| Dear Friends and Colleagues,
As 2023 draws to a close, this is an opportune moment to reflect on progress over the year and appreciate the contributions of our team, funders, members, and partners in supporting APLN.
Throughout the year, we released 56 publications, issued 3 group statements, and welcomed 25 new members to APLN’s network, more than half of whom were women. In July, we joined the Gender Champions in Nuclear Policy and committed to creating a more inclusive and diverse nuclear policy community in the Asia Pacific.
In October, we published an open letter from our Australian network members to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese calling for his leadership on nuclear risk reduction. He replied, reaffirming his support for nuclear non-proliferation and encouraging APLN to work more closely with the Australian government on the issue.
We issued two other powerful group statements this year. In May, APLN joined up with its sister organization, the European Leadership Network, to publish a group statement ahead of the G7 Hiroshima Summit. The statement, signed by over 250 senior figures from 50 countries across the globe, warned that nuclear arms control must not be allowed to fall victim to geopolitical competition. We released another group statement in November supporting continued US-China arms control talks following the Xi-Biden summit in San Francisco. 90 network members from 20 countries endorsed the call, demonstrating widespread support for the two powers to work towards a more secure future.
We also continued our research and project work on assessing Strategic Risks in the Asia Pacific, convening an Asia Dialogue on US-China relations, exploring how to Reduce the Risk of Nuclear Weapon Use in Northeast Asia, and amplifying voices from the Pacific Islands.
In December, we wrapped up our project on Maritime Incidents and Escalation in the Asia-Pacific with the publication of our final report, a culmination of a year of regional dialogues and consultations and drew important conclusions on how best to avoid conflict in the Asia-Pacific maritime domain.
This year, we were proud to host a side event at the TPNW Second Meeting of States Parties in New York and convened a private briefing for network members with CTBTO Executive Secretary Robert Floyd.
From growing our network to participating in our research, none of this would be possible without your engagement and support. As we reflect on the past year and look ahead to 2024, I thank you for your support and wish you all a very happy new year. |
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| Kind regards,
Shatabhisha Shetty
APLN Executive Director |
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| When APLN was first founded in 2011, we were 30 members across 13 countries. Since then, we have worked hard to expand and grow our network, not only in size, but in geographical spread, gender diversity, and expertise.
In 2023, we welcomed 25 new members to our network. We are proud to now represent 153 members from 22 countries across the Asia-Pacific. |
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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s response to APLN Australian Members’ Open Letter
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On November 1, fifteen Australian members of APLN’s senior network signed an open letter urging Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to assume a leadership role in addressing the rising nuclear threats in the region and build on commitments made at the Shangri-La Dialogue earlier this year.
On December 11, Prime Minister Albanese sent APLN a response. In his letter, the Prime Minister reaffirmed the importance of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation to his administration, saying that “as long as nuclear weapons exist, there is an onus on all Governments to work on reducing the risks of their use, and to reinforce non-proliferation.”
We are excited to receive this positive response from the Prime Minister, which not only represents a promising commitment to nuclear risk reduction, but also a meaningful endorsement of APLN’s mission. We are grateful to our members for initiating the letter and eagerly anticipate further engagement with the Albanese government.
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Group Statement: China-US Arms Control and Non-Proliferation
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In November, 90 members of APLN’s network signed a statement supporting arms control talks between the United States and China, urging the two countries to resume high-level bilateral dialogue on non-proliferation and disarmament.
The signed statement is available in English and Chinese. |
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Group Statement: China-US Arms Control and Non-Proliferation
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In May, more than 250 figures from 50 countries in Europe, North America, Asia and the Pacific endorsed a joint statement released by APLN and the European Leadership Network (ELN). Former prime ministers, defence ministers, foreign ministers, senior military figures, and diplomats called on Russia and the United States to pursue a successor framework to the nuclear arms reduction treaty, New START, before its expiration in 2026, and for all states to reaffirm commitments not to test nuclear weapons and make concerted efforts toward the entry-into-force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
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Our project on Nuclear Disarmament and the Anthropocene amplifies voices from Pacific Island Countries and highlights the inequities and injustices of nuclear weapons policies and practices that exacerbate existential risks.
