Corruption in the Philippines is not something novel as the coronavirus that is plaguing the country and the world at large. It is rather an endemic, deep-seated, and deep-rooted virus that has afflicted the country since time immemorial.

The 2014 coup d’état in Thailand was successful because the country’s military had immense power and enjoyed strong support. This power has been embedded in almost all aspects of Thai society for a long time giving the military the capability to design and change political structure at will.

Shortly after United States (US) President Donald Trump issued an executive order effectively banning the Chinese-owned social-media app TikTok, he issued a second order prohibiting “any transaction that is related to WeChat by any person … as identified by the Secretary of Commerce.” According to the White House, the WeChat ban – which will take effect on 20 September – is intended to protect Americans and visiting Chinese in the US from violations of privacy by the Chinese governme

Ong Ye Kung, Singapore’s newly-appointed Minister for Transport, wrote on his Facebook page that “air connectivity is a vital organ of our small island state. It connects Singapore to the rest of the world.

“Decoupling” is central to the geopolitical duel between the United States (US) and China. Conceived and promoted by hawks in US President Donald Trump’s administration, this strategy has now become America’s principal tool to weaken Chinese power.

On 11 August, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) signalled that it would be revising its 2020 real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) forecast for South Korea from -1.2 percent to -0.8 percent, adding to the confidence that the country is faring better economically than any other OECD member.

New research published this July in The Lancet forecasts that continued growth “through the century is no longer the most likely trajectory for the world’s population.” Rather, the global population is likely to peak in 2064 at 9.7 billion, before declining to 8.8 billion by 2100.

Years ago, I spoke to the head of a large factory in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh. She was worried that more than 100 of her workers lived in riverside slums around the building. Their homes were on land at risk of flooding, but the workers were more afraid of being expelled from them.

It seems that instead of de-escalation, the bilateral relations between the world’s two largest economies has gone from bad to worse following the recent visit of Alex Azar, the United States (US) Secretary of Health and Human Services to Taiwan; the imposition of economic sanctions on the 11 current and former Chinese officials including Hong Kong’s chief executive Carrie Lam over the imposition of a new national security law in Hong Kong; Washington’s banning of the Chinese social media app

In a move aimed at strengthening the relationship between Japan and ASEAN and promoting the digitalization of trade procedures, the Japanese government and a consortium of 20 of the country’s largest companies have announced the introduction of a digital platform to manage and integrate trade transaction information.