On April 12, a 53-year-old construction worker named Jhony Lanquino was trying to beat the 38-degree heat by shedding his tee-shirt while mixing cement outside his home in Mandaluyong City in the Manila national capital region when he was surrounded by barangay officials and police officers including SWAT members trained for high-risk operations.

Lanquino was fined ₱500 (US8.33) for violating a local ordinance on public decency by being shirtless, although two days later, Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla descended on Lanquino at home and personally apologized, returning the ₱500 fine amid public outcry and acknowledging lapses in the initial implementation of his “Safer Metro Manila Plan,” also called the “Safer Cities” initiative.

Jonvic, suspected of being the Marcos camp’s candidate to take on Sara Duterte in the 2028 presidential sweepstakes, rolled out the plan on April 6 with the fanfare of a national event to take on one of the world’s most chaotic, polluted, traffic-choked, slum-ridden cities, which for decades has cheerfully resisted all attempts to redeem or reform it.

While designed to instill discipline, Remulla’s drive has faced criticism for allegedly targeting poor individuals, leading to calls for better police discretion, compassion and refinement in its implementation. Over 72,000 individuals were flagged in Metro Manila alone within the first 10 days, with a daily average of 6,000–7,000 apprehensions.

If there is a certain nostalgia, a balik-tanaw spreading in Metro Manila, something people here have seen before, it is justified. Manila saw it under Imelda Marcos, then first lady, governor of Metro Manila and minister for human settlements and mother of the current President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. She was nicknamed the Steel Butterfly, sometimes the Iron Butterfly for her unique combination of fragile beauty, lavish lifestyle and iron-fisted, unyielding political ambition.

Appointed governor of Metro Manila (1975–1986) by her strongman husband Ferdinand Marcos Sr, she led the Manila Cleanup Crusade” to polish the city’s streets, waterways and public spaces in preparation for major international events, a failing effort to put a shine on the chaotic conurbation of 15 cities, suburbs and slums into a “City of Man” including construction of the Cultural Center of the Philippines and a “Great Wall of Manila” to hide poverty-stricken slums behind white walls from the view of visiting foreign dignitaries.

Alas, Manila, often noted for its high levels of happiness and contentment, cheerfully resisted all attempts to redeem or reform it, lost as she focused on aesthetics to mask deep-seated social issues and ignoring actual sanitation and welfare needs.

Remulla’s new attempt, led by his Department of the Interior and Local Government and the Philippine National Police, aims to bridge the gap between crime statistics and the public’s sense of security through high-visibility policing and strict enforcement of “quality-of-life” ordinances. In short, make police more visible and streets more orderly to fix the feeling of insecurity. His modern echo, flagging shirtless workers and shutting down late-night karaoke parlors amid public outcry, is driven by the Philippines’ hosting the ASEAN Summit. Once again, Manila is being dressed up for the world, and poverty is treated as a public relations problem.

After his apology to Lanquino, he insisted that his initiative would be strictly enforced, albeit with clearer guidelines. Men going shirtless without practical reasons will be fined, he said, even in secluded alleys.

“Working shirtless men are allowed,” Remulla told the Manila Bulletin. “But those just hanging out topless outside, walking that’s prohibited.’’ However, he said, “anything goes, even shirtless men roaming the streets may be allowed during special celebrations like fiestas, as long as no troubles or violent incidents transpire during these festivities.

Where Imelda reshaped what people saw, this policy targets how people behave, which immediately has drawn condemnation from progressive and human rights groups, describing it misdirected and a crackdown against the poor. Critics say the pattern is clear. The plan’s visible targets are not major criminals but minor violations: public drinking, curfew breaches, noise complaints, and “indecent exposure.”

“This is not about safety,” said Secretary General Cristina Palaba of the human rights NGO Karapatan. “This is a crackdown on the poor, plain and simple. We have seen this before. Thousands were rounded up in the name of ‘order,’ yet nothing changed for the better in the lives of the people. Instead, the poor were harassed, detained, some of them even get killed in these operations.”

The irony is hard to miss. In a city where trillion-peso flood control projects disappear into the ether and high-profile fugitives slip through international borders with the grace of Olympic gymnasts, enforcement zeroes in on small, visible offenses. It’s easier to police behavior than dismantle systems that make the city unsafe.

Much like Imelda’s rush to hide “eyesores” before international conferences and beauty pageants, Remulla’s initiative seems less about long-term crime reduction and more about presenting a sanitized, “disciplined” facade to ASEAN delegates.

Enforcement also reveals a class divide. Shirtless laborers are fined, but joggers in gated villages are not. Curfews apply in poorer districts, while nightlife districts run late. Order, it seems, depends on where you live.

The Interior Department plans to expand the program to other cities after its Metro Manila pilot. As it does, the question becomes clearer: do we want a city that is truly safe, or one that simply looks orderly? Until deeper inequalities are addressed, these patrols risk becoming little more than performance—highly visible, tightly enforced, and aimed at those with the least power to resist.

Alex Vatanka is a leading expert on Iranian politics and US-Iran relations. Vatanka is a Senior Fellow and founding Director of the Iran Program at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C. Born in Tehran, he specializes in Iran’s domestic power struggles, foreign policy, and regional security dynamics, including tensions with the U…

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In a moment of mounting global uncertainty marked by intensifying great-power rivalry, persistent conflicts in the Middle East, and the recalibration of alliances across the Indo-Pacific, Indonesia appears to be quietly adjusting the compass of its foreign policy. Under President Prabowo Subianto, Jakarta’s diplomatic posture is showing signs of a subtle but discernible shift toward the United States, even as it maintains formal ties with other major powers, including China and Russia.

The shift is not proclaimed in sweeping speeches or formal declarations. Rather, it emerges through a series of decisions, symbolic gestures and strategic alignments that, taken together, suggest a departure—however incremental—from the more equidistant approach pursued by Prabowo’s predecessor, such as an apparent quiet decision forged between Prabowo and US President Donald Trump to allow overflights of US military craft above Indonesian territory. Where Joko Widodo often leaned toward Beijing, particularly in infrastructure investment and trade, Prabowo appears to be navigating closer to Washington, especially in matters of defense and geopolitical alignment.

This evolving orientation has not gone unnoticed. Analysts, diplomats and critics at home have begun to question whether Indonesia’s long-held doctrine of a “free and active” foreign policy—one that avoids entanglement in major power blocs—may be undergoing a quiet transformation.

A Tale of Two Visits

The contrast was striking. On April 13, 2026, as President Prabowo was received with full honors by Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin in Moscow, his defense minister and close confidant, Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, was in Washington holding talks at the Pentagon. The dual-track diplomacy appeared carefully choreographed: engagement with Russia on one hand, and a deepening strategic embrace of the United States on the other.

In Moscow, Prabowo and Putin agreed to expand cooperation across a broad spectrum of sectors, including energy, agriculture, industry, pharmaceuticals and even space exploration. Indonesia, recently welcomed into the BRICS grouping with strong backing from Moscow, expressed gratitude for Russia’s support and signaled its desire to learn from Russia’s resilience in navigating geopolitical turbulence.

“I would like to consult (with President Putin), as the global geopolitical situation is evolving and changing very rapidly,” Prabowo said, in remarks that suggested a search for strategic guidance from a leader long at odds with the West.

Yet, at nearly the same moment, a different narrative was unfolding in Washington.

There, Sjafrie met with the US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to announce a new strategic defense partnership—one that goes beyond symbolic cooperation and ventures into operational, technological and structural collaboration.

