But back in March, Seoul earned international plaudits for the way it handled its early outbreaks, which involved aggressive testing, hi-tech contact-tracing, quick isolation of potential cases and well-coordinated government agencies.  

As the year winds to a close, however, some officials say the country’s early success could have fuelled an overconfidence that is leaving authorities struggling to contain its third Covid-19 wave.

DELIVERING JUSTICE

A video of the attack, uploaded on social media, showed two white men approaching the Asian rider, before one of them hit him in the face. Chinese-Australians soon began circulating information on the possible whereabouts of the attackers in apps such as WeChat. Several netizens patrolled Adelaide’s Chinatown looking for the duo.

“The [increase of] negative stories coming out about China in Australia will only normalise the racism against Asians who are of Chinese background or who appear to be East Asian-looking,” said Erin Chew from the Asian Australian Alliance.

HOUSE-HUNTING

Talk about creepy. A Japanese man was jailed in February for stalking and assaulting a pop idol after figuring out her address by zooming in to her selfies and studying the reflections in her eyes.

Hibiki Sato, 27, was found guilty in the Tokyo District Court of attacking Ena Matsuoka, a singer with the group Tenshi Tsukinukeni Yomi, in September last year.

The unemployed man told police he discovered where Matsuoka had lived by going through her social media pictures and enlarging the images. He then cross-referenced the scenery and landmarks reflected in her eyes with Google Map’s Street View feature to identify a railway station near her home.

02:27

Thai protesters rally at German embassy, calling for Berlin to investigate Thai king

Thai protesters rally at German embassy, calling for Berlin to investigate Thai king

A ROYAL HEADACHE

The monarch has also reportedly spent a lot of time at a luxury Alpine hotel in the Bavarian ski resort of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, along with his entourage.

OUT OF STEP

A photo of the Chinese ambassador to Kiribati walking across the backs of locals lying face down on the ground sparked outrage after it appeared on social media in August.

US and Australian officials denounced the act. Commander Constantine Panayiotou, the US defence attaché to five Pacific Islands including Kiribati, said on Twitter: “I simply cannot imagine any scenario in which walking on the backs of children is acceptable behaviour by an ambassador of any country.”

But some in Kiribati, home to 120,000 people, said the practice was customary and that the image featuring China’s ambassador Tang Songgen had been taken out of context.

VICE PRECEDENT

Some 300 Chinese sex workers and their clients were rounded up in raids in the second half of last year, the ABS-CBN reported. Agents believed the 12 raided brothels were being run by Chinese nationals, for Chinese clients.

Scores of Pogos have opened up in multiple cities, with many unregistered and paying no taxes. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese nationals have also sought jobs at Pogos, many as undocumented workers.

JOBS DISSATISFACTION

On social media, Singaporeans are blaming the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (Ceca) deal, signed in 2005, for allowing Indian expats to “steal jobs” from locals – no matter how many times the government says it isn’t true.

Featuring prominently in their complaints were corporate transfers that let companies move India-based staff to Singapore for up to eight years without having to first advertise the jobs locally, and a list of 127 professions covered by the FTA that range from tech specialists to financial analysts.

THAT’S WHAT HE SAID

During a visit to Australia in 1980, Lee warned the country – then battling high unemployment and inflation – that it risked becoming the “poor white trash of Asia” if it did not open up its economy.

At the time of Lee’s death in 2015, then Australian prime minister Tony Abbott praised the statesman for encouraging the country at a “critical time in our history to be better than we might have been”.

Former prime minister Bob Hawke, who led liberal economic reforms in the 1980s, also wrote that Lee’s “harsh but fair comment helped galvanise my determination to undertake the reforms that would save us from that fate”.

SINGLE-MINDED

India has more single women today than at any time in recorded history, with groups including widows, divorcees and the never married accounting for one-fifth of the country’s female population.

Single women have more freedom to get an education, pursue their careers and live life on their own terms, but observers say the growing number of singletons does not necessarily equate to an increase in female empowerment.

Indian society is still largely rooted in patriarchy and gender inequality, with single women often stereotyped as choosy, morally loose or headstrong, according to sociologists.

SPOT THE DIFFERENCE

Ho Ching shared the cartoon, carried by the city state’s Chinese-language newspaper Lianhe Zaobao, which depicted how Trump had called for “democracy” as Hong Kong protesters smashed a shop window, but described people who did the same in Minnesota as “thugs”.

The post was liked more than 3,700 times and was highlighted by China’s nationalist Global Times tabloid, which later published an article comparing the starkly different reactions by US officials to the two sets of protests.

Hong Kong news portal Winandmac Media said on Twitter that Ho did not “understand the nature” of the city’s anti-government protests, and that it was “disgraceful to compare Hong Kong with the US”.

BACK-UP PLAN

Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jnr’s comments marked the first time a Duterte official had openly declared Manila would turn to Washington for help in the territorial dispute.

The US and Philippines have since 1951 had a Mutual Defence Treaty that commits them to supporting each other in the event either is attacked.

Under Barack Obama’s presidency, the US backed away from a concrete commitment to apply the treaty to the Philippines’ maritime territorial disputes with China.

Locsin said Democratic administrations tended to be “appeasing” and the Obama administration had “bowed down to China, which is why we lost the reefs”, referring to the Scarborough Shoal, a rich fishing ground China has occupied since 2012.

By contrast, Republican administrations “have always been very firm about American commitment to freedom and independence of nations”, Locsin said.

01:59

Death toll rises to 20 in border clash between India and China

Death toll rises to 20 in border clash between India and China

DEADLY ESCALATION

The deaths were the first fatalities in four decades of simmering conflict along the 3,488km undemarcated border.

The Indian Army said the incident had occurred during “the de-escalation process in the Galwan Valley”, referring to an area military officials had earlier accused Chinese troops of entering even though it was never under dispute.

The area is between Indian-administered Ladakh and Chinese-administered Aksai Chin, which is strategically important to Beijing as it has China’s only direct road link to Xinjiang and Tibet.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Indian troops had crossed the border line twice on June 15, “provoking and attacking Chinese personnel, resulting in serious physical confrontation between border forces on the two sides”.

Indian Army sources said following the incident, the Chinese military reached out and called for a meeting between the Major Generals from both sides to defuse tensions.

Which stories mattered most to you in 2020? Find out with our Year In Review 2020 retrospective.