The legal fiction behind America’s trade attack, Asia is the main victim of global energy crisis, Pakistan’s ‘indirect talks’ diplomacy, K-pop company’s sagging share-price, Takaichi survives Trump summit, and Cambodia’s push to restore ancient heritage.

Asian nations are resisting Donald Trump’s latest assault in his tariff war – investigations into 16 countries for supposedly exploiting excess manufacturing capacity and into 60 countries for allegedly using forced labour.

China, Japan and the European Union are on both lists of countries. The list of economies being investigated for excess manufacturing capacity includes Bangladesh, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand. The list of those allegedly using forced labour includes Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

A Bloomberg.com analysis, written by columnist Mihir Sharma, an Indian economist, said the investigations were seen as a way for the Trump administration to reimpose tariffs after the US Supreme Court struck down the so-called Liberation Day tariffs.

“The list of countries is a bit of a giveaway that this entire process is a legal fiction,” Sharma wrote. “Picture an army of worthy [US Trade Representative] officials solemnly poring over Bangladesh’s structural overcapacity in manufacturing…Then imagine them turning with equal care to cataloguing the forced-labour practices of Norway.”

An article in The Hindu newspaper, written by New Delhi lawyer R.V. Anuradha, said the administration announced new tariffs on 24 February, immediately after the Supreme Court ruling, But under US law they had a shelf-life of 150 days.

Section 301 of the US Trade Act allowed the administration to impose tariffs when other countries’ trade practices were found to be unjustifiable under international trade rules.

“A clear anomaly in Section 301 is that it provides the US the right to unilateral determination of what is governed by rules of international trade,” Anuradha said. “To state the obvious, one cannot be the judge of one’s own cause.”

An opinion piece in South China Morning Post, by trade policy expert David Dodwell, said the investigations were being carried out with indecent haste. Section 301 investigations could take up to several years but in this case the written comment period for excess capacity probes ran from 17 March until 15 April, with hearings scheduled for early May. The aim was to implement the new tariffs before 24 July, when the temporary tariffs expired.

“Many believe these new tariffs are all about China,” Dodwell said.

China Daily, an official Beijing newspaper, said the forced-labour accusation was completely fabricated.

The investigations were set to heighten tariff risks for developing countries, Malaysia’s The Star said. It quoted trade expert Abhijit Das as calling the US moves bullying tactics.

And Thailand’s The Nation said the Thai government was officially challenging the “excess capacity” investigation. The core of its argument was that the trade surplus was the US was primarily generated by US multinationals that used the country as a manufacturing hub.

War winning Trump no friends in Asia

The notion that the Iran war is weighing heavily on America’s already-declining popularity in Asia ought to be an uncontroversial statement of fact.

This is view of Bhavan Jaipragas, a senior columnist with Singapore’s The Straits Times.

He is backed up by Anthony Rowley, a veteran financial commentator who writes for Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post. Donald Trump, he says, has won no friends with his rash and widely condemned assault on Iran.

And economics writer Vikram Khanna, in a Straits Times commentary, says Asia is not a bystander looking on at the international crisis caused by the war – it is the main victim.

Bhavan Jaipragas says in his column a survey released last week of people in Malaysia and Singapore pointed to the depth of America’s unpopularity. More than 70 per cent of people in both countries explicitly disapproved of the attacks on Iran , while only 10 per cent attributed blame to Tehran.

American favourability sits at a dismal 33 per cent in Singapore and 35 per cent in Malaysia, while China’s approval rating is 67 per cent and 74 per cent respectively.

Antipathy has been building since Trump returned to office, Jaipragas says, fuelled by his tariffs and other factors, including the impudence of his administration.

He says the release next month of an annual state of Southeast Asia survey will, in all likelihood, point in the same direction.

Anthony Rowley says in his SCMP column US relations with China and Japan have been thrown into question by the war and by Trump’s call to them (and western countries) to help in cleaning up the energy supply mess he and Benjamin Netanyahu created.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made it clear her government was reluctant to send naval ships to the Straits of Hormuz and Chinese leaders can now see a fissure in the Japan-US alliance, he says.

