The White House wants North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to commit to a timetable to surrender his country’s nuclear arsenal when he meets United States (US) President Donald Trump next week in Singapore, a high-stakes summit that could last as long as two days – or just minutes.Trump has been advised not to offer Kim any concessions, as the White House seeks to put the onus on the North Koreans to make the summit a success, one US official said.

United States (US) Secretary of Defense James Mattis said the world would have to deal with China’s militarisation of the South China Sea for now, but that Beijing would face “larger consequences” in the long term that could persuade it to change track.Beijing’s deployments of missile batteries and bombers to outposts in disputed areas appear aimed at intimidating neighbours, Mattis told delegates on Saturday at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) Shangri-La Dialogue in S

United States (US) Defense Secretary James Mattis described India as the “fulcrum’’ of security in the Indo-Pacific region as he traveled this week to an annual security conference in Singapore, attended for the first time by an Indian leader.But if Mattis was hoping that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would use the platform to join the US, Japan and Australia - a grouping known as the Quad - in a more muscular challenge to China’s regional expansion, he was disappointed.

The on-again, off-again summit between United States (US) President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un now appears increasingly likely to take place but it’s not yet clear what kind of agreement, if any, the two leaders will be able to reach.North Korea has ruled out the so-called “Libya model” where it loads its nuclear program onto planes bound for the US right away, with Kim saying Thursday the issue should be “solved on a stage-by-stage basis.” Trump insists that the end goa

The once irrefutable fact that North Korea is closed from others across the globe is now a thing of the past. Akin to a persona non grata before, the country is now slowly turning heads and is aiming to be accepted by the international community.

The US and China’s on-again, off-again trade dispute is casting a shadow over Asia-Pacific nations’ efforts to further open up global trade, a senior Australian government official said.Delegates at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Port Moresby this weekend pledged to keep pursuing a free and fair international trading regime, in the face of rising protectionist sentiment.

United States (US) President Donald Trump pivoted from his abrupt cancellation of a planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, saying it may still happen on the originally scheduled 12 June date.Trump told reporters on his way to board the presidential helicopter that US officials are in talks with North Korea after the country’s “very nice statement” on Friday.“We are talking to them now,” Trump said Friday, adding that the summit with Kim may proceed and “it could even be the 12th

United States (US) President Donald Trump’s shifting positions on economic negotiations with China are confusing investors and once again raising the prospect of a trade war between the world’s two largest economies.Trump on Wednesday backed away from a framework just three days after it was announced as members of Congress and trade hawks close to his administration criticized him for going too soft on China.“Our trade deal with China is moving along nicely, but in the end we will probably h

The world’s leading democracy, the United States (US), is looking increasingly like the world’s biggest and oldest surviving autocracy, China.

Stocks in major markets across the globe surged on Monday morning after United States (US) secretary of the treasury Steven Mnuchin told the international media that a potential US and China trade war was “on hold”. In New York, the Dow Jones was up more than 300 points while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq index were also making gains.