The list includes Japan's first female prime minister, Nepal's Generation Z, and Field Marshal Munir in Pakistan. We also have Zohran Mamdani, who today speaks to India from his post as mayor of New York; Ekrem İmamoğlu, the mayor of Istanbul, still in prison for daring to challenge Erdoğan, Cambodia’s first Khmer bishop since the Pol Pot years and Pope Francis’s legacy in Asia.

The year that ends today has been a very eventful one for Asia. As is our custom, on the last day of the year, AsiaNews has selected a few key players that we believe summarise some of the most important stories that have affected politics, civil society, and the Church in 2025 in different parts of the continent.

SANAE TAKAICHI (Japan)

Following her victory in the Liberal Democratic Party's primary elections in October, Sanae Takaichi has become Japan's first female prime minister. Hailing from Nara, 64, politically close to Shinzo Abe, a former prime minister assassinated in 2022, she said that she wants to build a "strong and prosperous" Japan. Her victory represented a vindication for the more nationalist wing of the party, which has ruled Japan almost uninterruptedly since the Second World War. The sensitive issue of immigration was the focus of her campaign. Her government, formed in a coalition with the centrist Japan Innovation Party (Ishin), is based on a slim majority, but currently enjoys a very high approval rating. For this reason, she may opt for early elections in 2026. In recent months, the spotlight has been on high tensions with China following her November declaration that a Chinese attack on Taiwan would pose an existential threat to Japan.

GENERATION Z (Nepal)

Young people, students, gig workers, influencers, and digital activists led the protests that in September marked a break with the established political system. The demonstrations, which erupted after the imposition of a ban on social media, saw young people launch an anti-establishment campaign that quickly morphed into a mass mobilisation against corruption, nepotism, and the impunity of traditional elites, leading to the fall of the government led by KP Sharma Oli. Without a single leader or a leading party, Gen Z has used social media as a political space, breaking the monopoly of traditional parties and pushing issues such as transparency and social justice onto the political agenda. All eyes are on 5 March 2026, election day, when Kathmandu's young mayor, Balendra Shah, who is close to Gen Z, could emerge as the leader.

ZHANG YADI (China)

Zhang Yadi, a brilliant 22-year-old Chinese student living in France about to begin a master's degree in anthropology at the prestigious School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London, failed to come back after a summer visit to her family in Changsha, China. On 31 July, she was arrested in Shangri-La, Yunnan, on charges of “endangering national security”. Chinese authorities ostensibly discovered that Zhang was @TaraFreesoul online, one of the initiators of CYS4T (Chinese Youths Stand for Tibet), a group of Chinese students living abroad who have been advocating for Tibet since May 2024 and exposing its "hidden truth" in Chinese diaspora communities. Zhang is a new face among Chinese dissidents, a product of the "white sheet generation”, the protest movement fuelled by the strict zero COVID-19 policy China imposed during the pandemic. Her fate is a sad confirmation of the widespread control imposed by Xi Jinping in the name of the "great renewal of the Chinese nation" even outside of China, among young people studying and working in the West.

ASIM MUNIR (Pakistan)

Chief of the Army Staff since autumn 2022, Asim Munir became the most powerful man in the country in 2025. A former director of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the first military man to also head the Corps of Military Intelligence, Munir has managed to concentrate power in the hands of the military after the fall of former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who was arrested and jailed after a series of legal proceedings. Under his leadership, Pakistan’s military and the civilian government dismantled the political infrastructure of Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party. Asim Munir's role was further boosted this year by constitutional changes that expanded the powers of the army commander and reduced the judiciary's ability to intervene. The Army Chief of Staff, who also held direct talks with US President Donald Trump, justified the crackdown as necessary to ensure national security and economic revival, while the opposition and several international observers saw this as a new phase in the military’s control over government policies.

ZOHRAN MAMDANI (India-United States)

New York's new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, has brought South Asian culture to the heart of US politics through his family history and an electoral campaign conducted in several languages. Born in Kampala to an Indian family and raised in Africa, Asia, and the United States, Mamdani embodies the Indian diaspora generation that interprets the West through the experience of the Global South. Elected to the New York State Assembly, he became known for his positions in favour of public housing, the right to healthcare, and a more human rights-conscious foreign policy, even when this means openly criticising Washington's historic allies. He has also repeatedly criticised Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his ultranationalist Hindu policies and discrimination against India’s Muslim community, which continue to be implemented in all states governed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). His rise coincided with one of the lowest points in US-Indian relations, with the crisis triggered by Trump's imposition of tariffs on products imported from India, which had the side effect of driving Modi to seek a rapprochement with Beijing.

POPE FRANCIS (Asia)

Not only Catholic communities, but all of Asia shared in the world's grief over the death of Pope Francis on 21 April. During his 12-year pontificate, the pontiff paid particular attention to this great continent. He visited it on seven apostolic journeys: from the first to Korea in 2014 to the last in the summer of 2024, the longest of his pontificate, which took him to Indonesia, the tiny nation of Timor-Leste, and Singapore, as well as Papua New Guinea. In 2023 he made a  stop in the missionary frontier of Mongolia, where Christians are but a few. Pope Francis was also the pontiff who chose so many cardinals from Asia and the Middle East, including countries that had never received this honour before. About 23 took part in the conclave that elected Leo XIV in May. Above all, Jorge Bergoglio was the pope closest to Asia's forgotten; for example, he was the only world leader to constantly focus attention on the Rohingya, the people exiled from Myanmar whom he met during his trip to Bangladesh. He was the pontiff who extended a hand to China, signing the Provisional Agreement with Beijing in 2018 on the appointment of bishops and holding up Matteo Ricci as a model for the encounter between faith and Chinese culture.

