Asia | Banyan

What the war in Ukraine means for Asia

Peace in East Asia hangs to a worrying extent on the outcome of the conflict

Illustration of East Asian flags entangled with the flag of Ukraine
Illustration: Lan Truong

When Russia invaded Ukraine it jolted the democracies of East Asia—Taiwan, Japan and South Korea, all allies of America. A trip to Japan suggests to Banyan that, as the conflict in Ukraine enters its third year, its implications for East Asian policymakers grow only starker. In Europe the talk is of whether Ukraine can hold on despite dwindling American financial support and the spectre of a second Trump presidency. The consequences for peace in Asia would be devastating if Ukraine loses. A win for President Vladimir Putin might embolden China to reshape the regional order on its terms.

Explore more

This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “Moshi Tora? and other questions”

From the March 9th 2024 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

Discover more

Suffering from the Bhopal disaster in India continues, 40 years on

So does the search for justice for victims of the world’s worst industrial accident 

Tsubasa Ito teaches his son Koya how to play baseball in Nagoya City, Japan

Fathers are doing more child care in East Asia

About time, too


A Saiga antelope walks on a prairie outside Almaty, Kazakhstan

Ice Age antelopes surge back from the brink of extinction

Even better, these peers of sabre-toothed tigers can help with carbon capture


Indonesia’s Prabowo is desperate to impress Trump and Xi

The new president’s first foreign tour was a shambles

Is India’s education system the root of its problems?

A recent comparison with China suggests that may be so

Meet the outspoken maverick who could lead India

Nitin Gadkari, India’s highways minister, talks to The Economist