Asia Watch Archive

Last week, seven opposition lawmakers from Taiwan’s Kuomintang (KMT) party survived a “recall vote” — a repeat vote triggered by civil-society groups accusing the KMT of being “pro-China” and obstructing the agenda of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) — in the DPP’s second recall loss in as many months. In July, a separate recall vote targeted 24 legislators from the KMT; all of them held onto their seats.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and U.S. President Donald Trump held their inaugural in-person meeting at the White House on Monday, focusing on trade, shipbuilding, security co-operation, and North Korea.

South Korea and the U.S. kicked off an annual bilateral military exercise on Monday, labelled Ulchi Freedom Shield, which will run for 11 days and involve at least 21,000 troops.

Unnerved by the unpredictability and animosity of U.S. President Donald Trump, China and India are rebuilding bridges — resolving trade and border issues — as Trump, drifting closer to Russia, muddies the geopolitical waters.

Earlier this week in Seoul, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung met with Vietnam’s To Lam, general secretary of the ruling Communist Party, for Lee’s first hosting of a foreign leader since being elected in June.

The two leaders agreed to roughly double bilateral trade from US$86 billion to US$150 billion. They also inked 10 memoranda of understanding, spanning science and technology, renewables, fisheries, and education.

On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order extending a trade truce with China for 90 days, just hours before sky-high tariffs were set to return. American tariffs on Chinese goods will hold steady at 30 per cent, while Beijing will maintain tariffs of 10 per cent on American goods.

Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. met with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, the first visit by a Southeast Asian leader since Trump’s inauguration six months ago.

Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru’s coalition squandered what remained of its withering political power on Sunday, losing its upper-house majority in a “disastrous” election that saw far-right parties surge and voter turnout spike.

The outcome could exacerbate policy gridlock in Japan and complicate Tokyo’s efforts to address cost-of-living concerns.

A July 23 leaders' summit between Japan and the European Union will feature talks on jointly developing “an extensive communications satellite network,” according to Nikkei, in part to reduce reliance on the U.S.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s monthslong trade war — and his polarizing push for tariff and trade deals — has strained relations with Washington’s Asia Pacific partners, with a new August 1 deadline to reach deals fast approaching.

Beijing is looking to exploit these divisions, reeling in aggrieved American allies and pitching itself as a relatively reliable trading and investment partner. In recent weeks, China has doubled down on bilateral and multilateral diplomacy, wining and dining leaders and diplomats across the Indo-Pacific.

Malaysia was a hive of regional diplomacy this week. As this year’s chair of ASEAN, Kuala Lumpur hosted meetings of the bloc’s foreign ministers and dialogue partners — including Canada, China, and the U.S. — as well as the East Asia Summit, and the ASEAN Regional Forum.

Canada’s new foreign affairs minister, Anita Anand, is set to attend these events. She will also hold bilateral meetings with her ASEAN counterparts, with the exception of Myanmar, and with Foreign Minister Wang Yi of China, another ASEAN dialogue partner.  

This week, letters from Washington to nine Asian trading partners delivered a mix of good, bad, and ugly. The White House granted a three-week ‘extension’ to avoid steep tariffs, for now, and reach trade terms acceptable to U.S. President Donald Trump. But the letters also threatened these same trading partners, stating that if they didn’t accept Trump’s demands, Washington would apply punishingly high tariff rates on them come August 1.

Ottawa has ordered Hikvision, a Chinese manufacturer of surveillance equipment, to immediately and permanently halt its operations in Canada. In a June 27 statement posted on X, Mélanie Joly, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry of Canada, said the decision was the result of a “National Security Review under the Investment Canada Act.”

The first shipment of Canadian liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the Port of Kitimat in western B.C. to Asian markets notches a major milestone for Canada – in both its longstanding desire to diversify trade beyond the U.S. and its commitment to strengthen relations with Asian economies, many of which are eager to boost their energy security and wean themselves off coal.

Salt Typhoon, a Chinese government-linked hacking group, is “almost certainly” responsible for “malicious cyber activities” currently targeting Canadian telecommunications companies, according to a bulletin posted by the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security last Friday.

NATO’s Hague summit wrapped up Wednesday with leaders adopting a brief declaration that reaffirms “iron clad commitment to collective defence as enshrined in Article 5” and sets a new defence spending target of 5 per cent by 2035. The gathering was notable for who was not in the room.

Despite being on the G7 summit guest list, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto is in Russia this week, delivering the keynote speech to the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Confronted with a mercurial U.S.

On Monday in Toronto, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney pledged to hit the NATO benchmark of spending two per cent of GDP on defence by March 2026, an ambitious commitment meant to reduce reliance on the U.S., counter “an emboldened Russia and an assertive China” and draw closer to “stable democracies” in Asia and elsewhere around the world.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney will get his first dose of summit-hosting next week as leaders from G7 countries and the Asia Pacific flock to Kananaskis, Alberta, for a historic and potentially thorny three-day meeting.