In David Armstrong’s Asian media report this week: Beijing in 11-month gold-buying streak. Plus: Takaichi the most conservative leadership choice; US looks to delegate Taiwan defence; Prabowo holds massive military parade; South Korea’s Lee challenges US wartime control; China’s harsh times feed a spiritual economy.

Price rally fuels surge in SE Asia gold businesses – Asian Media Report

Indonesia is negotiating to acquire the 40-year-old, decommissioned Italian Navy aircraft carrier, Giuseppe Garibaldi. Trystanto Sanjaya and Alfin Febrian Basundoro question whether the acquisition adequately serves Indonesia’s defence and strategic priorities, and the burden placed on a small defence budget.

Why Indonesia does not need an aircraft carrier

US tariffs have prompted a surge in China's exports to Southeast Asia. Deasy Pane argues this poses a challenge to ASEAN to manage immediate shocks and build stronger collective rules and institutions to secure fairer, more sustainable trade in the long term. 

Trump’s tariffs and China’s subsidies: Southeast Asia caught between a rock and a hard place

The choice of Japan’s next prime minister could make history and determine the stability of politics for years to come, write Purnendra Jain and Keiichi Imamura. 

Japan’s ruling party leadership contest underscores political uncertainty

Amid concerns over China’s rise, European countries are turning their gaze to Asia. Former diplomat John McCarthy says regional players like Japan and Australia must work with the Europeans to ensure the new Biden Administration gives more policy weight to the region, and especially Southeast Asia. 

Europe's back

President Prabowo Subianto declared victory over street protests when he left Indonesia to attend pre-arranged meetings in China this week, but he left behind a country still prone to unrest from economic hardship and inequality, writes Yohanes Sulaiman.

Behind Indonesia’s days of unrest

Nobel Peace Prize laureate and internationally acclaimed journalist Maria Ressa delivered the 2025 Southeast Asia Oration at the University of Melbourne on 28 August. 

Nobel laureate Maria Ressa delivers the 2025 Southeast Asia Oration

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attendance at the Shanghai Cooperation Forum s likely to only embolden China to chip away at India’s sovereignty and security, writes Brahma Chellaney.

Appeasing China won’t help India counter Trump

India’s nonaligned, but pragmatic foreign policy means that it is guided not by rigid alliances but by long-term interests, writes Shashi Tharoor. But he argues New Delhi needs to clearly articulate those interests, including red lines on terrorism, sovereignty, and economic coercion, and strengthen the capacity to advance them.

Multi-alignment is India’s superpower

In David Armstrong’s Asian media report this week: India turns its attention to Japan and China. Plus: Trump wants US to own land used for bases in Korea; Despair turning young refugees to armed insurrection; Beijing pushing AI as next growth-engine; Manila ramps up its anti-China stance; The wounds that time cannot heal

Furious Modi rejects Trump’s phone calls – Asian Media Report

In October 2023, the journalist Kean Wong was arrested, and briefly detained, over a book he had edited on Malaysia’s politics. Here he reflects on the disappointed hopes of greater media freedom under a prime minister who came to office promising democratic reform.

In a sweltering Kuala Lumpur cell, media freedom became personal

In the digital and AI age, news outlets in Indonesia, as elsewhere, may never regain their glory days of wealth and resources but, by focusing on quality, they can still be a source of reliable information essential to the good functioning of democracy, writes Endy Bayuni.

Quality journalism is the only saviour for news outlets in Indonesia

In Cambodia, the press is facing a greater threat than AI-generated "slop," writes Liam Cochrane. Find out how fear and financial control are systematically dismantling independent media, leaving citizens vulnerable to propaganda and stifling a once-thriving journalistic landscape.

Cambodia’s media is more affected by funding and fear than Artificial Intelligence

This year the United Nations marked the 50th anniversary of the entry into force of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). But, as Professor Emeritus Ramesh Thakur, a renowned expert on nuclear control regimes, notes there is little to celebrate and even less to be optimistic about as the risks of nuclear war persist, especially in the Indo-Pacific. Some bold new thinking is required. 

Crisis and stability in nuclear triangle 

The world's silence on Myanmar is a direct result of the military's information war, writes Nicholas Coppel. Explore how the junta is crushing dissent by targeting journalists and how the resistance is using new technologies to shine a light on the truth.

Media weaponisation in Myanmar and the world’s relative indifference to crisis there

In a test of the resolve of Thailand's rulers, student protesters in recent weeks have been agitating for deep institutional reform, including to the powers of the monarchy. Former intelligence agency analyst Craig Keating argues the student demands highlight fundamental differences in Thai society over the role of the state and are likely to shape the direction of politics in the coming months.

Thailand’s Summer of Discontent

Thailand’s laws against defaming the monarchy are back in the spotlight amid popular demands to curtail royal privilege. But as former intelligence agency analyst Craig Keating notes, any changes to the lèse majesté system will need the intervention of the king himself.

Less than majestic: the application of Thailand’s royal defamation law

In the second of three articles on Thailand’s economic challenges, Craig Keating finds poor and declining education standards are threatening to exclude individual Thais — and the country — from Asia’s next wave of high-value jobs.

School’s out: Thailand’s education and skills crisis

At the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Thailand won global praise for the quality of its response. It has since watched a rising caseload overwhelm world-class public health defences. Craig Keating argues that government complacency left the country unprepared for the influx of new, highly-transmissible, virus strains.

Thailand's COVID crisis

Thailand was once a regional favourite for foreign investors – a status that has come under increasing challenge in recent years. As former intelligence agency analyst Craig Keating finds, a protracted legal saga over a failed Bangkok construction project offers some pointers as to why investors have been losing faith.

Thailand: lost in litigation

Thailand has made remarkable progress in reducing poverty over the past 50 years by attracting foreign investment and lifting productivity. But in the first of a series of three articles, Craig Keating examines how policy failures have contributed to the stalling of economic progress and the challenges that poses for an ageing society.

Thailand risks growing old and poor

In the final of a three-part series on the Thai economy, Craig Keating investigates the country’s inefficient agriculture sector and finds urgent reforms have stalled because of quick fixes like rice price subsidies.

Thailand’s agricultural policies: a hand out, not a hand up

Shigeru Ishiba has so far defied the odds to cling on as Japan’s Prime Minister. But amid many domestic and international challenges the threat of the revolving-door prime ministership is ever present, write Purnendra Jain and Keiichi Imamura.

Japan’s Ishiba living dangerously 

A dangerous assumption has long been made, perhaps innocently, in Canberra’s formulation of China policy that sufficient Australia literacy is in place in China to avoid disastrous misunderstanding and miscalculation, writes Diane Hu. 

Asialink Insights

Price rally fuels surge in SE Asia gold businesses – Asian Media Report

Why Indonesia does not need an aircraft carrier

Trump’s tariffs and China’s subsidies: Southeast Asia caught between a rock and a hard place

Japan’s ruling party leadership contest underscores political uncertainty

Price rally fuels surge in SE Asia gold businesses – Asian Media Report

Why Indonesia does not need an aircraft carrier

Trump’s tariffs and China’s subsidies: Southeast Asia caught between a rock and a hard place

Japan’s ruling party leadership contest underscores political uncertainty