Despite a ceasefire being in place following a devastating earthquake, Myanmar’s shadow government claimed an airstrike by the ruling junta had killed at least 17 students and injured 20 others at a school in an opposition-controlled area on Monday ( May 12 ). The dark national unity government runs theContinue Reading
Discussed: 12 May 2025 at 13: 33
PHUKET- Residents are being warned that some areas of the island was experience flooding as the southeastern province is still being soaked by the rain.
On Monday, the Phuket Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Office advised citizens to carefully monitor the situation.
On Sunday, large rain started pouring down on the island and continued into Monday. Emergency response teams were on call.
The Thalang area, which includes Phuket Airport, was the most disturbed on Monday night. In Muang and Kathu disricts, weather was also falling.
Some bridges had been flooded.
Phuket was still engulfed in mild rain as of noon, according to the Andaman Coast Meteorological Office.
Another coastal regions, including Ranong, Phangnga, Krabi, Trang, and Satun, were also forecast to experience weather.
The goal of the votes in the Philippines next year will no doubt have short- and medium-term repercussions for the state ’s politics.
Second, if all nine of the Senate individuals backed by the Marcos management win, they would increase his alliance of supporters in the room. This alliance may therefore vote to convict Sara Duterte when her prosecution situation moves to a Senate test.
If she’s convicted, she may get banned from running for president in 2028. But it ’s ambiguous if two-thirds of legislators would voting to convict – the level required for prosecution. Some pro-Marcos and separate lawmakers may be afraid of antagonising dedicated Duterte followers.
If Sara Duterte is acquitted, this would probably only increase her bid for the presidency.
The ICC’s pre-trial room may hold a hearing in September that will be watched carefully by pro- and anti-Duterte troops in the Philippines. On May 8, the room rejected a complaint filed by Duterte’s military team to pardon two courts over alleged partiality.
His loyal supporters will likely improve their assaults against the ICC, the subjects of Duterte’s medication war, and the Marcos management through the use of fake information and disinformation as the trial advances.
If Duterte is convicted by the judge prior to the 2028 poll, it will certainly be used as a campaign issue by both sides, too. And this will only further aggravate polarisation in the Philippines.
Noel Morada is from Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand, where he is visiting teacher at Nelson Mandela Centre and research fellow at Asia Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. This remark initially appeared on The Conversation.
It has been over a century since some Hong Kong companies, responding to the mainland’s broad commercial upgrade and perceiving rising US-China business tensions, moved to set up factories abroad. Being versatile paid off, until President Donald Trump launched his storm of tariffs on US trading partners as part of his “America first ” economic plan, The Post focuses on a global clothing manufacturer that moved strategically first, just to explore new disarray in world trade today.
Hong Kong woman Pauline Ngan Po-ling was in Beijing for China ’s annual political meeting in early March when mayhem struck the international trading system.
United States President Donald Trump had begun slapping big tariffs on US trading partners, hitting China hardest, in a bid to lower the US business gap, argue American interests and proper what he believes are imbalances harsh to the world’s largest business.
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Ngan recalled the chaos on March 5, the day after Trump levied a 25 per cent tariff on imports from neighbouring Mexico, where her company produced caps, hats and other headgear mainly for the American market.
That day, she said, US customs officers did not know how to impose the new tariffs on Mainland Headwear Holdings ’ goods moving across the border.
The very next day, however, Trump suspended the Mexico tariffs, and subsequent negotiations led to zero duties for garment imports from the country.
While that was a relief, Bangladesh, where Ngan’s company had its main production base, was affected by a series of moves by the US leader.
Trump first imposed a 37 per cent tariff on US imports from Bangladesh, then lowered it to a 10 per cent upon negotiation, before putting it on hold for 90 days from April 9.
“It was so painful because things changed every day, ” said Ngan, the company ’s deputy chairman and managing director, and a Hong Kong representative to China ’s top political advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.
She co-founded Mainland Headwear in 1986 with her husband, Ngan Hei-keung, now the company ’s chairman. The couple grew it from modest beginnings in Hong Kong to a mainboard listed company with a presence in mainland China and in Bangladesh, Mexico, the US and Europe.
It is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of sports caps, hats and a wide range of other casual headgear, as well as accessories such as belts, headbands and visors.
It blamed global geopolitical uncertainty for sales sliding 4. 4 per cent to HK$ 1. 47 billion ( US$ 189. 7 million ) last year, with net profit down 51. 6 per cent to HK$ 57. 07 million from 2023.
