Japan’s central bank did nothing on 31 July, and that was the whole story. The Bank of Japan left its policy rate at 1% — the highest since 1995 — while the yen sat at a four-decade low against the dollar and the finance ministry appeared to be buying the currency to slow its slide.…

ASEAN Sets Its Sights on Antitrust: The 2026–2030 Competition Roadmap Amid the headline trade and geopolitical announcements from the 48th ASEAN Summit, a quieter initiative emerged that could matter more over time: a new Roadmap on Competition and Consumer Protection covering 2026 to 2030, aimed at building real cross-border coordination among the bloc’s ten national…

Indonesia’s Disinformation Bill Tests the Line Between Sovereignty and Speech Indonesia is advancing legislation aimed at countering what officials call foreign-driven disinformation, joining a growing list of Southeast Asian jurisdictions tightening legal control over online content, with implications that go well past domestic politics. The bill, which has moved through the legislative process in 2026,…

Japan Draws the Line on Taiwan — and Pulls the Philippines Closer A diplomatic rupture between Japan and China that started with an off-the-cuff remark last November has, by mid-2026, settled into a steady pattern of maritime pressure and defence realignment across Northeast and Southeast Asia. The friction goes back to comments by Japanese Prime…

Washington Cuts India’s Tariff to 10% — Reshuffling Asia’s Export Pecking Order A fast-moving sequence of US trade rulings has left India’s tariff position with Washington genuinely unsettled, with real consequences for how global buyers split sourcing across Asia’s competing manufacturing hubs. Under a US-India interim trade agreement announced in February 2026, India’s reciprocal tariff…

ASEAN’s Canada Pivot: Inside the Push to Conclude ACAFTA ASEAN is edging closer to a trade deal that would give the bloc its first comprehensive free trade agreement with a G7 economy outside its existing Asia-Pacific network. At the 48th ASEAN Summit, held in Cebu, the Philippines, in May 2026 under the chairmanship theme “Navigating…

Singapore’s Retrenchment Benefit Gap Exposed: Denso Ruling Strikes Out 19-Year Worker’s Claim A Singapore High Court ruling handed down in May 2026 has laid bare a gap between the tripartite labour norms Singapore promotes as central to its employment model and the narrower set of rights that are actually enforceable in the civil courts. That…

Malaysia’s Carbon Tax Arrives — A Test Case for ASEAN Pricing Malaysia is about to become one of the first Southeast Asian economies with a domestic carbon tax, a move the rest of ASEAN will be watching closely as the region works out how to respond to the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). The…

Hong Kong’s First Regulated Stablecoins Go Live Hong Kong is on track for its first regulated, fiat-backed stablecoins to enter circulation in the second half of 2026. That puts the territory on a genuinely different regulatory path from its neighbours, at a time when Asian jurisdictions are taking very different views on how much room…

Putin Courts ASEAN: Inside the Kazan Commemorative Summit Russia used a summit in the Tatar city of Kazan on 18 June 2026 to make its most visible push yet to work its way further into the Indo-Pacific’s economic and diplomatic architecture. Ten of ASEAN’s eleven member states sent leaders, even with Western sanctions on Moscow…