Briefing MONTHLY #89 | October 2025

When Prime Minister Anthony Albanese finally sat down with US President Donald Trump on October 20, the heading for their talks could have been “It’s all about Asia”.

Aside from the White House slap-down of Ambassador Kevin Rudd, the two leaders concentrated on the AUKUS defence partnership and weakening China’s stranglehold on a key supply chain.

The US wants a submarine base in the Indo-Pacific to disperse its forces, create a more challenging operational environment for China and bolster deterrence. AUKUS gives it access to an expanded HMAS Stirling at Perth, handy to both the Indian Ocean and South China Sea. Meanwhile, Beijing’s plan to tighten export controls on the rare earths and magnets needed for everything from electric vehicles to missiles, made Australia’s $US8.5 billion proposal to boost collaboration on mining and refining very attractive indeed.

That offensive play by Beijing spiced up Trump’s Asian tour at the end of the month. The high point will be the President’s meeting with Xi Jinping in South Korea on the sidelines of APEC, but there was also plenty going on at ASEAN in Kuala Lumpur and during Trump’s meeting with Japan’s new PM (see NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH).

Finally, it was an emotional month for many in Timor-Leste. The nation achieved its long-nursed ambition to join ASEAN, while a sombre anniversary was a reminder of the difficult path to independence – and the mixed role Australia has played (see ASIAN NATION).

Thanks for reading.

Emma Connors
Briefing MONTHLY acting editor

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Sanae Takaichi became Japan’s 104^th Prime Minster after taking over the leadership of the Liberal Democratic Party and hastily forming a new coalition. The LDP lacks the numbers to govern in its own right and had relied upon the support of the Komeito party until the resignation of Takaichi’s predecessor, Shigeru Ishiba.

As The Economist noted, the “marriage had always been an unlikely one. Komeito, a pacifist party backed by a big Buddhist organisation, and the LDP, the dominant conservative force in post-war Japan, had been open adversaries before forming a coalition in 1999 … Yet they stayed together-until October 10, when Komeito told the LDP it had finally had enough”.

Points of difference with the new LDP leader included her refusal to commit to tightening the rules on corporate political donations. Takaichi, who fits the Trump mode of fiscally liberal while socially conservative, also has decidedly different views from Komeito party members on Japan’s military past and future.

The new PM, whose musical tastes and talents (she was once a drummer in a heavy metal band) and admiration for England’s Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher are a gift for headline writers everywhere, signed a new agreement with the right-wing Nippon Ishin (Japan Innovation Party) after agreeing to its demands to cut the number of parliamentary seats.

Like the new PM, Nippon Ishin is hawkish on China and also supports restricting immigration, tapping into unease that Japanese traditions are being eroded by newcomers.

In time for the visit by Trump, Takaichi announced Japan would increase defence spending more quickly, rising to 2 per cent of GDP this financial year. In Tokyo, Trump said the US had received Japan’s order for a “very large amount of new military equipment”.

Takaichi’s Cabinet suggests championing feminist causes is not a priority. There are just two women in the 19-person group. This is fewer than the record five women.

Similarly, Japan’s Civil Code Article 750 that stipulates married couples must use the same surname, is not likely to change under this Prime Minister. While the choice is technically open to either the husband's or wife's name, in 95 per cent of cases, it’s women who change their name. Polls suggest most Japanese would like a rule change, but reforms have been stymied at the highest level with the country’s Supreme Court ruling in 2021 the requirement is constitutional. The new coalition partners have suggested they will put up legislation to allow women to use their maiden name as an alias for business purposes. Local media suggest this means a change to the underlying system has slipped further away.

On her first day in the job, Takaichi called on all lawmakers to “work like a horse”. She said she would “abandon the word ‘work-life balance’” and would “work, work, work and work” to build a strong economy. While security and social issues get a lot of attention, politicians know that for most voters, most of the time, it’s all about the economy. There’s much to be done here. Japan, that for so long battled the deflation demon, now confronts rising prices and stagnant wages. Takaichi’s ultraconservative bent may help pull disenchanted voters back to a more traditionalist LDP, but she will have to deliver on cost-of-living promises as well.