Economics commentator Vikram Khanna says Asia buys most of the Persian Gulf’s oil and gas. He says the damage caused to energy infrastructure in Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain is not causing a short-term disruption to supply: it is a structural shock that will reshape energy markets, raise costs and force a rethink of energy strategy.

About 80 per cent of the oil and oil products that normally flow through the Strait of Hormuz is destined for Asian markets, Khanna says. So is about 90 per cent of the LNG.

“This is not just a Middle Eastern crisis that happens to inconvenience Asia,” he says. “It is also an Asian energy crisis.”

Islamabad ready to host ‘meaningful’ US-Iran talks

Are talks continuing between the US and Iran to end the devastating war in the Middle East? According to Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Muhammad Ishaq Dar, indirect talks are taking place – through messages relayed by Pakistan.

He said in a post on X that “brotherly countries” of Turkiye and Egypt were supporting the initiative, Dawn newspaper reported. Dawn said Dar tagged in the post US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.

In a separate story, Dawn said Pakistan, Egypt and Turkiye were engaged in a co-ordinated diplomatic push for de-escalation in the fighting. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had said he stood ready to host “meaningful and conclusive” talks between the US and Iran and had pitched Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad as a potential venue.

The Indian Express newspaper said in an explainer that Pakistan had a history of trying to broker peace. It played a significant role in bringing together Richard Nixon and Mao Zedong in the early 70s, mediated between Iran and Saudi Arabia earlier this century and was instrumental in getting the Taliban and Washington to talks in Doha (leading to the tragically chaotic US withdrawal from Pakistan).

It said Shehbaz and Pakistan’s powerful army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, had been “ingratiating themselves” with Trump since April last year and Pakistan was well-positioned to mediate between the US and Iran.

But a commentary in Dawn cautioned that backchannel efforts should not be viewed as formal talks. Senior columnist Zahid Hussain wrote: “There cannot be any meaningful talks under the shadow of war.”

Despite the crucial global importance of talks possibly being brokered between the US and Iran, the media cannot resist pushing regional rivalries. Pakistan’s outreach to Washington and Tehran was a strategic setback for New Delhi, public policy analyst Durdana Najam wrote in The Express Tribune.

When the region needed diplomatic initiative India failed to live up to its narrative as an indispensable power in West Asia. “Instead, it was Pakistan… that found itself in the room where it matters,” she said.

BTS investor sentiment sours despite record sales

BTS, the K-pop phenomenon, staged their comeback last weekend after a military-service hiatus of almost four years – but to mixed reviews. Their new album, Arirang, broke records, selling almost four million copies within 24 hours. And their concert topped Netflix views for non-English shows. The audience at their concert, however, was much smaller than predicted.

Shares in HYBE, the entertainment agency behind BTS, fell almost 16 per cent on Monday, a decline steeper than peer companies (they all faced headwinds from the war on Iran).

The new BTS album topped album sales in 88 countries or regions, The Korea Herald said. The album’s lead single, Swim, reached number one in iTunes charts in 90 markets, including the US, Japan, Britain, Germany and France, the story said.

But The Korea Times said investor sentiment soured after attendance at the concert, at Seoul’s historic Gwanghwamun Plaza, failed to match predictions. Police had expected up to 260,000 people but actual attendance came in at 46,000 to 48,000 fans.

“Market analysts noted that BTS comeback expectations had already been priced into the stock since early this year and dissipated upon the album’s release,” the story said.

Nikkei Asia, the politics and business website, said the concert drew 18.4 million Netflix viewers globally, topping the weekly charts in 24 countries and hitting the top 10 in 80 countries. But the number of viewers was far behind American football games and a celebrity boxing match between Mike Tyson and social media star Jake Paul.

A commentary in The Diplomat, the online Asian news magazine, said BTS was one of the most commercially significant acts in the history of the Korean Wave, or hallyu, shorthand for South Korea’s cultural export industry. Korean media had forecast that BTS’s return would provide more than US$810 million (about A$1,165 million) in economic benefits.

