Headlines

US, China escalate quantum race with rival investment drives

Shares of key Chinese quantum computing companies have surged about 20% over two trading days after Washington announced a US$2 billion funding package for nine US firms, as investors bet that Beijing would respond with its own push to keep pace in the global race for quantum

Asia

Australia punts on pushing China out of rare‑earths projects

It’s been a significant month for Australia’s ambitions to become a critical-minerals superpower, while balancing its relations with China and the United States. On May 18, Treasurer Jim Chalmers announced he had ordered six investors with links to China to sell off shares in

Asia

AI boom, not oil shock, driving real yields structurally higher

Ten-year US Treasury yields are hovering near 4.5% even though bond markets are showing remarkably little panic about long-term inflation. Oil prices have jumped, conflict in the Middle East has intensified and headlines scream inflation risk daily. Yet the bond market’s own

Asia

Cambodian king pardons former opposition leader

PHNOM PENH, May 25 - Cambodia's king has pardoned former opposition leader Kem Sokha for a treason conviction, just weeks after he lost an appeal to overturn that verdict, according to a royal decree released on Monday.

Asia

Why Vietnam won’t steal the show at Shangri-La Dialogue 2026

The Shangri-La Dialogue, held every year in Singapore, is one of the Indo-Pacific’s premier signaling platforms. A leader takes the keynote podium, and the room reads it for cues about where a country is heading: what partnerships it is prioritizing, what risks it is willing to

Asia

America no longer abiding by its own Taiwan Relations Act

America is arguably failing to comply with its own Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), enacted by Congress in 1979. Many know that the TRA established a framework for unofficial US relations with Taiwan after the US ended its defense treaty with the Republic of China and switched

Asia

Resource dominance reshaping Trump’s rivalry with China

The recent Trump-Xi summit in Beijing revealed how deeply commodities have become embedded in 21st-century geopolitics. Far beyond a conventional trade negotiation, the summit effectively showcased the emergence of resource diplomacy as a central organizing principle of

Asia

All non-drone militaries are now obsolete

Drone warfare has been a fascination of mine for a very long time. When I read Daphne du Maurier’s “The Birds” as a kid, I imagined what would happen if the attacking swarms were mechanical birds, controlled with artificial intelligence (AI). When I read about Japanese

Asia

Can the Pentagon beat China if it struggles with Iran?

The US-China summit ended without any discernible progress on the twin urgent security issues dividing the two superpowers: Iran and Taiwan. Some speculated that a deal was in the offing that would trade the island for Chinese pressure on Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz. That

Asia

Rubio says US will find 'another way' if Iran talks fail

WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD, May 25 - The United States will either have a good agreement with Iran or deal with the country \"another way,\" Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Monday, as Washington played down hopes for an imminent breakthrough in the three-month-old war.

Asia