The US Army’s new presence in the Philippines and the push to contain China

The US has established a new army foothold in the Philippines with a rotational deployment designed to sustain the Typhon missile system and contain China, according to military analysts. The US Army has commenced rotational deployments in the Philippines, according to a post published on January 29 on the Defence Visual Information Distribution Service, the US military’s image and video hosting website. The photographs showed exchanges on January 12 between the Army Rotational Force-Philippines and the US Marine Corps, which already maintains its own rotational force in the country. Advertisement…

A new era of realism for Japan

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. “Landslide” has been used extensively to describe Sanae Takaichi’s record-breaking victory in Sunday’s election: a triumph that positions her atop a whopping supermajority in the powerful lower house of parliament. But the description misses the real geology here. Landslides happen in the topsoil; the election did something to the bedrock beneath. Much has been said about the crushing scale of Takaichi’s mandate, giving the lower house the ability to override…

China’s Baidu unveils AI-driven Wikipedia challenger in bid for international users

Chinese tech giant Baidu launched a Wikipedia challenger this week, banking on artificial intelligence to bridge information gaps for local and worldwide audiences in a move analysts said was aimed at seizing global opportunities. BaiduWiki, a Wikipedia-style service available in English, Spanish, French, Russian and Japanese, quietly went live on Monday, according to records from the Wayback Machine, a digital archive platform. A now deleted post on Baidu’s official account on social-media site X described BaiduWiki as an international version of the Baidu Baike online encyclopaedia and said it currently…

World-leading computational biology pioneer Bao Zhirong returns to China from US

After 30 years in the United States, world-leading computational biologist Bao Zhirong has taken up a full-time position at the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) in Shenzhen. Bao, who pioneered imaging technologies that allow scientists to track the behaviour of individual cells in real time as organs form and diseases emerge, has been a chair professor at SUSTech’s life sciences school since January, according to his new faculty profile. He was previously at New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre – one of the world’s most distinguished cancer…

Trump faces rare pushback within his party over tariffs as polls slide

President Donald Trump faced noteworthy pushback over his signature tariff policy in the US Congress this week as his popularity slipped and more lawmakers in his party appeared willing to risk his wrath. While the pushback is unlikely to result in any immediate concrete change to his aggressive tariff policy, which has roiled markets and upended global supply chains, it represents a striking challenge for a president who has lashed out at critics and otherwise maintained an iron grip on his party and the Republican majority in Congress. “What a…

China vows to ‘do what it can’ as US blockade leaves Cuba with just weeks of oil

China will support Cuba “in the best way possible” as the island grapples with an energy crisis following tougher measures imposed by US President Donald Trump’s administration, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson confirmed on Wednesday. Speaking at a regular press briefing in Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said China “will do what it can” to assist Havana and again condemned what he described as “inhumane actions that deprive the Cuban people of their right to survival and development”. When pressed on specific measures, however, Lin declined to confirm any…

FirstFT: Bangladesh holds first nationwide elections since 2024 uprising

Good morning and welcome back to FirstFT Asia. In today’s newsletter: Bangladesh goes to the polls US jobs data far outstrips expectations SK Hynix: from “zombie” firm to Nvidia ally We begin in Bangladesh, where nationwide elections will be held today for the first time since a mass uprising in 2024 toppled former leader Sheikh Hasina. What to know: While opinion polls vary, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party — led by Tarique Rahman, who only recently returned to the country after 17 years in self-imposed exile — is thought to be…