标签： Asia

For nearly 60 years, one political reality has remained unshaken in Newham, east London: since the borough’s founding in 1965, the London Borough of Newham has been continuously governed by the Labour Party, a rock-solid stronghold for the centre-left party in the capital. But as voters head to the polls for local elections on May 7, that long-standing status quo is at greater risk than ever before, as the Green Party surges to challenge Labour’s grip on power across multiple east London boroughs.

While small independent left-leaning groups such as Redbridge Independents have chipped away at Labour’s support in the region, political analysts and campaigners are increasingly pointing to a growing “Green wave” that could flip multiple councils away from Labour control. Green Party leader Zack Polanski has set ambitious targets for significant gains nationwide, and polling indicates the party is on track to seize outright majorities in two other east London boroughs, Hackney and Lewisham. Newham, however, has flown under the radar of most national political coverage – despite emerging polling that puts the Green Party within striking distance of a historic upset here.

Recent polling offers competing snapshots of the tight race in Newham: a YouGov survey released last week placed the Greens five percentage points behind Labour, with the local Newham Independents grouping a further four points behind the Greens. But a new study commissioned by the London School of Economics and published this Monday puts Green support at 34%, a single percentage point ahead of Labour.

Areeq Chowdhury, the 33-year-old Green Party candidate for Newham mayor, who spoke to Middle East Eye during a campaign stop in Plaistow Park on Monday, is clear about his chances: he is confident he can win. For Chowdhury, this election is rooted in widespread voter discontent, both with local Labour governance and the national party under Keir Starmer. “There’s a huge amount of discontent with the Labour Party locally,” he explained. “We’re at the highest level of homelessness. One in 18 people are homeless. We’ve got the title of litter capital of England.”

Chowdhury is no stranger to the Labour Party: he was a member from his student years, and even won election as a Labour local councillor in 2022. His defection to the Greens in 2023 was driven by two core frustrations: Starmer’s Labour refusal to take a strong stance against the Israeli military campaign in Gaza and call for an immediate ceasefire, and the party’s repeated high-profile U-turns on key progressive campaign pledges, including cuts to welfare benefits for disabled people. “A big part of why I joined Labour was things like human rights and standing up for workers,” he said. “The more I got to know about the Green Party, the more I understood that actually they were focused on the correct issues facing society, around the environment and human rights.” For many Newham voters, he added, Labour’s weak position on Gaza was the “trigger for people to look elsewhere”.

The Green momentum stretches beyond Newham, across east London’s boroughs. In Waltham Forest, recent YouGov polling puts both Labour and the Greens at 30%, setting up a knife-edge contest for council control. Green candidates on the ground say voters are linking national political failures directly to local quality-of-life issues. Eva Tabassam, 35, a first-time Green candidate for Cann Hall ward who joined the party last summer, says voters consistently raise both international conflicts and local struggles on the campaign trail. “They go hand in hand,” she explained. “We get a mixture of big things, like the illegal war on Iran. We also get told about what’s happened in Palestine and the government’s complicity in that.” Tabassam added that it is often non-Muslim voters who first bring up Gaza, alongside criticism of Starmer’s repeated policy U-turns, the ongoing cost of living crisis, sky-high local rents, and the two-child benefit cap – all issues that directly impact daily life for east London residents.

Peter Ibrahim Kanyike, 26, the Green candidate for Waltham Forest’s William Morris ward, says his local campaign focuses on bread-and-butter issues: cleaner public streets, improved safer parking for local businesses, and better accessibility for residents. But he echoes the sentiment that national political discontent is driving Green gains. “I think there’s a load of concern with the direction that society is going in and how the current government, Labour specifically, have directed society in that way,” he said. “The Greens want to create a council and a borough that works with our neighbours. That feeds into policy, and I think that’s one of the overarching concerns – society-building, working with each other.”

On the streets of Newham’s Stratford district, public opinion remains mixed: many voters are still undecided, and some are unaware that an election is just days away. While one voter told MEE she planned to vote for Reform UK over its anti-immigration platform, another middle-aged woman said she was voting Green out of concern for future generations. “My grandchildren are not here yet, and I want them to enjoy the planet,” she said. “It’s green all the way, darling. We need the oxygen. We need the plants, which are part of our biodiversity for the planet.” For long-time Labour voters, the shift is already palpable within families: an elderly Moroccan long-time Labour voter told MEE his daughters are pushing him to switch to the Greens over the party’s position on Gaza, and he is still considering changing his vote on election day.

