooperation. Next to China, Japan and South Korea, two of the world’s most powerful economies, constitute a major exporting power in the global marketplace. This bilateral energy swap deal is especially significant given the periodic diplomatic tensions erupting between the two countries over multiple issues dating back to the period of Japan’s colonial conquest of the Korean peninsula.

Arriving at the city of Andong, south of Seoul, on 19 April, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi was all smiles as the occasion marked the 60th anniversary of the normalization of relations between the two countries. Along with South Korean President Lee Jae Myong, she watched the local town’s night-time fire displays, while dining against the backdrop of a piano concert. In a display of growing warmth in the bilateral relationship, Takaichi proposed inviting Lee back to a thermal hot-spring town in Japan for the next round of bilateral summitry.

For Lee and Takaichi, it was their fourth round of high-level meetings. But other than the energy swap deal, little substance has so far emerged. Beneath the surface of diplomatic warmth and banters, neither Lee nor Takaichi could shake off the shadows of new regional tensions lurking over their countries.

For one, their talks followed US President Donald Trump’s summit talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. Their talks were high on symbolism and low on substance, with Xi almost wholly preoccupied with the issue of Taiwan. Xi confronted Trump bluntly over whether the US would come to the aid of Taiwan in the event of China’s attack on Taiwan. The festering issue of global trade, in which the US has retaliated with a series of controversial tariffs, was almost overshadowed by the issue of Taiwan.

Prime Minister Takaichi is directly affected by the worsening atmosphere prevailing over the Taiwan issue. Her suggestion earlier that China’s use of force to retake Taiwan could mean Japan’s considering it a direct security threat has provoked fiery responses from Beijing. China’s bristling attacks on Takaichi’s comment have provoked widespread concern in Tokyo and Washington, prompting Tokyo to strengthen its defense posture while Beijing has begun economic pressure, cutting back on Chinese tourists visiting Japan.

President Lee, on the other hand, has carefully detached himself from the Taiwan issue, preferring to stay away from any comment on its future status. Lee, in fact, caused a diplomatic storm shortly after his inauguration by suggesting that his Taiwan policy would be largely noncommittal. During Takaichi’s visit to Korea, Lee stayed away from commenting on China, refusing to get involved in the issue.

It is clear Lee is attempting a delicate regional balancing between the US-South Korea-Japan trilateral partnership and China. Perhaps indicating his diplomatic priorities, Lee traveled to Beijing in January before meeting Takaichi in Nara this year. Seeking “full-scale restoration of South Korea-China relations,” Lee’s efforts produced mixed results. The leaders made some progress, particularly in free trade negotiations, yet Xi failed to give explicit support for the denuclearization of North Korea.

Furthermore, Lee was unable to secure the resumption of Korean cultural exports into China which had been informally banned since China’s loud protests over the deployment of the THAAD missile battery in South Korea, which Beijing claimed was aimed at China.

As far as Beijing’s relations with Seoul are concerned, another security flashpoint appears in the making with the Lee government’s decision to push for the acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines. While Tokyo has not publicly objected to the program, both North Korea and China have objected to the plan, with Pyongyang stating that the acquisition of nuclear subs would cause “a nuclear domino phenomenon” in the region. Ultimately, the program carries implications for broader regional security which Japan must also manage.

Apart from the energy cooperation deal, their statements indicated no change in their respective views on the current international situation. According to a press statement given by the two sides, Lee mostly evaded the issue of China’s tough stance on Taiwan. Takaichi, however, stated that Japan’s abiding commitment to bring back a dozen Japanese citizens abducted by North Korean agents over four decades ago remains unchanged. How President Lee responded to this statement remains unknown.

Another delicate issue for the two sides was North Korea’s nuclear threats. Lee holds the position that the Kim Jong Un regime should be denuclearized, in principle. Takaichi, however, strongly advocates the policy of Kim’s denuclearization, pointing to the regime’s frequent missile firings over the Sea of Japan. Takaichi’s position is that both Japan and South Korea should get more actively involved in dealing with the regional crisis involving North Korea and China’s saber-rattling over Taiwan. Their differing accent on China as well as on North Korea appeared clear in their respective statements. While Lee stressed peace and stability, Takaichi stuck to a more nuanced position of realizing a “free and open Indo-Pacific region promoting peace and stability.”

Daniel Mitchum is a PhD at the University of Lancashire, now researching in Seoul.

A Singapore High Court is due to rule shortly on a landmark defamation suit with implications for the island state’s relationship with international media. On May 22, the Court heard concluding arguments in the suit, in which Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam and Manpower Minister Tan See Leng are suing Bloomberg, the world’s premier business reporting service, for a December 2024 article about the increasingly secretive nature of Singapore’s ultra-luxury Good Class Bungalow (GCB) property market. The presiding High Court Justice Audrey Lim has reserved her verdict for an as-yet undetermined date.

The case also bears watching because Singapore officials, and particularly the Lee family dynasty, have used the courts in defamation and contempt cases to pursue journalists, including many international news organizations and opposition politicians, to tamp down dissenting voices. No official has ever lost a defamation case in the Singapore courts. If in this case Justice Lim were to rule against Shanmugam and Tan, observers say, it could be the harbinger of a new direction for the government and the courts under Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, who took power almost exactly a year ago, succeeding Lee Hsien Loong, who stepped down after two decades in office.

The ire of the two cabinet ministers was triggered by a story citing their lucrative property transactions by Bloomberg journalist Dexter Low De Wei, titled “Singapore Mansion Deals Are Increasingly Shrouded in Secrecy.” Tan in 2023 purchased a S$27.3 million (US$21.3 million) GCB located within the Brizay Park enclave, while Shanmugam had sold his Astrid Hill GCB in August 2023 for a whopping S$88 million (US$68.7 million).

The property transactions were cited as examples to illustrate the booming yet increasingly secretive nature of Singapore’s GCB property market, which saw half of its 2024 transactions, including those of both government ministers, without publicly declared and accessible caveats. The Bloomberg article noted Singapore’s attractiveness to rich foreigners as a politically stable tax and wealth haven to purchase and own luxury properties as part of their asset portfolios. However, this is tempered by concerns about the increasing usage of shell companies and anonymous trusts to purchase multimillion-dollar GCBs, with potential negative ramifications for Singapore’s global reputation for clean and accountable financial management.

Singapore analysts say this is very much Shanmugam’s personal vendetta against Bloomberg, with Tan See Leng strung along as cover. Shanmugam’s Astrid Hill ownership status was a major sore point for him in 2023 when he, along with Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, faced intense public and political scrutiny for their renting of state-owned colonial bungalows at allegedly below market rates and maintained on taxpayer dollars.