The agreement rests on three pillars: strengthening military capacity and institutional frameworks, expanding professional military education and training, and enhancing operational cooperation through joint exercises. More notably, it includes plans to explore advanced defense technologies, such as autonomous systems, next-generation maritime capabilities and asymmetric warfare strategies—areas that place Indonesia more firmly within the orbit of US-led security architecture in the Indo-Pacific.

For a country that has historically guarded its strategic autonomy, the depth of this engagement represents a significant development.

Concerns Over Sovereignty

The defense partnership quickly became the subject of intense domestic scrutiny after reports surfaced of a draft agreement that would allow US military aircraft to access Indonesian airspace with fewer restrictions.

The document, which circulated widely on social media, sparked concern among critics who warned of potential infringements on national sovereignty. While the Defense Ministry did not deny the existence of such discussions, it emphasized that any agreement remained in an early stage and had not been finalized.

Still, the episode underscored a broader anxiety: that Indonesia’s growing alignment with Washington could come at the cost of its independence in strategic decision-making.

Such concerns are amplified by the scale and direction of Prabowo’s diplomatic engagements since taking office. Of his 48 overseas visits as of February, a significant portion –16 – have been to Western countries and their allies, including the United States, Britain and France. In total, Prabowo has spent nearly 39 days in Western countries, including almost two weeks in the United States alone.

By contrast, visits to China and Russia—two central players in the evolving global balance of power—have been relatively limited, with only two trips each. While Indonesia continues to invoke the language of Global South solidarity and South-South cooperation, its diplomatic footprint suggests a persistent, if not strengthening, Western orientation.

The BoP Factor

Perhaps the clearest indication of Indonesia’s shifting alignment came with its decision to join the Board of Peace, an initiative spearheaded by US President Donald J Trump. The government framed its participation as a pragmatic move aimed at accelerating peace efforts in Palestine. But analysts have offered a more skeptical interpretation, pointing to economic considerations—particularly concerns over potential US tariff policies—as a key driver. Membership in the Board of Peace, critics argue, has constrained Indonesia’s ability to take an independent stance on contentious issues involving the United States and its allies.

This tension became evident in Indonesia’s response to the escalating conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran. In the days following the outbreak of hostilities, Prabowo refrained from issuing a strong public statement, even as regional tensions intensified and global reactions mounted.

For some observers, the restraint reflected diplomatic caution. For others, it signaled a troubling erosion of Indonesia’s moral voice in international affairs.

“Indonesia’s foreign policy in the Middle East appears increasingly incoherent,” said Hasril Hasan, an analyst of international political economy at the University of Indonesia. “It lacks a clear concept and direction. Our political image is suffering, and our economic interests are not being optimally achieved.”

Waning Bargaining Position

Indonesia’s perceived alignment with Washington has also affected its standing with other actors, particularly Iran. Despite Prabowo’s offer to act as a mediator—citing his personal rapport with Trump and Indonesia’s shared identity with Iran as a Muslim-majority nation and member of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation—the proposal failed to gain traction. Tehran, according to regional observers, appeared unconvinced of Jakarta’s neutrality.

The consequences were not merely symbolic. When Iran allowed certain “friendly” nations, including neighboring Malaysia, to pass through the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz without restriction, Indonesia was notably absent from that list. The episode raised uncomfortable questions about whether Indonesia’s diplomatic capital—long built on its non-aligned stance—was beginning to erode.

Criticism has also mounted over Indonesia’s economic agreements with the United States, particularly the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART), which some analysts describe as disproportionately favorable to Washington.

Under the agreement, tariffs on approximately 99 percent of US goods entering Indonesia could be reduced to zero—a move that economists warn may expose domestic industries to intense competition.

Four civil society organizations—Center of Economic and Law Studies, Aliansi Jurnalis Independen, Indonesia for Global Justice and Perserikatan Solidaritas Perempuan—have filed a legal challenge against the agreement, arguing that it was concluded without adequate consultation with Parliament or the public.

The case, now before the Jakarta Administrative Court, highlights broader concerns about transparency and accountability in the government’s foreign policy decisions.

Muted Voice on Conflict

Indonesia’s cautious approach has also been evident in its response to the deaths of three Indonesian peacekeepers serving under the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon in southern Lebanon.

The soldiers were killed in an artillery strike attributed to Israeli forces in late March. While Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry and its mission to the United Nations issued strong condemnations and called for a thorough investigation, Prabowo’s own statement stopped short of explicitly naming Israel as responsible.

For many Indonesians, the restraint was difficult to reconcile with the country’s longstanding support for Palestinian statehood and its vocal criticism of Israeli military actions. Calls have since grown for Indonesia to withdraw its troops from Lebanon, including from prominent figures such as former President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Yet the government has so far resisted such demands.

“There are no plans to withdraw,” said Cabinet Secretary Teddy Indra Wijaya, adding that evaluations were ongoing.

Indonesia’s evolving foreign policy under Prabowo reflects a broader tension between principle and pragmatism—between its historical commitment to non-alignment and the strategic realities of a rapidly changing world. For decades, Indonesia has sought to position itself as a mediator, a bridge-builder and a voice of the Global South. Its “free and active” doctrine allowed it to navigate Cold War divisions without being subsumed into them. Today, however, the lines are less clear.

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Hui Ka Yan faces time in a Chinese prison, after pleading guilty to fraud, embezzlement and bribery in relation to his company China Evergrande Group, which has descended from being China’s biggest property developer to the world’s most indebted real estate firm. He is also the biggest example of Beijing’s refusal, as it has in past crises, to launch a massive, central-government-funded bailout, instead pursuing a market-oriented redesign aimed at shifting the economy away from its decades-long reliance on property.

On April 14 at the Intermediate People’s Court of Shenzhen, Hui, also called Xu Jiayin, pleaded guilty to charges of embezzling public funds, fraudulently raising funds, fraudulently issuing bonds and securities, illegally using funds, failure to disclose material information, abuse of position and bribery, reported state news agency Xinhua. Hui and Evergrande faced similar charges in this Chinese court on April 13 and 14. The court will render judgement at a later date.

This is a steep comedown for Hui, ranked by Forbes as China’s richest person with a net worth of US$42.5 billion in 2017 and who once employed a cast of nubile young Chinese women, the Evergrande Song and Dance Troupe, to entertain rich and powerful men and to win business and corrupt Chinese officials. Born into a humble family in a Henan village in 1958, Hui founded Evergrande in 1997, which grew to be China’s largest property firm by sales, with annual sales at one time exceeding US$100 billion. The company, which at its peak had a market capitalization of more than US$50 billion, delisted from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange last August.

Hui, a Hong Kong resident, was arrested in mainland China in September 2023. The company defaulted in December with more than US$300 billion in debt, leaving an estimated 20 million units across China and rendering it the world’s most indebted property firm. That was substantially more than Argentina’s entire external debt, tweeted Michael Pettis, a senior fellow of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a US think tank, on October 9, 2023.

A lawsuit by Evergrande’s liquidators, Alvarez & Marsal, to claw back funds from the property developer’s auditor, PwC, is scheduled for its first public hearing at the Hong Kong High Court on May 18.

Last November, a Hong Kong court expanded an asset freeze against Hui’s ex-wife Ding Yumei, including more than US$300 million of her assets in Canada, Gibraltar, Jersey and Singapore in the injunction, to give liquidators greater space to recover US$6 billion owed to creditors, according to media reports. Ding obtained Canadian citizenship in August 2023.

