A protester holds a cut-out of the new prime minister, Muhyiddin Yassin, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Feb. 29, 2020 (AP photo by Vincent Thian).

Less than two years after Malaysia’s landmark May 2018 election that ousted its long-ruling coalition, tensions within the government exploded into the open in recent weeks, upending the country’s politics. Nonagenarian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad resigned late last month in an apparent attempt to ditch most of his allies from the Pakatan Harapan coalition, which he had led to an upset victory against the scandal-plagued Barisan Nasional bloc in 2018, and form a new, essentially ethnic Malay government. It would have included his old party, the United Malays National Organization or UMNO, which led the Barisan Nasional during its six-decade […]

A supporter of Han Kuo-yu, Taiwan’s 2020 presidential election candidate for the KMT, holds a Taiwan flag as he waits for the start of a campaign rally in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, Jan 10, 2020 (AP photo by Ng Han Guan).

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. The new head of the traditionally pro-China Kuomintang party, or KMT, is promising to take a harder line against Beijing’s influence in Taiwan. Lawmaker Chiang Chi-chen was elected chairman of the KMT on Saturday in the wake of the party’s defeats in Taiwan’s presidential and legislative elections earlier this year. China’s campaign to bring Taiwan under its control was a major factor in that vote, and it could be dealt another blow if the KMT reconsiders its closer ties […]

Vice President Mike Pence and other U.S. officials take questions in the press briefing room of the White House, Washington, March 10, 2020 (AP photo by Carolyn Kaster).

These are humbling times to be American, or at least they should be. They are humbling times to be an American journalist, too, especially one of my generation, who spent a career spanning the 1980s to the end of the aughts traveling the wide world as a foreign correspondent. America, of course, had problems back then, indeed very real problems. But one function of America’s immense wealth and power during this period was the illusion, which foreign correspondents could sustain without too much difficultly, that the world was innately more interesting than their own country, because the world was where […]

Trash collectors pick up plastic bottles in New Delhi

In September 2018, after years of modeling and development, the Ocean Cleanup project launched System 001, a floating barrier designed to scoop up plastic debris from an area in the Pacific Ocean that, because of prevailing currents, had become a natural repository of ocean-borne plastic waste. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, as the area the size of France became known, was first discovered in 1988, but it gained prominence after a public awareness campaign in 2008. Although System 001 ultimately failed to hold onto the plastic debris it collected, Ocean Cleanup announced late last year that a modified prototype known […]

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, right, meets U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad in Islamabad, Pakistan, Aug. 1, 2019 (Pakistan Press Information Department photo via AP Images).

The United States and the Taliban signed an agreement in late February that sets a timetable for a U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. The negotiations leading up to the deal were long and fraught, and they almost fell apart last September, after President Donald Trump suspended talks and canceled a planned summit with Taliban leaders at Camp David. But as difficult as the talks were, they pale in comparison to what lies ahead: launching, sustaining and successfully concluding a formal intra-Afghan peace process between the government in Kabul and the Taliban, as well as other Afghan political leaders. Questions abound […]

U.S. President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi meet at Hyderabad House, New Delhi, India, Feb. 25, 2020 (AP photo by Alex Brandon).

U.S. President Donald Trump’s first official visit to India last week was meant to highlight the strength of the U.S.-India partnership and the high priority that Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi place on the relationship. Trump ingratiated himself with his hosts by refusing to publicly criticize the controversial citizenship law that has unleashed mass protests across India. As deadly communal riots raged in Delhi, Trump and Modi stayed on script, enthusiastically declaring that the state of the U.S.-India relationship is strong. Lending credence to that message, the two leaders signed important deals on defense, energy and counterterrorism during […]

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi addresses the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, Sept. 27, 2019 (AP photo by Kevin Hagen).

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. In a setback for Beijing’s efforts to raise its profile at the United Nations and other multilateral organizations, a Chinese candidate failed to win a leadership contest for the U.N.’s intellectual property agency on Wednesday. Wang Binyang’s bid to head the World Intellectual Property Organization, or WIPO, had been opposed by the United States due to concerns about China’s respect for intellectual property rights. Fifty-five out of 83 countries on WIPO’s steering committee voted in favor of Daren Tang, […]

Police officers wearing face masks patrol at a container port in Qingdao, China, Feb. 19, 2020 (Chinatopix photo via AP Images).

Toward the end of his second term in office, former U.S. President Barack Obama said in an interview with The Atlantic that “we have more to fear from a weakened, threatened China than a successful, rising China.” It would be hyperbole to claim that the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak will create the weakened, threatened China that Obama warned about. But it could give us a glimpse. The draconian measures China took to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus that emerged from Wuhan, the capital of central Hubei province, seem to have prevented a worst-case scenario for now. But […]

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