I thought I’d seen it all in Southeast Asia—tree rats, Komodo dragons, detergent-eating monkeys. Then I landed in Nepal, and everything changed.

The likes of Tencent, Alibaba and ByteDance are pouring billions of dollars into the region. It’s less about geopolitical ...

"The U.S. already flunked the test and that should be a wakeup call," a former senior U.S. State Department official told Newsweek.

Whether Southeast Asia becomes a leading hub or a supporting node will depend on the decisions governments and enterprises make in the next two to three years.