Welcome again to Overseas Coverage’s Southeast Asia Temporary.
The highlights this week: Japan and the Philippines construct up protection cooperation, Vietnam’s management is ready to consolidate energy, and Elon Musk’s Grok is banned in three international locations.
Philippines-Japan Deepen Protection Relationship
Japan and the Philippines have signed a brand new protection pact to permit the sleek switch of materiel between their armed forces.
The settlement is one other step towards deepening army cooperation between the 2 international locations and a part of Japan’s wider push to develop its safety relationships throughout the Indo-Pacific. The settlement lays out a framework for the 2 international locations’ armed forces to supply one another with ammunition, gas, meals, and different materiel.
The pact helps implement the Reciprocal Entry Settlement (RAA)—signed in 2024 and carried out final 12 months—which permits each international locations’ armed forces to legally enter and carry out operations in one another’s territory.
Japan has ramped up its safety cooperation with the Philippines in different methods, too, steadily donating vessels and different tools to the Philippine Coast Guard and Navy for years. There are actually discussions that the navy may additionally purchase secondhand warships and air protection missiles from Japan.
These measures are geared toward hedging in opposition to Chinese language coercion, with each international locations going through Chinese language claims to their territorial waters.
On the signing on Jan. 15, Philippine Overseas Minister Theresa Lazaro commented that each international locations acknowledged “the worth of selling the rule of regulation, together with the liberty of navigation and overflight, particularly within the South China Sea.”
The Chinese language response to the most recent settlement was predictably spiky, with a Overseas Ministry spokesperson warning in opposition to the resurgence of “Japanese militarism.”
Manila has been ramping up joint workouts with varied companions as a approach of signaling worldwide help for its efforts in opposition to Chinese language maritime encroachment. Final 12 months, the Philippines additionally held its largest ever joint train with Australia and signed visiting forces agreements with New Zealand and Canada. It’s at present engaged on one other settlement with France.
Going by the textual content of the latest settlement with Japan, one different clause jumped out.
Concerning circumstances underneath which materiel might be transferred, one situation included is one involving “safety measures or transportation of nationals of both Occasion or others, if applicable, for his or her evacuation from abroad.”
This isn’t so surprising; the security of the tens of millions of Filipinos dwelling abroad has lengthy been a significant subject for the Philippines.
Nonetheless, the obvious scenario by which the Philippines or Japan would possibly must cooperate on a big scale to evacuate one another’s residents can be a Chinese language invasion of Taiwan.
Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. has beforehand expressed concern concerning the some 190,000 Filipino residents in Taiwan ought to battle happen.
These and different remarks have prompted indignant responses from China, one thing that Japan additionally just lately skilled when Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi commented that Chinese language army motion in opposition to Taiwan may represent a “survival-threatening scenario.”
Zooming out additional, ramped up cooperation with the Philippines is a part of a wider push by Japan to construct up its safety relationships throughout the area. Japan’s Official Safety Help program, launched in 2023, dispenses safety assist to 5 international locations in Southeast Asia—the Philippines, plus Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and East Timor—in addition to Sri Lanka, Tonga, and Papua New Guinea.
Thus far, although, the numbers stay small, with about $116 million budgeted in fiscal 2026. It is a 125 p.c improve in comparison with the 2025 finances, which was itself was a 60 p.c improve on 2024.
These developments in Japan and the Philippines predate U.S. President Donald Trump’s second time period, however they’re inevitably influenced by present occasions.
Vietnam get together congress kicks off. The 14th Nationwide Congress of the Communist Occasion of Vietnam, which can choose the nation’s leaders for the following 5 years, began Monday and can run till Jan. 25.
The expectation is that To Lam, the final secretary of the Communist Occasion and nationwide chief, can even assume the presidency.
The mix of the 2 roles will not be unprecedented, however since Ho Chi Minh, this kind of dual-role association has solely occurred when one of many officeholders died earlier than finishing their time period, letting the opposite step in.
To Lam being nominated to each would display a degree of political dominance not seen in many years. Count on extra on this on this e-newsletter subsequent week.
Again-to-back crane collapses. Thailand was hit by two eerily comparable tragedies in two days, with deadly crane collapses occurring on Jan. 14 and Jan. 15. One firm was the contractor on each websites.
The 2 incidents—the primary of which hit a passenger prepare, killing 32 individuals, and the second of which hit automobiles, killing two—has prompted livid scrutiny of Italian-Thai Improvement (ITD), one of many nation’s largest development corporations.
