Understanding politics across borders and divides
Published: 25 October 2026 Kim Jong Un crossed into China on 24 October to open the New Yalu River Bridge, a four-lane, three-kilometre crossing into the Chinese border city of Dandong that was finished in 2014 but never used. The visit lasted one day. Kim did not meet Xi Jinping. He was received by Wang … Read more
Published: September 9, 2026 On September 8, Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. was mid-speech at the Seoul Defense Dialogue, an annual multilateral security forum in South Korea, when a staff member walked up and set a folded note beside him. He picked it up, paused, and told the room he believed it was from … Read more
Published: August 29, 2026 On August 26, a section of glacier sheared off high in the Himalayas near the Nepal-China border, sending a flood nearly 100 kilometers down the Trishuli and Bhotekoshi river valleys. As of August 28, Nepal’s death toll stood at more than 550, with 977 people still missing, including 517 foreign nationals … Read more
Published: August 22, 2026 On August 20, a court in Shenzhen sentenced Hui Ka Yan, founder of China Evergrande Group and once Asia’s richest man, to life in prison for fraud, bribery, and related financial crimes tied to the collapse of his property empire. Evergrande Group and its real estate arm were fined a combined … Read more
Published: July 30, 2026 New Zealand’s foreign minister told a member of parliament born in China to leave the country, and China’s ambassador answered him in public. Both parts of that sentence are unusual. The second is close to unprecedented in New Zealand politics. During Parliament’s general debate on Wednesday, Winston Peters was attacking the … Read more
Published: July 19, 2026 Overview Australia is, by the standards of the countries around it, an island of political stability in 2026. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his center-left Labor Party govern with a commanding parliamentary majority, having won a landslide re-election in May 2025 that made Albanese the first Australian leader in more than … Read more
Published: July 19, 2026 Overview Taiwan in 2026 is a democracy at war with itself over how to face the threat across the strait. President Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Party holds the presidency, but his party lost its majority in the legislature in 2024, and the opposition Nationalist Party, known as the KMT, … Read more
Published: July 18, 2026 Overview China enters the second half of 2026 governed by the same party-state structure it has run since 1949, but under visibly more strain than in recent years. Growth is slowing, the property market is still shrinking, and the People’s Liberation Army is in the middle of its largest anti-corruption purge … Read more