As of mid-2026, China remains the centre of gravity in the EV world.
Taiwan has struggled to secure LNG supplies through May and finalised contracts covering roughly half of June demand, but additional procurement costs are expected to reach into the billions of US dollars to complete.
There will be no real winners in traditional tourism this summer – only airlines, tourist destinations and central banks left counting the cost.
Electricity demand across the wider ASEAN region is rising rapidly. Manufacturing expansion, electric vehicle adoption and the construction of energy-intensive data centres are driving consumption higher and higher every day.
India has traditionally been a major defence export market for Russia, and while being mostly a vendor - customer relationship between 1960 and 2000, it has now started to evolve in the 'beyond-visual range' era of multi-domain warfare.
Military expenditure the Asia-Pacific region increased sharply in the last year, reaching a total of $681bn - an increase of 8.1% year on year and the largest annual expansion in military spending since 2009
Fitch Ratings has warned that emerging markets in Asia could face rising cost pressures across agribusiness sectors and food supply chains if a prolonged US-Iran conflict continues to disrupt fertiliser supplies further into the planting season.
The European Union has already, for all intents and purposes broken away from the US. It is only a matter of time before the Quad either ceases to function or decides to go its own way, without the US.
Beijing and Hanoi are stepping up co-operation centred on internal security, in the process offering a preview of how China may deepen ties across south-east Asia despite longstanding differences with several countries in the region.
The migrants on the boat were, it has been speculated, most likely fleeing overcrowded refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, which hosts more than a million displaced Rohingya people.
According to an outlook forecast report by the Asian Development Bank, the broad Asia region including its many developing high growth economies are facing what can be best described as the most complex set of headwinds in years.
The war in Iran has delivered a systemic shock to global energy markets, but few regions have felt the strain as acutely, or quite as quickly, as Southeast Asia.
The world needs a stable Asia – East and West – and would be better served by the removal of the current Iranian regime. Only in the removal of said regime will Beijing be forced back into a more constrained, less opportunistic global role.
Three quarters of the world's population live in fossil importing countries and bleed out at least 3% of GDP every year to import oil to run their cars and power plants.
Natural gas prices have already doubled since the start of the war in the Middle East and are expected to rise higher as the last of Qatar’s LNG exports arrive at their destinations. Now everyone is switching to coal.
From South Korea to Indonesia to Bangladesh, governments are increasingly turning back to coal-fired power generation to help offset a widening shortfall in LNG imports.
The war involving the United States, Israel and Iran has sent a delayed shockwave through global energy markets and nowhere is the impact more acute than at petrol pumps across Asia.
China is also increasing its purchases from Russia, with imports estimated at 1.2mn to 1.5mn tonnes – primarily for use as a substitute feedstock in refineries.
Sri Lanka has designated every Wednesday a public holiday to conserve fuel as the country confronts the risk of supply shortages.