Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan’s new defence pact could reshape West Asian security, while China and Indonesia plan naval drills east of Taiwan. Also: Thailand’s welcome for Myanmar’s leader, Zhu Rongji’s legacy, the weak yen and India’s TV credibility crisis.

Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have signed a mutual defence pact that would treat an attack on one as an attack on all.

Türkiye is NATO’s strongest non-US military nation, with a big and growing defence industry, Türkiye and Saudi Arabia are the two largest West Asian economies and Pakistan is a nuclear power. All three are Sunni Muslim nations.

The agreement was signed last week in Mecca (or Makkah, the city’s official western-style name in Saudi Arabia.) Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper said the signing was a historic moment for the three countries.

It quoted former Pakistan federal minister Mushahid Hussain as saying the pact would be a big blow to Israel, an effective counter to Israeli expansionism.

The agreement came as Saudi Arabia faced pressure from Iran and its proxies, Nikkei Asia, the online politics and business magazine, said. It coincided with intensifying antipathy between Turkiye and Israel over Israel’s massive response to attacks across the region.

Experts expected the alliance could grow by attracting other Muslim countries.

It quoted Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan as saying the countries would set up a secretariat in Saudi Arabia and begin working on priorities, such as intelligence sharing, interoperability, logistics and defence industry co-operation.

A commentary in The Hindu said the signing of the pact could mark an important turning point in the geopolitics of West Asia. It highlighted the changing calculations of three of the Muslim world’s most important states.

For decades, West Asian security had depended overwhelmingly on the US, the analysis said. “The new pact does not terminate that dependence,” it said. “What the agreement suggests instead is a growing determination among regional powers to supplement external security guarantees with arrangements of their own.”

Zahid Hussain, a senior commentator with Dawn, said in a column the three countries spanned the Middle East, South Asia and Europe. He said it would be wrong to brand the triangular pact as a Muslim or Sunni defence bloc.

“It represents an emerging regional security architecture that reduces dependence on the US and pushes back against Israel’s expansionist agenda,” he said. “Questions have been raised about the reliability of the US as a defence guarantor for its Middle Eastern partners. Instead of ensuring security, the presence of US bases has made these countries… more vulnerable.”

Ravi Velloor, the senior columnist with Singapore’s The Straits Times, asked if the agreement could have been reached without Washington’s knowledge or tacit endorsement.

“Unlikely,” he said. “It probably makes sense to see the agreement as a sort of regional security layer taking shape under the shelter of an American security shelter."

But, he added: “The desert sands are rapidly shifting.”

Taiwan condemns Beijing’s naval provocation

China and Indonesia are to conduct a joint naval exercise in the seas east of Taiwan, the first drill between China and a foreign country in these disputed waters.

Global Times, an official Communist Party newspaper, quoted Chinese military expert Zhang Junshe of the PLA’s Naval Research Institute as saying the exercise carried great significance, demonstrating China’s jurisdiction over the exclusive economic zone east of Taiwan.

The paper did not give details of the timing or the route of what it called a navigation exercise but said it would be conducted in mid-August. The PLA Navy ship involved would be the Honghe, a guided-missile frigate.

Taiwan’s top China policy agency, the Mainland Affairs Council, said it strongly condemned the........

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