That is simply the most recent scandal to hit ITD. In March 2025, the State Audit Workplace constructing, underneath development by ITD, collapsed following a significant earthquake with an epicenter in Myanmar. It was the one constructing in Bangkok to break down, and 95 individuals had been killed.
Thai authorities responded by indicting 23 people, together with the corporate president. No less than one different deadly incident additionally occurred at an ITD expressway development website in 2025.
Responding to the most recent incident, Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, maybe with one eye on the nation’s upcoming Feb. 8 election, ordered the federal government to search for methods to revoke ITD’s contracts on the two websites the place the accidents occurred, pursue authorized motion, and blacklist the corporate.
The newest scandals replicate not simply dangerous observe at one firm, however a wider business drawback.
In March 2025, following one other deadly collapse that killed 5 individuals on the Rama II Street—the identical location as the latest crane incident—native media famous that there had been greater than 2,500 construction-related accidents since 2019 on this highway alone.
Laotian chief extends time in workplace. On Jan. 9, Laotian President Thongloun Sisoulith was reappointed for a second time period as the final secretary of the Lao Folks’s Revolutionary Occasion on the get together’s twelfth Nationwide Congress.
The 80-year-old chief served as a trainer within the Pathet Lao, the revolutionary group that toppled the nation’s monarchy.
There was a generational shift at this get together congress: 5 Politburo members born within the Nineteen Forties and Fifties retired to make approach for youthful technocratic figures.
The query stays whether or not this transition will assist Laos hit its growth targets. The nation is attempting to depart behind its “least-developed nation” standing throughout the United Nations.
If this occurs, Laos will lose varied privileges afforded to least-developed international locations, reminiscent of preferential commerce therapy, however the state press appears eager on the recategorization as an emblem of progress.
The congress additionally declared an bold purpose to grow to be an upper-middle earnings nation by 2055.
Staff carry their belongings onto a bus as they go away a suspected rip-off middle compound in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, on Jan. 14. Tang Chhin Sothy / AFP through Getty Pictures
Below stress from the US and China alike, Cambodia is making a present of cracking down on scams.
Chen Zhi, the China-born chair of the alleged rip-off empire Prince Group, was extradited to China on Jan. 7. And on the bottom, droves of foreigners left suspected rip-off compounds final week because the police performed raids.
There are indications that this can be extra theater than a severe crackdown on a legal business with deep hyperlinks to Cambodia’s political institution. Stories by AFP and the Mekong Impartial discover that many employees left the compounds earlier than the police arrived, suggesting a tipoff.
FP’s Most Learn This Week
With the Philippines taking on because the chair of the Affiliation of Southeast Asian Nations, Robin Hu in unpacks within the South China Morning Post how coast guards have grow to be the important thing factor in South China Sea tensions.
Nikkei Asia explores what number of Asian international locations are struggling of their pivot towards encouraging larger households.
John Berthelsen in Asia Sentinel digs into the “ye-ye tradition” scandal rocking Malaysia’s army and the way many years of graft have hollowed its capacities.
Three Southeast Asian international locations—Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines—have moved to dam synthetic intelligence chatbot Grok over its function that lets customers create nonconsensual pornography of different individuals, together with kids.
Placing this into observe is proving difficult. VPNs, already broadly used, let customers get round blocks on the web site. The AI software additionally continues to operate on X, which has not been blocked, the place it’s an built-in function.
The transfer is attention-grabbing, although. Firstly, it highlights how—barely unexpectedly—Southeast Asia is discovering itself at forefront of democratic makes an attempt to reign in social media.
Final 12 months, Australia—a semi-Southeast Asian nation—grew to become the primary to ban social media for youngsters underneath 16. Malaysia and Indonesia are shifting to implement comparable legal guidelines. There’s additionally a rising debate concerning the matter within the Philippines. The Singaporean authorities is shifting ahead with measures in March to drive platforms to examine customers’ ages and limit inappropriate content material.
Second, and extra speculatively, the transfer maybe displays the declining enchantment of X proprietor Elon Musk within the area as Chinese language manufacturers outcompete him in electrical automobiles. Not so way back, various Southeast Asian international locations had been in a frenzy of competitors to attempt to entice Tesla to arrange manufacturing of their international locations. Now, three once-hot opponents are banning Grok, apparently keen to bear out any souring of Musk’s disposition that this would possibly immediate.
One may speculate {that a} large a part of that is the meteoric rise of Chinese language electrical car producers, various which have moved aggressively to arrange manufacturing within the area and promote automobiles at less expensive costs. I’m certain that any nation would nonetheless be extraordinarily comfortable to see Tesla arrange a manufacturing facility in its yard, however now, it’s now not the one recreation on the town.