The Green’s gains, particularly around their stance on Gaza, have drawn criticism from right-wing party Reform UK, whose leader Nigel Farage has accused the Greens of engaging in “sectarian politics” over the issue. Chowdhury calls the accusation “completely racist”, noting that the Greens are a broad coalition of progressive voices that welcomes diverse communities. “The Green Party is at the same time an Islamist party and a super LGBT party? Right. The reality is that we’re a coalition of progressive voices [that] wants to build a better society. So we have a lot of diversity in our party, and we have a lot of Muslims joining the party. We do have a lot of LGBT people join the party, people from every different community.” Chowdhury added that he has faced constant racist abuse during the campaign, including repeated calls for his deportation.

Tabassum pushes back against the common misconception that Muslim voters and climate action are disconnected issues. “There seems to be this weird perception that these two things are so artificially distinct,” she said. “As Muslims ourselves, we’ve always been taught to protect the world and nature and environment and living things around us. So I don’t know why there seems to be this artificial separation of the two.” Kanyike added that the Green’s welcome for Muslim voters is not sectarianism, but a commitment to inclusion: “I think critics are just afraid because Muslims are finding a party that actually wants to support them. We actually focus on unity rather than division. Just because we’re welcoming different groups doesn’t mean that we’re being sectarian. Our focus is to be open for all groups.”

Labour still retains solid support in the region. Phil, a Labour voter shopping at Westfield Stratford, told MEE he remains resolute in his support for the party, calling it the only “sensible” option in UK politics. “They’re less extreme, they look after the individual people,” he said. “And yes they’ve made mistakes in the past two years but I still think they’re the people for me.” He dismissed the Greens as well-meaning but unfit to govern, and called Reform UK “a complete load of loonies. It’s sensational stuff, and it’s actually nasty and evil in many ways.”

Green Party officials frame the 2024 local elections as a turning point for the party. Faaiz Hasan, the Green Party’s national elections coordinator, said the vote “comes at a critical time” for UK politics. “This is the moment that we can actually start putting forward an alternative vision for the country that is not based on blaming migrants, is not based on blaming people of colour or others, but identifies that the real issue is not race, it’s class, and the concentration of wealth and power in a very tiny group of people,” he said.

Nationally, polling suggests the Greens could win control of nine councils across the UK, including the east London seats of Lewisham and Hackney. Even if the party falls short of capturing an outright majority in Newham, political observers broadly agree that these elections will cement the Green Party’s status as a major national political force, with a permanent foothold in local government across the country. For Labour, which has dominated east London politics for generations, the Green surge is already a major cause for concern.

Viktor Orban’s recent electoral loss in Hungary has dominated global political headlines, with most analysis fixated on what the shift means for European integration and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict. But what this coverage misses is a far-reaching strategic ripple effect: the unexpected disruption it could bring to China’s long-standing approach to influencing the European Union.

For more than a decade, Orban’s Hungary served as a critical linchpin for Beijing’s EU strategy. By leveraging Hungary’s membership in the bloc and the EU’s rule of unanimity for key policy decisions, China was able to weaken collective European action on issues ranging from human rights to trade. Orban’s departure from power now forces a fundamental reexamination: can China still depend on exploiting internal EU divisions to maintain its regional influence?

Beijing’s long-term strategy toward Europe has long centered on a “divide and conquer” framework, designed to prevent the 27-member bloc from forming a unified front against Chinese interests. At the broadest level, China has positioned itself as a critical economic partner and indispensable trade market for the EU as a whole, prioritizing stable macroeconomic ties. But behind this broad engagement, Beijing has worked quietly to nurture close bilateral relationships with individual member states that are willing to break with the Brussels consensus — and Orban’s Hungary was the most high-profile example of this model.

The combination of Orban’s illiberal political orientation and the EU’s institutional structure, particularly its unanimity requirement for foreign policy decisions, created a unique opening that Beijing was quick to exploit. Over years of deepening engagement, the relationship grew far beyond routine diplomacy: Hungary became a trusted proxy for China within EU institutions, regularly acting as a brake on collective European responses to sensitive Beijing-related issues. On multiple occasions, Budapest blocked or watered down EU statements critical of China, including declarations addressing human rights concerns in Hong Kong. It also resisted efforts to impose stricter trade measures, such as anti-dumping tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles — a priority that became even more impactful when Hungary held the rotating EU presidency from July to December 2024.