Shanmugam’s Astrid Hill GCB sale in August 2024 came almost three years after it was first put on sale in November 2021, and one month after his parliamentary grilling which ultimately saw no wrongdoing declared on both ministers’ part although somewhat embarassingly it emerged that Shanmugam acknowledged in testimony that he had sold his house for S$88 million at 10 times profit to a buyer who did not use a bank loan and that he didn’t know the buyer’s identity, generating much comments on social media.

The Online Citizen’s Terry Xu first broke the news of Shanmugam’s secretive offloading of the home in September 2024, with subsequently-leaked property sale documents confirming the S$88 million price tag footed by the anonymous buyer, acting via a trust managed by UBS Trustees (Singapore) Ltd.

In its legal defense, Bloomberg argued that its reporting concerned matters of public interest, including rising GCB prices, the use of trust structures in property purchases, and transparency in property ownership increasingly held by newly naturalized Singapore citizens. Invoking the principle of “responsible journalism”, Senior Counsel Sreenivasan Narayanan maintained that Bloomberg’s article did not accuse the ministers of wrongdoing, money laundering, or dishonesty.

Bloomberg also argued that the article’s language was qualified and that readers would not interpret it as defamatory, given the factual truth of both ministers’ GCB property transactions, lacking publicly-declared and accessible caveats. Shanmugam had also confirmed under cross-examination that he, along with his lawyers and bankers, had no idea as to the identity of the anonymous buyer who had netted him ten times’ profit on his GCB’s original value.

That was immediately countered by Tan and Shanmugam’s lawyer, senior counsel Davinder Singh, who argued that Bloomberg’s article had implied inadequate anti-money laundering safeguards in Singapore’s property market and portrayed the ministers negatively. Singh charged that Bloomberg had selectively framed facts, with Dexter Low inserting “political fodder” into the narrative and deliberately linking the ministers to suspicious property dealings with a pen “dipped in gall”.

Citing internal Bloomberg communications which suggested the ministers’ intentional targeting in the offending article, Singh also claimed that Bloomberg had attempted to suppress communications from being used as evidence on top of demonstrating “unprecedented” malice and determination to harm the two government ministers.

The attribution of “unprecedented malice and determination to hurt” supposedly stemmed from Bloomberg’s refusal to comply with a POFMA “Fake News” Correction Notice issued by Shanmugam’s then-second in command Edwin Tong at the Ministry of Law in December 2024 over Low’s article. Bloomberg chose to publish the demanded correction notice in the spirit of “right to reply,” but robustly stood by it. In an ironic demonstration of the Barbara Streisand effect, the Correction Notice publication requirements, as well as Shanmugam’s excoriations on social media resulted in Bloomberg making an originally-paywalled article free to read for a global audience.

Critics note that none of the facts in the article are in dispute. They say the entire premise of the suit hinges in large part on the plaintiffs’ selective reading and interpretation of the Bloomberg article as offensive. In effect, Singapore’s High Court is being asked to pass judgment on whether the subjective reading of factual circumstances as a cited example should be given “beyond reasonable doubt” legal weight in defamation claims. Yet one can only take offence and not give it, as crystallized in the idiom of “seeing a bow reflected as a snake in a water cup (杯弓蛇影)” invoked by Dexter Low in court to illustrate his having no hidden agenda of malice against Shanmugam.

If the court rules in favour of the ministers, it could set a significant precedent affecting how media organizations report on high-profile individuals in Singapore, particularly where financial transparency and political figures intersect. It may also influence how future disputes between public officials and the press are interpreted under defamation law in a tightening regulatory environment.

This is exemplified by Singapore’s recently enacted Online Safety (Relief and Accountability) Act, with the newly formed Online Safety Commission and its commissioner being directly subjugated under the Ministry of Law. Among the 13 categories of “online harms” under its oversight and enforcement is a particular one defined as “publication of statement harmful to reputation”. It enables, with trivial ease, the ability of government ministers in Singapore to wield the full weight of the state against any critical media reportage or even anonymous online criticisms they deem as harmful to their reputation.

History was made when Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump met in Beijing from May 13 to 15, 2026 — a summit that unfolded against rising geopolitical tensions, growing economic uncertainty, and renewed questions over the future balance of power in Asia.

More than just political theater, the meeting drew global attention because of …

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The recent electoral victories of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Assam and West Bengal have created tensions with bordering Bangladesh over fears of a centralized, less accommodating Indian foreign policy and the threat of strict border enforcement. West Bengal has historically served as a quiet counterbalance that helped shape New Delhi’s regional decisions.

With the BJP in control at both the national and state levels, Bangladesh officials are said to fear that the moderating voice may now be stilled. Tensions between the two countries have been rising since the ouster last year of former Bangladesh leader Sheikh Hasina, who was much friendlier to New Delhi than the current administration in Dhaka.

In a game-changer for Indian politics, the BJP won the legislative assembly elections in West Bengal for the first time in the party’s 46-year history in early May, while the coalition led by BJP won the legislative assembly elections of Assam for a third consecutive term with a landslide gain of 102 out of 126 seats.

The BJP’s victory changes the electoral equation in East India, given that the state was previously ruled by a local party, the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC), since 2011, whose leader Mamata Banerjee has been a fierce critic of Modi. Mamata, a hardliner politician, played the role of a strong opposition voice and prevented many schemes of the BJP government from being implemented in West Bengal. While opposing the fencing of West Bengal’s border with Bangladesh, the chief minister restricted many public welfare schemes initiated by the central government.

Just after the elections, Bengal’s new chief minister Suvendu Adhikari declared an urgent initiative to fence its border with Bangladesh, while the new Assam chief, Himanta Biswa Sarma, adopted decisions to fulfill his electoral promises including the safeguarding of Assam’s indigenous population from Bangladeshi Muslim infiltrators. Migration across the porous border has become a growing issue between the two countries in recent years.

A number of radical elements in Bangladesh say they fear that the dominance of the BJP in Bengal and Assam would increase anti-Muslim narratives backed by communal political activism in the name of security. Some have publicly warned that if the Muslim residents of eastern India face atrocities because of the BJP’s rise, there would be strong repercussions in Bangladesh, possibly including another series of persecutions against Hindus in Bangladesh. A few of them hit the streets of Dhaka expressing dissatisfaction over TMC’s loss. Some of them alleged that the BJP won the Bengal election through fraud and hence Mamata should be reinstated.

Some Bangladeshi media reports alleged that at least 2,500 migrants were pushed into Bangladesh last year from Assam. Even during the last election campaign, Sarma, a member of the pro-Hindu BJP, regularly made comments against Bangladeshi Muslims. He publicly declared Muslim infiltrators would be sent back to Bangladesh without waiting for mutual diplomatic arrangements. Many Bangladeshi activists fear casualties from firing by border security forces along the Bangladesh-India border will increase in the coming days.

