In Asian media this week: Writer warns of US-China collusion “nightmare”. Plus: Trump asks Muslim bloc to back Gaza peace plan; Big US visa fee another blow to Modi; Cambodia’s decline under “dictator” Hun Manet; Progressive, conservative clash in Japan’s leadership race.

Pollution corroding India’s symbol of independence

Two recent events point to the start of a thaw in US-China relations.

First was Donald Trump’s telephone call to Xi Jinping last week, during which the two agreed to do a deal on US ownership of TikTok and agreed to meet at the APEC summit in South Korea late in October.

And this week, a bipartisan group of American lawmakers, led by senior Democrat Adam Smith, visited China. It was the first Congressional delegation to visit China in six years.

Wang Yi, China’s Foreign Minister, described the trip as an ice-breaking journey, Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post reported.

But Wang went further. He said: “China and the United States are partners, rather than rivals, and certainly not enemies.”

It will take a long while to see how, or if, the partnership develops. But three news outlets this week published analytical articles on the nature of the US-China relationship.

An op-ed in SCMP, written by academic Wenran Jiang, said the emerging reality was that the two countries were being pushed towards accommodation rather than escalation.

Both economies remained deeply intertwined, Jiang said. The economic reality created a managed rivalry, he wrote.

The sheer economic and military weight of China and the US had cemented a de facto bipolar structure. Secondary powers, including the EU, India and Russia, were relegated to strategic alignment rather than independent leadership.

The notion of a bipolar world is developed in an analysis in Nikkei Asia, the politics and business news magazine. The writer, Washington Bureau chief Masahiro Okoshi, said Trump preferred “might is right” to the rule of law – a worldview similar to the 19th century concept of spheres of influence.

He pointed out that Trump said last month the US was getting along with China very well, even though Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. was sitting next to him.

“The world may now need to prepare not for a US-China rivalry but for the chaos of US-China collusion,” he said. “It is a nightmare scenario in which the strong forcibly silence the weak around the world.”

A commentator writing in The Indian Express newspaper sees a different, and disturbing, kind of alignment. Sanjaya Baru, a former editor of The Financial Express, said the old Washington Consensus — involving privatisation, fiscal discipline and free trade — had been buried in Trump’s first term.

In his second term, Baru wrote, he has cremated the liberal democratic ideals at the heart of Francis Fukuyama’s notion of the “end of history”.

Now, Western liberalism was giving way to fascism and authoritarianism. What China did blatantly, New Delhi, Washington and other democracies were doing surreptitiously.

“We are all marching towards a ‘new Beijing Consensus’,” Baru said.

Trump wants Muslim bloc to provide peacekeepers for Gaza

Donald Trump, is his UN speech this week, denounced the wave of recognition for a Palestinian state but then convened a meeting with leaders of Muslim-majority nations to present Washington’s plan for ending the Gaza war.

Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper said Trump told the meeting: “We have to get the hostages back…This is the group that can do it…

“This is the [meeting] that’s very important because we’re gonna end something that should’ve probably never started.”

Present at the meeting were the leaders of Pakistan, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Egypt, Jordan and Turkiye.

Dawn cited US and Israeli media sources to report that the plan included: the immediate release of all hostages; phased Israeli withdrawal from Gaza; no future role for Hamas; deployment of Arab and other Muslim-country peacekeepers; internationally supported reconstruction and transition programs.

The details had been put to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but Israel did not draft the plan, the paper said.

The Daily Times, another Pakistan newspaper, reported a similar plan but attributed it to the White House. It said Trump wanted Arab and other Muslim nations to provide funding for rebuilding.

Dawn quoted US Secretary of State Marco Rubio as saying the only way to get a permanent solution to the struggle between Israelis and Palestinians was through a negotiated settlement.

“One in which the Palestinians are going to have a territory and they’re going to govern it but it cannot be one that’s going to be used as a launchpad for attacks against Israel,” he said.

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto offered to send 20,000, or more troops to Gaza as peacekeepers, The Jakarta Post said.

Prabowo made the offer during his speech to the UN, before the meeting with Trump. He said the US and Arab states had been talking about a Gaza peace plan for months, but to little avail.

“We believe in the UN,” Prabowo said. “We will continue to serve where peace needs guardians – and not just with words but with boots on the ground.”

Big jump in skilled-worker visa fee ‘targets Indians’

Donald Trump has dealt Narendra Modi another blow, imposing a huge increase in the cost of new US visas for highly skilled workers. The visas, designated H-1B, allow 85,000 skilled workers to enter the US each year. India accounts for more than 70% of them.

An editorial in The Indian Express newspaper said India-US relations had seemed to be thawing but the new visa fee, set at US$100,000 (more than A$150,000) was a setback. The fee effectively targeted Indians, the editorial said.

“It’s clear that labour mobility and services are the latest targets of America’s protectionist policies,” the paper said. “Both ends of the employment spectrum are now under pressure – tariffs on goods have a bearing on low- and semi-skilled jobs, while the visa fee will impact high-skilled IT jobs.”

The announcement of the fee increase initially caused chaos, as it was thought to apply to all workers under the H-1B program. The Hindu newspaper reported companies and immigration attorneys were advising H-1B visa holders not to travel outside the US. Many companies asked employees to return immediately, to avoid being stranded when the new fee took effect.

But the White House later said it was a one-time payment for new visa applicants.

A Bloomberg commentary in Singapore’s The Straits Times said the new rule had the appearance of an economic sanction – an escalation of the punishment Trump had meted out to its staunch ally in recent months.

Trump had added services to a trade war that Modi did not see coming.

The latest punishment is taking place against a backdrop of high youth unemployment and unrest in neighbouring countries like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal.