This year’s project outputs were wide-ranging and varied. They covered topics such as nuclear justice and remediation, the connection between the region’s nuclear legacy and the climate crisis, and the impact of geopolitical competition on the region.
This project is supported by the Ploughshares Fund. In August, APLN was pleased to have received a grant renewal to continue work on this project. |
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Related: Pacific Islands Creative Competition Videos
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| In “See You Soon, Lagoon,” Bedi Racule imagines the life of a woman from Bikini Atoll who mourns the loss of her land and community following their destruction by nuclear weapons tests. |
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| In “All the Way from Down Here,” Luisa Tuilau tells the story of a family from the Marshall Islands and how they and their community continue to be impacted by the United States nuclear testing regime of the 20th century. |
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| In “Blood in the Water,” Dorell Ben shares art and poetry that delves into the themes of ancestry, nuclear legacy, and the ocean. |
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In 2023, APLN received received a two-year grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York to continue our work on building an inclusive dialogue platform for Chinese, US, and Asia-Pacific experts to discuss the US-China security dilemma.
The second year of the project explores the US-China relationship in the context of wider Asia-Pacific security dynamics. In this year of the project, we published reports by Tong Zhao, Rukmani Gupta, Jian Junbo, and Zha Daojiong. |
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| The APLN joint project “Reducing the Risk of Nuclear Weapon Use in Northeast Asia” (NU-NEA) works to define use cases for nuclear weapons in a limited nuclear war on, or involving, the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia more broadly. This year, we published two reports as part of this project. |
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| The first year report identified cases in which nuclear use in the region could occur. Year 2 simulated five of the cases and produced estimates of fatalities and health effects due to the physical impacts of nuclear detonations.
Read the full Year 2 report here. |
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| Eva Lisowski co-wrote an article with David Von Hippel and laid out stark scenarios of nuclear-weapons use and their unacceptable costs. Lisowski and Von Hippel found that the impacts of nuclear use in these cases go well beyond the Korean Peninsula. |
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This year, APLN secured a grant from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office to continue the APLN-ELN project on Strategic Risks in the Asia-Pacific. The project convenes government officials, experts, and practitioners from South Korea, Japan, Australia, and the UK to discuss how changing threat perceptions impact new and ongoing proliferation challenges and what policy solutions can address them, including steps to encourage strategic restraint, greater collaboration and carefully honed nuclear risk reduction diplomacy.
In 2023, we published four reports examining Australian, British, Japanese, and South Korean perspectives on strategic risks in the Asia-Pacific. The reports were partially informed by an in-person conference that APLN and ELN hosted in Seoul earlier this year. |
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Our project on Maritime Incidents and Escalation in Asia-Pacific, supported by the US Department of State, aimed to identify the risks of dangerous maritime incidents in the Asia-Pacific; evaluate the suitability of existing existing bilateral and multilateral arrangements to current strategic realities in the Asia-Pacific; bring forward new proposals to fill important gaps; and help promote effective mechanism for managing and mitigating incidents and escalation at sea.
With the publication of our most recent report on Crisis Avoidance: Preventing Dangerous Maritime Incidents and Unintended Escalation in the Asia-Pacific, this project is now complete. We are pleased to share it with you. |
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This year, APLN released 56 publications, including six Special Reports, thirteen Policy Briefs, fifteen commentaries, four Pulses, one essay, and seventeen Korea Times columns. 58% of the authors were from within our network.
We are deeply grateful to those who contributed to our publications, whether through authoring, participating in the workshops and dialogues that informed the reports, peer-reviewing, translating, or otherwise.
We can’t wait to share more with you in 2024! |
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Private Briefing with CTBTO Executive Secretary Dr. Robert Floyd
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On November 29, APLN hosted a private briefing with CTBTO Executive Secretary Dr. Robert Floyd. He provided updates on the latest developments in the signing and ratification of the CTBT.
In 2024, we hope to engage our members and partners with private events more often. If you have thoughts or suggestions on speakers or topics, please get in touch. |
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