However, BNP leaders said they welcomed the election outcome, hoping the relationship between Bangladesh and India would remain cordial. The party, which won the national election in February 2026, congratulated Adhikari as the new leader of Bengal. Many BNP leaders said that Dhaka can now expect to get the much-delayed Teesta water-sharing agreement, a long-stalled transboundary dispute over the allocation of the river’s waters, especially during the dry season, to be implemented. The pact had been strongly opposed by Mamata during her long tenure as Bengal chief minister.

The Teesta river flows through Bengal into northern Bangladesh. New Delhi and Dhaka almost adopted a pact in 2011 allowing India 42.5 percent of the river’s water, leaving 37.5 percent for Bangladesh during the lean period of December to March, but Mamata opposed the deal. Given Teesta’s water is crucial to agriculture and the livelihood of Bangladesh’s population of 180 million, Bangladeshi leaders now hope for a fair deal on the Teesta with the new Bengal leadership.

Even ousted Bangladesh premier Sheikh Hasina, taking refuge in India since the uprising in Bangladesh from July to August 2024, congratulated Adhikari for his historic electoral victory. The daughter of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding president of Bangladesh, faces a death sentence in Bangladesh, but has reportedly been planning to return home after democracy is restored in the country.

The Daily Star, Bangladesh’s largest-selling English newspaper, highlighted Dhaka’s challenges while dealing with issues like water security, border governance, and economic resilience. It also warned that New Delhi may now view Dhaka’s external engagements—particularly with China—through a more security-conscious lens. This could narrow Dhaka’s room for maneuver as it seeks to balance economic opportunities from China with geopolitical tensions between China and India, stated an editorial of the daily, adding that the transition from dealing with a fragmented system to confronting a far more unified neighbor would be a challenge to Dhaka.

Recently, Canadian intelligence and a Canadian think tank warned of Chinese interference and transnational repression in Canada. Alleging an example of Chinese influence in Canada, in September 2024, a Canadian media, The Bureau, reported a meeting between Tse Chi Lop, a triad boss currently imprisoned in Australia, and William Majcher, a former Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officer.

The Bureau report claimed the meeting between Tse, whom it alleged had prior connections to the Chinese Communist Party, and “Majcher, a former RCMP officer now accused of aiding Chinese intelligence, raises intriguing questions about the nexus between Triads and Chinese state operations.”

The supposed scoop turned out to be fictitious, as the story contained a photograph of a scene from a 2015 Hong Kong movie, “From Vegas to Macau II”, where it was not Tse, but Hong Kong movie star Chow Yun-fat who shook hands with Majcher, who acted in that movie.

“This incident really serves as a great metaphor for how catastrophic is the failure of Canadian Intelligence and Law Enforcement. Most national security investigations in Canada are driven by media and internal political considerations, thus making Canada completely defenceless for dealing with genuine national security threats,” Majcher told Asia Sentinel.

This supposed scoop was reported by a journalist whom the RCMP relied upon in their investigation, and the Canadian Intelligence Security Service (CSIS) regularly leaks information to him, Majcher disclosed.

In a statement on September 26, 2024, The Bureau admitted, “The story contained a photograph and information provided by a source, said to show Mr. Majcher, as well as notorious individuals of interest to law enforcement, at a Macau casino. In fact, the photograph was from a fictional movie in which Mr. Majcher appeared, and there is no indication he has met with the people named in the story. The story was taken down as soon as this was discovered,” The Bureau added.

“We were misled by sources that manipulated our trust. Investigations into this matter are progressing…. The Bureau was the target and victim of a deliberate and sustained effort to mislead the public. While we regret that we did not identify this infiltration sooner, we have shared technical evidence with the appropriate government authorities to further the investigation,” The Bureau revealed.

On May 13, Martha Devlin, a British Columbia supreme court judge, acquitted Majcher of a charge under Canada’s Security of Information Act. In 2023, Majcher was charged for the act of allegedly helping Chinese police coerce Kevin Hongwei Sun, a property investor accused of fraud, to return from Canada to China.

“I conclude that the Crown has failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Majcher committed any of these acts (in violation of the Security of Information Act)”, Justice Devlin said in her judgment on May 13.

“I believe the hysteria of China as the “Yellow Peril” (a racist metaphor against Oriental people) is alive and well in Canada and that played a significant part in all this. I am angry about my arrest and all that went with it,” Majcher said.

“I plan to return to Hong Kong where there is rule of law and a transparent legal system, and a medical system that works. From Hong Kong, I plan to hold the Canadian government accountable and spend time with my children and work on rebuilding my business,” he added.

“There needs to be a full public inquiry as Canada did to me exactly what they accuse other countries of doing in violation of human rights and evidentiary standards,” Majcher alleged.

Majcher retired from the RCMP in August 2007 and later that year moved from Canada to Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, he worked for various financial institutions, then ran a company, EMIDR, which investigated financial crimes.

“The verdict speaks for itself. This case is an example of police and prosecutorial malpractice stemming from hysteria over foreign interference from China,” Canadian Senator Yuen Pau Woo told Asia Sentinel.

“It is the second recent example of national security overreach that has harmed innocent Canadians,” Woo pointed out.

In 2023, the RCMP alleged that a Chinese Community Services Organization in Montreal was the site of a Chinese police station.

“They provided no evidence and were not even able to describe the nature of illegal activities said to be taking place at the Centre. Two years later, they quietly ended the investigation with no charges laid. In the meantime, the Community Centre suffered reputation and material damage, as did the clients of the Centre, who are typically lower-income immigrants,” Woo said.

Majcher was first arrested on July 18, 2023 when he arrived with his family in Vancouver from Hong Kong. He was released on July 19, 2023, then rearrested and charged the next day.

The Canadian government (the Crown) alleged that between May 1 and June 15, 2017, Majcher prepared to coercively induce Sun, a Chinese citizen who became a Canadian permanent resident in 2001, to accede to the demands of the Chinese government, at the direction of, for the benefit of, or in association with Chinese police.

The Canadian government used the following email as evidence against Majcher, Justice Devlin noted.