The company was among Hong Kong manufacturers that diversified operations overseas over a decade ago in response to growing geopolitical tensions between China and the West and rising costs.
“ What we have done on diversifying geographical locations is primarily because of geopolitics, ” Ngan told the Post. “Every step we took more than 10 years ago was not easy at all, and came with lots of risks, and has proved right so far. ”
The dust has yet to settle in Trump’s tariff wars, but for Mainland Headwear, the upheaval of recent weeks has forced it to re-examine its operations, shift production between its overseas factories and reconsider plans to set up in new locations.
With Mexico spared the US tariffs, the company moved swiftly to double production capacity there to a million pieces a month as quickly as possible.
For now, the 10 per cent so-called reciprocal tariff applied on its products made in Bangladesh was being shared between the company, its customers and suppliers.
The group sold 95 per cent of its Bangladesh output to the US, with the rest going to Europe.
Ngan has already taken steps to shift some production from Bangladesh to Mexico to avoid the US levy.
Trump’s harshest tariff moves have been directed at China, and in a tit-for-tat series of actions, each side has raised levies on the other.
The US slapped tariffs of up to 245 per cent on some Chinese exports, while Beijing has reciprocated with levies of 125 per cent on all US goods, on top of earlier duties.
To avoid the tariffs, some analysts expected more mainland Chinese and Hong Kong manufacturers to start moving production lines to developing countries.
Some said the Trump administration had set out to plug the loophole of Chinese manufacturers re-routing exports to the US via a third jurisdiction.
That explained the heavy tariffs on shipments from places such as Bangladesh, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Indonesia.
In a move expected to hit Chinese e-commerce firms, small parcels worth under US$ 800 from Hong Kong and China that were previously allowed to enter the US duty-free have been subject to a 120 per cent tariff or a hefty flat fee since May 2.
“ Whether and to what extent Chinese exporters can still use re-routing via other economies to bypass those additional tariffs remains uncertain, ” said Lu Ting, Nomura Hong Kong ’s chief China economist.
But he expected innovative manufacturers to “continue to explore methods to avoid these mammoth tariffs”.
His team estimated that US$ 31 billion worth of Chinese exports to the US went via Mexico last year, and exports totalling US$ 163 billion went via Asean, the 10-member group of Southeast Asian countries.
Some Asean countries were top choices for Hong Kong and mainland manufacturers using the “China plus one ” strategy to diversify their production bases.
The total US$ 194 billion of Chinese exports diverted to the US through Mexico and Asean accounted for 5. 4 per cent of China ’s US$ 3. 58 trillion overall exports last year.
A Goldman Sachs research report anticipated that Chinese exporters would try to export goods through other countries to avoid punitive US tariffs.
“Re-routing, together with strong price competitiveness, is likely to maintain Chinese exports to other countries at solid levels, ” it said.
Mainland Headwear’s Ngan said she had recently received many phone calls from Chinese exporters eager to know about moving to Mexico.
“Many asked if I could lease some land to them to set up a factory, ” she said. “ Whether it is 145 per cent of 245 per cent tariffs, it is impossible to do business in China with the US. ”
She is willing to share what she has learned from diversifying her production lines beyond the mainland. The main lesson: it is not easy.
Ngan spent a decade establishing her Bangladesh factory, now the group ’s largest production base outside the mainland.
Its 7,400 workers produce 6. 5 million items of headwear and 300,000 pieces of accessories such as belts, wallets and backpacks a month, and she is satisfied that the quality of their work is top notch.
When the company first set up there in 2013, it chose to be in quiet Bagbari, on the outskirts of the capital, Dhaka, to take advantage of the ready supply of cheap labour.
A business contact had recommended the location. Visiting the place, Ngan found herself in a village surrounded by forest, without proper roads, water supply or telecommunication infrastructure.
While there was a pool of available workers, most were illiterate and so poor that they lacked food or spare clothes, and many had head lice.
The company had to build roads, set up its Wi-fi network, dig wells for drinking water and raise the factory from nothing.
She brought in managers and trainers from her mainland factory to train the workers, provided them clothes and helped them get rid of the head lice, too.
Ngan also had to negotiate with gangs.
“At the beginning, some gangsters would come to extort money from us every day, ” she said.
She decided to meet the ringleader.
“ I offered him a three-year interest-free loan to spend on clearing up a bamboo forest, building dormitories and renting them to our workers, ” she recalled. “ I said, you don’t have to be gangsters, you can earn a decent income from rent. ”
He accepted the offer and did as she had suggested.
