An unreliable America is drawing Asia’s middle powers closer A burst of Indian diplomacy exemplifies the trend July 16th 2026 NARENDRA MODI is often seen pressing flesh at bilateral meetings, or embracing his favourite counterparts with a bear hug. A visit to France and Slovakia last month was the peripatetic Indian prime minister’s 100th foreign trip since taking office in 2014. Shortly after returning to India, he jetted off to the Seychelles. He was then in Delhi to host Japan’s prime minister, Takaichi Sanae, before heading to Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand. The flurry of activity in the Indo-Pacific illustrates a trend: Asia’s middle powers want an insurance policy. Mr Modi aired deals on defence, maritime security, semiconductors and rare earths—all in the shadow of the two
superpowers. Like other Asian countries, India has long had to contend with the economic heft and territorial ambitions of China. But as America has become less reliable the balancing act has got rather harder. C. Raja Mohan, an Indian foreign-policy analyst, has described Mr Modi’s approach as “G minus 2”, referring to the so-called G2 pact that Donald Trump at times talks of striking with China. Asian countries are not turning their backs on America or seeking to contain China, he says: they know they cannot do either. Instead, they are working out what they can do together, putting aside old differences. For India the shift in America’s position has been particularly jarring. Though it has managed to get off the “punishment tariffs” Mr Trump imposed last August, few see how it can repair its relations with America while he is in office. Diplomats elsewhere in the region are aghast at the deterioration of such a vital relationship. Such worries were further aggravated in June when America said that it was rebranding its Indo-Pacific Command, as it terms its military structure in the region, as the Pacific Command. The small textual change carried a big message. “Indo” had been added in 2018 to signal maritime co-operation between countries in the Quad—America, Australia, India and Japan—and
portray India in particular as a critical partner. Its removal was seen as a snub in Delhi and another sign of American retrenchment. What did Mr Modi’s tour yield? Most promising is a convergence between India and Australia. Their relationship has long been constrained by Australia’s opposition to nuclear proliferation and India’s suspicion of Western alliances. Politicians from Australia’s Labor Party have also raised concerns about Kashmir. Such differences are now forgotten. On July 9th Australia agreed to supply India with uranium for nuclear energy. Notably, the two will also co-ordinate action on maritime security. “India has long resisted that kind of language,” says Ian Hall of Griffith University. India’s ties with Japan are also getting stronger, with the focus shifting from infrastructure to defence and technology. The two have agreed to work together on defence production for the first time, even if their inaugural project (making radio antennae) is small-bore. In New Zealand Mr Modi spoke of plans for more naval exercises and information sharing. In Jakarta he signed a deal to supply Indonesia with India’s BrahMos missile system. Mr Modi is “essentially implementing Mark Carney’s idea of middle powers coming together in Asia”, says Ajay Bisaria, a former Indian high commissioner to Canada. Yet for all his frenetic activity, mutual concerns will not inevitably lead to deep co-operation. Asia’s middle powers still differ on many issues, especially over how to handle Mr Trump, and in some cases attitudes towards China. Compared with those in Europe, Asian countries may be more divided over how to respond to a shifting balance between the two superpowers. But they are also a lot more exposed. Expect the energetic diplomacy to continue. ■ Stay on top of our India coverage by signing up to Essential India, our free weekly newsletter. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com//asia/2026/07/16/an-unreliable-america-is-drawing-asias- middle-powers-closer
Haunted houses are in demand in Japan What’s behind the growing desire for once-shunned “incident properties”? July 16th 2026 For more than a decade, Matsubara Tanishi, a Japanese comedian, has lived in houses where others met gruesome ends. One tenant murdered his brother. Another hanged herself. In a third an old man died alone and lay undiscovered for two years. “I used to think I might get cursed,” he says. In Japan such unfortunate houses are known as jiko bukken, or “incident properties”. Though many recoil at the thought of living in one, they have long fascinated the public. Mr Matsubara has built a career from inhabiting dozens of them; his memoirs have become best-sellers and inspired films. Now rising housing costs are making these properties look less unappealing to the wider public.