In May 2024, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) fined Evergrande and Hui RMB4.2 billion (US$615 million) and RMB47 million respectively, for fraud in issuing bonds and violating Chinese rules on disclosure. The CSRC also permanently banned Hui from involvement in China’s securities markets. On May 21, 2024, the CSRC accused Evergrande of inflating revenue by RMB214 billion (US$31 billion) and profit by RMB173 billion in 2019, and inflating revenue by RMB350 billion and its profit by RMB299 billion in 2020.

On September 13, 2024, China’s Ministry of Finance and the CSRC fined PwC Zhong Tian, the mainland Chinese subsidiary of the Big Four accounting firm, RMB444 million for its audit of Hengda Real Estate Group Company Limited, Evergrande’s main subsidiary, from 2018 to 2019, and suspended PwC Zhong Tian’s operations for six months. This is the biggest fine imposed on a Chinese subsidiary of a Big Four accounting firm. In 2024, the Hong Kong Accounting and Financial Reporting Council launched an investigation of PwC’s audit of Evergrande.

Friends in high places

“Xi Jinping could also have decided to detain Hui Ka Yan now as part of a broader effort to root out his remaining factional enemies,” said a report of SinoInsider, a China-focused risk consultancy based in New York, on October 13, 2023.

Hui has long been known to have close associations with Zeng Qinghong, the de facto head of the Jiang Zemin faction after the passing of the former Chinese president in late 2022, explained the SinoInsider report. “Hui is also likely to have connections with former Politburo Standing Committee member, ex-Guangdong Party Secretary, and Jiang faction member Zhang Dejiang. Without the powerful political backing of Zhang, Zeng, and the Jiang faction, it seems unlikely that Evergrande would have been able to expand nationally in the 2000s and eventually make the Fortune 500 list in 2016.”

In November 2014, Hui paid more than US$30 million for a mansion in the exclusive Point Piper district of Sydney, Australia using a string of shell companies to conceal his involvement, according to media reports. His mansion was a stone’s throw away from one once inhabited by Zeng Wei, a son of former Chinese Vice President Zeng Qinghong, and his wife. The Australian government in March 2015 ordered Hui to sell the mansion after finding the purchase violated Australian foreign investment rules.

Hui was close to a fallen Politburo member, Ma Xingrui. Earlier in April, the Chinese government announced Ma was placed under investigation for corruption, the third Chinese Politburo member investigated for graft. In Shenzhen on November 4, 2015, Ma, then Deputy Secretary of Guangdong Provincial Party Committee and Party Secretary of Shenzhen, met Hui and his delegation, where Ma expressed the hope that Evergrande would increase its investment in Shenzhen, according to Evergrande’s website.

While Ma was party secretary of Shenzhen from 2015 to 2016, Ma reportedly had close interactions with Hui, said a report on April 6 of SinoInsider. After a meeting between Ma and Hui, Evergrande relocated its headquarters from Guangzhou, the provincial capital of Guangdong, to Shenzhen during Ma’s tenure in Shenzhen, said the SinoInsider report. “There were also allegations that Ma strongly backed Evergrande’s acquisition of key land development rights in Shenzhen, as well as its involvement in urban redevelopment projects.”

Desmond Shum, a Hong Kong businessman living in the UK, in his book Red Roulette recounted that he went shopping with Hui for a yacht off France’s southern coast. Hui envisioned a “floating palace to wine and dine officials off China’s coast, away from the prying eyes of China’s anti-corruption cops and its nascent paparazzi,” Shum wrote.

When Evergrande’s debt difficulties surfaced in late 2021, there were fears that the developer’s woes would precipitate a global financial crisis. In October 2021, then US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged the Chinese government to behave responsibly in handling the Evergrande crisis. But with the shrinking importance of China’s property sector, Evergrande’s collapse hasn’t sparked a financial crisis in China, let alone the world.

In recent years, senior Chinese policymakers reduced the importance of rapid GDP growth as a policy objective, putting more emphasis on the quality of growth, which has reduced use of property-oriented stimulus, said an S&P Global report on February 8. “In addition, policymakers have viewed China’s economic growth in recent years as sufficient, we believe. Strong exports have supported GDP growth despite subdued domestic demand amid the property market stress.”

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

China is in a tightening bind. A fragile two-week ceasefire has kept the Strait of Hormuz partially open, but flows remain constrained and increasingly shaped by political tolerance rather than market forces. For Beijing, which continues to rely on Iranian oil, this exposes a strategic vulnerability it can no longer ignore: its energy security rests on sea lanes it doesn’t control, a dilemma exacerbated by US President Donald Trump’s precipitate complete shutdown of the Hormuz Strait.

The global oil market is a creature of high volatility and supply anxiety with traders weighing geopolitical risk against potential peace talks. In fact, the Strait is no longer functioning as a purely commercial artery. It has become a politically managed corridor, where access depends as much on geopolitical alignment as on market demand and it is a mystery when that will change. That distinction matters.

China has long relied on Middle Eastern crude, including sanctioned Iranian oil, to fuel its economy. While official data often obscures the scale of those imports, few doubt that Chinese refiners continue to take in discounted Iranian barrels, often routed through opaque trading networks. This arrangement has suited both sides. Tehran secures a steady buyer, while Beijing secures a discounted supply. The transaction, however, depends on one critical assumption: that oil can move freely enough through Hormuz to reach Asian markets.

That assumption is now under pressure. Even partial disruption of the Strait alters the equation. Shipping delays, higher insurance costs, and the growing risk of interdiction all raise the effective price of oil, regardless of official benchmarks. More importantly, they introduce uncertainty into supply chains that depend on predictability. For China, which prizes stability in energy procurement, that uncertainty is itself a form of risk.

The current ceasefire between the US and Iran does little to resolve that. If anything, it underscores the fragility of the situation. A two-week window of relative calm is not a structural solution. It’s a pause, and pauses, in geopolitics, tend to be temporary.

Beijing’s limitations

What makes this particularly uncomfortable for Beijing is its limited ability to shape events on the ground. Unlike the US, which maintains a significant naval presence in the Gulf and has long positioned itself as the guarantor of maritime security, China lacks both the infrastructure and the alliances to exert comparable influence. Sure, its navy has expanded rapidly in recent years, but projecting sustained power into the Gulf remains a complex undertaking. In other words, it’s still not yet a blue-ocean navy, no matter how hard Beijing tries to claim otherwise. This, in effect, creates a troubling mismatch between dependence and control.

Notably, China depends on energy flows that pass through one of the world’s most contested chokepoints, yet it has minimal direct control over the security of that route. During stable times, that gap is manageable. However, during periods of tension, it becomes more pronounced. There’s also a broader strategic dimension to consider. China’s energy security strategy has traditionally focused on diversification, sourcing crude from multiple regions, investing in upstream assets abroad, and building strategic petroleum reserves at home. Good moves. These measures have indeed improved resilience, but they don’t eliminate exposure to chokepoints like the Strait of Hormuz. As long as a significant share of imports flows through the Strait, vulnerability remains.

That raises uncomfortable questions: can China continue to rely on others to secure a route so central to its economic stability? And perhaps more poignantly, should it?

For decades, Beijing has been content to benefit from a system largely underwritten by the US. The US Navy has patrolled key sea lanes, deterred disruptions, and responded to crises when they arise, benefiting the rest of the world at no cost. China, meanwhile, has focused on economic expansion, avoiding deep entanglement in Middle Eastern security affairs. Finally, that division of labor is now being tested.