In an email to Ross Gaffney, then an EMIDR executive and a former FBI agent, on June 12, 2017, Majcher said, “I have spent the last few weeks going back and forth between the lawyer in Vancouver and Chinese officials to negotiate the terms of the engagement so we can attempt to negotiate and recover part of a RMB 2.9 Billion (US$426 million) fraud committed against ICBC (a large Chinese state-owned bank) in Jilin Province over ten years ago. (Sun) is now a major real estate mogul in Vancouver and we have located over US$100M of assets. The Chinese Police have opened a Task Force and standing by to issue a global arrest warrant. I hope to have a copy of the warrant before it is issued so we can impress upon (Sun) that we hold the keys to his future. I am meeting an associate of the target tomorrow in (Hong Kong) to see if he can help negotiate a settlement, as the Chinese want to use this as a precedent case to settle economic crimes quietly and expeditiously.”

The email did not prove Majcher took actual steps to coerce Sun, Justive Devlin ruled. “The Crown’s case substantially rests on evidence that is circumstantial in nature.”

Sun appears to have political connections in China. In 2001, he was a representative for the National People’s Congress, China’s parliament, for Jilin City, public documents in China show.

Although Sun was a target of the Chinese police’s attempt to nab overseas suspects, nicknamed “Fox Hunt”, he has not been convicted of any crime in Canada. He is living in Richmond on the outskirts of Vancouver, said Majcher.

Warnings of Chinese influence in Canada

In 2025, the main perpetrators of foreign interference and espionage against Canada remained China, India, Russia, Iran, and Pakistan, said a CSIS report released on May 1.

Chinese interference and transnational repression are likely to intensify, given that Beijing views the flow into Hong Kong of overseas activists as a significant risk to China’s national security, said a report of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, a Canadian think tank, on April 2.

Common interference tactics used by Chinese agents and their affiliates in Canada include unauthorized activities of police and intelligence officers to conduct surveillance, intimidation, or other forms of coercion of individuals and communities, said a report of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, a Canadian think tank, on April 2.

“Most Canadians view FI (foreign interference) as a serious threat to democratic health, and a large segment of Chinese, Hong Kong, Tibetan, Taiwanese, and Uyghur respondents reported experiencing transnational repression (TNR) — frequently through online harassment and threatening phone calls,” said the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada report.

As part of the Canadian government’s attempt to fight foreign influence, on March 13, following approval of both Canadian houses of parliament, Canada’s Minister of Public Safety, Gary Anandasangaree, announced Anton Boegman as Canada’s first Foreign Influence Transparency Commissioner.

Woo, a past president of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, admitted foreign interference is real and must be taken seriously, especially transnational repression.

“But Canada’s national intelligence and security agencies are using such a broad definition of foreign interference that anyone “in association with” a foreign entity can be labelled as a foreign agent. National security overreach, combined with old-fashioned prejudice and discrimination against Chinese people, has resulted in what I call “modern exclusion”, Woo argued.

Toh Han Shih is a Singaporean writer in Hong Kong and a regular contributor to Asia Sentinel.

Indonesia spent the last decade selling itself as Southeast Asia’s most promising industrial frontier — a democracy rich in minerals, open to foreign investment and determined to climb the global manufacturing ladder. Today, that narrative is beginning to fracture. Investors are no longer questioning Indonesia’s potential. They are quest…

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When Xi Jinping and Donald Trump met in Beijing on May 13 to 15, public attention focused on the familiar “4T” agenda — trade, tariffs, technology, and Taiwan. Yet the more significant development was conceptual. Xi introduced a new framing for U.S.–China relations: “constructive strategic stability.” He also invoke…

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During US President Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing from May 13 to 15, he gained Chinese President Xi Jinping’s agreement on reopening the Strait of Hormuz and Iran not being allowed to have nuclear weapons. To Beijing’s approval, Trump spoke more strongly against Taiwanese independence than the mainstream Washingto…

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As U.S. President Donald Trump headed home after completing his flamboyant 2-day state visit to Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, the Taiwanese woke up to the notion that although in the runup to the event there was a lot of pundit speculation about Xi pressing Trump on arms sales and changing the diplomatic language surrounding Taiwan, none of it came to pass.

After Trump had, prior to his trip, signaled his intention to review the US’s Taiwan arms sales policy, Xi described Taiwan as “the most important issue” in U.S.-China relations and warned that mishandling it could lead to “clashes and even conflicts.” But the White House readout then omitted Taiwan entirely, suggesting that Trump refrained from making any concessions to Xi at Taiwan’s expense.

Consulting Beijing in advance regarding arms sales to Taiwan would have directly violated the core diplomatic pledges the U.S. gave to Taiwan during the 1980s. Taiwan’s Foreign Minister, Lin Chia-lung, noted that Taipei monitored the Trump-Xi summit intently. Lin expressed gratitude to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio for reassuring Taiwan that the U.S.’s strategic stance remains steadfast.

Asia Sentinel made a small survey among Taiwanese non-pundit people on Saturday, gathering some expressions of relief. People acknowledged that Taiwan received no mention whatsoever in the White House’s official summary of the meeting and that the U.S. administration did not address the unilateral claims made by Chinese state media regarding Xi’s stance on Taiwan.

“For the majority of the population in Taiwan, this is a reassuring outcome, as it signals that the U.S. has no intention of altering its current policy of support for Taiwan,” said Yeh Jing-yue, a retired translator from Taipei.

“However, I share the concern felt by many in Taiwan that the Chinese Communist Party has already succeeded in effectively infiltrating political parties and media outlets within the country. When I observe how the pro-communist rhetoric from politicians within the Blue-and-White camp [the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP)], as well as from many influencers, has become increasingly brazen over the past two years, I find it deeply unsettling.”

Yeh referred to a high degree of policy gridlock resulting from China-friendly opposition lawmakers paralysing the Constitutional Court, escalating into a budget standoff freezing government functions, including defense spending and arms procurement.

In terms of China infiltrating local media outlets, more than 100 Taiwanese media executives and journalists travelled to a cross-strait media summit in Beijing in early May, being explicitly urged by Chinese officials to “expose Taiwan independence activities.”

Wang Bao Hsiang, a patent engineer from Taipei, said that the Trump-Xi meeting didn’t bring any major surprises for Taiwan because Taiwan’s importance is fundamentally tied to U.S. strategic interests. He referred to the “Silicon Shield”, the geopolitical concept that Taiwan’s dominance in the global semiconductor industry via Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC acts as an unsurmountable deterrent against a Chinese invasion.

“In the future, whoever controls advanced semiconductors will have enormous influence over the global economy and technology sector, and I believe Washington understands this very clearly,” Wang said.

“Making a deal with China at Taiwan’s expense would not really benefit the United States. It would effectively hand critical semiconductor leverage to China, while also weakening America’s strategic position in the Pacific.”

However, also Wang went on to warn that Taiwan is facing internal challenges with parts of the legislature being pro-China.

“This is ultimately an issue Taiwanese society itself has to confront,” he said. “Many people in Taiwan do not vote very seriously and sometimes oppose policies simply for the sake of opposition, without thinking about the broader long-term consequences.”

