In Asian media this week: Nations “must adapt” to new power politics. Plus: Raid “will hurt” South Korea’s US investments; Trump’s strategic shift towards Pakistan; What’s next after Nepal’s 8 September massacre; Thailand gets its first minority government; Why India has the world’s biggest diaspora.

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto attended China’s massive military parade on 3 September, marking Japan’s formal surrender in 1945, the end of World War II. An analytical article in The Jakarta Post said his presence, however, should not be interpreted as alignment with China but as pragmatic recognition that diplomacy requires keeping open channels with all major powers.

An op-ed, written by Malaysian academic Peter T.C. Chang and published in Hong Kong’s _South China Morning Pos_t, said the attendance of Southeast Asian leaders, including Prabowo and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, underscored their shared historical memory of Japan’s brutal invasion and occupation of their countries.

The Japan Times said in an editorial only seven of the 25 countries whose leaders attended were regarded as free or partly free. But it noted the presence of Prabowo and Anwar and said Japan was represented by a former prime minister, Cambodia by its king, and South Korea by the speaker of the National Assembly.

“We must be alert to China’s efforts to rewrite the global order, acknowledge the legitimacy of some of its complaints and be attuned to their resonance among other nations,” the editorial said. “This is not time for complacency, but neither is it reason to be alarmed.”

The tone and depth of the Asian commentary are in contrast to much of the reporting in Australia’s media, which concentrated on the participation of former Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews. The Jakarta Post and SCMP ran a different version of the official attendees’ photograph, cropping it more tightly than the one printed so often in Australia. It shows, close up, China’s Xi Jinping, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and Prabowo. It presents a different picture of the occasion.

The Jakarta Post analysis, written by Surya Wiranto, a retired rear admiral and now adjunct professor of maritime affairs at the Indonesia Defence University, delves deeply into the geopolitical implications of the power China displayed through its parade, the biggest in Chinese history.

The presence of Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un highlighted an emerging Eurasian axis intent on reshaping the global order, Surya said. The question for Indonesia and the rest of Southeast Asia was how should they respond to the shifting geopolitical landscape?

China’s transformation was a statement that the era of uncontested US dominance was over, he said.

“The Victory Day Parade was not only a spectacle of Chinese strength but also a reminder that power politics remains the currency of international relations,” he said.

“Nations unable to adapt risk marginalisation.”

Korean workers chained and detained for using wrong visas

The arrest of 475 workers at a South Korean factory construction site in the US late last week was called an ICE raid. But that was an understatement. Some 500 officers from five government agencies shackled and detained the workers in the Trump administration’s biggest single-site immigration raid.

About 300 South Koreans were among these detained.

Their crime was to be working on the wrong visas.

The raid took place at a Hyundai-LG joint venture battery factory site in Georgia. The Korea Herald reported the companies agreed in 2023 to set up the North American operation and would invest US$4.3 billion (A$6.47 billion) in a facility able to produce enough battery cells each year to power about 300,000 electric vehicles.

The paper said most workers were on business or short-term-stay visas, not the correct working visas. But the right visas can take months to obtain and their numbers are capped, while many companies need to send workers to the US frequently or on short notice, it said.

The raid and treatment of the workers provoked anger in South Korea, not least from President Lee Jae-myung, who met Donald Trump at the White House less than three weeks ago.

Lee said the raid would have considerable impact on Korean investment in the US. the Herald reported in a separate story. South Korean companies doing business in the US must be baffled, he said.

The paper also said Seoul had raised the visa issue with US authorities 52 times since the Trump administration took office.

The Korea Times said in an editorial the raid was unprecedented in scale and landed “ with a thudding shock”.

A Herald editorial said it was shocking that the raid and detention could happen between allies. The raid had been preceded by a long internal investigation, the editorial said, and the US could have given a warning or demanded corrective action but it did not.

“It is questionable whether the alliance relationship was even considered,” the paper said.

The workers were due to arrive in Seoul on Friday.

US recalibrates its approach to South Asia

Six weeks ago, when Donald Trump lashed out at India for buying Russian oil, he also talked of the value of America’s links with Pakistan.

It seems there was more to his statements than an attempt to annoy Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. According to Uzair Younus, a Pakistani political observer, US strategy in South Asia is shifting as it rethinks the approach of seeing India as central to security in the Indo-Pacific region while limiting its relationship with Pakistan.

Younus, who hosts a podcast called Pakistonomy, calls it a recalibration.

“The Trump administration seems to have concluded that Pakistan offers things that are important to the United States, especially as it relates to the country’s role in West Asia and the Middle East,” Younus says in an opinion piece in The Diplomat, the Asian online news magazine.

“Furthermore, Pakistan is home to some of the world’s largest undeveloped copper and gold reserves… Washington does not want a Chinese flag flying over Pakistan’s critical minerals assets.”

Younus, who is also a principal of the Asia Group, an industrial conglomerate, says Washington is now waking up to the reality that China is a peer competitor, with economic and technological strengths rivalling, and in some areas surpassing, those of the US.

But the two economies are deeply interconnected in ways that cannot be unwound quickly, meaning that Beijing and Washington must find ways to co-exist. This, in turn, reduces India's relative salience as a partner to offset US dependency on China.

“Many have argued that the ongoing shift is simply a function of Trump’s own unique personality,” he says. “While this may be true to some extent, much of the change in strategy in informed by a reassessment of the US’ global geostrategy and the way in which competition with China is being approached.”

Footnote: The US and Pakistan signed a memorandum of understanding on critical minerals, TRT Global, a news site in Turkiye, reported this week. It quoted Natalie Baker, the US Charge d’Affaires in Pakistan, as saying the Trump administration placed a high priority on such deals, given the importance of critical mineral resources to US security and prosperity.