“ He paid me back on time and no longer engaged in illegal business, ” she said.
It took longer to build her workforce because the people she hired did not know how to sew.
For the first time, Ngan learned about Islam.
Being Muslims who prayed five times a day, her Bangladeshi workers would stop work at prayer times. She also became aware that Muslims had a holy month every year, Ramadan, when they fasted from dawn to dusk.
She built a mosque on the premises last year, then learned that only the men would pray there. The women workers still went home at prayer times.
Ngan’s Bangladesh experience taught her that moving production lines overseas made business sense, but also demanded understanding the local culture and practices, and that remains a work in progress.
That was something she had to learn all over again when Mainland Headwear set up in Mexico about a year ago to be closer to its US clients, including New Era Cap, America’s largest distributor of sports caps and fashion hats.
Its factory and godown at the border town of Sonora occupies a sprawling 150 hectare ( 370 acre ) site. The town is less than 2km ( 1. 24 miles ) from the border, allowing products to move fast at lower logistics costs.
The tariff chaos spurred Ngan to expand her output in Mexico by increasing the workforce from about 430 to 1,000 to push out a million headgear products a month.
The 12-hour time difference between Mexico and Bangladesh made for round-the-clock production, allowing the company to meet urgent orders and improve profitability.
But labour costs more in Mexico, where workers get a minimum monthly pay of US$ 650 compared with US$ 104 in Bangladesh.
Mainland Headwear was the first overseas company to set up a factory in Sonora in 30 years, and had to bring in everything it needed, from thread, sewing machines, packaging boxes and even chairs, from mainland China.
The company ’s interim report last year revealed an operating loss because “production had yet to run smoothly”.
For Ngan, her team and local employees, there was some culture shock and time needed for adjustment before the factory could get on track.
She said it was “a painful experience ” working through significant cultural differences and the language barrier.
“Mexicans speak Spanish and many are well-educated, but their mindset and values are very different from workers in other developing countries, ” she said.
She recalled the time that she wanted to know how many caps a female worker completed in an hour, and was taken aback to learn it was well below expectations.
When she ticked off the worker for being too slow, the upset woman responded by slowing down even more.
Ngan realised she had to figure out how to handle her workers better.
It was a celebration last Christmas that made a difference.
“It was a great party, everyone dressed up and enjoyed the entertainment, with singing, dancing and eating, ” she said.
“The dancers were so good I could n’t help but ask how much it had cost to hire them. My staffer said, ‘Mrs Ngan, the dancers and the jazz drummer are all our workers. ’ I was astonished. ”
It moved her to try a softer approach. She gave a bonus to a worker who had danced well at the party, and the woman’s productivity jumped three times the next day.
“The workers need to be encouraged and motivated, ” she said. “Scolding does n’t work. ”
She found that Mexican workers also valued their quality of life, and some preferred not to work overtime even for more pay.
It took nearly a year to iron out such teething issues before production was finally on the right track.
“The worst is over, ” Ngan said.
Late last year, Mainland Headwear identified Cambodia as a third production base outside China, adding on to its factories in Bangladesh and Mexico.
That plan stalled last month, when Trump imposed a 49 per cent tariff on exports from Cambodia.
“The original calculation was that Cambodia and the US had stable and relatively friendly ties, but it has ended up facing even higher tariffs, ” Ngan said.
The group has temporarily suspended its plan for a factory in Cambodia.
Stefanie Pan Xueyun, a Mexico-based manager with industrial estate firm American Industries Group, did not expect China and the US to work out their differences over tariffs any time soon.
Instead, she expected more mainland and Hong Kong companies to set up factories in Mexico to benefit from the zero tariff under the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement and tax incentives.
“Mexico has always been a very attractive place for investors, ” she said. “ But I only recommend Mexico if their clients are from North America. If they’re selling to Europe, maybe Mexico is not a good option. ”
The firm has developed 17 industrial estates and served more than 300 companies in Mexico.
Expecting the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement to be renewed in the review next year, Pan said the United States needed Mexico’s labour and space for production.
“Mexico has always been very much respected by the US,” she added.
Additional reporting by Lam Ka-sing
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BEIJING: China said on Saturday ( May 10 ) that consumer prices slumped in April for the third straight month, reflecting persistent challenges as leaders attempt to revive an economy stymied by sluggish spending and a fierce trade war with Washington. The nation’s second-largest market has grappled with continual negativeContinue Reading
As US and Chinese staff prepare to meet in Switzerland in an effort to alleviate their escalating trade conflict, a possible sign of Beijing’s view has emerged in an opinion piece published in the state-owned book Beijing Daily.