External security guarantees

The current situation suggests that relying on external security guarantees may no longer be sufficient. As geopolitical competition intensifies and regional conflicts become more frequent, the risks to critical supply routes increase. In such an environment, passive reliance carries its own costs. Stepping in, however, is anything but straightforward. Any visible Chinese role in securing Hormuz would carry political implications: it could draw Beijing deeper into Middle Eastern rivalries, complicate its relations with Iran, and potentially put it at odds with US interests in the region. It would also require a level of military and diplomatic coordination that Beijing has historically been cautious to undertake. Even more problematic for Xi Jinping, it would involve actual coordination efforts with Washington. Currently, neither side is ready for that contingency.

Yet doing nothing is also a choice, with concrete consequences. If Hormuz remains only partially open, governed by shifting political calculations, China may find itself repeatedly exposed to price spikes, supply disruptions, and strategic uncertainty. Over time, that could erode one of the key pillars of its economic model: reliable access to affordable energy. There are, of course, other options. China could accelerate efforts to secure alternative supply routes, including overland pipelines from Russia and Central Asia. It could expand its strategic petroleum reserves further, providing a buffer against short-term disruptions. It could also increase investments in renewable energy and domestic production to reduce overall import dependence. The last option, however, is expensive, while also harming the country’s already fragile decarbonization efforts.

All of these steps, however, are already underway to varying degrees, but they take time. Moreover, none of them fully replaces the scale and flexibility of seaborne oil imports from the Middle East. In the near term, Hormuz remains indispensable.

That reality leaves Beijing in an awkward position. It must navigate a situation where its energy lifeline is exposed to forces beyond its control, while avoiding actions that could entangle it in conflicts it would prefer to sidestep.

The two-week ceasefire offers a temporary reprieve, but it doesn’t resolve the underlying tension. If anything, it highlights the extent to which global energy flows can be influenced by political decisions rather than market dynamics. For China, the lesson is clear. Energy security isn’t only about securing supply, it’s also about securing the routes through which that supply travels. The question now is whether Beijing is prepared to act on that lesson, or whether it will continue to rely on a system that’s becoming increasingly uncertain.

Tim Daiss is an energy markets analyst in the Asia-Pacific region and a partner at APAC Energy Consultancy. He is a regular Asia Sentinel contributor.

Hanoi is calling it “new momentum.” As General Secretary and President Tô Lâm arrives in Beijing this week for his first overseas trip after consolidating the top two leadership posts, Vietnamese state media are framing the visit as a triumph of prudent diplomacy. They speak of record bilateral trade reaching US$256 billion in 2025, surging Chinese investment in electronics and electric vehicles, booming tourism, and maritime differences that are supposedly “properly controlled.” In the official narrative, Vietnam is wisely deepening ties with its giant neighbor while cleverly balancing with the West in a fractured world.

This comforting story serves the regime’s domestic needs, but it masks a dangerous reality. Far from creating durable momentum, the visit risks accelerating Vietnam’s structural absorption into China’s orbit at the worst possible moment, precisely when Washington is cracking down on supply-chain circumvention and recalibrating its Indo-Pacific strategy.

The Economic Illusion

Vietnamese officials proudly cite headline trade figures and new Chinese investments. Yet these numbers conceal a fragile asymmetry. Vietnam’s recent growth has relied heavily on exports to the United States, which account for more than 30 percent of its total outbound shipments. A significant portion of those exports consists of Chinese-origin components lightly processed or relabeled in Vietnam — the classic transshipment model.

Even after the US Supreme Court struck down many IEEPA-based reciprocal tariffs on February 20, 2026, American enforcement against circumvention remains aggressive. Customs and Border Protection, Section 301 investigations, and rules-of-origin scrutiny continue to target goods suspected of bypassing higher duties on Chinese products. Similar probes are intensifying in the EU, Canada, and Australia. Penalties for confirmed transshipment can still reach 40 percent under alternative authorities.

If agreements signed in Beijing this week deepen integration into Chinese upstream supply chains — through expanded joint ventures, shared technology standards, or new connectivity projects — Vietnam will be perceived less as an independent manufacturing hub and more as a convenient backdoor for Chinese goods. The consequences would be immediate and painful: stricter inspections, canceled orders, lost market share in the West, and a sharp slowdown in export-driven growth. The very engine that has powered Vietnam’s impressive GDP gains could stall, leaving the country more dependent on Beijing than ever.

Short-term gains in infrastructure or tourism cannot offset this structural vulnerability. Hanoi is betting that deeper economic ties with China will deliver technological upgrading and sustained growth. The evidence suggests the opposite: greater reliance on Chinese inputs risks locking Vietnam into the lower tiers of regional value chains dominated by its northern neighbor.

The Strategic Signal

The optics of the visit compound the risk. Coming immediately after Tô Lâm’s consolidation of party and state power in a configuration reminiscent of Xi Jinping’s model, the warm “comrade and brother” framing in Beijing sends a clear message. In Washington, Tokyo, Canberra, and Brussels, it will be read not as sophisticated bamboo diplomacy but as narrowing strategic autonomy.

Nowhere are the stakes higher than in the South China Sea. Hanoi insists disputes are being “properly controlled,” yet Chinese coast guard and maritime militia vessels continue to harass Vietnamese fishermen and obstruct energy exploration activities. Any new agreements that emphasize bilateral management over firm adherence to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS 1982) and multilateral pressure risk being interpreted as tacit acquiescence. This directly threatens Vietnam’s sovereign rights, fisheries resources, and potential hydrocarbon reserves — assets vital to its energy security and coastal economy.

In the broader context of America’s “maximum pressure” campaign under the VIC framework (Venezuela–Iran–Cuba), such signaling is especially ill-timed. As the United States and its partners actively friend-shore critical supply chains away from China, Vietnam’s attractiveness as a diversified, rules-based alternative diminishes if it appears to be tilting too far toward Beijing.

The Domestic Trade-Off

At home, the visit also serves a clear political purpose: legitimizing recent power centralization. But genuine long-term stability requires more than decisive leadership at the top. It demands robust internal feedback mechanisms capable of detecting and correcting policy errors before they become structural traps. Concentrated authority may speed up decisions, but it often narrows debate and weakens the very institutional resilience a middle power needs when navigating a giant neighbor.

History offers sobering lessons for countries in Vietnam’s position. Over-reliance on a single dominant partner rarely produces sustainable autonomy. Vietnam’s own “bamboo diplomacy” earned international respect precisely because it preserved flexibility and avoided visible over-dependence.

None of this means Vietnam should shun pragmatic engagement with China. Trade and cooperation in non-sensitive areas can and should continue. The issue is the terms and safeguards. Real “new momentum” would require verifiable technology transfer rather than assembly-line dependence, strict compliance with rules of origin to protect Western market access, unambiguous public commitment to UNCLOS, and accelerated diversification of both economic and security partnerships.

If this week’s summit deepens structural integration without parallel safeguards, the celebrated “new momentum” may prove illusory — and costly. The bamboo that has bent without breaking for decades risks becoming entangled in China’s web.

Western policymakers should continue to engage Vietnam as a pivotal middle power in Asia’s supply-chain realignment and maritime balance. But they must do so with clear eyes. Partnership cannot be taken for granted. It must be earned through transparency, compliance, and credible strategic independence.

Hanoi may celebrate another successful summit. The real test will be whether Vietnam emerges stronger and more autonomous — or quietly more constrained.

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.

Pakistan is once again at the center of a major war it didn’t start. This time, however, it is not as a problem state but as a peace broker. Islamabad is performing a delicate diplomatic balancing act that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago with marathon talks continuing between high-level US and Iranian officials in Islamabad in a bid to end the hostilities in the Strait of Hormuz.

A country long defined in Western policy as a security liability is now being treated as a necessary intermediary in the US-Iran confrontation. That shift is not the result of transformation so much as convergence: war elsewhere, credibility earned in a different conflict, and a regional order running out of neutral spaces.