On the other end of the political spectrum stands Cindy Chen, a Chinese language teacher from Taipei, who sees the Trump-Xi meeting as evidence that the “G2” framework, in which the U.S. and China jointly dominate global military, economic, and other structures, is gradually taking shape.

This assessment, in turn, makes her feel that the main dangers are associated with the possibility of Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) recklessly provoking China.

“Although it was officially claimed that the Taiwan issue was not discussed during the meeting, in reality, it was undoubtedly addressed in a manner detrimental to Taiwan,” Chen said.

“Being misled by that, the DPP and other proponents of Taiwan independence will inevitably take more assertive actions, thereby escalating cross-strait tensions. We will be left with no choice but to remain bystanders or dutiful subjects in order to ensure our own self-preservation.”

Xi received an invitation from Trump to visit the White House this coming September, and there is a possibility the two leaders will also cross paths at the subsequent G20 and APEC summits toward the end of the year.

Attention will turn in the coming weeks to whether Trump will approve another arms deal, coming on the heels of a roughly US$11 billion package last year. Doubts were raised by Trump in his gaggle with the press on Air Force One, revealing that he, in fact, did discuss arms sales with Xi in great detail and indicating that he feels that the old assurances that the U.S. would not consult with China on arms sales to Taiwan are outdated.

An observer told Asia Sentinel that whether the U.S. will actually reduce or postpone arms sales to Taiwan remains uncertain and will depend on Taiwan’s handling of future arms packages.

“As no details regarding the discussion on arms sales to Taiwan have been released, it remains possible, as Trump indicated, that a final decision would only be made after further consultations with Taiwanese leadership,” said Hung Tzu-Chieh, an associate research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a public think tank in Taipei.

“However, Taiwan’s previous domestic political disputes over certain arms procurement packages and defense budgets, as well as opposition from some political actors to related spending, have already raised concerns in Washington regarding Taiwan’s commitment to self-defense. The Trump administration could indeed choose to delay, adjust, or even reduce certain arms sales to Taiwan in exchange for broader economic and trade arrangements with China.”

Years before supply chains, overfishing, environmental depletion, and geopolitical influence became everyday global talking points, Asia Sentinel was already reporting on how China’s growing economic and industrial appetite was reshaping the world around it.

Reading these stories again today is striking. Many of the issues they examined years ago — disap…

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The Philippine Senate, long considered the last bastion of democracy, turned into a combat zone Wednesday night when gunfire erupted through its halls amid the unsealed International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant against Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa and the looming impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte.

The chaos marked the climax of a slow-burning constitutional crisis between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., 68, and Duterte, 47, whose once-dominant 2022 UniTeam alliance has fully collapsed, triggering two seismic legal battles.

The week’s political drama began with a surgical strike on Senate leadership. On May 11, senators ousted Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III, 77, and installed Alan Peter Cayetano, 55, a staunch ally of former president Rodrigo Duterte.

Dela Rosa, 64, has been named an indirect co-perpetrator and co-conspirator in the ICC case against Rodrigo Duterte, 81, who has been detained at Scheveningen Prison in The Hague since March 12, 2025, while awaiting trial for crimes against humanity linked to killings during his bloody war on drugs. Dela Rosa went into hiding in November 2025 after reports surfaced that the ICC had issued a warrant for his arrest. He resurfaced Monday after six months in hiding to help Cayetano secure the Senate presidency with 13 votes.

Monday’s leadership shake-up was merely the prelude. Forty-eight hours later, what began as a legislative standoff transformed the Senate into both fortress and stage. The line between parliamentary immunity and institutional sanctuary appeared to vanish, exposing a raw struggle for political survival that has reshaped the road to the 2028 presidential election.

Amid the May 13 turmoil, the House of Representatives formally transmitted the Articles of Impeachment against Sara Duterte to the Senate. The House had voted 257-25, with nine abstentions, to impeach her on May 11 — the same day Duterte allies secured Cayetano’s election as Senate president. Duterte thus became the first Philippine official impeached twice within 15 months, although the Supreme Court voided the first impeachment in February 2025 on technical grounds.

Despite allegations of incompetence, corruption, and erratic public behavior, Sara Duterte has long been viewed as a formidable contender for the 2028 presidency. But that aura of inevitability now appears to be fading, with recent surveys suggesting her numbers have plateaued while rivals gain ground.

The Senate leadership change was widely viewed as a tactical maneuver by Duterte allies to control the impeachment trial and potentially derail proceedings that could expose allegations of corruption, misuse of confidential funds, unexplained wealth, and threats against President Marcos, First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and former House speaker Martin Romualdez. Evidence presented during House justice committee hearings included bank transactions involving P6.7 billion allegedly tied to questionable sources, including suspected drug lords. A conviction by the impeachment court would permanently disqualify Duterte from public office.

Gunfire in the chamber

The crisis turned violent when Dela Rosa, seeking protective custody inside the six-story Senate building to avoid arrest, became the center of a murky armed confrontation. Television footage and social media videos showed unusual movements by Senate security personnel from the Office of the Sergeant-at-Arms (OSAA), alongside police officers and Marines stationed inside the complex.

OSAA acting head, retired police major general Mao Aplasca, told reporters some personnel were armed because “they were going to arrest somebody,” though he did not elaborate amid confusion over the possible serving of the arrest warrant against Dela Rosa. Earlier reports claimed unidentified armed men were attempting to breach the premises.

The confusion stemmed from a jurisdictional clash near the second-floor plywood barrier separating the Senate’s rented wing from the GSIS main building.

Tensions exploded at 7:46 p.m. when gunshots rang out, sending journalists and employees scrambling for cover. Duterte-allied senators, including Senator Imee Marcos, were reportedly meeting elsewhere in the building while awaiting the formal transmittal of the impeachment articles. For hours, reporters and staff were trapped inside offices as armed security personnel patrolled the hallways.

Cayetano later went on Facebook Live, claiming the Senate was “allegedly under attack” and saying four senators had been warned in advance of possible violence. Some lawmakers accused the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) of mounting an assault.

President Marcos later clarified that no NBI agents had been sent to arrest Dela Rosa and denied any government operation targeting the senator.

Initial investigations indicated that OSAA chief Aplasca fired the first shots at NBI agents stationed on the GSIS side for “peace and order,” prompting return fire from an NBI “volunteer.” NBI Director Melvin Matibag later identified the gunman as Mel Oragon, a civilian volunteer and driver accompanying NBI agents that night.

