Top Asian News 3:32 a.m. GMT

China’s Xi says there are ‘no winners’ in a tariff war as he visits Southeast Asia

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — China’s leader Xi Jinping started a week of diplomacy in Southeast Asia with a visit to Vietnam on Monday, signaling China’ s commitment to global trade, just after U.S. President Donald Trump upended the global economy with his latest tariffs moves. Although Trump has paused some tariffs, China was the outlier, as he has kept in place 145% tariffs on the world’s second-largest economy. Xi’s visit this week lets China show Southeast Asia it is a “responsible superpower in the way that contrasts with the way the U.S. under President Donald Trump presents to the whole world,” said Nguyen Khac Giang, a visiting fellow at Singapore’s ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute.

Trump team tries to project confidence and calm after his tariff moves rattled markets

ATLANTA (AP) — Trump administration officials were out in force across the television networks Sunday defending President Donald Trump’s economic policies after another week of reeling markets that saw the Republican administration reverse course on some of its steepest tariffs. Trump, meanwhile, said on his social media platform that there ultimately will be no exemptions for his sweeping tariff agenda, disputing characterizations that he has granted tariff exceptions for certain electronics, including smart phones, whose production is concentrated in China. Rather, Trump said, “those products are subject to the existing 20% Fentanyl Tariffs, and they are just moving to a different Tariff ‘bucket.’”

China’s exports jump 12.4% and imports fell as Trump pushed US tariffs higher

BANGKOK (AP) — China’s exports jumped 12.4% in March from a year earlier as companies rushed to beat increases in U.S. tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump, the government said Monday. Imports fell 4.3%, the customs administration reported. It said exports from the world’s second largest economy rose 5.8% in the first three months of the year from a year earlier while imports sank 7%. China’s trade surplus with the United States was $27.6 billion in March as its exports rose 4.5%. It logged a surplus of $76.6 billion with the U.S. in the first quarter of the year. China is facing 145% tariffs on most exports to the United States as of the most recent revisions in Trump’s trade policies.

As tariffs put trade between China and the US in peril, Chinese businesses ponder the future

When the first two rounds of 10% tariffs hit, Zou Guoqing, a Chinese exporter, groaned but didn’t find the barriers insurmountable. He gave up some of his profits and offered his client, a snow-bike factory in Nebraska, price cuts ranging from 5% to 10%. It seemed to work: The factory agreed to a new order of molds and parts. But when President Donald Trump announced an additional 34% universal tariff on Chinese goods on April 2, Zou, who has been exporting to the United States for more than a decade, was incredulous. “There’s not a thread of feasibility,” said Zou, who does business in the eastern Chinese city of Ningbo.

Osaka Expo opens in Japan offering a vision of the future. Here’s what to know

OSAKA, Japan (AP) — The Expo 2025 opened in Osaka on Sunday with more than 10,000 people singing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to celebrate the start of the six-month event that Japan hopes will unite the world divided by tensions and wars. Here is what to know about the Expo 2025 Osaka: The Osaka Expo is held at Yumeshima, which means “dream island,” a reclaimed industrial waste burial site in the Osaka Bay, where participants from more than 160 countries, regions and organizations showcase their futuristic exhibits inside about 80 pavillons of unique architecture. “Creating a future society for our lives” is the main theme.

Hong Kong’s biggest pro-democracy party gets mandate to move closer to disbandment

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong’s biggest pro-democracy party on Sunday received its members’ mandate to proceed with steps toward a potential disbandment, part of the erosion of political freedoms as China cracks down on dissent in the southern city. Democratic Party Chairman Lo Kin-hei said over 90% of the members who took part in the vote supported the motion to let the central committee take up the procedure toward disbandment. He said he hopes there will be a final vote in the coming months. “Unless there is a big change, I believe this inclination will be maintained in the next general meeting,” he said, adding that the party would continue with its work until then.

Southeast Asia water festivals begin, but earthquake recovery blunts Myanmar’s celebrations

BANGKOK (AP) — Several Southeast Asian countries kicked off their annual water festival holiday on Sunday, but in the wake of a devastating earthquake last month, Myanmar is missing out on the fun. The holiday is an occasion for merrymaking during what is usually the hottest time of the year. In Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar, millions normally take part in a mix of raucous play with uninhibited splashing of water on friends and strangers alike, and sober ceremonies to show respect to one’s elders. Temperatures this time of year can creep above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit). Many who have moved to cities for work return to their native villages and towns to reunite with their families.

Australian political leaders launch election campaigns focused on first-time homeowners

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia’s rival political leaders offered Sunday competing policies to help Australians buy a home ahead of the nation’s first federal election in which younger voters will outnumber the long-dominant baby boomer generation. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and opposition leader Peter Dutton officially launched their parties’ campaigns ahead of the May 3 elections. Helping aspiring homeowners buy into a national real estate market in which prices are high and supply is constrained due to inflation, builders going broke, shortages of materials and a growing population was central to both campaigns. “Buying a first home has never been easy, but for this generation, it’s never felt further out of reach,” Albanese told his supporters in the west coast city of Perth.

UK will set ‘high trust bar’ for future Chinese investment after British Steel rescue, minister says

LONDON (AP) — Chinese companies will have to clear a “high trust bar” when investing in key sectors in the U.K., the country’s business secretary said Sunday, a day after he took effective control of Britain’s last remaining factory that makes steel from scratch from its Chinese owners. Jonathan Reynolds said Jingye Group, which has owned British Steel since 2020, had not been negotiating “in good faith” with the government in recent months over the future of the heavily loss-making steel works in Scunthorpe in the north of England. Reynolds said it had become clear on Thursday that Jingye would not accept any financial offer from the government and that it was the company’s intention to close the blast furnaces “come what may,” while keeping the more profitable steel mill operations and supplying them from China.

British parliamentarian refused entry to Hong Kong

HONG KONG (AP) — A British member of parliament was refused entry to Hong Kong last week, the first to have received such treatment since the former British colony’s return to Chinese rule in 1997. Wera Hobhouse, a member of the Liberal Democratic Party representing Bath, wrote on social media platform Bluesky: “Authorities gave me no explanation for this cruel and upsetting blow. I hope the Foreign Secretary will recognise that this is an insult to all parliamentarians and seek answers from the Chinese Ambassador.” Hobhouse said she flew to Hong Kong from the United Kingdom with her husband to visit their newly-born grandchild, whom she was unable to see or hold.