Asia Undercovered #30

A short issue this week due to travels. Will be back to regular posting next week!

Undercovered This Week

It’s coronation week in Asia. First Japan crowned a new emperor. Now, it’s Thailand’s turn, officially crowning King Vajiralongkorn more than two years after the death of his popular, long ruling father. A great read on the meaning of this, so soon after recent, controversial elections from Pavin Chachavalpongpun (East Asia Forum).

It’s against the terms of service to discriminate on AirBnb. Unless you’re in China, and are excluding Uyghurs and Tibetans. Wired covers the latest case of duplicity of tech companies in China.

Could the Uyghur crisis finally be breaking into mainstream culture? If so, it might be a sign that global awareness is hitting a tipping point.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative has been facing headwinds for weeks. An insightful read on what this means. Quick version? Change on the margins, but otherwise full steam ahead (Stratfor).

Taiwan is seeing more social media manipulation efforts from China including offers to buy Facebook pages. Brian Hioe wonders if this is the first signs of coming election influence campaigns (New Bloom).

Sri Lanka’s Easter attacks made global headlines. Few around the world were even aware that the country had a large Christian population. Mathew Schmalz illuminates on this community and their place in the diverse island nation.

Elections

An investigation in India by Huffpost finds rampant violations of election laws prohibiting campaigning on social media, particularly on Facebook.

Asia Undercovered: Journalist Nithin Coca's weekly roundup of the news, events, trends and people changing Asia, but not getting enough attention in the US media.