SUON HANGLY (Cambodia)

On 8 September 2025, Cambodia’s tiny Catholic community (just over 20,000 members, a mere 0.13 per cent of the population) rejoiced at the ordination of Phêrô (Pierre) Suon Hangly, a 53-year-old priest, as Coadjutor Apostolic Vicar of Phnom Penh. Pope Leo XIV picked him probably to be the successor of the current vicar, French Bishop Olivier Schmitthaeusler. Suon Hangly is the first Khmer bishop of the local Church, reborn just 35 years ago, since the genocidal persecution by the Khmer Rouge regime had almost completely wiped out the local Catholic community in just a few years. Hitherto, Bishop Giuse (Joseph) Chhmar Salas was the only Khmer priest to be appointed (at a tragic time) to the episcopal ministry in 1975.

FLAVIANO ANTONIO VILLANUEVA (Philippines)

A member of the Society of the Divine Word, Philippine Father Villanueva is this year’s recipient of the Magsaysay Prize, now in its 67th edition, an Asian award compared to the Nobel Prize, for his work defending human dignity. Known as Father Flavie, he is one of the country's most active advocate for the rights of the poor and victims of the “war on drugs”. After a personal history marked by drug abuse, which began in his teens and ended in 1995, he embarked on a journey of conversion that led him to the seminary in 1998 and to priestly ordination in 2006. In 2015, he founded the Arnold Janssen Kalinga Center in Manila, providing assistance, housing, and dignified services to thousands of marginalised people. During President Duterte's anti-drug campaign, he supported the families of victims of extrajudicial killings, leading the search for their bodies, and raising funds for dignified burials and memorial sites. His efforts earned him threats and charges of sedition.

EKREM İMAMOĞLU (Turkey)

İmamoğlu is the face of the opposition that successfully challenged Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's power, defeating the ruling party's candidate for mayor of Istanbul, and a symbol of government repression of political rivals. Ekrem İmamoğlu, mayor of Turkey's economic and commercial capital and a member of the Republican People's Party (CHP), who twice defeated his rival, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), has been jailed on trumped-up charges on 19 March. According to Istanbul's chief prosecutor, the mayor and Erdoğan's main rival in the next presidential elections in 2028 faces charges of “aiding a terrorist organisation,” and for "forming and leading a criminal organisation” involved in “bribery”, and “aggravated fraud”. In October, charges of espionage were added, which İmamoğlu dismissed as a plot to exclude him from politics. Analysts and the president’s adversaries claim that this is an attempt by the government and the AKP to impose authoritarian rule and seize control of the metropolis, cracking down on protests and arresting people demanding freedom, democracy, and rights.

AHMED AL-SHARAA (Syria)

As head of the Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militia, Ahmed al-Sharaa led the overthrow of the decades-long regime of Bashar al-Assad in a matter of weeks between November and December 2024, forcing the former dictator into exile. Over the past year, he has consolidated his power by holding limited elections and bringing the country back into the international fold. The caretaker president is a former al-Qaeda leader who once had a US$ 10 million bounty on his head. However, in recent months, he has gained full legitimacy from Donald Trump, and was successful in getting international sanctions lifted, including the Caesar Act, which had starved Syria for years. In terms of foreign policy, he has tried to reach an agreement with Israel, but domestic problems persist, including violence against Alawis, tensions with the Druze, attacks on Christians, the continued presence of jihadists (including the Islamic State), and the unresolved issue with the Kurds in the northeast. All this has cast a long shadow over the uncertain future of a country far from stabilised.

BASHAR FAWADLEH (Palestine-Israel)

With the war in Gaza as a backdrop, Israeli settlers and pro-occupation movements have waged a "silent war" against Palestinians in the West Bank, with the complicity of the Israeli government and police, expropriating land, destroying property, and devastating the economy. A prime example of this is Taybeh, a village of 1,500 residents and three churches, 30 km north of Jerusalem and east of Ramallah, the last town inhabited entirely by Christians. The parish priest, Father Bashar Fawadleh, denounced the violence, amid a crescendo of attacks that prompted the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, and the Greek Orthodox Primate, Theophilos III, to make a visit to express their solidarity with the residents. The 600 Latin Catholics, plus the Greek Orthodox, and Greek Melkite Catholics “live under constant fire from settlers, and under the crossfire of the Israeli occupation army," but, the clergyman added, "we are not afraid to remain in our land." This message was reiterated during Advent, bearing witness of faith that is "stronger than the settlers' violence."

BAGRAT GALSTANYAN (Armenia)

Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan of the Armenian Apostolic Church in Tavowsh is the central player in the opposition to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Since June 2024, he has led protests against the transfer of the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan. He promoted the "Tavowsh in the Name of the Fatherland" movement and called for the prime minister's resignation, even temporarily suspending his pastoral duties in order to run for public office, only to backtrack due to his dual Armenian and Canadian citizenship. On 25 June 2025, Pashinyan denounced a coup attempt involving clergy, naming Galstanyan as a key figure. The prelate was eventually arrested and remains in prison. His case has become a symbol of the deep rift between the Armenian government and the Apostolic Church in a country marked by the aftermath of the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh.

• sanae takaichi
• gen z
• zhang yadi
• asim munir
• zohran mamdani
• pope francis
• suon hangli
• flaviano antonio villanueva
• ekrem imamoğlu
• ahmed al-sharaa
• bashar fawadleh
• bagrat galstanyan