The Middle East has seen many explosions of violence in recent years. But while the US-Iran war has grabbed the headlines this year, the rapidly escalating conflict between the Houthis and Yemen’s internationally recognized government and Saudi Arabia risks becoming just as consequential for the region. The complexity of Yemen’s internal conflict cannot be underestimated. […]

The post How Yemen’s renewed civil war could set the whole region ablaze appeared first on Asia Times.

For decades, the Indonesia Stock Exchange has run like a members’ club, where the brokers who trade on the IDX also own it. But that cozy arrangement is about to end under an amended financial sector law that requires the exchange to demutualize. The Financial Services Authority, or OJK, has issued a new regulation on […]

The post Indonesia’s bourse rebuild is really a monetary policy story appeared first on Asia Times.

The inaugural flight-test release of a US air-launched hypersonic weapon over an Australian weapons range demonstrates both nations’ push for standoff hypersonic strike, yet the weapon’s true combat value hinges on whether allied airbases and kill chains can survive China’s long-range fires. This month, multiple media outlets reported that the US Air Force, in partnership […]

The post US-Australia hypersonic push no silver bullet against China appeared first on Asia Times.

In a stemwinder of a speech in Nebraska, our mentally ill president joked around that if Iran took out Los Angeles and San Diego, it would be a small price to pay for keeping the rest of the country safe. Or at least that is what he appeared to say. What his slurred free association […]

The post Trump finds it’s funny to joke about Iran bombing California appeared first on Asia Times.

Beyond all the pageantry, the Chinese leader Xi Jinping had a strategic goal for his Washington visit – to undermine the American relationship with Japan. Xi succeeded, perhaps beyond his expectations. Japanese policy makers saw this coming. They arranged a brief meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly between Prime Minister Takaichi […]

The post How China deploys wartime history against Japan appeared first on Asia Times.

TOKYO – For decades, the US enjoyed a remarkable luxury: its two biggest creditors, Japan and China, kept showing up at Treasury auctions with checkbooks open. Now, Donald Trump’s trade wars, tariff threats and widening geopolitical confrontations raise an uncomfortable question: what happens if Washington’s most reliable bankers decide they’ve had enough? Granted, global investors […]

The post When Asia’s central banks turn bond vigilante on Trump appeared first on Asia Times.

The 2026 Asian Games in Japan drew to a close on October 4 following two weeks of competition between 45 countries and territories across 43 sports. Despite the official slogan “Imagine One Asia,” fragmented regional politics came to the fore as the event unfolded. Just days before the games officially began, tensions between Japan and […]

The post How geopolitical tensions tainted the 2026 Asian Games appeared first on Asia Times.

“Keep our city out of your reckless war talk,” said San Diego’s mayor, Todd Gloria, Monday night after President Donald Trump’s rambling speech at a rally in Nebraska included a particularly violent mention of the California city. Gloria was among several Democratic political leaders who were incensed after Trump – moments after predicted the Republican […]

The post Did he really invite Iran to take out California cities? appeared first on Asia Times.

Southeast Asia’s growth next year will be decided at meetings its finance ministers won’t attend. A few executives in California will soon settle next year’s spending on data centers. Their decisions will do more to shape growth in Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines than any budget those governments pass. The World Bank has just […]

The post Asia’s growth now belongs to Silicon Valley appeared first on Asia Times.

CPEC 2.0 aims to move past the infrastructure-heavy first phase toward industry, agriculture, mining, technology, green development and business-to-business investment. That shift could deepen economic ties between Pakistan and China, but it also changes the nature of the security challenge. Big infrastructure projects can be guarded behind fixed perimeters. Industrial zones, mines, private businesses and […]

The post CPEC 2.0 will be won or lost on keeping China’s investors safe appeared first on Asia Times.

The American withdrawal from Iraq is not an end but a strategic pivot, a calculated transition from direct occupation to remote containment. By pressuring Iraq to disarm its resistance groups, Washington aims to neutralize Iran’s forward defense line and clear the battlefield for a potential full-scale confrontation with Tehran. This gambit risks either delivering Iraq […]

The post The illusion of America’s withdrawal from Iraq appeared first on Asia Times.

It’s getting better all the time (Better, better, better) It’s getting better all the time I admit it’s getting better –The Beatles In an X post, Marko Jukic, senior analyst at Bismarck Analysis, lamented: “Enshittification” is sort of a “safe horny” term for what is really just outright impoverishment and declining living standards due to […]

The post US enshittification vs Chinese involution appeared first on Asia Times.

With the Brazilian presidential election headed to a runoff, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is down 47% to 45% and faces a massive fight ahead. I wanted to give a quick analysis of what happened and where things are going next. Lula could still win if he can consolidate support from third parties Lula lost […]

The post Brazil on the brink: Why Lula is down against Bolsonaro Jr appeared first on Asia Times.

Originally published by Pacific Forum, this article is republished with permission. While operational planners in the United States, the Republic of Korea and Japan have made historic strides institutionalizing trilateral security cooperation, the credibility of deterrence ultimately hinges on a more punishing variable: wartime sustainment. Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo have expanded joint exercises, real-time missile […]

The post Logistics test: sustaining Northeast Asia trilateral deterrence appeared first on Asia Times.

Washington is limiting the parts it licenses to the Commercial Aircraft Corp of China (Comac), the maker of the C919 passenger jet, triggering fears among Chinese pundits that it could ban the US-made engines the jet relies on. The Trump administration has been using China’s reliance on US aviation suppliers as leverage in trade talks, […]

The post For rare earth leverage, US caps aircraft parts licenses to China appeared first on Asia Times.

As one advocate warned India’s Supreme Court on Monday that “this country will burn” unless action is taken to stop what thousands of protesters have denounced as an illegal purge of voters by the head of the Election Commission of India, the court demanded accountability from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. Chief Justice Surya Kant […]

The post Indian Supreme Court demands government answers on voter purge appeared first on Asia Times.

I have watched Pakistan-Afghanistan relations long enough to distrust easy headlines, and last week’s news produced a few of them. At the Center-2026 (Tsentr-2026) war games in Russia’s Chelyabinsk region, Taliban officers stood among the foreign observers. Reports say it was the first time Moscow had invited a Taliban military delegation since the movement returned […]

The post Russia courts the Taliban without dropping Pakistan appeared first on Asia Times.

Paul Krugman is the greatest econ writer in the world, and also a legendary economist. But I sometimes feel that he has a blind spot when it comes to the value of new technologies. In 1998 he famously wrote: The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in ‘Metcalfe’s law’—which states that […]

The post What the AI boom is actually doing for Americans appeared first on Asia Times.

Hydrogen-powered passenger cars have been left far behind by electric vehicles and hybrids, but the hydrogen truck market is growing and new technology developed for auto racing is keeping hopes for hydrogen cars alive. Toyota and its European partners are in the vanguard of these developments. On September 26 and 27, at the FIA World […]

The post Behind in EVs, Toyota powering ahead with hydrogen vehicles appeared first on Asia Times.

Indonesia is buying the weapons of a modern military at a pace rarely seen in its recent history. Rafale fighter jets are entering service, and the country has contracted for 48 KAAN fighters from Turkey. The navy has taken delivery of two Italian PPA warships and commissioned a former Italian aircraft carrier, the Giuseppe Garibaldi, […]

The post Indonesia’s arms spree only the start of a modern military appeared first on Asia Times.