Articles in the publication are often seen as a reflection of Beijing’s official stance. The latest piece – Today, it is necessary to revisit” On Protracted War”– argues that the trade war is an American attempt to strangle China’s economic growth and that it is necessary to perceive the current trade tensions as a long-term development.
What’s particularly important here is that the title refers to former Chinese leader Mao Zedong’s 1938 essay” On Protracted War“, a piece of writing that set out Mao’s approach to combating the invading Japanese during the Second Sino-Japanese War between 1937 and 1945.
This strategy was also key to the subsequent establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, after the communist victory in the long-running Chinese civil war. Mao became the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party from 1943 until his death in 1976 and created a set of political theories referred to as Maoism. He wrote extensively on political strategy.
Chinese policymakers and media figures often invoke the nation’s history to justify domestic and foreign policy. And the decision to reference Mao’s text reflects not only China’s strategy in the current trade war but also the lasting influence of his ideas.
Mao’s 1938 essay described a struggle that might seem, at first glance, a world away from the current China/US tariff conflict. His key thesis was that guerrilla warfare was a long-term affair with little chance for a quick victory.
Mao’s argument was that a war of attrition would end with a Chinese victory as it would slowly bleed the conventionally stronger Japanese forces of resources.
Such an approach has been a key feature of insurgencies throughout the modern world, with movements such as the Taliban in Afghanistan using the long war of attrition against larger or more technologically advanced foes.
By invoking On Protracted War, it would appear that Beijing perceives its economic struggles with the US as a conflict without a swift resolution, something that may come as a shock to Donald Trump, who is clearly signaling that he now wants a deal.
This long-view approach has also been reflected in how Beijing has been preparing for a second Trump trade war ever since its experiences in the first Trump presidency.
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In contrast to China, the US administration appears to have banked on the trade war being a comparatively brief affair that should be ended by a quick and decisive knock-out blow against Beijing. And a public relations coup for Trump.
This explains the showmanship behind the” Liberation Day” announcements and the speed at which Washington deployed its key moves.
But by preparing its citizens for a protracted trade war, it would appear that China’s strategy, similarly to Mao’s, is to slow down the process and grind out the best deal it can over time.
Beijing believes that Chinese consumers are more capable of “eating bitterness” ( coping with hardship ) than Americans. So, US diplomats would be well advised to dip into” On Protracted War” to understand more of China’s President Xi’s intentions.
However, this is not the only way in which Mao’s strategies are relevant to global politics right now.
Another of Mao’s political ideas was what he termed the “people’s war”. This envisioned a slow movement where one group creates” shadow institutions” that gradually displace established ones in order to build support from the local population.
This echoes part of China’s approach to , globalization, where China has supported or created alternatives to US-led institutions.
Many of Beijing’s international institutions, such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and Belt and Road Initiative, are created to be alternatives to more established international bodies, such as the IMF and the World Bank. These Beijing felt were too dominated by the US.
While China has worked on this policy for decades, it seems to chime with Trump’s lack of commitment to US involvement in international institutions, such as the IMF and NATO. In this aspect of international politics, Xi and Trump seem to have somewhat similar goals, and could open up more space for Chinese leadership of these institutions.
It’s becoming clear that the Trump administration has severely miscalculated by assuming that Beijing would quickly capitulate, showing a lack of understanding of Chinese culture and political history. The expected instant deal has failed to materialize, and US stores are now warning that shelves may soon be empty of many goods.
The trade war has become a war of attrition, and whatever moves Xi makes now are likely to be only his first in what he sees as a very long game, in the great Maoist tradition.
Tom Harper is lecturer in international relations, University of East London
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
US and Chinese officials are set to start trade negotiations in Switzerland this weekend.
The binational talks come after US President Donald Trump imposed a 145% tariff on China in April, and China hit back with a 125% tariff. Trade between the two countries has declined significantly.
So, who will blink first on tariffs?
The BBC’s North America and Asia Senior Journalists, Bernd Debusmann and Tessa Wong, analyse US and China’s moves ahead of the negotiation.
Video by Meiying Wu
As South Korea approaches what may become the most consequential presidential election in its modern democratic history, two principal democratic institutions – the judiciary and the legislature – are accelerating toward a critical inflection point.
