Asia Watch Archive

India’s election commission announced Saturday that India’s next election — the world’s largest, featuring up to 968 million registered voters — will unfold in seven phases from April 19 to June 1.

India is inking a new trade agreement with the European Free Trade Association, a grouping of four non-EU economies: Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland. Once the deal is in force, India will lift tariffs on most industrial products in exchange for about US$100 billion in investment over 15 years.

China wrapped up its annual meetings of the Chinese People’s Political and Consultative Congress and National People’s Congress, commonly known as the ‘Two Sessions,’ on Monday. On the economy, Beijing announced a target GDP growth rate of “around five per cent,” the same target set for 2023.

On Saturday, Japan’s lower house approved a draft budget for the next fiscal year valued at C$1 trillion (112 trillion yen).

This week, Australia hosted an ASEAN leaders’ summit in Melbourne on climate and clean energy, trade, and maritime security, particularly in the South China Sea.

On Tuesday, Australia announced plans to increase its fleet of warships from 11 to 26 vessels — a number not seen since the end of the Second World War — by the mid-2040s.

Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly met with Indian Minister of External Affairs S. Jaishankar at the Munich Security Conference over the weekend. Neither side issued a readout, but Joly tweeted that the “frank discussion” centred on Canada-India relations. Jaishankar said the conversation “understandably focused on the present state of our bilateral ties.”

One of the world’s most exclusive security conferences kicks off on Friday at the ritzy Hotel Bayerischer Hof in Munich. Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly will reportedly attend the 60th Munich Security Conference, as will U.S. Vice President  Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and secretaries-general from NATO and the UN.

Independent candidates aligned with jailed former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan claimed victory in the country’s February 8 elections, stunning the powerful Pakistani military, which reportedly threw its support behind another former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, and his centre-right Pakistan Muslim League Party.

China’s rocky relationship with Australia — buoyed by the October 2023 release of Chinese-born Australian journalist Cheng Lei — worsened this week following China’s issuing of a suspended death sentence to Yang Hengjun, a 57-year-old Australian writer and father of two. Yang was arrested in Guangzhou on espionage charges in 2019 and has languished in a Chinese jail ever since.

Last Friday, 70 delegations from across Europe and the Indo-Pacific flocked to Brussels for discussions on climate change, trade, and regional security at the third EU Indo-Pacific Ministerial Forum.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan in Bangkok last weekend. The pair spoke for 12 hours over two days, building on talks between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden in November 2023.  

The opening session of Canada’s foreign interference inquiry — which will examine, among other topics, alleged interference in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections by China, Russia, and “other foreign states,” including India — kicked off Monday.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has abandoned his country’s longstanding goal of reconciling with South Korea, opting instead to frame the bilateral relationship as a conflict between two independent states and designate South Korea as the North’s “principal enemy.” Three state organizations dedicated to unification will also shutter, while Pyongyang’s nine-storey ‘Arch of Reunification,’ was reportedly destroyed o

The 54th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) unfolded from January 15–19 in Davos, Switzerland. India sent 100 delegates to Davos as part of a charm offensive designed to woo investors and build on momentum from last year, when the country hosted the G20, surpassed China as the world’s most populous nation, and completed a historic mission to the Moon.  

On Saturday, Taiwanese voters shrugged off dire warnings from China and elected Lai Ching-te — the ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) candidate — as president. The 64-year-old, a seasoned politician who most recently served as the island’s vice-president under Tsai Ing-wen, won 40 per cent of the vote. Turnout was around 72 per cent, three percentage points lower than Taiwan’s 2020 presidential election.

It was a busy week on the diplomatic circuit for Mélanie Joly. Last Thursday, Joly spoke with Wang Yi, China’s Minister of Foreign Affairs. In that meeting, Joly said that Canada would work towards deepening economic and people-to-people ties with China, according to a readout from Global Affairs Canada (GAC).

On January 7, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was re-elected for a fourth consecutive five-year term. Hasina’s Awami League won 222 out of 300 parliamentary seats in a vote that the main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, alleged was a sham.

APF Canada has published a Dispatch on the main issues and potential outcomes of this weekend’s elections in Taiwan. 

With just over a month to go before Taiwan picks its next president, volatility in the polls has injected fresh uncertainty into the outcome of the January 13 election and is keeping the rest of the world on edge about its possible geopolitical ramifications.