Economically, the partnership was equally strategic. Hungary became the first European nation to join China’s Belt and Road Initiative, allowing Beijing to use its central European location and EU membership as a gateway for Chinese goods to enter the single European market without friction. Hungary quickly emerged as a regional hub for Chinese manufacturing and infrastructure investment: Chinese capital poured into battery production, electric vehicle manufacturing, and cross-border transport links, moves that were as much about anchoring Beijing’s strategic presence in Europe as they were about commercial profit. For context, China is Hungary’s largest non-EU trading partner and its top source of foreign direct investment, with BRI investments creating more than 20,000 domestic jobs. Most recently, in December 2024, Chinese automaker BYD announced plans to build its first European passenger vehicle production base in the Hungarian city of Szeged, cementing this economic interdependence. In return, Orban reaped clear domestic political and economic benefits: Chinese investment supported growth, shored up his political base, and aligned with the ideological affinities between his illiberal governance model and China’s authoritarian system. The depth of the partnership was on full display during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s May 2024 visit to Budapest, where the two sides signed 18 bilateral agreements and formally upgraded ties to an “all-weather comprehensive strategic partnership” — a rare designation in Chinese diplomatic practice that signals exceptional closeness.

This dual model — political leverage through EU institutional veto points, and strategic entrenchment through targeted economic investment — allowed China to maintain its influence even as the EU as a whole hardened its posture toward Beijing. In recent years, Brussels has formally labeled China a “systemic rival,” alongside its roles as economic partner and competitor, but turning this framing into concrete policy has been stymied repeatedly by divisions among member states, with Hungary as the most consistent blocker of unified action.

Now, with Orban’s defeat, that dynamic is thrown into question. The expected incoming government led by Peter Magyar, who is broadly aligned with EU mainstream policy, signals a potential recalibration of Hungary’s foreign posture. While it is far too early to predict a full reversal of Hungary’s pro-Beijing policy, even incremental shifts toward Brussels could reshape EU decision-making on China. If Hungary is no longer willing to block EU initiatives or water down statements on China-related issues, collective action could become far easier. That said, deep divisions among other member states will persist: France and Germany, for example, still maintain strong economic ties to China and have previously resisted hardline EU policies, allowing Beijing to continue exploiting splits. Furthermore, the structural incentives that drove Sino-Hungarian cooperation — namely, the appeal of Chinese investment for domestic growth and job creation — have not disappeared. A new pro-EU government in Budapest may still choose to preserve key elements of the bilateral economic relationship.

This means the most likely outcome of Orban’s defeat is not a sudden, clean break, but a period of gradual adjustment for both China and the EU. For Beijing, the shift will likely force a reworking of its European strategy, requiring it to diversify its network of aligned partners across the bloc and double down on other nations where economic ties can be converted into political leverage. For the EU, Orban’s departure creates an opportunity to build greater strategic coherence, though there is no guarantee of success. If member states can capitalize on the reduced risk of an internal veto, they may finally be able to implement a more consistent approach to China that balances economic engagement with concerns over security, technology, and human rights — a balance that has long eluded the bloc.

Ultimately, the true significance of Orban’s electoral defeat lies not in immediate policy change, but in its potential to reshape the entire strategic landscape of China-EU relations. For more than a decade, Hungary served as a critical hinge between Beijing and Brussels, enabling China to navigate and exploit the EU’s internal divisions. As that hinge loosens, the long-standing dynamics of China-EU engagement stand to shift in meaningful ways. Whether the end result is a more unified European stance toward China or simply a new pattern of fragmentation depends on how both sides adapt to the new context. What is certain, however, is that China’s Europe strategy, built for decades on preventing a unified European coalition, can no longer rely on one of its most dependable partners — and change is now inevitable.

MANILA, Philippines — In a major development roiling the country’s already fractured political landscape, a Philippine congressional justice committee announced a unanimous ruling Wednesday that confirmed “probable cause” exists to advance impeachment proceedings against Vice President Sara Duterte. The 53-member panel’s decision moves two separate impeachment complaints forward to a full debate and vote by the 300-plus member House of Representatives, marking a critical escalation of allegations that include unexplained personal wealth, misuse of public funds, and direct threats to the life of sitting President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

The core accusations against Duterte focus on her alleged illegal misappropriation and mismanagement of confidential intelligence funds, allocated both to her current office as vice president and to the Department of Education, which she led before Marcos took office in 2022. While Duterte has issued a broad denial of all wrongdoing, she has repeatedly declined to address the specific claims levied against her in detail.