At the heart of this confrontation lies Democratic Party presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung, whose ongoing legal entanglements have triggered an institutional contest between the imperatives of the rule of law and the legitimacy of an electoral mandate.
What began as a legal proceeding involving alleged violations of the Public Official Election Act has rapidly evolved into a broader institutional contest with long-term implications for South Korean democracy. With just weeks remaining before the June 3 national election, both the judiciary and the legislature appear determined to assert their respective domains and competing visions of democratic authority.
The result is an escalating struggle that may redefine the nation’s democratic foundations for decades to come.
The judiciary, notably the Supreme Court and Seoul High Court, has pursued Lee’s case with exceptional urgency. At issue are statements he made during a prior election campaign. Prosecutors charged him with violating the Public Official Election Act by knowingly disseminating false information – an offense that carries criminal liability under South Korean law.
After years of conflicting rulings in lower courts, the legal process took a dramatic turn in April 2025 when the Supreme Court overturned an appellate court’s acquittal. The case was remanded to the Seoul High Court with instructions to re-examine it under a presumption of guilt. Within hours of receiving the file, the High Court assigned the case to a criminal division, scheduled the first hearing for May 15, and issued a personal summons to Lee – an unusually expedited move aimed at accelerating proceedings.
Even the Supreme Court’s own timeline was extraordinary. The verdict was issued just 34 days after the appeal was accepted and only nine days after it was referred to the Grand Bench – a procedural velocity virtually unprecedented in the South Korean legal system.
Legal analysts view this swift action as judicial activism intended to ensure that voters are fully informed about the case ahead of the election, reinforcing institutional accountability amid political turbulence.
In parallel, the Democratic Party-led National Assembly has launched a series of legislative initiatives that, if enacted, would dramatically reshape the balance of power among South Korea’s democratic institutions.
On the same day the High Court announced Lee’s retrial, the Democratic Party introduced a bill to amend the Criminal Procedure Act. This amendment would suspend criminal proceedings against any presidential candidate once elected – effectively granting temporary immunity while in office.
At the same time, the party has proposed changes to the Court Organization Act to increase the number of Supreme Court justices from 14 to 30. While publicly framed as a response to case backlogs and judicial inefficiency, critics argue it is a transparent attempt at court-packing – a way to shift the ideological balance of the judiciary in favor of the ruling bloc.
Most controversially, an amendment to the Constitutional Court Act has been proposed that would permit constitutional petitions against final court rulings. Currently, such decisions are immune from constitutional review – a safeguard meant to preserve judicial independence and finality.
Critics warn that if enacted, the amendment would open the door to retroactive legal challenges initiated for political reasons, eroding judicial impartiality. Legal observers are increasingly concerned about the lasting damage this could inflict on the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary.
Taken together, these reforms would represent a sweeping redefinition of institutional power. Supporters argue they reflect necessary modernization of outdated systems. Detractors, however, warn they pose an existential threat to South Korea’s constitutional equilibrium.
Far from being reactive measures, these reforms appear to be part of a broader legislative effort to recalibrate the country’s governance architecture in anticipation of a political transition.
This constitutional face-off is playing out amid significant geopolitical flux in East Asia. Under the Yoon Suk-yeol administration, South Korea has aligned closely with the US and Japan, deepening trilateral defense ties and embracing the broader US Indo-Pacific strategy.
Yoon’s foreign policy has emphasized deterrence against North Korea and strategic decoupling from China.
Lee Jae-myung, by contrast, is widely viewed as favoring a pragmatic foreign policy reset. He has advocated diplomatic engagement with North Korea, greater economic cooperation with China and Russia, and a more balanced posture between Washington and Beijing.
Should he win the presidency, South Korea’s foreign policy could pivot toward a multipolar alignment – reshaping its Indo-Pacific positioning and accelerating its outreach toward Eurasia.
This potential reorientation is of keen interest to Korean strategists and global observers alike, as it could redefine Korea’s international standing amid rapidly shifting geopolitical dynamics in the region.
In that light, the judiciary’s urgency and the legislature’s reformist drive are no longer seen as mere procedural moves, but as expressions of deeper ideological alignments. The judiciary, rooted in legal conservatism, seeks to preserve continuity and institutional stability. The legislature, led by progressive forces, is pushing for structural transformation in response to shifting geopolitical and domestic realities.