KUALA LUMPUR: There had never been an ASEAN Summit quite like this. A ceasefire agreement signed in front of the US President, a new member admitted to the bloc – the first since 1999 – and continuing efforts to paper over the cracks of an intractable conflict. ASEAN centrality, chameleon-like, continues to be in the eye of the beholder.

In the weeks leading up the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur, two former foreign ministers of Malaysia and Thailand were among those who urged ASEAN to oppose Myanmar’s planned “sham election” and launch a new strategy to bring peace. Mynamar is the ASEAN member in such disgrace it is not allowed to be represented at leader Summits.

Their efforts were in vain. ASEAN clings onto the Five-Point Consensus plan it formulated a few months after the military coup on February 1, 2021, and which the junta has flaunted ever since.

Earlier this month, as the world waited to see if Hamas would accept the terms of a ceasefire in Gaza, at least 24 civilians died at a religious festival in the Chaung-U township in Myanmar’s Sagaing Region. They were killed by bombs dropped by a motorised paraglider, an increasingly favoured tool of the junta. Pilots drop the bombs by hand with the gliders flying at low altitude.

A week earlier, the UN Secretary General’s special envoy to Myanmar, former foreign minister Julie Bishop, summed up the situation in a sombre speech in New York. “The violence continues between the military and ethnic armed organizations and people’s defence forces. There is no agreed ceasefire. There is no agreed pathway to peace. There is no agreed political solution. Human rights violations continue with impunity.”

When Bishop was appointed by the UN, it seemed the military was losing ground. This no longer appears to be the case.

Yet while the military still holds major urban areas, it controls significantly less than half the territory, with resistance forces and ethnic armies holding large portions of the country. 

Myanmar watchers say the planned elections won’t help but could hinder. Opposition figures – many in jail, abroad or in hiding – refuse to take part. Voting is not possible in many areas due to fighting.

In a joint statement issued after meeting in Kuala Lumpur, ASEAN leaders noted the lack of “substantive progress” on the five-point consensus but reaffirmed it as the “main reference for the crisis”. Malaysia’s Mohamad Hasan said that ASEAN could not stop the December election but wants the “contest to be fair and inclusive”.

This type of magical thinking provides fuel for ASEAN’s critics. In this ASPI post Justin Bassi and Euan Graham give a harsh appraisal:

“ASEAN has unfortunately passed the point at which it needs to decide whether to regenerate and play a genuine leadership role for the region or is content to run itself into insignificance, requiring only that Australia and others continue giving lip service to its centrality.”

ASEAN’s supporters counter by saying it is what goes on behind the scenes that really matters. They say it is the organisation’s power to bring countries together at its many meetings that matters. As for ASEAN’s negotiations with China for a code of conduct in the South China Sea, this interpretation holds not that these talks – running in some form for more than 20 years and still no agreement – have failed. Rather, the negotiations are viewed as effective because they mean the bloc is still talking regularly with China about its contentious conduct. Never mind that Beijing continues to aggressively push its territorial in the contested waters. Last month it was Australia’s turn, when a Chinese fighter jet dropped flares dangerously close to an RAAF surveillance plane.

One feature of ASEAN that all would agree on is that its plodding style and consensus approach is a form of decision-making alien to the US President. In barely 24 hours at Kuala Lumpur, Trump signed trade deals with Vietnam and Malaysia as well as presiding over a loosely-worded but grandly named Peace Accord between Thailand and Cambodia. This was understood to be a condition of his appearance at the Summit. Of course, it may not hold, and all the work on those trade deals had taken place before Air Force One touched down. But clearly, he was not going to leave without results.

Myanmar’s fault lines go back to British rule and policies that fuelled ethnic tensions in colonial times. The role played by geography is often overlooked, explains Andrew Selth in this Asialink post. While Trump was quick to again praise his own ability to stop wars – “It’s something I love to do and I’m good at it” – he steered well clear of Myanmar, even though it boasts deposits of the rare earths the US craves. Washington is concerned by Myanmar’s growing relations with China, Selth notes, but despite “occasional reports that the US plans to wage a proxy war against China in Myanmar, Donald Trump seems to have different priorities”.

