Kurt Campbell on US’ China focus, the Indo-Pacific Quad, risks of AI

Protesters opposed to sweeping revisions to India’s voter rolls are trying to rally in New Delhi. The police have come out in force.

A planned protest against a sweeping voter roll revision prompted police to order a virtual shutdown of New Delhi, the capital. The country’s highest court intervened.

Malaysia is facing renewed pressure to clamp down on its companies over their alleged links to forest fires abroad, as recurring haze from Indonesia continues to disrupt schools and daily life despite years of regional efforts to tackle the problem. On Thursday, Malaysia ordered schools to close across several states, including Johor, Malacca, Negeri Sembilan, Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and the Rompin district in Pahang, while sporting events scheduled for the weekend were cancelled. The latest...

A craft beer producer in central Japan is hoping that its U-shaped “wobbly” glass will encourage people to drink water along with their beer, in a bid to prevent excessive alcohol consumption and dehydration. The “Wobbly Beer Glass by Yona Yona Ale”, produced by Yoho Brewing based in Nagano prefecture, has been on sale since August amid growing awareness of the need for responsible drinking. The idea is that the glass, divided into two sections, will tilt if a balance between beer and water is...

Central Delhi was sealed on Saturday, with thousands of police and paramilitaries on patrol, metro stations shut, mobile internet suspended and markets closed to guard against a youth protest demanding India’s chief election officer quit. The protest, called ‌by the “cockroach” youth movement, hopes to draw thousands of demonstrators who want Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to quit over a revision of voter lists that critics say favours Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata...

Kurt Campbell is a veteran US diplomat and strategist who has played a leading role in shaping Washington’s approach to China and the Indo-Pacific for more than a decade. He served as the White House coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs from 2021 to 2024 and as US deputy secretary of state from 2024 to 2025. Previously, he served as assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs from 2009 to 2013 and was a key architect of the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia”. Often...

Indonesia officially barred under-16s from using “high-risk” social media earlier this year. But that hasn’t stopped the son of one Jakarta-based writer from using it. Aged 14, he already had accounts on Instagram and TikTok – among the platforms Jakarta said children would be banned from using – as well as popular video game Minecraft and gaming platform Roblox. To register, he simply lied about his age. “He can access everything,” Inne Abidin said of her son. “His friends use everything...

The European Union said the deal could roughly halve shipments of hybrid vehicles from China in the next four years. But it also could lead to an even stronger Chinese auto industry.

China, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan are less exposed to the impact of cross-border terrorism – and less willing to risk smooth relations with Kabul over the issue.

The United States does not need to trust China, share frontier models with China, or slow its own AI development to have a national security interest in AI safety cooperation.

The repression of Rohingya identity is connected to Myanmar’s broader failure to establish an inclusive political order. It's time for ASEAN to realize that.