Asia Watch Archive

U.S. President Joe Biden hosted his last meeting of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue on Saturday, bringing together leaders from Australia, Japan, and India in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware.

After a summer of unrest, Bangladesh is seeking a reset under its brand-new interim government. Led by 84-year-old Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, the Bangladeshi government is beginning to engage with — and host — representatives from other countries to kick-start a return to normalcy.

The U.S. House of Representatives sent a whopping 26 China-focused bills to the Senate last week, exhibiting flashes of both cross-party compromise and partisan sparring, and revealing American lawmakers’ views on (nearly) all things China.

Typhoon Yagi, the most powerful typhoon to hit Vietnam in 30 years, has killed at least 200 people since the storm made landfall on Saturday, injuring hundreds more and inflicting millions of dollars in damages.

Canadian defence minister Bill Blair departs for Japan today following a four-day trip to South Korea, a dual diplomatic tour designed to strengthen ties with two of Canada’s closest Indo-Pacific allies.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was in Ulaanbaatar on Tuesday, meeting with Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khürelsükh to commemorate a Russia-Mongolia military victory over Japan’s army in 1939 and sign agreements on fuel and energy, road transportation, and railway development.

This week, Chinese President Xi Jinping is hosting leaders and senior diplomats from 50 African countries in Beijing for the Summit of the Forum of China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which runs from September 4–6.

Close to 7,000 troops from 10 countries, including Canada, Indonesia, and the U.S., are taking part in a series of military exercises across Indonesia over the next two weeks.

Canada has cast the latest stone in an escalating trade tussle with China, matching the U.S.’s 100 per cent levy on Chinese-made electric vehicles (EVs) and its 25 per cent surtax on steel and aluminum. Both measures will come into effect in October.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Foreign Minister Wang Yi are also racing along the diplomatic circuit, with Xi this week playing host to Vietnamese Communist Party chief To Lam.

For many, August is a sleepy stretch of tranquility and ease, where work wanes and the days melt away.

On Wednesday, August 7, Thailand’s Constitutional Court ordered the dissolution of the Move Forward Party (MFP), ruling that its campaign pledge to amend the lese-majeste law violated the Constitution. That law makes it an offence, punishable by up to 15 years in prison, to criticize the country’s monarchy.

Political developments in Bangladesh are unfolding at a pace and in a manner that, until recently, would have been unthinkable. They began in early July when students organized a series of protests to oppose a job quota system they said was based on political favouritism. In the weeks that followed, the protests grew in such scope and intensity that by Monday, August 5, they had claimed at least 300 lives and prompted the resignation of Sheikh Hasina, a prime minister who once seemed indomitable.

Indonesia is considering ways to scale back China’s role in the country’s nickel production by limiting Chinese companies to minority shareholder status.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is on a whistle-stop tour of the Indo-Pacific, crisscrossing the region to reassure allies that the U.S., despite distraction at home, remains committed to Asia.

Blinken’s burst of diplomacy will take him to Laos, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, Mongolia, and Vietnam. Blinken’s 10-day trip from July 25 to August 3 is his longest-ever to Asia.

Foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meet this week in Vientiane, Laos, to discuss issues confronting the 10-member bloc, including ongoing regional economic integration and the digital and green economies.

Laos, as chair, has designated “connectivity and resilience” as the theme of this year’s ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meetings. Representatives from ASEAN ‘dialogue partner’ countries — including Canada, China, India, Russia, and the U.S. — will attend the bloc’s post-ministerial conferences.
 

Last weekend, an otherwise languid summer lull, kicked off with a massive global tech outage and was capped by U.S. President Joe Biden’s bombshell decision not to seek re-election. Squeezed in between these frantic developments was a decidedly discreet trip to Beijing by Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly, who met with her Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi.

At least 25 people were killed this week in Bangladesh following violent clashes between student protesters and groups loyal to the government. Hundreds more were injured. 

China’s third plenum, a plenary session of around 360 high-ranking Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members focusing, this year, on the economy, concludes today following four days of behind-closed-doors discussions.

The meeting comes as Beijing sifts through a mixed bag of economic indicators.

A smaller ‘summit for two’ in Manila this week produced a crucial agreement for Indo-Pacific security, especially in the South China Sea.