The unprecedented speed of institutional activity underscores a profound philosophical divergence over how democracy should function. The judiciary champions procedural legality and institutional restraint, rooted in constitutionalism and separation of powers. The legislature, in contrast, argues that true democratic legitimacy arises from the electoral mandate – and that lawmakers have a moral duty to reshape institutions in accordance with the will of the people.
Lee Jae-myung’s candidacy embodies this divide. He presents himself as an agent of change – socially progressive, economically redistributive and diplomatically balanced. His critics describe him as a populist cloaked in technocratic reform, warning that his proposed structural changes could concentrate power and destabilize institutional checks and balances. In this view, the judiciary’s rapid intervention is seen as a safeguard against democratic erosion.
Meanwhile, South Korean voters are caught in the middle of this institutional contest. One segment of the electorate embraces systemic reform in response to growing inequality and elite inertia. Another warns that rushing changes under the banner of progress may weaken the very institutions that protect democracy. The increasingly polarized discourse is not just about Lee’s case – it is about the future of governance itself.
South Korea is now undergoing a historic test of democratic resilience. The judiciary’s attempt to ensure legal clarity before the vote and the legislature’s drive to assert electoral legitimacy are not simply procedural decisions – they represent opposing visions of democracy. Both institutions are acting in defense of democratic principles, but through fundamentally divergent frameworks.
The consequences of this institutional divergence will echo long after June 3. What is at stake is not just a presidential election but the integrity of South Korea’s legal framework, its strategic orientation and its standing in the world.
Whether the country emerges stronger or more divided will depend not only on who wins the presidency but on how well its institutions endure and adapt under pressure.
As the world watches, South Korea’s election has become more than a democratic milestone. It is a referendum on the meaning of power, legitimacy and the future direction of a nation navigating a rapidly shifting global order.
India, the world’s largest democracy, has stayed on the sidelines while Ukraine fights on the front lines to defend democratic values and the international order against an imperialist Russia. Moscow seeks to subjugate and colonize Ukraine, as it has done for centuries, but Ukraine has resisted fiercely and is now bringing the fight to Russia. Despite this, India has remained cautious and continues to maintain close ties with Moscow.
Both Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defense Minister Rajnath Singh have canceled their trips to Moscow for Russia’s May 9 Victory Day parade. Instead, India will send a lower-ranking official, with reports suggesting the decision is partly linked to ongoing tensions with Pakistan. India also launched fresh strikes against Pakistan, sparking worries about a larger conflict brewing between the nuclear states.
For other leaders who plan on attempting the parade in Moscow, there are real concerns that Ukraine could threaten the parade. As a result, Putin is desperate for a three-day ceasefire to help protect his parade.
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico condemned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for warning foreign delegations not to attend Russia’s May 9 Victory Day parade, calling Zelensky’s comments disrespectful.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of keeping “nothing sacred” after he rejected Vladimir Putin’s proposal for a temporary ceasefire during Russia’s Victory Day commemorations, claiming Zelenskyy had “hit rock bottom” by warning of possible threats to veterans attending the May 9 events.
“They are responsible for your safety. We will not provide any guarantees, because we do not know what Russia might do on those dates,” Zelensky said. Meanwhile, for the third year in a row, occupied Sevastopol was forced to cancel its Victory Day military parade, citing safety concerns amid ongoing Ukrainian strikes on Russian military targets across Russia. Ukrainian drones over the last few days have continued targeting Moscow.
Ukraine has come a long way. In February 2022, many Western governments expected it to collapse within days. Now, Ukraine has developed a domestic arsenal of long-range drones and missiles and is striking targets deep inside Russia. Putin may hope that parading alongside Chinese leader Xi Jinping will project strength, but the reality is that he is facing a symbolic defeat. The Kremlin is now reduced to quietly pleading with Ukraine not to strike Moscow. Ukrainian drones have continued to target Moscow in the days before the parade.
Yet while Ukraine demonstrates military ingenuity and defiance, India continues to walk a careful line of neutrality. To understand why, it’s helpful to examine the deeper strategic logic behind India’s positioning.
“I don’t think India is going to commit to either side,” said Branislav Slantchev, a political science professor at UC San Diego. “They have never done this and they are in a complicated neighborhood.”
Treston Wheat, chief geopolitical officer at Insight Forward and adjunct professor at Georgetown University, explained that India’s position on the war in Ukraine stems more from tradition than indifference. “India’s stance isn’t about a lack of democratic solidarity,” he said, “it’s about strategic tradition.”
Wheat pointed out that “since the Cold War, India has maintained a posture of non-alignment, preferring to avoid choosing sides in conflicts between major powers.” That legacy, he noted, continues even as India increasingly asserts itself on the global stage.
