East Asia
- Chinese tourists have set a new record for visits to Southeast Asia, exceeding even pre-Covid levels, after a string of mutual visa waivers freed up travel just before Spring Festival. Chinese citizens no longer need visas for Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia; and vice versa. China has also lifted visa requirements for French, German, Swiss, Dutch, Spanish and Irish visitors – but not British or Japanese ones.
- Meanwhile, Chinese students are also shifting their attention away from the US, UK, and Australia in favour of lower-cost universities in friendlier countries, particularly Malaysia and Thailand, according to a new report by the Centre for China and Globalisation. This could spell trouble for Scottish universities, which have become particularly reliant on Chinese students in the last decade: they make up a quarter of the student body at Edinburgh, Glasgow, Stirling and Strathclyde; and about 10% at St Andrews and Aberdeen.
- Hong Kong is lifting all curbs on property deals, including lowering taxes and scrapping stamp duty, after house prices fell to a seven-year low. The Chinese territory is also boosting its budget for tourism promotion in a bid to get visitors back after the pandemic. International visitor numbers, inward investment and stocks have all slumped since 2020; by contrast, neighbouring territory Macau is riding a tourism and investment boom.
- 75% of medical trainees in South Korea are on strike, protesting government plans to increase student numbers. The Health Ministry says more doctors are necessary in a rapidly ageing society; the trainees say that having more doctors will drive down their salaries, already some of the highest in Korea. Healthcare is not free in Korea, and doctors establish their own practices, with many preferring easy but lucrative work in dermatology and cosmetic surgery to critically under-staffed fields like accident and emergency, paediatrics, and (ironically) gerontology. The students have triggered public outrage; 80% of Koreans back the government, arguing that Korea, with just 2.1 physicians for every 1,000 people compared to a global average of 3.7, has dangerously few doctors already.
- New data has confirmed that Japan is still locked into a demographic doom-spiral. Fewer babies than ever before were born, the eighth consecutive year of decline. Meanwhile, the number of marriages has also fallen to fewer than half a million, the lowest since records began. There are vanishingly few births outside wedlock in Japan, and so low marriage numbers are an ominous indicator for future births. Japan and South Korea are at the forefront of a demographic crisis among developed nations: the ‘replacement rate’, or minimum necessary to keep a native-born population stable, is 2.1 children per woman, but Japanese women have, on average, 1.3 children; while their Korean counterparts have just 0.78. By mid-century, the majority of Japanese and Koreans will be over 65; if current trends persist, both will see their populations halve by 2200, and could go extinct by 2500.
Southeast Asia
- Indonesia went to the polls on Valentine’s Day, in the largest single day of voting on earth. Although results will not be available for a month – ballots must be collected from 820,000 polling stations – former defence minister General Prabowo Subianto is unofficially in the lead. His running mate, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, is son of the immensely popular incumbent Joko Widodo, who retires this year. General Subianto is widely seen as the continuity candidate.
- The ninth Singapore Airshow kicked off at Changi airport. Trade interest focused on the international debut of the Comac C919, China’s first domestically-produced large jet aircraft. Speculation is rife on if the lower-cost C919 could challenge the Euro-American duopoly on aircraft manufacturing, particularly in the global south. Over 1000 orders have been placed so far, according to Comac.
India and Central Asia
- Indian farmers marched on Delhi after negotiations with the government collapsed after a dispute over guaranteed crop prices. Protests have been rolling since 2021, and have since become part of a global movement. After farmers used tractors and diggers to break through roadblocks, police fired teargas from drones to disperse them.
- A UN summit on the future of Afghanistan, held in Qatar, pointedly did not include the ruling Taliban, after Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that the group’s demands for recognition were unacceptable. However, Sophie Ibbotson of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs predicts that this year will be a tipping point: the Taliban already have diplomats working in Iran, Pakistan, and Turkmenistan, and a charge d’affairs in Moscow, while China recently credentialed a Taliban ambassador in Beijing, the first country to do so. India and Japan have yet to officially recognise the Taliban, but have quietly reopened their embassies in Kabul.