Top Asian News 3:48 a.m. GMT

BEIJING (AP) — Thirty years since the Tiananmen Square protests, China's economy has catapulted up the world rankings, yet political repression is harsher than ever. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims are held in re-education camps without charge, student activists face relentless harassment and leaders in the beleaguered dissident community have been locked up or simply vanished. Religious groups face ever greater pressure to conform, and a web of mass surveillance is bolstering a system many call totalitarian. It's a far cry from the hopes of the idealistic student demonstrators, and a level of control far beyond what many imagined possible, even after the army's bloody crushing of the protests on the night of June 3-4, 1989.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A senior North Korean official who had been reported as purged over the failed nuclear summit with Washington was shown in state media on Monday enjoying a concert near leader Kim Jong Un. North Korean publications on Monday showed Kim Yong Chol sitting five seats away from a clapping Kim Jong Un in the same row along with other top officials during a musical performance by the wives of Korean People's Army officers. Kim Yong Chol has been North Korea's top nuclear negotiator and the counterpart of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo since Kim Jong Un entered nuclear talks with the U.S.

BEIJING (AP) — China fired back at the U.S. Sunday over the two nations' trade dispute, issuing a report that blamed the conflict on the Trump administration but refrained from escalating the trade war. The report from the Cabinet spokesman's office said China won't back down on "major issues of principle," but offered no sense of whether or how the world's second largest economy might retaliate against U.S. tariffs on goods manufactured in China. The report said China has kept its word throughout 11 rounds of talks and will honor its commitments if a trade agreement is reached. It accused the U.S.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The Pentagon has told the White House to stop politicizing the military, amid a furor over a Trump administration order to have the Navy ship named for the late U.S. Sen. John McCain hidden from view during President Donald Trump's recent visit to Japan. Trump's top aide scoffed at the idea that anyone working for the White House might be punished. "We think it's much ado about nothing." A U.S. defense official said Patrick Shanahan, Trump's acting defense chief, is also considering sending out formal guidance to military units in order to avoid similar problems in the future.

BEIJING (AP) — It has been three months since Chinese rock musician Li Zhi disappeared from public view. First, an upcoming tour was canceled and his social media accounts were taken down. Then his music was removed from all of China's major streaming sites — as if his career had never existed at all. Li is an outspoken artist who performs folk rock. He sang pensive ballads about social ills, and unlike most entertainers in China, dared to broach the taboo subject of the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests that ended in bloodshed on June 4, 1989. "Now this square is my grave," Li sang.

HONG KONG (AP) — Thirty years after it was crushed by China's army, the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement is being commemorated in art, literature, public rallies and even synth pop. Hong Kong singer Anthony Wong's latest release, "Is It a Crime," recorded with longtime musical partner Tats Lau, is finding an audience by doing just that. The two make up the group Tat Ming Pair, long a staple of the local music scene known as Cantopop for the Cantonese language in which the music is recorded. Released in May, the composition has been banned in mainland China, where all discussion of the protest movement and the military crackdown is strictly taboo.

The newly released Netflix movie "Always Be My Maybe," is an Asian American rom-com with a twist: Ethnicity isn't central to the plot. It's just stand-up comedian and actress Ali Wong and "Fresh Off the Boat" actor Randall Park playing best friends and soul mates who happen to be Asian, which may be the most refreshing part of all. "It wasn't the type of thing where we sat down and said before we wrote it, 'OK, we got to represent and make sure we're making the perfect Asian American movie,'" Park told The Associated Press. "It was more like, 'Let's make a really heartfelt and really funny romantic comedy, a movie that we'd really love to see.'" In the flick, best friends Sasha (Wong) and Marcus (Park), who grew up next door to each other in San Francisco, lose touch after a night of passion.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said Sunday that so far he sees no need to restore large-scale military exercises with South Korea that have been curtailed over the past year as a diplomatic olive branch to North Korea. "I'm confident that we have the readiness that we are required to have," Shanahan said as he flew to Seoul to meet with his commanders and South Korean officials. But he also said he wants to discuss the issue with his top American commander in South Korea, Army Gen. Robert Abrams, to "make sure that the plan that we put in place is sufficient."

CHICAGO (AP) — A former University of Illinois graduate student is set to stand trial in the 2017 disappearance and suspected killing of a visiting scholar from China — a case in which the death penalty is possible and that has been closely watched in the home country of the victim, whose body hasn't been found. Jury selection in the federal trial of Brendt Christensen begins Monday in Peoria, a central Illinois city about 85 miles (135 kilometers) northwest of Champaign, where 26-year-old Yingying Zhang was studying at the university's flagship campus and where she was last seen. Because it's a death penalty case, jury selection is expected to take a week, as among the questions prospective jurors will be asked is whether they oppose capital punishment.

LUCKNOW, India (AP) — Rescuers on Sunday searched for eight mostly foreign mountaineers who went missing while attempting to scale a peak near India's second-highest mountain, an official said. The team, led by British climber Martin Moran, began its ascent May 13 of the previously unclimbed and unnamed peak on Nanda Devi East at 6,477 meters (21,250 feet), according to Moran Mountain, Moran's Scotland-based company.The team includes four Britons, two Americans, an Australian and an Indian liaison officer. Vijay Kumar Jogdande, a civil administrator in northern India's Uttarakhand state, said four other members of the expedition team who had stayed back at the second base camp were brought down Sunday.