“Its relatively cautious response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine reflects both historical ties with Moscow and a deep-rooted preference for strategic autonomy,” Wheat added. “India sees itself as a regional and eventually global power, but one that moves at its own pace, balancing relationships across geopolitical divides.”
“Supporting Ukraine more forcefully,” he concluded, “would require redefining that balancing act, something New Delhi has not yet shown it’s ready to do.”
Wheat added, “India isn’t looking to replace its relationship with Russia, and aligning too strongly with Ukraine could undermine its defense ties with Moscow. India is still a major purchaser of Russian military hardware, and it prefers not to alienate a long-standing supplier while it’s still building its own defense manufacturing base.”
But over the long term, Wheat argued,“India could benefit significantly from a deeper partnership with Ukraine, particularly in defense innovation. Ukraine’s experience with adaptive warfare, battlefield innovation, and drone production could offer insights that align well with Modi’s ‘Make in India’ vision for the defense sector. The question isn’t whether Ukraine offers value; it’s whether India is ready to shift its geopolitical calculus to embrace that value.”
“Ukraine has effectively turned into a real-time laboratory for modern asymmetric warfare, particularly in the use of drones, loitering munitions, electronic warfare, and rapid battlefield adaptation,” said Wheat. “These are exactly the kinds of capabilities India would need in a high-intensity conflict with China along the Line of Actual Control or in the maritime domain.”
Wheat argued that India stands to gain more than just tactical insights. “More importantly, Ukraine has demonstrated how to mobilize civil society, private sector innovation, and field-level experimentation to solve tactical problems quickly. India could learn not just about the hardware, but about the organizational mindset required to wage modern war.”
The question, he said, is not about relevance but about receptivity. “The challenge is whether India is politically willing to learn from a country that isn’t part of its usual strategic orbit. If it is, there’s a great deal of value waiting to be absorbed.” Other experts agree that the strategic logic for closer ties with Ukraine is mounting, not just politically, but tactically.
“Russia’s war has exposed both supply-chain fragility and quality issues in Russian kit, accelerating India’s shift away from Moscow as its primary arms source,” said Fedir Martynov, a partner at Trident Forward. “Any extra political or technical backing New Delhi gives Kyiv therefore doubles as leverage on the Kremlin and as insurance against a tighter Moscow-Beijing axis.”
Martynov emphasized the operational edge that Ukraine has built under fire. “Ukraine has built a battlefield drone complex that ranges from $400 FPV kamikazes to multi-domain swarms, powered by a start-up ecosystem and a streamlined acquisitions pipeline that moves ideas from garage to front line in weeks,” he noted.
“Its operators have learned to fight through aggressive GNSS jamming by using visual navigation and decentralized control, skills India will need along a GPS-denied Himalayan frontier.”
That value becomes even clearer when viewed through the lens of Ukraine’s battlefield innovations, something defense experts believe India would do well to study closely.
Bill Cole, founder of the Peace Through Strength Institute, commented on the strategic urgency of India needing to learn from Ukraine’s experience: “India is staring down a PLA that has spent years investing in drone warfare.” The solution, he argues, lies not in theory but in lived experience. “You want to neutralize that? Ukraine is the partner who has already bled for that knowledge.”
“India cannot claim to counterbalance China while indirectly enabling Russia. Sooner or later, that contradiction will collapse,” said Cole.
He pointed to Ukraine’s maritime ingenuity as another lesson in adaptive strategy. “Ukraine didn’t have a navy. So they built one – from garage tech and courage. And they’ve punched a hole in the Russian Black Sea Fleet. That’s the blueprint for asymmetric warfare,” noted Cole. “If India ever faces a maritime threat from China, it’ll need the same mindset. Nimble, fast, precise, and unpredictable. Ukraine is showing the world how to fight smart.”
David Kirichenko is a freelance journalist and an associate research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, a London-based think tank. He can be found on X @DVKirichenko.
Some Asian businesspeople have praised the Vietnamese Communist Party’s statement of Resolution 68 as a significant step toward ensuring good competition, ensuring good competition, and codifying lawful precepts.
Crucially, those constitutional changes include a ban on voluntary law enforcement, a preference for legal remedies over criminal penalties, and the presumption of innocence. All of these are essential to the operation of a current market supported by the rule of law.
But beneath that business enthusiasm lies a crucial question: Is this a headless, pretended-to-be-real liberation for all secret business, or is it merely a headless, Marxist Party-connected, and wealthy?