During Wednesday’s public hearing, officials from the National Bureau of Investigation testified that comments Duterte made during a 2024 online press conference constituted a clear threat to national security. In those remarks, Duterte allegedly stated that if she were assassinated, orders would be carried out to kill President Marcos, the first lady, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Committee chairperson Rep. Gerville Luistro publicly criticized Duterte for her repeated refusal to testify at six televised impeachment hearings, as well as her decision to petition the Supreme Court to halt the inquiry over the allegations, which include unreported large-scale bank transactions that Duterte was legally required to disclose. “If there is nothing to hide, there is no reason to hide, there is no reason to obstruct,” Luistro stated at the opening of Wednesday’s session. “The only people who fear the disclosures of these transactions are those with dirty secrets.”

In the aftermath of the committee’s ruling, legal representatives for Duterte pushed back aggressively, arguing that the entire proceeding deviated from the Philippines’ constitutional framework for impeachment. “Instead of confining itself to the verified complaints and their attachments, the process expanded into matters that properly belong to a full trial,” the legal team said, offering no further details on their objection.

The political clash has already spilled into additional legal action: Duterte’s husband, Manases Carpio, filed criminal complaints Monday against Luistro and multiple other legislators and inquiry officials after records of the couple’s bank transactions were publicly released during a recent House hearing. The Duterte camp maintains the disclosure violates the country’s strict bank secrecy laws.

Sara Duterte, the daughter of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, carries notable political baggage from her father’s tenure: the former leader is currently facing prosecution before the International Criminal Court in The Netherlands on allegations of crimes against humanity, stemming from the thousands of extrajudicial killings that occurred during his nationwide anti-drug crackdown between 2016 and 2022.

This is not the first impeachment effort against the vice president: she survived a similar attempt last year on a procedural technicality, after the Supreme Court ruled that the House had violated constitutional rules limiting the body to processing just one impeachment proceeding per calendar year. Most of the current allegations against her were carried over from that unsuccessful 2023 complaint.

Notably, despite the mounting legal and political pressure, independent public opinion polls still rank Duterte as one of the most popular political figures in the Philippines. She has already publicly confirmed her intention to run for the presidency in the 2028 national election, a declaration that has amplified opposition scrutiny of her conduct and financial history.

If the full House of Representatives, which is currently controlled by allies of President Marcos Jr., votes to impeach Duterte, she will next face an impeachment trial conducted by the Philippine Senate. A conviction would remove her from the vice presidency immediately.

The current standoff between Duterte and Marcos caps a rapid collapse of what was once a powerful political alliance: the two ran as a joint presidential-vice presidential ticket in the 2022 national election, but their relationship has devolved into open, bitter conflict in recent years, adding a new layer of instability to Philippine politics that has long struggled with systemic governance challenges and recurring political upheaval.

The Chinese capital Beijing will enact a complete ban on all drone operations and sales across its entire administrative area beginning May 1, according to an announcement from city authorities. This sweeping new regulation, formally approved by the city government in late March, codifies and expands long-standing informal restrictions that have barred private drone flights within Beijing’s core and outer city limits for years.

Beyond prohibiting unauthorized flights, the new rules also require all commercial retailers to clear existing drone stock from their inventories ahead of the ban’s implementation. Checks on major Chinese e-commerce platform Taobao confirm that customers entering a Beijing delivery address are already blocked from completing checkout for any drone product, reflecting early compliance with the regulatory change. A staff member at a Beijing retail outlet of DJI, the world’s leading consumer drone manufacturer headquartered in China, told domestic state-affiliated media Jiemian that the location has been ordered to liquidate all remaining drone stock by this week.

Under the terms of the new policy, narrow exceptions are permitted for drones used for academic research by universities and research institutions, as well as for public safety and government operations. However, all exempted users are required to obtain official written approval from local police departments before operating any unmanned aerial vehicles within city boundaries. Individual violators caught operating unapproved drones face penalties of up to 500 Chinese yuan, equal to roughly $73, along with potential confiscation of their equipment.

This latest regulatory move builds on pre-existing national drone governance frameworks that already require all drone operators across China to register their devices and complete mandatory identity verification through an official government platform before flying.

The policy also comes amid growing global scrutiny of Chinese drone dominance in the global consumer and commercial unmanned aerial vehicle market. Chinese manufacturers control over 70% of the global consumer drone market, a position that has triggered national security concerns in multiple Western countries, most notably the United States. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has already moved to ban the import and sale of new models of Chinese-manufactured drones over data security risks.

Beijing has a long-standing pattern of maintaining stricter security and entry restrictions than most other regions of China, particularly in areas involving connected or sensor-equipped consumer technology. Prior similar restrictions include limits on Tesla electric vehicles, which have been barred from parking in certain sensitive government compounds and key infrastructure sites including airports, over concerns that the vehicles’ built-in camera systems could be exploited for espionage activities.