But they had to be weighed against the costs and the public was not so easily convinced of the gains. Gwanghwamun was not a concert venue but rather it was the administrative heart of Seoul. It had been shut down for a week.

The article said: “A widely shared comment on a Korean online community jokingly compared the lockdown to the December 2024 declaration of martial law, which, the commenter noted, had lasted only a few hours.”

Tokyo fears Trump ‘G2’ deal with Xi

Japanese leader Sanae Takaichi had been praised for the way she handled Donald Trump in their recent White House summit, said a commentary in The Japan Times. The writer could have been talking about his own newspaper, which said in an editorial: “Once again, a Japanese prime minister has shown the world the durability of the Japan-US partnership.”

But the commentary said challenges remained for Takaichi – improving relations with China and convincing Trump not to make a deal with Beijing that would leave Tokyo in the lurch.

The summit had been planned before Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu launched their war against Iran – and before Trump postponed until May his planned Beijing summit with Xi Jinping.

“The Takaichi administration had earlier hoped her meeting with offer a chance to bend Trump’s ear before the Xi summit, with the prime minister aiming to press him on the importance of the US-Japan alliance and a need to push back against China’s coercive measures,” the article said… “[S]he did manage to secure what appeared to be an endorsement of her approach to the Sino-Japanese relationship.”

But Tokyo was worried that Trump’s desire for a deal with China could lead to a “G2” grouping that could be interpreted as Washington and Beijing dividing the Pacific into eastern and western spheres of influence, it said.

The paper’s editorial said a key objective of the summit was to ensure there was no daylight between Tokyo and Washington when dealing with China. Trump had dampened the concern by saying he would take up the issue with Beijing and he would be “speaking Japan’s praises”.

Global Times, an official Beijing newspaper, said in an editorial a Japanese investment package worth US$73 billion (more than A$100 billion) had drawn the most attention during Takaichi’s Washington visit. This took to more than US$100 billion (A$144 billion) the value of Japanese investment commitments.

“[I]t looks like ‘protection money’ paid by Takaichi to Washington,” the editorial said.

But attention on Chinese social media was drawn to a photo, released by the White House, of Takaichi dancing at an official function. A South China Morning Post story said the photo captured her in a moment of unbridled exuberance during a welcome reception.

The photo had ignited a wave of mockery across Chinese social media, the story said. Commenters had called her Washington’s biggest cheerleader.

Historic statue restored from 10,000 fragments

In a prolonged, painstaking operation, Cambodia has restored an ancient five-metre, seven-tonne Shiva statue that had been shattered into more than 10,000 pieces.

The statue, a representation of Shiva called Shiva Nataraja (Lord of the Dance, or the Dancing Shiva) is about 1,000 years old. It originally stood in the Red Temple of Koh Ker in northern Cambodia, capital of the Angkor empire from 928 to 944. It was destroyed by looters during the turmoil and civil war that beset Cambodia from the 1960s.

According to the Khmer Times, it is considered to be the largest Shiva Nataraja statue in Southeast Asia.

The statue, carved from a single piece of stone, depicts a 10-armed dancing Shiva with five heads – a unique design.

A report in ucanews.com, the Catholic Asian news site, said the statue’s significance extended beyond Cambodia. “Nothing like it has ever been found in Southeast Asia’s Indian and Indianised kingdoms – from Vietnam to Cambodia, Thailand and Indonesia,” the story said. “There are many representations of Shiva in dance, sometimes with 10 arms, sometimes with five heads, but never with both.”

Work on the restoration began in 2012, with research and documentation. The physical restoration started in 2020.

The reconstruction marked a major step in Cambodia’s push to restore its ancient Khmer heritage, the story said. It quoted Culture and Fine Arts Minister Phoeurng Sackona as saying it brought back not only the statue’s physical form but also its spiritual and cultural significance.

The statue will be returned to its original home in what is now the Koh Ker UNESCO World Heritage site.

Dougald O’Reilly, professor of archeology at the Australian National University, said the restoration was an astonishing accomplishment and a great example of international heritage conservation.