Pakistan’s current diplomatic visibility represents a notable reversal from its recent international standing. Only a few years ago, it was widely viewed through the narrow lens of counterterrorism and internal instability. Today, it is being described as a “critical interlocutor” between Washington and Tehran, hosting talks and facilitating ceasefire negotiations at the highest level.

This shift is partly structural and partly opportunistic. As the US–Iran conflict escalated in early 2026, traditional mediators such as Oman and Qatar faced limitations—either because of Gulf exposure to Iranian retaliation or because intra-Gulf divisions weakened their consensus position. Pakistan, by contrast, offered a rare combination of attributes: formal ties with Saudi Arabia, functional relations with Iran, and a recently strengthened working relationship with Washington. Ultimately, Islamabad has been explicitly chosen as a venue precisely because it is one of the few states that maintains operational channels with both sides of the conflict. Yet this transformation did not begin in the Gulf. It began much closer to home.

Thanks to India’s war on Pakistan

A critical but often underexamined driver of Pakistan’s diplomatic repositioning lies in its military confrontation with India in May 2025. While details remain contested, Pakistani elites have leveraged its widely acknowledged operational success—particularly in the air domain—to reshape their international narrative from instability to capability. This matters because credibility in international mediation is rarely purely diplomatic. It is also reputational: states are more likely to rely on intermediaries that are seen as strategically relevant and capable of managing escalation risks.

In Pakistan’s case, the post-2025 period saw a visible tightening of civil–military coordination in foreign policy and an expansion of engagement with key global actors, particularly the United States. That shift accelerated after Pakistan publicly credited President Trump for helping broker a ceasefire with India and subsequently deepened engagement with his administration. The result is a recalibrated image: Pakistan is no longer only a “problem space” in global security debates, but increasingly a “functional actor” in crisis containment architectures.

This repositioning has been reinforced by Pakistan’s evolving counterterrorism doctrine, which increasingly avoids the earlier distinction between “good” and “bad” militant groups. Instead, the state has adopted a more unified framing of internal insurgencies, including the TTP and IS-K, aligning its rhetoric more closely with global counterterrorism discourse.

Together, these shifts have created the conditions under which Pakistan could plausibly present itself as a security-relevant diplomatic actor rather than merely a theatre of instability.

Constraints matter more than ambition

Pakistan’s mediation role is also shaped—perhaps more decisively—by constraints rather than ambition. The most immediate is geography. Sharing a long and porous border with Iran while simultaneously maintaining a defense partnership with Saudi Arabia places Islamabad in an inherently delicate position. Any direct Iran–Saudi escalation risks spilling into Pakistan’s internal security environment.

Equally significant is Pakistan’s sectarian composition. As one of the largest Shia-populated countries outside Iran, a direct confrontation with Tehran would risk triggering severe internal fragmentation—something that was visible immediately after Khamenei was killed. This vulnerability is not abstract: it intersects directly with Pakistan’s ongoing counterinsurgency operations against the TTP and Baloch separatist groups, both of which already stretch state capacity.

It is precisely this convergence of external and internal risk that explains Islamabad’s cautious diplomacy during the early phases of the US–Iran conflict. Despite its formal defense commitments to Saudi Arabia, Pakistan avoided any overt activation of the pact and instead pursued a calibrated rhetorical strategy, maintaining communication channels with Tehran while signaling alignment with Gulf partners when necessary.

This balancing act became especially visible when Iranian strikes on Saudi-linked infrastructure forced Islamabad to adopt a more critical public posture toward Tehran, even as backchannel diplomacy continued uninterrupted. In effect, Pakistan’s mediation is not a voluntary projection of power. It is a form of strategic risk management.

Washington, Trump, and the politics of access

The final enabling condition of Pakistan’s mediation role lies in its improved access to the United States under the Trump administration. Following the 2025 India–Pakistan conflict, bilateral engagement intensified significantly. Trump’s personal involvement in ceasefire diplomacy, combined with high-level visits by Pakistan’s military leadership to Washington, created a new channel of elite-level political trust.

This matters because mediation in high-intensity conflicts depends less on formal alliance structures and more on executive-level confidence between actors. Pakistan’s ability to simultaneously communicate with Tehran and Washington—while maintaining credibility in both capitals—has allowed it to occupy a rare intermediary space.

At the same time, Pakistan has also benefited from a vacuum in Gulf mediation capacity. While Oman historically played this role, and Qatar has often been involved in backchannel diplomacy, the current escalation has rendered Gulf states either too exposed or too divided to serve as effective neutral platforms. This vacuum has effectively elevated Pakistan—not as the first-choice mediator, but as the only viable one left.

Strategy, not status

In short, Pakistan’s emergence as a mediator in the US–Iran conflict should not be misread as a linear rise in global status or a permanent shift in geopolitical hierarchy. Instead, it reflects something more contingent: the convergence of war, regional fragmentation, and Pakistan’s own structural vulnerabilities.

Its diplomatic relevance is not grounded in neutrality alone, but in necessity. Pakistan is not mediating because it is universally trusted, but because it is sufficiently connected to all parties while being fully owned by none. That distinction is crucial.

At the same time, this moment reveals a deeper transformation in Pakistan’s external identity. The country is increasingly learning to convert its geopolitical constraints into diplomatic utility. Its proximity to conflict zones, its internal security challenges, and its overlapping alignments are no longer only liabilities—they are also instruments of relevance and leverage.

Yet this is a fragile form of power. Should the US–Iran conflict escalate further, Pakistan’s balancing act could quickly turn from mediation to entanglement. And in that scenario, the very conditions that enabled its rise as a broker could just as easily expose its limits. For now, however, Pakistan sits at a rare intersection of global crisis management—not as a great power, but as an indispensable intermediary in a war it cannot afford to ignore.

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.

Octogenarian Indian tycoons in the pharma and consumer industries are believed to have been not only the buyer but also the seller of an oil on canvas (below) by Raja Ravi Varma, a famous and stylish 19th century artist, that set an unexpectedly high record price of nearly US$18 million for Indian art last week at a Sa…

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Broken incentives are draining talent from Japanese surgery, emergency care, pediatrics, and other essential fields into private aesthetic medicine in a silent but profound restructuring within the healthcare system. Historically, acquiring a medical license was viewed as a commitment to a lifetime of rigorous public service within hospitals. But today, a growing segment of young physicians is treating that same license as a highly specialized business degree.

The catalyst for this shift is a phenomenon known as Chokubi (direct-to-aesthetics)—the practice of junior doctors transitioning straight from their mandatory two-year residency into the lucrative, unregulated private aesthetic clinic sector – specialized, non-surgical, or minimally invasive medical procedures to enhance physical appearance, facial balance, and skin health via Botox or dermal fillers, laser treatments, chemical peels, and body contouring, often designed to reverse aging signs or improve skin texture.

The Japanese are highly receptive to aesthetic medicine, particularly non-surgical, low-downtime procedures, ranking fourth worldwide with a focus on subtle, natural-looking enhancements rather than dramatic transformations, with 70 percent of Japanese women aged 14-23 having had or wanting plastic surgery.

Eyelid surgery (double-lid) and facelifts are the most popular, with clinics emphasizing high-precision techniques, particularly in Tokyo. The market has been growing sharply in injectables and laser treatments, increasing by 174 percent between 2010 and 2019, driven by a focus on “natural” beauty, precision, and an aging population seeking rejuvenation.