The International Monetary Fund delivered a glass half-full view of what lies ahead for the region in its biannual global review. The IMF’s economists noted the lurch toward protectionism from the US had not impacted Asia as severely as originally thought – but it’s hard to tell what happens next.

“Economic activity in Asia-Pacific is holding up better than expected in April, despite the region bearing the brunt of US tariffs and policy uncertainty remaining high,” Krishna Srinivasan, director of the IMF’s Asia and Pacific Department told a news briefing.

“We project the region to grow by 4.5 per cent 2025 and moderate to 4.1 per cent in 2026 …The region is once again set to contribute the lion’s share of global growth, about 60 per cent this year and again in 2026.”

While debate continues over how much trade from Asia with the US was “front-loaded” to dodge tariffs, it’s clear Chinese exports to the US have dropped, as have new car shipments from South Korea (subject to a 25 per cent tariff from the US) and Japan (the original 27.5 tariff was reduced to 15 per cent last month).

Chinese government statistics show exports to the US were down 11.8 per cent in August over the previous month, and 33.1 per cent year-on-year.

In recent years, China has steadily shifted away from the US by finding other buyers for its goods, particularly in what both Beijing and New Delhi like to refer to as the “Global South”. In October Beijing announced a new, one-stop task force in Hong Kong, dedicated to helping businesses expand into global markets. The fast-growing ASEAN economies are obvious targets.

Meanwhile ASEAN countries are being urged to adopt a similar strategy. It’s a way of framing Trump’s tariffs as an opportunity rather than just a problem.

At an event in Singapore reported by the Straits Times, Malaysia’s Deputy Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry Liew Chin Tong said the economic model of “export-led industrialisation to the US”, which has served the region well for half a century, is coming to an end. He urged ASEAN governments  to focus on nurturing regional multinationals. “Maybe in 10, 15 years, we have a mini-Huawei or mini-Samsung or a mini TSMC,” he said, referring to successful tech companies that have sprung up in other parts of Asia.

ASEAN’s goods exports to the US increased from $US142 billion in 2017 to $312 billion in 2024, according to ASEAN data. For the biggest exporters – Thailand and Vietnam – this has resulted in the huge trade surpluses that have so incensed Trump. The latest data shows Vietnam’s exports are up 16 per cent in the first nine months of this year but it’s early days yet for the new tariff regime. In Thailand, the government expect exports to keep growing, but at a slower pace.

These countries benefited from previous US actions against China, with many companies shifting or adding production sites – the China+1 strategy. However, the US has now broadened its approach and regional rules around transhipment have moved with the times. “The era of simple rerouting to bypass tariffs is effectively over,” concluded the ASEAN Briefing.

M on the Bund was a favourite place for many who lived and visited Shanghai during the restaurant’s 23 years on the famous promenade. A few weeks ago, some had a chance to revisit those glory days with the premier of a documentary, also called M on the Bund, on the venue’s last days. The film, directed by Luo Tong, uses a mix of archival footage, behind-the-scenes access, and interviews to explore the restaurant's impact on Shanghai's food, culture, and community before it closed its doors in February 2022. You can watch the trailer here. It’s always a pleasure to hear the no-nonsense views of founder and restaurateur extraordinaire Michelle Garnaut and it was a lively evening at the film’s premiere, hosted by Asia Society Australia at Melbourne’s Capitol theatre.

In this interview on Radio National’s Saturday Briefing, Garnaut criticised the way Western media portray China as “all bad”, saying “it’s such a narrow picture of how complex China is”.

Part of the problem for our news outlets of course is the vast majority of coverage has been done from afar since The Australian Financial Review’s Michael Smith and the ABC’s Bill Birtles left in a hurry in 2020, forced to take refuge with Australian diplomats in Beijing and Shanghai after being harassed by China’s Ministry of State Security.

For a while, there were no reporters for Australian mainstream media in China. The Australian’s Will Glasgow, who covered China from Taipei for years, was the first one back, shifting to Beijing in 2024.