Matibag said the NBI deployment had been requested by GSIS President and General Manager Jose Arnulfo Veloso. He also addressed viral footage showing NBI personnel drilling through a door, clarifying that the operation was meant to seal access points between the Senate and GSIS buildings after concerns about unauthorized entry through a connecting bridge. The Senate-side key to the door was reportedly controlled by the OSAA.

The “Great Escape”

The most surreal development came before dawn on May 14. Despite the heavily secured Senate compound, Dela Rosa vanished. Cayetano later confirmed the senator had “chosen to leave” Senate protective custody.

According to Senate secretariat officials, Dela Rosa slipped out around 2:30 a.m. alongside Senator Robinhood Padilla. His whereabouts remain unknown. Padilla was later spotted at the airport around 4 a.m., reportedly without Dela Rosa.

Many observers see the May 13 chaos as a calculated delaying tactic. By shielding Dela Rosa, Duterte-allied senators signaled a willingness to use institutional and procedural tools to stall Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial. As long as the Senate remains consumed by security disputes and jurisdictional conflict, the impeachment calendar remains frozen.

What unfolded was more than a security breach. It was a physical manifestation of constitutional breakdown. The crisis is no longer only about accountability for the drug war or the impeachment of a vice president. It is about whether the Philippines can uphold the rule of law when its most powerful figures choose barricades over courtrooms.

The Senate’s decision to shelter a member facing crimes against humanity charges — only to allow him to disappear during a security lapse — reinforced the growing perception that in the Philippines, the law has become a matter of geography.

Former Senate president Franklin Drilon said the gunfire inside the Senate exposed a broader collapse of leadership and respect for the rule of law.

“This is a collective failure of leadership. I do not know where we have gone wrong,” Drilon said. “Why are we facing this situation where we do not respect anything, we do not respect the law? … It’s a shame already, it’s embarrassing for all of us.”

Some political pundits blamed Marcos for weak leadership, arguing he should have ordered Dela Rosa’s immediate arrest and surrender to the ICC, as the government did with Rodrigo Duterte in March 2025.

If Duterte’s allies succeed in derailing Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial through these “sanctuary” tactics, she could enter 2028 as a political martyr. Conversely, the Marcos administration risks appearing incapable of enforcing the law even within the nation’s capital.

As the country looks toward 2028, the defining question may no longer be who has the strongest platform, but who controls the strongest fortress — and the best escape route. The chaos of May 13 did not merely delay a trial; it shattered public faith in the scales of Philippine justice.

Southeast Asia’s transition away from imported fossil fuels is accelerating, but the region may be walking into a different form of energy dependence, one centered not on geopolitically fragile Middle Eastern supplies, but on China.

For years, energy security in Southeast Asia was largely defined by exposure to imported oil, coal, and liquef…

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While China and the US are competing for global influence through investing in other countries, foreign direct investments (FDI) by companies of the rival superpowers aren’t always welcome in the Global South.

“Foreign investment is not making friends for China or the US,” according to th…

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The next great Middle Eastern rivalry is not only between Iran and the Arab Gulf states. It is unfolding inside the Gulf itself with the United Arab Emirates’ April 28 decision to ditch the old geopolitical model.

For decades, the UAE and Saudi Arabia projected the image of a unified strategic axis: anti-Iran, anti-Islamist, pro-status quo, and closely aligned with Washington. That consensus is now fraying. Quietly but unmistakably, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh are drifting into aggressive competition over money, ports, trade routes, militias, diplomacy, and regional leadership. The old Gulf order, once built around Saudi primacy and Emirati economic support, is giving way to something far more unstable. The UAE is no longer behaving like Saudi Arabia’s junior partner. It is behaving like a rival, revisionist power, which Riyadh must tackle to maintain the status quo.

Abu Dhabi’s New Regional Ambition

More importantly, the UAE can afford to defy Saudi Arabia in ways few regional actors can. Riyadh needs high oil prices to sustain its economy and bankroll Mohammed bin Salman’s transformation agenda. According to IMF estimates, Saudi Arabia’s fiscal breakeven oil price is around US$90 per barrel. The UAE’s is below US$50. That difference changes everything. For Saudi Arabia, OPEC is both a geopolitical weapon and a fiscal necessity. For the UAE, it is increasingly a constraint. Abu Dhabi’s willingness to challenge Riyadh inside OPEC was never just about production quotas. It was a declaration that the UAE no longer sees Saudi Arabia as the unquestioned manager of Gulf economic order. The Emiratis believe they can survive lower oil prices far better than the Saudis can. Once the Iran war formally ends and energy markets stabilize, the UAE’s independent production strategy could fundamentally weaken Saudi leverage over global oil pricing.

Still, the UAE’s defiance is no longer limited to oil politics. Abu Dhabi is also losing patience with Saudi-dominated regional forums like the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Arab League. In unusually blunt remarks at a conference in late April, senior Emirati official Anwar Gargash openly mocked the weakness of Arab and Gulf states during the recent regional crisis. While the GCC provided logistical coordination, Gargash said its political and military position was “the weakest in history.” He added that he expected weakness from the Arab League but was “surprised” by the GCC’s paralysis. Ten years ago, such remarks would have been unthinkable. Today, they reveal something much bigger: the UAE no longer believes in the old Saudi-led Arab order. Abu Dhabi increasingly sees institutions built around Arab and Islamic solidarity as liabilities, not assets. Its future lies elsewhere — in ports, finance, artificial intelligence, and transactional alliances with global powers. Most importantly, it values its security ties with Israel more than with the Gulf states. It was Israeli air-defence systems that helped defend Dubai, not Saudis’. The UAE, therefore, is far keener to invest its money in Israeli defence firms than in any other regional defence networks (which do not exist as such).

Israel, Iran, and the Fragmentation of the Gulf

The Abraham Accords transformed the UAE-Israel relationship from quiet security coordination into an overt geopolitical partnership. Since then, economic, technological, intelligence, and defense cooperation between the two states has expanded rapidly. The recent Iran war accelerated this process.

For the UAE, the conflict was economically devastating. Regional instability disrupted aviation, shipping, tourism, and investment flows that are central to Dubai’s global business model. Emirati leaders concluded that survival in an increasingly volatile Middle East required stronger security integration with Israel and closer strategic coordination with Western powers. Saudi Arabia, however, appears more cautious.

Riyadh has certainly moved closer to Israel behind the scenes, particularly on intelligence and security matters related to Iran. But Saudi leaders remain constrained by domestic legitimacy, Islamic symbolism, and broader Arab political considerations. The Kingdom still seeks to preserve its position as the leader of the Muslim world. Openly embracing Israel at the Emirati pace would complicate that claim. The UAE does not appear equally constrained.

