Last Wednesday, India banned 118 Chinese mobile applications from its huge domestic market, including the popular video game PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, which has over 50 million players in India. Others, including Baidu, Alipay and some versions of the messaging app WeChat, are operated by Chinese internet giants like Tencent and Ant Financial.
The Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said it took the action "to ensure safety, security and sovereignty of Indian cyberspace". But some saw it as simply another front in an Asian big-power rivalry.
Away from the virtual world, high in the Himalayas, the Indian army last week staged an operation -- the first since May -- to secure a strategic outpost that offered a clear view of Chinese troop movements. It was seeking to counter what India saw as an intrusion by Chinese forces.
What the world, particularly all of us in Asia, sees in these developments is a worrisome escalation of tensions between two major powers in a region that already has more than its share of conflicts. They include territorial spats in the South China Sea, anxiety over the Korean peninsula and North Korea's nuclear ambitions, and Japan's sour diplomatic relations with South Korea.
Seoul and Tokyo remain locked in a legal dispute about reparations for South Koreans forced to work for Japanese companies during World War II. There's a growing possibility that Nippon Steel and others could have assets liquidated by South Korean courts as compensation.
The above-mentioned developments come at a time when Japan's leadership is changing for the first time in nearly eight years following the abrupt resignation of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Aug 28. Japan's longest-serving prime minister has suffered for years from ulcerative colitis, and decided it was time to focus on getting well.
Mr Abe has done a lot to move Japan forward, though many challenges remain. His three-pronged "Abenomics" programme of loose monetary policy, fiscal stimulus and structural reforms scored some initial successes -- boosting growth, stocks and employment. However, whoever succeeds Mr Abe and finishes the rest of his term, until September 2021, will confront several challenges, notably an economy that has shrunk during the pandemic to the size it was before Mr Abe took charge.
While the Abe administration made a good start in bringing an unprecedented number of women into the workplace and immigrants into the country, much work remains on this front as well. The precariousness of most women's jobs has been revealed by the pandemic; more needs to be done to address gender pay gaps and provide women with sufficient flexibility and child-care support to develop stable careers.
As well, a rigid and seniority-based employment system that impedes mobility and wage growth needs to be shaken up, as many Japanese have still trapped in irregular work with few benefits and career prospects.
And even though Japan has done a relatively good job of managing the spread of the virus, the Abe government isn't getting much credit. An opinion poll conducted in mid-August showed 60% of respondents had a negative view of the administration's pandemic response.
In the international arena, Japan's geopolitical standing has been bolstered during the Abe era, as the country strengthened its military capabilities and pushed through free-trade deals with the European Union and the 10 other nations that remained in the Trans-Pacific Partnership following the US withdrawal.
The next prime minister's top priority will be dealing with China, which has made rapid strides economically and militarily. China's drive to build a "world-class" military on par with its American rival by 2050 is shifting the balance of power in a region once tilted heavily toward the US.
On the domestic front, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, the front-runner to succeed Mr Abe as head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and premier, has made clear that he would not stop the Abenomics reforms.
But I am equally interested in whether Mr Abe's foreign policies will be retained by his successor. Under Mr Abe, Japan has increased its global stature and influence and enhanced its military capabilities. The outcome of the US presidential election could have an impact on the thinking in Tokyo, depending on whether Donald Trump, a friend and fan of Mr Abe, prevails or whether Joe Biden enters the White House.
Maintaining a strategic balance in the region is critical for Japan, and these challenges call for a person who has qualities like the ones Mr Abe displayed. To me, he deserves a lot of credit.