While definitive nationwide data is difficult to aggregate given the private nature of these clinics, industry estimates suggest that upwards of 300 junior doctors annually are now bypassing essential clinical specialties in favor of aesthetic medicine. To place this in perspective, Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) Physician Statistics indicates an influx of roughly 9,000 new doctors each year.

Losing hundreds of these recruits annually represents a significant, compounding drain on the talent pool. The consequence is a hollowing out of what the Japanese medical community refers to as “gritty” clinical medicine—the high-stress, low-margin, yet socially vital fields like surgery, internal medicine, pediatrics, and emergency care.

The Economics of Cos-pa and Tai-pa

To understand this migration, one must examine the shifting values of modern Japanese professionals, which are increasingly defined by two concepts: cos-pa (cost-performance, or return on investment) and tai-pa (time-performance, or efficiency of time usage). The traditional path of a hospital surgeon—characterized by grueling on-call shifts, immense legal liability, and rigid hierarchies—offers notoriously poor cos-pa and tai-pa.

The economic reality driving this labor allocation is stark. In Japan, physician salaries within the public and semi-public hospital sectors are effectively capped by the government-controlled National Health Insurance (NHI) reimbursement rates. These rates artificially suppress the market value of complex, life-saving procedures. Conversely, a Chokubi doctor entering the unregulated, cash-pay aesthetic sector can easily command double the starting salary of a university hospital surgeon, while maintaining strictly 9-to-5 hours with zero on-call duties and significantly lower litigation risks. When viewed through a purely economic lens, the decision to pursue aesthetics is not a moral failing of the younger generation, but a highly rational response to a deeply flawed incentive design.

A Comparative Warning: The South Korean Paradigm

This structural vulnerability is not unique to Japan. South Korea provides a harrowing preview of the logical endpoint of these market dynamics. Both nations share a similar fee-for-service model under national health insurance frameworks, juxtaposed against intense societal pressures driving demand for aesthetic perfection.

In South Korea, the flight from essential fields recently culminated in a systemic crisis. As evidenced by OECD health data, while the overall density of doctors may appear adequate, the distribution is becoming perilously skewed. The concentration of specialists in essential medicine—such as pediatrics, obstetrics, and emergency care—is plummeting. The situation escalated dramatically in 2024 with massive medical strikes across South Korea, highlighting a system stretched to its breaking point. Young Korean doctors have been fleeing to what is colloquially known as “GP-Skin” (General Practitioner Skin Care), driven by the realization that the legal risk-to-reward ratio in essential public medicine has become entirely untenable compared to the lucrative, low-risk private aesthetic market.

Market Failure and the Loss of Public ROI

The Chokubi trend represents a classic market failure in the realm of public health. Medical education in Japan is heavily subsidized by the state; it is estimated that educating a single medical student costs the taxpayer tens of millions of yen. When these newly minted doctors immediately pivot to the private aesthetic sector, the public’s return on investment (ROI)—intended to manifest as a robust workforce providing essential healthcare—is fundamentally lost. Publicly subsidized training is effectively functioning as a pipeline for private, cash-pay enterprises.

Furthermore, essential clinical medicine relies heavily on a “master-apprentice” model of skill transference. As hundreds of doctors bypass this rigorous postgraduate training annually, the “middle management” layer of hospitals—the mid-career physicians who perform the bulk of surgeries and shoulder the burden of night shifts—is slowly evaporating. This skill gap threatens the long-term sustainability of acute care capabilities.

Strategic Interventions: Realigning the Incentives

Addressing this brain drain requires acknowledging that appeals to professional nobility are insufficient against overwhelming economic realities. Structural reforms are necessary to reclaim the profession and correct this misallocation of labor.

First, the NHI reimbursement rates require a drastic overhaul. The budget must be reallocated to significantly increase the financial value assigned to high-risk, high-stress procedures. Policymakers must make essential clinical practice competitive from a cos-pa perspective. Simultaneously, implementing robust “no-fault” compensation systems for high-risk specialties could mitigate the crippling fear of litigation that drives young doctors toward low-risk aesthetic fields.

Regulatory measures are also vital. Similar to discussions recently initiated in the MHLW’s Committee on the Appropriate Implementation of Aesthetic Medicine, Japan must consider establishing mandatory minimum requirements for general clinical experience—perhaps five years of service in essential fields—before a physician is permitted to practice independently in the unregulated aesthetic sector.

Finally, exploring mechanisms for economic redistribution is essential. Levying a targeted “social contribution tax” or licensing fee on highly profitable private aesthetic clinics could provide a dedicated funding stream to subsidize the training and salaries of surgeons and ER physicians, thereby internalizing the externalized costs of this medical brain drain.

The Chokubi phenomenon is not an anomaly; it is the predictable outcome of a system that financially penalizes its most essential workers. A society whose incentive structures reward the pursuit of beauty more reliably than the preservation of survival is a society courting a public health disaster. If Japan and nations with similar healthcare frameworks fail to align the economic realities of their physicians with the public good of their citizens, the dedicated, life-saving clinical doctor may soon become a casualty of market forces.

Tomoaki Takei is a physician at Koza Shibuya Tsubasa Clinic, Medical Corporation Tsubasakai.

Vietnam has formally merged its two highest offices, elevating Communist Party General Secretary Tô Lâm to the presidency by unanimous agreement in parliament on April 7. The move breaks decades of tradition separating party and state leadership, concentrating authority in a single figure for the first time in modern Vietnamese history.

Analysts view the consolidation as both a practical adaptation to governance realities and a structural test of institutional resilience in a tightly controlled one-party state, raising questions about efficiency, accountability, and the balance between rapid decision-making and sustainable checks on power. The consolidation reflects an enduring paradox in Vietnam’s political system: the gap between formal separation of powers and actual authority. While the constitution maintains distinct roles for the General Secretary and President, decision-making has long been concentrated in a small, interconnected core of leaders.

“This is not simply a ceremonial alignment,” an AP report notes. “It formalizes a center of authority that has already exercised wide influence behind the scenes.”

Strategic Implications

The rise of Tô Lâm, formerly Minister of Public Security, was bolstered by anti-corruption campaigns and an emphasis on stability. His dual role now merges party guidance with the operational powers of the state presidency.

Regional analysts note parallels with China’s model, where the General Secretary simultaneously serves as President, allowing unified policy direction and decisive action in economic and security matters.

For Vietnam, a mid-sized economy navigating ambitious modernization goals amid complex geopolitics, the consolidation may offer operational advantages.

Policy coherence is expected to improve, decision-making may accelerate, and foreign partners can more easily identify a single interlocutor at the apex of power.

At the same time, the concentration of authority highlights the tension between efficiency and accountability in the absence of independent judicial oversight or robust parliamentary checks.

Comparative Perspective

Vietnam’s experiment can be contrasted with international governance models:

• United States: Presidential system with strong separation of powers, legislative oversight, and independent judiciary, at least prior to Donald Trump.

• France: Semi-presidential, balancing executive power between president and prime minister, moderated by parliament.

• Westminster (UK, Japan, Canada): Prime minister leads government; ceremonial head of state ensures procedural legitimacy; collective cabinet responsibility tempers unilateral authority.

• China: One-party system with general secretary, president, and Central Military Commission chair combined to centralize policy authority.

• Vietnam (pre-2026): Dual leadership roles, with the president largely ceremonial and authority centered in the Politburo.

• Vietnam (post-2026): Unified executive under Tô Lâm that retains party primacy but channels executive authority through a single president, resembling a hybrid of China’s one-party president and elements of semi-presidential governance. Such a model, if institutionalized, represents a novel form of “socialist presidentialism,” designed to reduce policy lag and clarify leadership for domestic governance and international diplomacy.