Gen Z protesters look to chief justice as new PM

With Nepal’s former prime minister K.P. Sharma Oli forced to quit this week after anti-government protests erupted across the country, the youthful protesters are negotiating with the army to find a new leader.

Thousands of young people, who style themselves as Gen Z, held online discussions about the possible leadership, the Nepali Times news site reported. They voted to endorse Chief Justice Sushila Karki as leader of a transitional government. But army Chief of Staff Ashokraj Sigdel had also been meeting at least 12 other groups claiming to be genuine Gen Zs.

Demonstrators forced Oli to resign after he ordered the use of lethal force against the protesters. Nepali Times put the death toll at 30.

Karki, the possible new leader, was the first woman to serve as chief justice of Nepal’s Supreme Court, Nikkei Asia said. It quoted her as saying: “They told me that they believe in me. They asked me, they requested me, and I accept this.”

But the online news magazine also reported some protesters favoured Balendra Shah, the mayor of Kathmandu and a former rapper.

The Diplomat online news site said Oli stepped down after his government faced massive criticism at home and abroad for his use of extreme force against the protesters.

He became the third South Asia leader to become a casualty of mass protests in recent times, following Sri Lankan president Gotabhaya Rajapakse in 2022 and Bangladesh’s prime minister Sheikh Hasina last year.

Gen Z is often defined as those born between 1997 and 2012. The immediate trigger for the protests, The Diplomat said, was an Oli Government ban on several social media platforms, including Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.

But the youthful anger was not so simple. Their rage had its roots in frustration with the state of affairs in Nepal — widespread corruption, nepotism and misgovernance — the news site said.

It exploded in angry defiance on the streets of Kathmandu on Monday. The government responded with deadly force against unarmed demonstrators — violence that Nepali Times has labelled “Nepal’s 8 September massacre” — leading to bloody street battles.

The government lifted the social media ban but the protests continued, showing that their demands related to systemic change, The Diplomat said.

Court highlights rumble strips on road to new constitution

Minority governments are common in many countries, but not in Thailand. For the first time in its 90-year parliamentary history, Thailand has a minority government.

It is, said a report in Nikkei Asia, the online news magazine, a new chapter in Thailand's history of unstable, revolving-door governments.

The new prime minister is Anutin Charnvirakul, leader of the conservative and royalist Bhumjaithai Party, which has only 69 seats in the 500-seat parliament. He replaces Paetongtarn Shinawatra, daughter of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The Constitutional Court dismissed Paetongtarn on 29 August, for ethical breaches exposed by the leaked transcript of a phone call with Cambodian strongman Hun Sen.

Anutin did a deal with the progressive People’s Party, which voted for him as prime minister, but did not join his government. It imposed conditions on its support, including calling elections within four months and moving to write a new constitution, to replace the current document that was drafted under the last military government.

The Nikkei story quoted a diplomatic source as saying the establishment has clawed its way back to power.

Anutin has the power to call an early election, but writing a new constitution will be more difficult. Bangkok Post reported the Constitutional Court had ruled that drafting a new charter would require three referendums – one to ask the people if they wanted a new document; a second to seek public opinion on principles and methods for writing another constitution; and a third to vote on the completed document.

People’s Party leader Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut has called on the government to submit a charter amendment bill within seven days. A new constitution remained a central priority, he said.

Paetongtarn Shinawatra may have been removed as prime minister but she has pledged to continue to lead the Pheu Thai Party, The Nation website reported. Party MPs offered her their support after Thaksin had been sentenced to prison by the Supreme Court.

Thaksin had been sentenced to prison two years ago, but he served his time in a special room of the Police General Hospital. Bangkok Post said the court ruled the transfer to the hospital was illegitimate as health conditions he listed were not emergency illnesses.

It handed down a one-year sentence and he was taken to the Klong Prem Central Prison.

This is the maximum-security institution once given the nickname of the “Bangkok Hilton”.

Children of the wealthy lead India’s new migration wave

Indian people have long been migrants. An old story has it that when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon, they were greeted by a man from Kerala who ran a tea shop there.

Ravi Velloor, a senior columnist with Singapore’s The Straits Times, says the Indian diaspora now extends to 210 countries – and that it overtook the Chinese diaspora, in terms of spread and density, a decade ago. According to the UN, India has the world’s largest diaspora.

Australia once preferred migrants from Britain and Ireland, Velloor says in an essay published late last month (before Senator Jacinta Price complained about Indian migration to Australia). For 10 years from the turn of the century, China led the numbers. But lately Indians have been Australia's top immigrants.

India has had four great waves of organised migration. The first was indentured labourers under British colonial rule. The second was to the Gulf oil states, starting in the 1970s. The third came as professional middle class people — doctors and engineers — moved to developed countries.

The fourth, and current, wave consists of children of the wealthy, in many cases of the power elite.

The phenomenon has been identified by geo-economist Sanjaya Baru, writing in his book, Secession of the Successful.

“At home, they constitute a privileged class.” Velloor says. “But the future of their families is no longer tied to the future of India.”

Baru cites a Morgan Stanley report that says 23,000 Indian millionaires have left the country since 2014, the year Narendra Modi came to power.

The wave was driven by several factors but one of them was seeking shelter from excessive taxation and an intrusive tax administration.

For the most part, Velloor says, Indian migrants have contributed greatly to their newly adopted lands. They have gained a reputation as law-abiding communities with deep family values.

But he warns against letting the Hindu nationalism of India arise in their new countries. He says: “Indian migrants will thrive if they are better residents of America, Australia and Singapore.”

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