Society

What Happened: Khem Veasna is more than just a guru whose followers believe he has descended from the realm of Brahma in human form. He founded the League for Democracy Party (LDP), which won 5 percent of the national vote in the 2018 Cambodian general election, placing third out of 20 competing parties, in 2005. Although the LDP remains active, Veasna says he has ceased political activities himself.

Our Focus: In a rare interview at his compound, not far from the tourist city of Siem Reap, Veasna told The Diplomat’s correspondents, Daniel Zak and Vutha Srey, “I took political party members and turned them into real humans.” The community has faced accusations of child labor and land-grabbing, but has been allowed to continue its operations, a notable degree of tolerance in politically constrained Cambodia.

What Comes Next: Veasna’s 2022 prediction that a catastrophic global disaster was imminent did not come to fruition. He now says that most of the world will be destroyed by a magnetic pole shift before the end of August 2025. Only the true believers, he says, will survive. “The switch from a standard political party to an apocalyptic commune may seem strange, but may not be that surprising in a Cambodian, or Southeast Asian, context,” Zak and Srey write.

INTERVIEW

Evariste Kouassi-Komlan, UNICEF’s representative to Mongolia, on the challenges facing the country’s children and youth: “Air pollution in Mongolia, particularly in Ulaanbaatar, poses a significant threat to children’s health, contributing to respiratory diseases and other health complications.

Northeast Asia

On March 30, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth met with his counterpart, Japanese Defense Minister Nakatani Gen, in Tokyo for the first U.S.-Japan defense ministers’ meeting since the Trump administration took office in January. Despite unease regarding the Trump administration’s approach to traditional U.S. allies around the world, Hegseth was strident about Japan’s position. “Japan would be on the front lines of any contingency we might face in the western Pacific and we stand together in support of each other,” he said. Hegseth called Japan, “a model ally.”

South Asia

Although specific dates have not been announced yet, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said late last week that President Vladimir Putin would be visiting India at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This isn’t the first time the trip has been teased by Russian officials. Putin has visited India many times, but he hasn’t since the February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In fact, Putin has traveled to relatively few countries since the invasion, with his destinations further constrained following the March 2023 issuing of an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court. The announcement comes amid a shift in Russia’s geopolitical fortunes, triggered by increased engagement on the part of Trump administration.

Southeast Asia

Myanmar and its people are reeling from the devastating earthquake that hit the conflict-torn nation on March 28, devastating large swathes of the country’s dry central plain. The 7.7 magnitude quake has destroyed and damaged thousands of buildings in Sagaing, Mandalay, Magwe, Naypyidaw, and Bago regions, as well as part of Shan State. By March 31, the death toll had exceeded 2,000, according to the country’s military junta, but this is very likely to rise as the full scale of the damage becomes more clear. While foreign countries including China, India, the United States, and most members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have since dispatched relief supplies and rescue teams to the quake zone, search and rescue efforts continue to be hampered by the secrecy and limited resources of the military junta, as well as the country’s ongoing civil war.

Central Asia

On Monday, for the first time, the Presidents of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan met for a trilateral summit in Khujand, Tajikistan, on the edge of the Fergana Valley which all three countries share. The summit comes in the immediate wake of the settlement of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan’s long-running and occasionally violent border dispute, itself coming after Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan settled their own border problems in 2022. While authoritarian consolidation, particularly in Kyrgyzstan, may have accelerated the border deal-making, it also picks up on a wider regional trend of regional cooperation without outside powers – Russia and China – butting in.

Taiwanese confidence that the United States would send troops to defend the island has dropped since Trump showed a willingness to abandon Ukraine.

Economy

Yuǎnyáng bǔlāo, literally “deep-sea fishing” in Mandarin, but also slang for the practice of local law enforcement targeting businessmen from other localities for fines, in a bid to boost government revenue.