Abu Dhabi’s regional strategy increasingly prioritizes strategic flexibility over ideological consistency. It is building influence simultaneously through sovereign wealth, ports, military access agreements, logistics infrastructure, artificial intelligence partnerships, and normalization with Israel. In effect, the UAE is attempting to create geopolitical space outside the traditional Saudi-centered order. This explains why Abu Dhabi has become more willing to pressure states that remain closely tied to Riyadh. Its support for anti-Riyadh groups in Yemen and Sudan explains this policy. Adu Dhabi’s strangulation of Pakistan last month reflects this strategy much more clearly.

Pakistan and the Emerging Gulf Divide

For decades, Islamabad carefully balanced relations between Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Both Gulf states provided financial assistance, energy support, remittances, and diplomatic backing. But balancing becomes difficult when allies begin competing with one another. The UAE’s decision to demand repayment of more than US$3 billion from Pakistan, ending a long-standing rollover arrangement, was officially explained in financial terms. Yet the political timing was striking.

The move came amid rising regional tensions involving Iran and amid growing Emirati frustration with countries unwilling to adopt a more confrontational regional posture. Pakistan, despite its close ties with Saudi Arabia, has consistently attempted to avoid direct hostility toward Iran. Geography leaves Islamabad with little choice. Iran is a neighbor sharing a sensitive border with Pakistan’s already unstable Balochistan region. For Abu Dhabi, however, neutrality increasingly appears unacceptable.

The most revealing part of the episode was Saudi Arabia’s response. Riyadh quickly stepped in with fresh financial support and expanded economic assistance to Pakistan. This was not merely economic stabilization. It was geopolitical signaling. Saudi Arabia was effectively telling the UAE that Pakistan remained inside Riyadh’s strategic orbit. The broader implications are significant.

A loose counter-alignment is beginning to emerge across parts of the Muslim world. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey, and Egypt do not form a formal bloc, nor do they agree on everything. Ankara and Cairo only recently repaired ties. Pakistan prefers strategic ambiguity. Saudi Arabia remains cautious about Turkish ambitions. Yet all four states share growing unease about the UAE’s increasingly disruptive regional activism and its rapidly expanding partnership with Israel.

The End of Gulf Unity

Western policymakers still talk about “the Gulf states” as though they form a coherent strategic bloc. That illusion is collapsing. The Gulf still exists as a geography. It no longer exists as a political unit. One of the unintended consequences of the US war on Iran is that it accelerated the fragmentation of the Gulf order itself. The divide is now unmistakable.

Saudi Arabia wants a hierarchy with Riyadh at the center. The United Arab Emirates wants strategic autonomy and global influence. Saudi power rests on religion, size, and political centrality. Emirati power rests on money, ports, intelligence networks, technology, and transactional diplomacy. These are not merely different models of power. They are increasingly incompatible ones.

The old Gulf order was built on the assumption that monarchies with similar political systems ultimately shared the same geopolitical interests. They no longer do. Beneath the public language of partnership lies a fierce struggle over who will dominate the post-American Middle East. Iran may remain the Gulf’s main external threat. But the defining fracture of the next decade is likely to come from within the Gulf itself. This is the region’s new cold war. It will be fought not through ideology or revolutionary slogans, but through sovereign wealth funds, ports, trade routes, proxy wars, financial coercion, and normalization with Israel.

Dr Salman Rafi Sheikh is an Assistant Professor of Politics at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) in Pakistan. He is a long-time contributor on diplomatic affairs to Asia Sentinel.

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The British empire left behind many issues at the heart of world troubles today. Among the least recognized but a key to ongoing problems in the Middle East and the Gulf regions in particular is one represented by just four figures. Three Gulf statelets with a citizen population totaling about 2.5 million produce – or would be producing but for the closure of Hormuz, about seven million barrels a day of oil, more than 5 percent of the global total plus enormous quantities of gas. Abu Dhabi and Kuwait have the world’s sixth and seventh oil reserves as well as low production costs, Qatar, a nation of 300,000 citizens, has the world’s third largest gas reserves.

The three: Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, and Qatar have already accumulated approximately $3.7 trillion in their sovereign wealth funds. They also just happen to host US military bases as do their lesser oil-endowed but still prosperous neighbors, Bahrain and Dubai, the latter a thriving port as well as a favorite of tax-avoiding residents from the UK, India, and elsewhere. All are dynast-run autocracies.

The wealth of these mini-states on the western edge of the Gulf is relatively huge even compared with Saudi Arabia (citizen population about 19 million), let alone the 30 million plus of impoverished Yemenis, and immediate neighbors to the north and east, Iraq, 47 million, and Iran, 90 million.

The contrast is self-evidently a source of instability even now, let alone in any future re-shuffling of local interests and of any backpedaling by a US looking to rethink its regional role in the aftermath of the current Iran conflict. This conflict has already shown strains between the local players with moneybags Abu Dhabi clashing with Saudi Arabia on many issues. Nor are local strains new. Qatar was ostracized, with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt cutting off diplomatic relations from 2017 to 2021 and attempting an economic blockade. Although it hosts the largest US base, Qatar has been an intermediary with Iran and often pursues its own course.

So how come these small and largely desert places populated mainly by foreigners sustain their existence despite being surrounded by vastly larger, poorer, and more populous states—Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran? How come that Abu Dhabi, the head and moneybags of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a statelet of about 300,000 citizens, can poke the Saudis in the eye by exiting OPEC at the same time as interfering in Yemen, Sudan, and elsewhere with agendas which seem variously made in countries ranging from Israel to Ethiopia and Washington?

The small Gulf states, originally built on pearl fishing and coastal trade, all owe their independence in large part to deals with the British in the 19th century by which family rulers had a free hand so long as rival interests, notably the Ottoman empire which controlled what is now Iraq, were kept at a distance, enabling the British to guard their route to India and suppress the piracy once endemic in the Gulf.

The three, plus the other emirates of the UAE, the Kingdom of Bahrain, and the Sultanate of Oman, had one thing in common. In the 19th century, Britain, to protect its trade and strategic links to its Indian empire, induced them to accept British oversight of their affairs and keep out Ottoman and other interference. There was nothing especially new about this. At various times, as small ports on the Gulf, they were under some imperial sway or other – Safavid, Portuguese, Ottoman, etc. Nor did British “protection” entirely shield them from local disputes, for example, between Qatar and Bahrain, or the ambition of the Saud family to extend its kingdom of Nejd throughout the peninsula.

But the British connection lasted long enough for oil to underwrite the independence achieved by Kuwait in 1961 and the emirates and Bahrain 10 years later. With oil came western commercial interests, particularly those of the US, and in turn the US bases meant to deter acquisitive neighbors, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein in 1990 and revolutionary Shiite Iran. The emirates’ interests are now also aligned with those of the Saudis.

