Big Take Asia

Mauritius and neighboring islands in the Indian Ocean are at the center of a great-power chess match involving the US, China and India. All want to use them as bases to protect shipping lanes and proj...

11 Mar 202513min

A crippling property crisis, mounting debt, weak consumer spending… and now a trade war. Despite the headwinds, China has set an ambitious economic growth goal of about 5% this year. On today’s Big Ta...

6 Mar 202513min

Four years after launching a regulatory crackdown that plunged the tech sector into turmoil, China’s President Xi Jinping sat down publicly with Alibaba Group’s co-founder Jack Ma, whose firm bore the...

25 Feb 202515min

Since its US launch in 2022, Chinese marketplace Temu has rapidly risen to become America’s biggest e-commerce platform after Amazon, thanks to ultra-low prices on almost every product imaginable. On ...

18 Feb 202516min

Thailand became the first country in Southeast Asia to recognize same-sex marriage last month. And to mark the occasion, nearly 2,000 couples tied the knot on the first day the law came into effect. ...

14 Feb 202515min

As US President Donald Trump imposes new tariffs on China, Xi Jinping's government has had a far more muted response than it did during the trade war in Trump’s first term. On today’s Big Take Asia Po...

11 Feb 202518min

Shuibei, in southern China, is home to one of the world's biggest retail markets for gold. Over the past year, it's seen a boom in demand for the jewelry, sold by thousands of stallholders, as the Chi...

28 Jan 202513min

The US ban on TikTok saw millions of users – predominantly Americans – flock to another Chinese social media platform: Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote. So far, the vibe between Chinese and American...

21 Jan 202517min