In Asian media this week: India turns its attention to Japan and China. Plus: Trump wants US to own land used for bases in Korea; Despair turning young refugees to armed insurrection; Beijing pushing AI as next growth-engine; Manila ramps up its anti-China stance; The wounds that time cannot heal.

Reposted from 30 August, 2025

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is shunning the US and Donald Trump after the imposition of 50% tariffs on Indian exports to America. This weekend, Modi will work on his ties with Japan and China.

Modi reacted to Trump’s tariffs with fury, Nikkei Asia, the Tokyo-based news magazine, reported. Citing Indian diplomatic sources, it said Trump had tried many times to speak to Modi, but that he had consistently refused to take the president’s calls.

Modi is turning his attention to East Asia. On Friday, he was due to meet Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and on Sunday he will attend a meeting in Tianjin, near Beijing, of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, a show of Global South solidarity.

It will be Modi’s first visit to China in seven years. He will meet China’s President Xi Jinping at the conference.

The two visits offer the chance to give fresh momentum to India’s partnership with Japan, while cautiously advancing the normalisation of links with China, said an opinion article in The Indian Express newspaper.

The piece, by senior commentator C. Raja Mohan, said India had deep problems with China and it was sceptical about the SCO (of which Pakistan is a senior member). Its relations with Moscow had limits.

China and Russia would not solve India’s trade problems, Mohan said. India’s exports to the US last year amounted to US$88 billion (A$134 billion). By contrast, exports to Russia were worth just US$5 billion (A$7.6 billion) and to China only US$15 billion (A$22.9 billion).

But Modi’s Tokyo trip would give him a first-hand sense of how Trump’s extortionist pressures had disrupted such allies as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. These countries were exploring ways to achieve greater self-reliance and India would want to enhance its independent role in Asia.

Mohan said: “Expect soaring rhetoric from Tianjin on rebooting the regional and global order, but look out for tangible progress in the strategic partnership with Japan.”

As if to underscore Mohan’s basic point, Nikkei Asia said Japan’s Ishiba would announce plans for investing 10 trillion yen (more than A$100 billion) in India over the next 10 years, to deepen bilateral business ties.

The two leaders also planned to revise their countries’ declaration on security co-operation – for the first time in 17 years.

Bully-boy tactics work: Korea adds to US investment

Donald Trump has told South Korean President Lee Jae-myung the US might seek to own the land used for US bases in South Korea.

“You lease us the land,” Trump said. “There’s a big difference between giving and leasing. Maybe one of the things I’d like to ask… is to give us ownership of the land where we have the big fort.” (US Army Garrison Humphreys, in South Korea, is America’s biggest overseas military base).

Trump’s suggestion caused a stir, The Korea Times said, as it marked a sharp break from the........

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