He’s no longer alone, and more are coming. Hopefully. The ABC announced its return to Beijing in late August, and its new China correspondent Allyson Horn was in place last month to report on Xi Jinping’s massive military parade.

Meanwhile, The Financial Review’s and The Sydney Morning Herald’s North Asia correspondents Jessica Sier and Lisa Visentin are hoping to relocate soon from Tokyo and Singapore, respectively. No date has been set as Nine Entertainment, publisher of both mastheads, waits for the green light.

This month also marked a sombre anniversary for Australia’s newsrooms. On October 16, 1975, five Australian-based journalists were murdered by Indonesian military while on assignment during Indonesia’s invasion of what was then East Timor.

Jakarta has refused to apologise for the deaths of Greg Shackleton, Tony Stewart, Gary Cunningham, Brian Peters and Malcolm Rennie, insisting the men were killed in crossfire. A 2007 inquest into the deaths found Indonesian special forces deliberately killed the journalists to stop them reporting. You can read the ABC’s report from Timor-Leste here.

While that country honours the Balibo Five each year, the Australian government has abandoned its efforts to investigate and prosecute the individuals identified as culpable. The 7News report Balibo Five - 50 Years On can be viewed here. The Sydney Morning Herald’s Kate Aubusson and Kate Geraghty provided this moving account from a living witness to the events surrounding the murders.

Author Gordon Peake reminds us of successive Australian governments’ refusal to apologise for past sins in Timor Leste in this fascinating post on the Lowy Institute’s Interpreter.

“To the Canberra hive mind, apologising for 1975 would also imply direct criticism of Indonesia. For Labor die-hards, apologising would constitute besmirchment of sainted Gough Whitlam whose record on Timor is lamentable. In 1974, Whitlam told President Suharto he didn’t believe the then-Portuguese colony should ever be independent; he became a foremost member of the Indonesian cheer squad in the years afterwards.”

The popularity of all things Korean has boosted exports for Seoul in recent years and now extends to beauty products. Government data suggests cosmetic exports – aka K-beauty products – from South Korea jumped 20 per cent to more than $US10.2 billion last year. While the United States is the biggest collective foreign buyer of K-beauty product, some research suggests Australians are the biggest spenders per capita outside of South Korea.

The latest runaway hit is a gadget known as the Booster Pro that its fans – including Kylie Jenner of Kardashian fame – say helps skin absorb serums. The product is made by APR Corp, a Seoul-based company founded by 36-year-old Kim Byung-hoon who is now a billionaire, at least on paper, thanks to APR’s soaring share price, driven by the popularity of its beauty brand, Medicube. More than 70 per cent of the company’s revenues now come from exports, and the US is close to eclipsing China as its biggest market, company executives say.

Companies like APR are giving big American and French cosmetics giants a run for their money – but will the category continue to gain ground in the US if the price increases? On August 29, the US suspended the “de-minimis exemption” that had applied to imports worth less than $US800. From that date, all goods became subject to US import duties. 

South Korea and the US reached an agreement to drop a proposed 25 per cent tariff to 15 per cent in July but no contract was signed. Earlier this month, South Korean officials stated the country is unable to pay the $US350 billion in upfront investment that had been negotiated in July.

US Commerce Howard Lutnick was unmoved, saying in a CNBC interview that the “Koreans either pay the tariffs or accept the deal”. Negotiators from both sides were working furiously ahead of APEC to nut out an investment agreement with an instalment plan to give Trump another trade deal to sign during his Asia tour.

Terror and talks cannot go together, terror and trade cannot go together, and water and blood cannot flow together.
- India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, October 9, Canberra, echoing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s position on terrorism.

