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    Today

    A Hindu holy man displays the indelible ink mark on his index finger after casting his vote in the seventh and final phase of national elections in Varanasi, India.

    Modi’s alliance to win big in India election, exit polls project

    Most exit polls projected the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) could win a two-thirds majority in the 543-member lower house of parliament.

    • YP Rajesh, Sakshi Dayal and Tanvi Mehta
    Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi campaigning in Chennai, India.

    Modi’s authoritarianism will make relations with India harder to handle

    It would be a tragedy and have adverse implications for the West if India’s struggle for internal harmony were to founder on the rocks of majoritarian elective autocracy.

    • John McCarthy

    Yesterday

    Defence Minister Richard Marles speaks during the 21st Shangri-La Dialogue summit in Singapore on Saturday.

    Australia has ‘security anxieties’ with China even as ties warm

    Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles has called on Beijing to uphold the global rules-based order.

    • Updated
    • David Rising, Jasmine Ng and Haslinda Amin

    May

    A Chinese soldier tests a machine gun on a robot dog at military exercises in Cambodia.

    China’s army tests gun-toting robot dog

    The new military tech was made by a start-up with funding from major venture capital firms.

    • Ryan McMorrow

    How Taiwan’s trusty ‘silicon shield’ became its achilles heel

    For years the island democracy depended on its outsized semiconductor industry to protect it from China’s advances. But huge success comes at a price.

    • Jessica Sier
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    Anwar Ibrahim hailed Google’s investment as a sign of faith in Malaysia’s governance and economy.

    Google to invest $3b in Malaysian data centre and cloud hub

    The news follows Microsoft’s announcement that it would put $US2.2 billion into Malaysia’s new cloud and artificial intelligence infrastructure.

    • Ram Anand
    Gordon Ng was first detained in 2021.

    Australian among 14 convicted in Hong Kong’s biggest security case

    A Hong Kong court has found the pro-democracy activists guilty in a national security case that has effectively wiped out the city’s political opposition.

    • Jessie Pang and James Pomfret
    A worker checks solar panels at a factory in Jiujiang in central China’s Jiangxi province.

    IMF lifts China growth forecast but warns on trade war

    The International Monetary Fund said it was raising its forecast for the country’s gross domestic product growth in 2024 to 5 per cent from 4.6 per cent.

    • Haslinda Amin
    PwC is facing a crisis in China as partners brace for penalties over its audit of collapsed property developer Evergrande.

    Key clients desert PwC China as big four rivals circle

    The accounting firm is under a cloud over audits of the distressed property developer Evergrande, and it faces severe penalties.

    • Cheng Leng and Chan Ho-him
    Taiwan President Lai Ching-te, right, puts on a cowboy hat given by Representative Michael McCaul during a meeting in Taipei,

    US legislator tells Taiwan its weapons are coming

    The island nation has complained for two years of delays in deliveries of US weapons, as manufacturers supply Ukraine to support its defence against Russia.

    • Ben Blanchard

    China’s industrial profits return to growth

    A global cyclical boom in technology products like chips as well as a push by the government to get firms to replace their old equipment supported the April upturn.

    • Gao Yuan
    South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, centre, speaks as Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, left, and Chinese Premier Li Qiang listen during a joint news conference in Seoul.

    China hails ‘new beginning’ with US-allied South Korea, Japan

    China, South Korea and Japan are trying to manage mutual distrust amid the rivalry between Beijing and Washington, and tensions over Taiwan.

    • Hyonhee Shin
    Wang Hongquanxing once boasted he never left home in jewellery and clothes worth less than 10 million yuan ($2.1 million).

    China’s online ‘Kim Kardashian’ banned for being too ostentatious

    The online disappearance last week of Wang Hongquanxing is part of the government’s latest campaign to maintain its dominance over China’s social media culture.

    • Joe Leahy and Wenjie Ding
    A chip expo in China.

    China in high-stakes summit with Japan, South Korea

    China and its US-allied neighbours are important trading partners to one another, and their cooperation is key to promoting regional peace and prosperity.

    • Soo-Hyang Choi and Yoshiaki Nohara
    Geely’s electric vehicles bound for shipment to Europe at the Port of Taicang.

    US, China protectionism race benefits no one

    To counter competition from China, the United States is becoming more like China, and Australia and other nations have joined the game.

    • Shiro Armstrong
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    Shophouses on Telok Ayer Street in Singapore.

    Ray Dalio joins billionaires snapping up historic Singapore houses

    The Bridgewater Associates founder’s family office has bought two heritage ‘shophouse’ properties for about $28.6 million

    • Mercedes Ruehl
    A Taiwan Coast Guard member monitor Chinese navy vessel operating near the Pengjia Islet north of Taiwan on Thursday.

    China steps up war games around Taiwan to ‘seize power’

    Beijing’s military released a video of missiles being launched at Taiwan from the ground, air and sea, which then slam into the island’s cities in balls of flame.

    • Bernard Orr and Ben Blanchard
    Anne Stevenson-Yang, third from the left, at the Academy of Building Design in Beijing in 1987.

    China’s curse is to raise hopes and dash them

    In her book “Wild Ride”, an American journalist details her life in China as it opened to the world, then regressed back to an oppressive, inward-looking regime.

    • Anne Stevenson-Yang

    More China ‘punishment’, but Taiwanese have seen it all before

    In the streets of Taipei, people appeared sanguine as they went about their daily lives, as China conducted military drills.

    • Updated
    • Jessica Sier
    PwC is facing a crisis in China as partners brace for penalties over its audit of collapsed property developer Evergrande.

    PwC braces for China crisis and a hefty fine

    PwC’s role in approving accounts for troubled property developer Evergrande has led to infighting at the big four firm as clients reconsider their relationship.

    • Stephen Foley, Sun Yu and Cheng Leng