Day: April 27, 2026

The Pentagon is considering outsourcing warship design and building to South Korea and Japan with a proposed US$1.85 billion feasibility study into the project, according to US media reports. The study – included in the 2027 budget – will look at the feasibility of adopting or co-producing advanced hulls such as Japan’s Mogami-class and South Korea’s Daegu-class frigates to supplement the US Navy’s overstretched production lines, USNI News reported on Friday. If the plan goes ahead it will be the first time the US has bought a major surface combatant…

China’s population is projected to fall by about 60 million over the next decade, threatening economic activity in wealthier coastal provinces and putting growing pressure on the public pension system, according to recent analyst reports. Research firm Rhodium Group estimated that the world’s second-most populous country, after India, could lose the equivalent of nearly France’s entire population over the coming 10 years. In a nation of 1.41 billion people, a decline of this scale would weigh on labour productivity, consumption and social security, including in richer coastal provinces that have…

The United States has “no defence against hypersonic weapons or cruise missiles”, a senior Pentagon official told Congress on Monday, as US President Donald Trump’s US$185 billion Golden Dome missile shield faces continued scepticism. “The Golden Dome will strengthen deterrence by denying adversaries the ability to achieve their objectives through coercion or aggression,” Marc Berkowitz, the assistant secretary of defence for missile defence and deterrence policy, told a Senate hearing on Monday. Trump, a Republican president known for his fixation on outsize military programmes, proposed last year that the US…

The coming summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump offers a window to stabilise bilateral ties through trade deals, but former diplomats and business figures have urged the leaders to move beyond commerce during their talks. At a forum held by the Centre for China and Globalisation (CCG) in Beijing on Sunday, analysts and former officials called on the leaders to address issues such as healthcare, climate change, technological decoupling and AI governance. One former diplomat also warned of a “malpractice-like” lack of summit preparation…

“Balikatan 2026” is meant to reassure allies and deter adversaries. But the military exercise hosted by the Philippines also reveals a harsher truth: the Indo-Pacific is drifting into a security logic in which deterrence no longer contains risk but multiplies it. Every move taken in the name of stability now invites a countermove. Every display of resolve is answered by another. The result is not equilibrium, but a trap. That is why diplomacy has to return to the centre of regional strategy before military signalling becomes the region’s default language.…

Lebanon’s social affairs minister backed calls for the disarmament of Hezbollah but cautioned that the process would take time before a “political settlement” could be reached, calling the group a “community” and not merely a militant organisation. Haneen Sayed told a discussion on Monday that disarming Hezbollah – an Iran-backed militant group – was a demand of her government and its people, and that it “must happen”. “Of course, we understand that implementation is not easy. It’s not instant coffee. It takes time, and it, of course, is going to…

Following high-level mediation efforts in Islamabad over the weekend, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held face-to-face talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg on Monday. The diplomatic surge comes as US President Donald Trump convened his senior national security team to evaluate a fresh Iranian peace proposal, delivered via Pakistan, aimed at ending the months-long Middle East crisis and reopening the Strait of Hormuz. The White House confirmed the proposal called for reopening the narrow Persian Gulf shipping lane in return for lifting the US blockade of Iranian…

Yoyo Yue has spent much of her life navigating the complex US immigration system. The 31-year-old Chinese content creator moved from China to a US boarding school, went to university, secured an H-1B visa and later a “green card” – a path long considered the “gold standard” for skilled foreign workers. Now, she said, that path felt far less certain. “The H-1B path today comes with significant uncertainty, not just around job stability, but also around long-term prospects,” Yue said. Advertisement US President Donald Trump has targeted skilled work visas…