Incident properties are priced anywhere from 10% to 50% below market value, depending on the grisliness of the previous occupant’s demise. Such discounts of course exist elsewhere, but Japan’s culture around them is unusually elaborate. Oshima Teru, a property investor, runs a popular website mapping jiko bukken across the country, marking each with a fire icon and a description of the death. “It frightens me, but I can’t stop checking it,” says Kobayashi Yoko, a housekeeper in Tokyo. If she discovers that a client’s house is on the map, she invents an excuse not to go. Japan is strikingly superstitious for a country where few profess a religion. A survey in 2024 showed that a third of Japanese believe in spirits. Social media teems with tales of ghosts lingering in incident properties. Some firms cater to those fears. Buddhist monks perform cleansing rituals. Kachimode, a firm in Tokyo, inspects jiko bukken with thermal cameras and other devices, purportedly searching for signs of paranormal activity. If none appear, it issues a document certifying the house as not haunted. Demography is making such properties harder to ignore. The government recorded more than 20,000 kodokushi or “lonely deaths” in 2025, defining them as people who died alone and went unnoticed for at least eight days. In 2021 it issued a guideline saying that landlords need not disclose them, except in case of extraordinary circumstances, such as severe
decomposition. The change also aimed to make it easier for older people to rent, since many landlords fear a lonely death taking place in their property. Niki Hidenori, who runs a property firm focused on jiko bukken in Kobe, says more tenants are “weighing the price and taking a pragmatic approach”. In March average studio rents in central Tokyo rose by 13% year on year, a record high for the 22nd consecutive month. A recent survey suggests a majority of Japanese would consider living in a jiko bukken. Investors are drawn too; legally, a death need not be disclosed after three years have elapsed, so a property bought at a discount can later be sold at full price. Mr Matsubara says he has never seen a ghost, but he has developed a habit of sleepwalking. He doubts malicious spirits are to blame, suspecting instead that years of living in such spaces have taken a psychological toll. Ryua, a young woman living in a jiko bukken in Tokyo, is at peace with it herself. But when friends visit, “they start getting nervous and leave quickly,” she says. “That’s a bit sad.” ■ For exclusive coverage of Asian politics, economics and security, sign up to Asia Bulletin, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com//asia/2026/07/14/haunted-houses-are-in-demand-in-japan
A real but selective crackdown on Cambodia’s scam industry Sanctions from America and pressure from China have forced a reckoning July 16th 2026 IN JANUARY CAMBODIA extradited Chen Zhi, believed to be the boss of one of Asia’s most powerful criminal organisations, to China. Mr Chen, notorious for online fraud, was an adviser to Hun Sen, Cambodia’s longtime strongman. His fate has spooked scam moguls across the country: if the most powerful man in Cambodia could not protect Mr Chen, nobody was safe. Since then, tens of thousands of workers trapped in compounds ringed by barbed wire and armed guards, forced to defraud people around the world, have flooded onto Cambodia’s streets after their bosses fled, leaving the gates open.
The global online fraud industry is estimated to steal more than $500bn a year from victims worldwide, putting it on a par with the illicit drug trade. Nowhere in Asia are politics and cybercrime more deeply enmeshed than in Cambodia, where online scams may generate up to $19bn a year, equivalent to 40% of the country’s formal GDP and more than garment manufacturing, its largest legitimate industry. For years Cambodia was known for staging fake crackdowns, with police raiding empty buildings after the bosses had been tipped off. The past six months have been different, but not as different as the government claims. Cambodia is under greater international pressure than ever before. The crackdown “is not fake; but it is selective and strategic,” says Jacob Sims of Inca Digital, a data-analytics firm. The risks to the elite are multiplying. After America and Britain slapped sanctions on Mr Chen last October, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand seized assets belonging to him and imposed sanctions of their own. “Our country’s image has been damaged and tarnished by online scam syndicates,” said Mr Hun Sen in May. In April he signed Cambodia’s first anti-fraud statute. Over the past year the government has closed more than 90 casinos, according to Neth Pheaktra, the information minister. Scam operations are often run from inside casinos, which also help launder the proceeds. American pressure continues to mount. Last October the Department of Justice seized around $15bn in cryptocurrency from Mr Chen, its largest- ever seizure of foreign assets anywhere. In April the Treasury sanctioned Kok An, a Cambodian senator who controls scam compounds across the country. In June it imposed sanctions on nine people and 26 entities linked to Mr Chen’s Prince Group, a Cambodian conglomerate spanning property, finance and consumer services. It also blocked subsidiaries of Huione Group, another conglomerate believed to have links to Mr Chen, from using America’s financial system. Huione Group is the firm behind “the largest- ever illicit online marketplace”, according to Elliptic, a blockchain-analytics firm based in London. Fighting fraud has become one of America’s foreign-policy priorities in South-East Asia. It fits into an America-first mindset better than many other issues, since it can easily be characterised as dealing with criminals who are making America weaker. Even as America’s presence in the region shrinks,