Beijing / AFP Chinese president Xi Jinping met with the leader of Taiwan’s opposition party on Tuesday, state media reported, as Beijing’s relations with the island’s new president deteriorate. Cross-strait ties have worsened under Taiwan’s first female president, Tsai Ing-wen whose China-sceptic Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) took office in May after a landslide victory over the Kuomintang (KMT). Tsai …

  Tokyo / AFP Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi arrived in Tokyo on Tuesday for talks with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, her first visit since becoming her country’s de facto leader earlier this year. She and Abe are expected to discuss economic assistance and Myanmar’s peace-building process with its ethnic minorities, according to a Japanese foreign ministry official. Japan hopes …

  Beijing / AFP Malaysia and China signed a defence deal and pledged closer cooperation in the South China Sea on Tuesday, signalling a potential strategic shift by Premier Najib Razak as his ties with the United States fray over a corruption scandal. Najib’s week-long trip marks another potential setback for Washington’s “pivot” towards Asia, two weeks after President Rodrigo Duterte …