…this is not a US-China problem. Good news is that this is IMF week. A lot of my counterpart(s) … are here. We’re going to be speaking with our European allies, with Australia, with Canada, with India and the Asian democracies.
- US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, October 15, Washington

I would expect that the threat of the 100 per cent [tariff on China exports to the US] has gone away, as has the threat of the immediate imposition of the Chinese initiating a worldwide export control regime.
- US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, October 27, Kuala Lumpur

India is making steady progress in reducing tobacco use and is on track to achieve a 30 per cent reduction by 2030. This is among the findings in a new World Health Organisation Report  co-authored by an Australian academic, University of New England Associate Professor Edouard Tursan d’Espaignet. In Australia tobacco use is projected to fall from 17.6 per cent in 2010 to 10.6 per cent, a 38 per cent decline that exceeds the global target.

WHO uses statistical modelling to calculate tobacco use trends with data gained from more than 2000 national surveys. The report concluded the number of users dropped from 1.38 billion in 2000 to 1.2 billion in 2024. There has been a 27 per cent relative decline since 2010. That equates to 120 million fewer people using tobacco.

The South-East Asia region stands to lose 69 million users, which is over half of the total reduction. At the same time, the European region would lose 37 million users and the region of the Americas, 35 million. The Western Pacific region is not tipped to see any reduction in the total number of users in this 15-year period, while the African region will gain 6 million users and the Eastern Mediterranean region will add another 15 million.

Indonesia is included in the Western Pacific region in this report, and country data suggest smoking rates in this country are still high – at least among men. This will come as no surprise to those who have travelled in the country and seen plastic signs advertising tobacco fluttering in the smallest villages.

The age-adjusted estimate suggests almost 60 per cent of Indonesian men smoke (59.3 per cent) compared to 13.4 per cent of Australian men. But the data suggests only 2.7 per cent of Indonesian women smoke, compared to 9.9 per cent of Australian women. In the three countries with more people than Indonesia – India, China and the United States – the prevalence estimate among men is 35.6 per cent, 44.2 per cent and 20 per cent respectively. The research concludes that while Indonesia and China are on track to achieve a decrease in prevalence, the fall is likely to be less than 30 per cent. The US, like India, is on track to achieve the 30 per cent reduction.

In the report preface, Professor Chris Armstrong, University of New England Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research, referred to “headwinds” faced by WHO due to changes in “geopolitical forces around the world”. After the US cut its ties with the agency in January, WHO’s woes have worsened as the months go by. After scrapping programs and steadily shedding staff, it still found itself short nearly $US1.9 billion for its reduced  $US4.2 billion budget for 2026-26. The US is not only not going to contribute in the future but also owes $US260 million in dues for 2024-25.

November 10-21: The UN Cop30 climate summit will take place in the Brazilian city of Belem. China, India and Brazil are all expected to unveil new climate initiatives.

November 24-27: Final planned sitting week for Federal Parliament this year.

December 7: Hong Kong’s Legislative Council election

(1) The average time in office for the last three Japanese prime ministers (Shigeru Ishiba, Fumio Kishida, Yoshihide Suga) is just shy of 89 weeks.

(2) India was not among those countries that sent high-level representatives to stand alongside North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. However, the two countries do have trade and diplomatic links. India has an embassy in Pyongyang and North Korea has an embassy in New Delhi.

(3) The five-day sumo tournament returned to London 34 years after making its debut in the city. Crowds cheered on the contest that took place in a purpose-built arena in the Grand Albert Hall. The structure was built in the traditional manner, using clay and sand imported from Japan. A two-day tournament is scheduled for Paris next June.

(4) Senator Penny Wong announced she would nominate Andrew Shearer, currently in charge at the Office of National Intelligence, to be Australia’s Ambassador to Japan when Justin Hayhurst’s term finishes. Among other appointments in Asia this year, Marc Innes-Brown took over from HK Yu in the Philippines and Gillian Bird followed Andrew Goledzinowski in Vietnam.

Briefing MONTHLY is a public update with news and original analysis on Asia and Australia-Asia relations. As Australia debates its future in Asia, and the Australian media footprint in Asia continues to shrink, it is an opportune time to offer Australians at the forefront of Australia’s engagement with Asia a professionally edited, succinct and authoritative curation of the most relevant content on Asia and Australia-Asia relations. Focused on business, geopolitics, education and culture, Briefing MONTHLY is distinctly Australian and internationalist, highlighting trends, deals, visits, stories and events in our region that matter.

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