The huge concentration of wealth in tiny countries with mostly imported, rights-less labor forces was especially beneficial to the US in another way. A wider spread of oil wealth to more populous countries would have benefited international trade at large, from which countries such as Japan, Germany, and later China would be the main beneficiaries. But concentration and accumulation of huge surpluses required that they be channeled into the deepest and most liquid markets – US dollars, Treasury securities, and US stocks. Vast incomes also enabled Gulf purchases of billions of dollars of US weaponry while the US itself invested heavily in local bases which assured the regional military dominance of the US-Israel alliance.

Oil wealth has enabled the building of impressive infrastructure and new industries using oil and gas. Stable currencies and minimal taxes have attracted the wealthy and the accompanying bankers and lawyers as well as the millions of mostly low-paid workers to run the show.

By any measure, it is a curious state of affairs of uncertain duration but, at least until the latest war, had enough beneficiaries – including the low-paid workers enabling transfer of at least a bit of the oil wealth to impoverished families in countries such as Egypt, Bangladesh, and the Philippines.

Five years on from the end of this war, any number of new scenarios are possible in the kaleidoscope formed by the Saudis, Iran, the US, oil prices, and the Gulf states. For the future, there is probably a bigger role for the region’s most broadly developed and permanent state, Turkey, and a Pakistan focusing more westward than before. Whatever happens, the era of the post-colonial dynastic mega-rich mini-states may be fading, and the (probably declining) spoils of oil re-distributed in ways yet to be determined.

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It is more in sorrow than anger that much of East and Southeast Asia perceives the US under Donald Trump to be drifting all too rapidly away. By default, the primary beneficiary is China, though there are some signs that disappointment with the US is strengthening other ties which are not necessarily to China’s advantage.

Trump arrives in China against a backdrop of a war he started but cannot yet finish. Most obviously, he started it without the support of any of the US’s allies and in conjunction with a state, Israel, recently accused of genocide in Gaza and currently engaged in illegal Jewish land grabs in the occupied West Bank. A war waged not only in the face of European opposition but the advice of allies in the Gulf States who immediately became the obvious target for Iranian retaliation. All this, and recent actions in and around Venezuela, have confirmed on a larger scale the contempt for previously agreed rules, procedures, and laws relating to international trade which Trump had shown last year with an ever-changing array of tariffs, sanctions, and other punitive measures as often as not aimed more at supposed allies than rivals. Indeed, he presented the US as a victim of Asian friends’ trade success while quickly succumbing to the rare-minerals counterpunches of the US’s main rival, China.

Instead of looking for support to address China’s massive overcapacity-driven trade surpluses which are hurting much of Asia more than the US, he took aim at weaker supposed friends bullied into signing trade agreements – some such as that forced on Malaysia but now disowned – heavily weighted to US commercial and mineral resource interests.

Given the massive news coverage that the US, and Trump in particular, receives overseas, foreigners had no trouble identifying the trends in the US towards illiberal democracy and the weakening of the balance of power concept between executive, legislature, and judiciary which had long been held up as an example to the world. Add in Trump’s narcissism reminiscent of caricature dictators, and the US presented an image entirely at odds with deeply embedded perceptions of America.

Even in the realm of technology. China’s achievements have rivaled and in some areas exceeded those of the US. While US names such as Google and Meta dominate communication and social media throughout non-Chinese Asia, their dominance has created resentments which have been further fueled by the arrogance of some of their Trump-supporting multi-billionaires.

For many, China is now a more reliable partner. Certainly, only by a slim majority, according to opinion surveys in Southeast Asia. This is not particularly because it is liked but because it is more predictable. The South China Sea remains high up on the list of regional concerns about China, but even on that, the US has lost some of its appeal. Trump’s rejection of international norms makes the rejection of China’s sea claims by the Permanent Court of Arbitration seem less exceptional. And Trump’s unwillingness to give full support to Ukraine’s defence creates doubts about his willingness to face anyone other than relatively weak targets, Venezuela, and, initially, Iran. Doubts about its Taiwan commitment have risen, giving an opening to China to talk more sweetly and persuade the Kuomintang leader to visit the mainland.

Trump also now goes to Beijing knowing that Chinese help is now needed if he is to get out of the Iran mess he has created, without plunging deeper into an unpopular war against an enemy with a high pain threshold.

Aspects of American “soft’ power have also taken a hit. The wholesale attack on immigrants hurts Asian pride as well as opportunities for advancement. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) teams have caused more than 2 million people to leave the US, voluntarily or not. Although ICE activities have been mainly focused on Latinos, the arrest of many from Vietnam, Cambodia, and the Philippines has not gone unnoticed in those countries. Meanwhile, student and regular work visas have become harder to acquire. More generally, interest in the region by US academia appears to have withered, and suspicion of Muslims even from such secular countries as Indonesia and Bangladesh has risen, helped along by the self-proclaimed Christian zealots such as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, sometimes in alliance with advocates of a “white” America. It might be called the Icing of the melting pot.

That said, the erosion of faith in the reliability of the US does not necessarily mean an easy ride for China. South Korea and Japan have clearly come closer together. Japan’s new willingness under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to widen its defensive posture by taking part in exercises in the Philippines and an effort to sell defensive weapons to the region. China has responded with near hysterical commentaries about the “threat of revived Japanese militarism.” The energy crisis promoted by the Iran invasion has seen efforts by Korea, Australia, and Japan to cooperate in securing energy and rare mineral supplies, albeit from weak positions compared to China long committed to self-reliance. Generally, there has been a coming together of middle powers anxious to retain some freedom of political movement. Indonesia has even deviated a little from its historical non-alignment by enabling US overflights of its territory. Whatever they may say publicly, no ASEAN country is happy with the thought of China controlling Taiwan and its adjacent strait. While the US is politically and diplomatically obsessed with the Middle East, its military in the region remains focused on the seas and straits over which China seeks dominance.

Nor have America’s erstwhile friends and admirers given up on the hope that Trumpism is a passing phase, already meeting growing resistance by the courts and the voters. For sure, it will leave a permanent mark, but that could take the form of greater cohesion among the middle powers fearing Chinese domination. The Iran war will have exposed US weaknesses, but by the same token. As in Europe, raised regional consciousness of the need for cooperation to enhance self-reliance. Nor does a China ruled by an all-powerful leader backed by a Communist Party with tentacles everywhere and self-consciously mono-ethnic really have much appeal to countries, at least in Southeast Asia, with more plural histories and social arrangements.

For sure, Trump and his war of choice may be the mark of an America in decline. But equally, it may mark the peak of Chinese power as its many enemies search for common ground to blunt its trade power and expansionist goals.