| Dear Friends and Colleagues,
April was another busy month in the Asia-Pacific, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to China, escalating violence in Myanmar, elections in South Korea and the Solomon Islands, and ongoing tensions in the South China Sea. While Blinken’s second visit to China in a year is a welcome demonstration of continued high-level engagement between the two countries, the meetings made it clear that there are still several contentious issues in the relationship, particularly when it comes to their relations with Asia-Pacific countries.
When thinking about how the US-China competition plays out in the region, it is important to seek out the perspectives and concerns of the countries in question. APLN’s Asia Dialogue project explores how Asia-Pacific countries view US-China competition and their role in reducing tensions in the region. The latest publication in this project is a Special Report by Sandra Tarte on how Fiji can use the “Pacific Zone of Peace” concept to advance regional stability and assert a Pacific-led approach to engagement with major powers, including the United States and China.
While Western media tends to view the Asia-Pacific through the lens of major power competition, the region has no shortage of internal risks. In our work covering East Asia, we published a report by Nobumasa Akiyama on Japanese perceptions of strategic risks in the region, which considered what a Taiwan contingency and conflict on the Korean Peninsula would mean for Japan. We also published four translations of the executive summary of our report on nuclear risks in Northeast Asia by Van Jackson, which includes 22 policy recommendations for avoiding the nuclear use scenarios identified in previous years of the project.
The executive summary nicely complemented a report by Ulrich Kühn and Heather Williams, which proposed a new “Behavioural Arms Control” framework for the new era of US-China relations. As the authors say in the report, new nuclear risks necessitate novel arms control solutions.
We are looking forward to another productive month ahead, especially with our upcoming nuclear use risk reduction project report launch on May 28th and Asia-Pacific Strategic Risks webinar on May 29th. I hope you can make it.
As always, I am grateful for any feedback or comments you may have. |
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| Kind regards,
Shatabhisha Shetty
APLN Executive Director |
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Advancing Regional Stability in an Era of Geopolitical Competition and Tension: The Role of Fiji
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| Sandra Tarte highlights Fiji’s role as a major player in the Pacific Islands and argues that Fiji’s “Pacific Zone of Peace” concept is crucial in promoting peace and security in the context of the United States and China’s great power rivalry. |
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Behavioral Arms Control and East Asia
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| In this Special Report, Ulrich Kühn and Heather Williams discuss the merits of a Behavioural Arms Control (BAC) framework between the United States and China prescribing responsible behaviour in multiple military domains. Kühn and Williams suggest that informal initiatives can reduce military risks by focusing on the actions, rather than the capabilities that can lead to escalation. |
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What Should Be Done?
Practical Policies to Prevent Nuclear Catastrophe
Executive summary translations
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| In March, we published the final report from our nuclear use risk reduction project, What Should Be Done? Practical Policies to Prevent Nuclear Catastrophe, written by Van Jackson. This month, we published translations of the report’s executive summary, now available in English, Chinese, Russian, Korean, and Japanese. The executive summary includes an overview of the three-year project and its findings, as well as the full list of 22 policy recommendations, shortened to one sentence each. |
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Revisiting the Comprehensive Security Roadmap to Reduce the Risk of War on the Korean Peninsula
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| In this paper, John Delury, Morton Halperin, Peter Hayes, Chung-in Moon, Thomas Pickering, and Leon Sigal revisit the concept of comprehensive security in Northeast Asia as the guiding principle for reducing tension, avoiding war, and re-engaging on a cooperative security agenda in Northeast Asia. |
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Strategic Risk Assessment in East Asia: A Japanese View
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| Nobumasa Akiyama assesses Japanese perceptions of strategic risks in East Asia and recommends how Japan can create a regional security cooperation network to prevent crisis escalation. |
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APLN is pleased to welcome a new senior network member:
Dr. Ganewati Wuryandari (Indonesia) is a Senior Researcher at the Research Center for Politics, National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN). She was involved in the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in 2020–2023 as a delegate in the Eminent Persons Group (EPG) of the Republic of Indonesia. Read one of Dr. Wuryandari’s recent publications, Indonesia’s engagement in the climate change negotiations: building national resilience, here.
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The Search for Nuclear Justice
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| On April 17, APLN collaborated with BASIC’s Emerging Voices Network to host a webinar on The Search for Nuclear Justice. Five scholars discussed victim assistance, environmental remediation, role of treaties, and other ways to bring us closer to nuclear justice. |
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| 17 April | Tanya Ogilvie-White argues that while the US, Japan, Australia, and Britain are focused on the Taiwan Strait, South Korea regards the threat posed by North Korea as more acute than ever before and is becoming increasingly isolated from its regional security partners. |
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