Resolution 68, which was announced earlier this month, did not emerge in a womb. The” Views on Promoting Development and Growth of the Private Economy” were released by the Chinese Communist Party and the State Council in July 2023.
That statement was made at a gentle time when China’s financial engines were slipping under the weight. After massive reprisals on large, privately held tech firms like Alibaba, firm confidence had deteriorated.
The Taiwanese government changed its position, highlighting the significance of the private sector to the region’s push for development, after acknowledging that a stifling regulatory burden and social uncertainty were stifling private-sector dynamism.
China’s record from 2023 aimed to rekindle confidence and stability, but it also signaled that the Communist Party was attempting to maintain a strong hold on the market.
By 2025, Vietnam’s monetary flood had also changed. Nguyen Phu Trong’s dying in 2024 and To Lam To Party’s arrival marked a significant shift in Vietnam’s management structure and outlook.
However, Vietnam’s private sector expanded rapidly but faced long-standing challenges, including limited resources, legal uncertainty, and fragile business confidence, partly as a result of the government’s crackdown on supposedly corrupt politicians and businesses.
Resolution 68 draws heavily from China’s handbook, praises the importance of the private sector, and offers a more business-friendly culture. However, Vietnam’s version goes yet further, promising a stronger legitimate weapon than China’s.
Article 11 of China’s 2023 report makes explicit recommendations for preventing inside corruption and makes acts like misappropriation and bribery illegal. Additionally, it highlights efforts to improve Party operations in private companies and confirms the premise that all companies must operate in accordance with Party principles.
In addition, Vietnam’s Resolution 68 urges private firms to uphold business ethics, morality, and social responsibility. However, in Vietnam, corruption is seen as a two-way road, and it is imperative that people officials stop extorting and destroying private companies.
In this double messaging, the state is both an enforcer and a partner, aiming to promote both a private-led growth and a regulatory framework. The main issue between the two guidelines, however, is how they handle legal challenges.
China’s record promises to stop unnecessary interference with business during legal proceedings. It emphasizes “protecting the property rights and interests of private companies and businesses in accordance with the law” and vows to stop overreach through broad property freezes or arbitrary protection.
However, it falls short of removing the possibility of legal trial. Owing process and proportionality are important, but legal liability persists when determined.
The Vietnami Resolution 68 is more ambitious. Part 2.3 states:
This is not a gentle shifting. Vietnam’s record not only tries to minimize legitimate disturbance, but it also makes criminal sanctions a last resort even in situations where legal results are uncertain.
These principles appear to be in line with international standards for consistency and proportion. A good legal method emphasizes civil rights and the protection of the presumption of innocence.
However, Vietnam’s political-business climate muddies the lakes. In an atmosphere also fueled by wealthy record and favoritism, these legal protections may still offer concern and better protection to effective state or state-linked conglomerates. Even if these reforms lead to a more level playing field for small and medium enterprises.
The new constitutional shield may eventually remain out of reach for many businesses unless you are one of the key players with political connections.
Moreover, overprotecting big businesses presents systemic risks. Protecting these businesses from total legal scrutiny creates moral hazard, or worse. If these megacorporations fail, the condition could be forced to participate in cheap bailouts, destabilizing the entire economic system in a” also big to fail” scenario.
Vietnam, one of the top” China 1″ destinations for global manufacturers, is already attracting international investors ‘ attention for its commitment to stability and predictability.
Resolution 68’s pro-business claims may lessen worries for home businesses, but international investors, especially those who are conscious of China’s decades-long trend, may remain closely monitoring how it’s carried out. Even if the outlook for short-term mood improves, any overt defence of aristocracy interests may undermine confidence in Vietnam’s long-term legal standing.
By any standard, Resolution 68 is a brave decision. It promises to reduce bureaucracy, guard home rights, and modify the legal system in ways that are more suitable for contemporary Vietnam.
However, Vietnam’s solid pro-business stance raises an obvious question: Is this the start of real legitimate reform or is it just a cunning way to protect the connected while appearing present and pro-business to the outside world?
Vietnam’s entrepreneurs and foreign observers should tread carefully when predicting whether this most recent wave of reforms actually level the playing field or just strengthen the system’s existing ones and hierarchies.
Leo Tran writes about global strategy, trade, and international affairs. His writing has appeared in The Diplomat, Kyiv Post, and Modern Diplomacy. He also writes for Vietnam Decoded.