“It’s a tricky time for Washington to repel New Delhi from its geopolitical orbit, and to take away opportunities from the world’s biggest cohort of youth,” the commentary said.

An editorial in The Korea Times said the visas had long served as a critical pathway for US companies, including such tech giants as Amazon, Google and Microsoft, to recruit highly skilled workers from around the world.

“The measure is widely seen as part of a broader resurgence of ‘America First’ isolationism,” the paper said.

The son has the title, but the father is still in charge

Hun Manet, the Western-educated son of strongman Hun Sen, has been Cambodia’s Prime Minister for more than two years – time enough to judge his performance.

Sue Coffey and Gordon Conochie, two authors with a special interest in Cambodia, give their assessment: Hun Manet continues his father’s role as effective dictator.

“Hun Manet’s two years in power have witnessed a decline in any semblance of a government functioning in the interests of its people,” they write in an essay published by The Diplomat, the Asian online news magazine. “Cambodia fails dismally in terms of corruption, rule of law, and alleviation of poverty.”

Cambodia was one of four Southeast Asian nations on the UN’s 2024 list of least-developed countries. It ranked 158 out of 180 countries on Transparency International’s 2024 Perceptions of Corruption Index and 141 out of 142 countries on the World Justice Project’s 2024 Rule of Law Index. These positions had been largely unchanged for many years, Coffey and Conochie say.

“Under Hun Manet’s rule, political repression and incarcerations have increased, with dozens of political opponents now behind bars and more being arrested each month,” they write.

“The government harasses and arrests labour unionists, environmentalists, and land activists.”

At the forefront of Hun Manet’s failure is the huge — and growing — issue of international cybercrime, with its human trafficking and forced labour.

Reports by Amnesty International and Jacob Sims, an expert on cyber scams, had exposed the extent of this state-abetted crime. (Sims was forced to leave the country).

The cybercrime economy was estimated to generate between US$12 billion (A$18 billion) and $19 billion (A$28 billion) a year, about half Cambodia’s GDP. The country has at least 350 scam centres with 150,000 (or more) foreign workers.

“While other countries in the region have shown increasing determination to crack down on the scam industry, Cambodia’s efforts have been cosmetic,” Coffey and Conochie write.

“Thailand’s clear determination to combat cybercrime is thought to have contributed to the recent border dispute.

“The period of the border dispute highlighted the extent to which Hun Sen still runs the show: it was he who engaged with the Thai prime minister and led the Cambodian response to the conflict.

“The father still dominates both Hun Manet and Cambodia.”

PM candidates push anti-foreigner messages

Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party has returned to the all-too-familiar uncertainty of a campaign for the election of a new president and likely new prime minister – the fourth leader in the past five years.

The election flows from the resignation on 7 September of Shigeru Ishiba. The party lost its majority in both houses of the Diet, the parliament, under his leadership.

The election, by lawmakers and grass-roots party members, will take place on Friday, 4 October.

The candidates are: Yoshimasa Hayashi, 64, the chief cabinet secretary; Takayuki Kobayashi, 50, a former minister; Shinjiro Koizumi, 44, a minister and a son of former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi; Toshimitsu Motegi, 69, a former party secretary-general; and Sanae Takaichi, 64, a former minister and follower of the late Shinzo Abe.

The Japan Times said the winner would face the task of rebuilding public trust, as smaller opposition parties were resonating with voters in their 30s, 40s and 50s.

The leading candidates are Koizumi and Takaichi, Nikkei Asia, the online news magazine said.

Koizumi represented the party’s liberal wing. If elected, he would become the youngest post-war prime minister, Nikkei Asia said in an explainer article. Takaichi represented the party’s right wing. If elected she would become Japan's first female prime minister.

The candidates focused on populist themes in their policy speeches this week.

They vowed to crack down on crimes committed by foreigners and tackle problems caused by a constant increase in tourist numbers, The Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported.

Takaichi devoted about half of her 15-minute speech to foreigner-related issues, the paper said. She complained about misbehaviour by foreign tourists.

Koizumi said the illegal employment of foreigners, friction with local residents and issues of public safety were causing anxiety in Japan.

In a separate story, the paper reported on its own polling, showing Takaichi was the preferred candidate among the public, with 28% support compared with Koizumi’s 24%.

But Koizumi had a 41% to 24% lead over Takaichi among party supporters.

Nikkei Asia said in its explainer that no candidate could be expected to win a majority in the election, leading to a run-off between the two top contenders.

In a run-off election, the lawmakers’ votes would carry more weight.

The Red Fort – architectural crisis and public health alert

The Red Fort is a key symbol of India’s independence. Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, raised the new tricolour flag at the fort at dawn on 15 August 1947, Independence Day. Since then, every prime minister has raised the flag there on 15 August and delivered an address to the nation.

The fort, in Old Delhi, was built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in the mid-1600s, when he moved the capital from Agra to Delhi.

But an article in The Statesman newspaper says the fort, which it calls the ceremonial heart of independent India, is silently darkening, as air thick with soot and chemical particles settles on its ramparts and creates a thin, black crust.

A covering that began as a faint stain, the story says, is now eating into the carvings and arches of the massive fortress, a building that has witnessed India’s journey from empire to republic.

“This is more than a matter of appearance,” the story says. “The fine particulate matter than discolours the walls is a proven threat to human health.

“Delhi’s residents breathe the same air that is corroding the fort. The black crust is, quite literally, history’s warning etched in stone. Protecting the Red Fort and protecting Delhi’ites are, in truth, the same fight.

“Each winter, Delhi gasps and debates, then returns to business as usual when the skies clear. But the fort does not forget. Its darkening stones record every missed deadline and every policy delay.

“The fort’s slow darkening is a public health alert disguised as an architectural crisis.”

 

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.