ASEAN’s Space Problem Is ASEAN Itself

In space, ASEAN’s non-interference principle is doing precisely what it was built to do and that is the problem. In March 2026, ASEAN Secretary-General Kao Kim Hourn spoke in Manila, pointing to a new tracking station on Biak Island, Indonesia, as a critical step in building out a regional space economy projected to hit 100 billion US dollar by 2030.

The Catalogue Problem Underneath Southeast Asian E-commerce 

One e-commerce listing describes a food container with a frog on it, but the photograph shows a children’s dinner set. Another advertises an Arabic edition of Monopoly and the box in the picture is the standard game. A third offers a Sony headphone model in a colour that model has never been made in, which makes it either mislabelled or counterfeit.