Risks and Checks

Historical and comparative experience suggests that consolidation can increase efficiency while amplifying risks. Without independent institutions to enforce checks, decision-making may become personalized rather than institutionalized.

Observers caution that the durability of such a model depends on whether parallel mechanisms — internal party discipline, state auditing, and controlled civic oversight — are strengthened to match the expansion of executive power. Official statements accompanying Tô Lâm’s oath stressed economic growth, social stability and national unity. Yet signaling priorities publicly is not equivalent to creating structural accountability.

Foreign Policy Signals

Externally, the consolidation sends a clear signal: Hanoi now speaks with a single, identifiable voice. This may reassure investors and regional partners seeking stability, but could prompt caution among Western governments accustomed to governance with clearer separations of power.

Managing relationships with China, the United States, and ASEAN partners will test the executive’s capacity to balance assertive domestic authority with nuanced diplomacy.

Looking Ahead

Vietnam’s formalization of the dual role under Tô Lâm will be closely watched for how it shapes policy execution, political discipline, and foreign relations.

Scholars of comparative constitutional law may see this as a living experiment in hybrid governance, where a socialist one-party system tests presidential-style authority.

Success may hinge less on individual capacity than on whether Vietnam can pair concentrated leadership with credible institutional checks, creating a governance architecture capable of decisive action without undermining accountability.

For now, the historic vote marks a turning point: an apex of authority that is highly visible and deeply intertwined with the party’s ideological mandate.

Whether it evolves into a lasting institutional reform or a temporary personalization of power will define Vietnam’s political trajectory in the coming decade.

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.

Few environmental disasters illustrate the consequences of human mismanagement as starkly as the fate of the Aral Sea. Once the world’s fourth-largest inland body of water, it has lost roughly 90 percent of its volume since the 1960s after the main flow of the rivers that sustained it were diverted for large-scale irrigation projects. …

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On March 25 at 10pm, Thailand’s caretaker government announced a Bt6 per liter increase across all fuel types, effective from 5am the following morning, immediately after Parliament adjourned following its first substantive session on the energy crisis. No cabinet minister was reported to have attended the debate to respond. Citizens …

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Nepal’s new prime minister Balendra Shah is wasting no time, having ordered the arrest of the immediate past premier and others in an action denounced by opponents as executive overreach and which has brought hundreds of protesters from the old regime into the streets. The new government has unveiled a massive 100-point agenda focused on anti-corruption, transparency and meritocracy in public service, offered a formal state apology to the Dalit community for historical discrimination, pledged to focus on job creation to reduce the mass migration of youth seeking work abroad, and said it would prioritize accessible health and education for the poor.

On a geopolitical level, Nepal, population 29.5 million, has long been described as a political football between giant neighbors India and China, a dynamic that appears to have reached a turning point with the introduction of a new generation of leaders focusing on anti-corruption and economic reform rather than ideological loyalty to neighbors. Analysts suggest the new leadership may favor India due to deeper cultural and educational ties. Balendra, for instance, studied and lived in India, potentially providing a “bread and blood” connection that serves as a setback for China’s expansionist regional strategy.

Accordingly, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi quickly lauded the new leadership, with Balendra expressing his eagerness to work closely with New Delhi to advance relations. Chinese premier Li Qiang also congratulated the new government and reaffirmed Beijing’s commitment to strengthening bilateral relations.

Waves of new generation

Balendra’s new Rashtriya Swatantra Party (RSP), founded in 2022, rode the waves of a young generation following an unprecedented welter of violence that drove former premier Khadga Praosad Sharma Oli out of office last September. Mobs burned the 122-year-old palace housing the prime minister’s office as well as the Home, Finance and Health ministries, the Parliament, the Supreme Court, other lower courts, the anti-corruption commission and the offices of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist, or UML), the Nepali Congress and the Maoists.

The 35-year-old Balendra, who won national approval as Kathmandu’s reformist mayor from 2022 to 2026 after a career as an engineer and rapper musician, was sworn in as Nepal’s 40th premier on March 27 after the RSP secured a historic mandate, winning 182 of 275 seats in the House of Representatives. A 15-member cabinet also took the oath of office at a ceremony held at Sheetal Niwas in Kathmandu. Balendra called for a cabinet meeting in the evening hours in which the new government resolved to fully implement the report of an enquiry commission probing the Gen Z movement that killed 76 individuals, including 19 young people, last September. The 907-page report recommended legal action against Oli and others for their collective criminal negligence and recklessness in dealing with the violent uprising.

The next morning, the Kathmandu police picked up Oli, 74, from his residence, followed by the arrest of former home minister and Congress leader Ramesh Lekhak. Another Congress leader and former energy minister Deepak Khadka was arrested on March 29 on alleged money laundering charges. Oli and Khadka were hospitalized. Despite pleas by family members and party workers, the Supreme Court refused to offer relief although the court asked the new government to clarify the grounds for their arrests and submit a written reply. The Kathmandu district court granted a five-day judicial remand for Oli and Lekhak, later extended for two more days.

Hundreds of Oli’s Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist) supporters took to the streets demanding his release, launching prolonged protest demonstrations across the country. CPN-UML lawmakers have raised the issue in the Parliament, claiming that Oli didn’t order the security forces to fire on the protesters and labeling the arrests as political revenge. The Congress leaders demanded a fresh and transparent investigation into last year’s agitation, terming the commission as inadequate. The demand was turned down by the newly-appointed home minister Sudhan Gurung, who said no one was above the law.

More troubles await the three former premiers as the Balendra government has launched a high-level probe over money laundering against Congress leader Sher Bahadur Deuba and Marxist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal alias Prachanda, who led the decade-long anti-monarchy Maoist movement in Nepal from 1996 to 2006 that resulted in the killing of over 17,000 people including insurgents, security personnel and Nepali citizens.

But legal experts denounced the arrests under the National Criminal Act, which makes them subject to up to 10 years of imprisonment. They argued that an urgent warrant of arrest is meant for anybody who may flee the jurisdiction, and that the accused could simply have been barred from leaving the country. Many critics pointed out that a commission report cannot be accepted as the final piece of evidence and that the recommendations must be authenticated by subsequent investigations.

The new government has made it clear that it will move to clean the system with its reform plan, which also bans party politics on campuses and restricts student-run unions, which will be replaced with nonpartisan Student Councils within three months. Teachers, civil servants and employees are also prohibited from joining in party activities. The government also offered job and rehabilitation facilities to those affected in the anti-government uprising.

The Kathmandu Post editorialized that “the era of the old guard, defined by ego-tussles and a disconnect from the modern world, is hopefully over and the era of the youth has begun.” As Kathmandu’s mayor, the Post said, Balendra’s focus was on clean, effective and hassle-free governance, with the same energy hopefully expected to spread to the national level. Nepal’s modern political history remains rife with examples of government failures due to intraparty feuding. Since the monarchy came under constitutional control in 1990, Nepal has seen the formation of 33 governments, added the editorial, concluding that the challenges ahead for the government remain high, but optimism has been sweeping the country.

With two years to go before the 2028 presidential sweepstakes and the ground stirring under eager hoofs, Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte remains the woman to beat despite facing a second wave of impeachment efforts – which will take all of her cunning to survive – and despite persistent criticism of her leadership competence, unresolved corruption allegations and the controversies surrounding the Duterte political dynasty.

