In Asian media this week: Nations “must adapt” to new power politics. Plus: Raid “will hurt” South Korea’s US investments; Trump’s strategic shift towards Pakistan; What’s next after Nepal’s 8 September massacre; Thailand gets its first minority government; Why India has the world’s biggest diaspora.

A repost from 13 September 2025

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto attended China’s massive military parade on 3 September, marking Japan’s formal surrender in 1945, the end of World War II. An analytical article in The Jakarta Post said his presence, however, should not be interpreted as alignment with China but as pragmatic recognition that diplomacy requires keeping open channels with all major powers.

An op-ed, written by Malaysian academic Peter T.C. Chang and published in Hong Kong’s _South China Morning Pos_t, said the attendance of Southeast Asian leaders, including Prabowo and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, underscored their shared historical memory of Japan’s brutal invasion and occupation of their countries.

The Japan Times said in an editorial only seven of the 25 countries whose leaders attended were regarded as free or partly free. But it noted the presence of Prabowo and Anwar and said Japan was represented by a former prime minister, Cambodia by its king, and South Korea by the speaker of the National Assembly.

“We must be alert to China’s efforts to rewrite the global order, acknowledge the legitimacy of some of its complaints and be attuned to their resonance among other nations,” the editorial said. “This is not time for complacency, but neither is it reason to be alarmed.”

The tone and depth of the Asian commentary are in contrast to much of the reporting in Australia’s media, which concentrated on the participation of former Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews. The Jakarta Post and SCMP ran a different version of the official attendees’ photograph, cropping it more tightly than the one printed so often in Australia. It shows, close up, China’s Xi Jinping, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and Prabowo. It presents a different picture of the occasion.

The Jakarta Post analysis, written by Surya Wiranto, a retired rear admiral and now adjunct professor of maritime affairs at the Indonesia Defence University, delves deeply into the geopolitical implications of the power China displayed through its parade, the biggest in Chinese history.

The presence of Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un highlighted an emerging Eurasian axis intent on reshaping the global order, Surya said. The question for Indonesia and the rest of Southeast Asia was how should they respond to the shifting geopolitical landscape?

China’s transformation was a statement that the era of uncontested US dominance was over, he said.

“The Victory Day Parade was not only a spectacle of Chinese strength but also a reminder that power politics remains the currency of international relations,” he said.

“Nations unable to adapt risk marginalisation.”

Korean workers chained and detained for using wrong visas

The arrest of 475 workers at a South Korean factory construction site in the US late last week was called an ICE raid. But that was an understatement. Some 500 officers from five government agencies shackled and detained the workers in the Trump administration’s biggest single-site immigration raid.

About 300 South Koreans were among these detained.

Their crime was to be working on the wrong visas.

The raid took place at a Hyundai-LG joint venture battery factory site in Georgia. The Korea Herald reported the companies agreed in 2023 to set up the North American operation and........

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