The forces of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr have had their expectations rudely dashed of perpetuating the dynasty via the candidacy of now-disgraced former House Speaker [and Marcos first cousin] Martin Romueldez, laid low by the biggest political scandal in decades over profiting from ghost infrastructure projects. They have yet to rebound into pre-electoral action with a new candidate. The names frequently mentioned in political circles include Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla, a member of the Cavite state warlord clan who has made a name for himself as interior secretary by focusing internal police reforms, a not-wholly-innocent crusade given that the Duterte family’s political base rests in the national police.

For ordinary Filipinos, watching two of the country’s most powerful political families trade accusations of corruption and abuse of power raises a basic question: Who exactly is looking out for the public interest? Two possible so-called third force candidates have yet to mesh. The powerful old political families (the Arroyos, Aquino-Cojuangcos, the Lopezes and others) have yet to be heard from, along with the newer ones (the Villars, the Binays and others).

Philippine politics rarely rewards complacency, however, and the forces that once propelled Sara Duterte to power may now become the very obstacles that could derail her path to the Malacañang Palace. The political alliance that dominated the 2022 election — the UniTeam between Duterte, 47, and Marcos, 68 – has long since fractured into a bitter rivalry. What was once presented as a grand coalition of North – the Marcos stronghold of Ilocos Norte and the Dutertes South in Davao – turned almost immediately into a proxy war between the Marcos and Duterte camps. They are no longer fighting the “Yellows” or the “Pinks,” shorthand labels for reform-oriented voters associated with accountability and good governance. Instead, they are battering each other.

Part of Duterte’s continued strength lies in the enduring appeal of the take-no-prisoners political brand built by the dynastic paterfamilias, former president Rodrigo Duterte, 81, now detained on crimes against humanity charges in connection to the 6,000 extrajudicial killings – estimated by human rights groups as high as 30, 000 – under his administration’s brutal drug war. Despite that, for millions of Filipinos, the elder Duterte represented a leader who spoke their language, rejected the polish of traditional elites and promised swift action against crime and disorder.

Sara, who on the stump often resorts to her father’s rough-and-rowdy rhetoric, represents the continuation of that same “tough love” style of leadership. Even the shock of her father’s detention by the International Criminal Court in March 2025 hasn’t significantly weakened the Duterte base. If anything, among loyalists, it has reinforced the narrative that the family is being persecuted by powerful enemies.

Yet political loyalty has limits. Being a frontrunner in 2026 is very different from winning in 2028. The most immediate threat comes from the halls of Congress, where the House of Representatives has begun investigating the vice president over questions involving her use of confidential funds in the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education, and her threats to kill the president during a past-midnight 2025 press conference. Duterte has dismissed the proceedings as political theater.

But the stakes are enormous. If the impeachment process advances and results in a conviction in the Senate, she could be barred from holding public office, effectively ending any presidential bid before it begins – with the common wisdom that the impeachment proceedings are underway for exactly that reason. Even if she survives impeachment, the prolonged spectacle of congressional investigations risks eroding the perception of invincibility that has long surrounded the Duterte name.

“The second round of impeachment tells you Marcos has the levers well in hand and moderates any bogeyman aspects of the Duterte coalition,” said a longtime political maven. “It’s not as scary as it ought to be. You could go down the list of people who led the first impeachment, many of whom were personally targeted by Sara [in 2025 midterm elections] but many of whom survived – to impeach her again.”

The vice president has refused to participate in what has been impolitely described as a dog and pony show, questioning jurisdiction and constitutionality. Lawyers allied with her have petitioned the Supreme Court to stop the House justice committee from producing her bank records and calling witnesses to testify on her alleged unexplained wealth and ties with POGOs, or overseas gaming operations, which became an international scandal during her father’s reign, implicating top members of his regime.

Third force?

The escalating Marcos–Duterte feud has also opened space for a possible “third force” candidate. What the 2022 race won by Marcos revealed was the third force as it is, the pink and yellow survivors, who themselves are their own cult of personality, lack resources but are fairly cohesive. But they matter only in tipping the scale one way or another in the Marcos-Sara fight. Marcos is cultivating them amid the irony that he has become more of an upholder of the post-senior Marcos democratic order than the non-Marcoses.

This wouldn’t necessarily mean a traditional opposition figure. Rather, it could emerge as a middle ground for voters weary of dynastic rivalries and political drama. One name frequently mentioned is Senator Raffy Tulfo, 66, whose popularity stems from his long-running public service media programs where he directly intervenes in disputes involving ordinary citizens. He is a scion of the influential Tulfo TV5 broadcasting family, having parlayed his relationship into the nickname “Idol Raffy,” focusing on protecting the poor, the plight of overseas workers and labor rights, chairing committees on Migrant Workers and Public Services, often using his popular “Raffy Tulfo in Action” platform.

Tulfo ran as an independent and finished third in the 2022 election. He has said he wouldn’t seek the presidency or vice presidency in 2028, opting instead to pursue reelection to the Senate, although that may be political camouflage. His appeal overlaps with Duterte’s populist base, but without the baggage of a deeply entrenched political dynasty, although his family has started building its own with two brothers in the Senate and three other relatives in the House.

Another possible contender is Senator Risa Hontiveros, a one-time award-winning broadcast journalist for IBC and GMA Network. who has emerged as a prominent voice of the principled opposition. Through indefatigable high-profile Senate investigations into offshore gambling hubs and government irregularities, she has cultivated a reputation for accountability and policy-driven governance. She is feisty, abrasive, a prominent voice in the opposition who is frequently targeted by supporters of the previous and current administrations, with accusations ranging from being a “hypocrite” to unsubstantiated links to communist groups.

Former vice president Leni Robredo, now mayor of Naga City in the Bicol Region, has declined repeated calls to run again for president after her heavy loss to Marcos in 2022. Some backers are eyeing a Duterte-Robredo match, but she insists it’s too early to discuss the 2028 race and says such talk would distract from her duties to local constituents. Still, allies in the Liberal Party haven’t given up on persuading her, pointing to a recent interview in which she said she would go “wherever the road takes me.”

The disinformation battlefield

Hovering over all of this is the powerful influence of disinformation. Philippine elections are increasingly fought on social media as much as in campaign rallies. Digital networks of influencers, partisan pages, and coordinated messaging operations shape public perceptions long before formal campaigning begins. In both 2016 and 2022, online narratives, with legions of paid online trolls, proved capable of reshaping political reputations and rewriting historical memory.

By 2028, the battle may not simply be over who has the best platform, but who controls the most powerful digital megaphone.

What could bring Duterte down?

Despite her current advantage in early surveys, several factors – if impeachment doesn’t -- could undermine Sara Duterte’s dominance. First is accountability. If the impeachment proceedings gather credible evidence that resonates with voters, the damage could be lasting even without a conviction. Second is economic reality. Elections are often decided not by ideology but by the price of rice, electricity, and fuel. If economic conditions worsen, voters may be more willing to consider alternatives. Third is political fragmentation. If the Marcos and Duterte camps continue to attack each other, they may inadvertently create an opening for a candidate who can present themselves as a stabilizing alternative.

Beyond political dynasties

Ultimately, the 2028 election should not be reduced to a contest between rival families seeking to retain power. The real question is whether any candidate can convincingly address the everyday struggles facing ordinary Filipinos — rising prices, job insecurity, and national sovereignty. The colorful posters and campaign jingles will come soon enough. But the decision voters must make is far more serious. Is the next president fighting for the country, or simply fighting for survival within the endless drama of Philippine politics? The answer will determine the future direction of the republic.

Despite the current conflagration in the Middle East, the security architecture of West and South Asia is undergoing a quiet but consequential transformation, driven less by ideology than by strategic necessity. What is emerging is not a return to rigid Cold War–style blocs, but a fluid realignment shaped by…

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