| In our latest update, Jingdong Yuan provides a preliminary assessment of Chinese perspectives on AI and its military applications, with a focus on the AI-nuclear nexus. Hoo Chiew Ping and Ngeow Chow Bing evaluate the five most consequential defence partnerships that will impact Malaysia’s strategic environment in the near future amid shifting major power dynamics. And Prashanth Parameswaran explores the ongoing military exercise proliferation in Asia’s security environment and the opportunities and challenges it creates.
As always, we highlight recent activities from our network, including analyses on the Trump-Xi Summit, Japan’s approach to the evolving security landscape, Beijing’s perspective on the war in Iran, and more. |
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China and AI-Military Integration:
Perspectives, Opportunities, and Challenges
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Jingdong Yuan provides a timely assessment of China’s strategic pivot toward military intelligentisation, exploring how Beijing is integrating AI into the PLA to gain a decisive edge in its rivalry with the United States. Driven by mandates from the 20th National Congress of the CPC, the Chinese military is aggressively transitioning from information-guided and network-centric warfare to AI and automation-driven modernisation. Examining how Chinese analysts view these disruptive technologies as a historic opportunity to “overtake on a curve,” the paper explores the operational benefits, inherent risks of AI-nuclear integration, and the steep implementation challenges facing the PLA.
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Situating Malaysia’s Defence Partnerships: Prospects for the Next Decade
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Hoo Chiew Ping and Ngeow Chow Bing analyse how Malaysia views the US–China power balance over the next decade and the resulting security risks to its strategic environment. They evaluate Malaysia’s major defence partnerships, identifying the five most critical partners based on strategic, operational, and political impact. To maintain its delicate equilibrium, the authors argue that Malaysia must leverage these relationships, recommending that the government adopt a careful, measured approach that balances international collaboration with its own domestic defence priorities and capabilities.
This report is published as a part of APLN’s Asia Dialogue on China-US Relations, supported by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York. |
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Military Exercises and Security Multialignment in Asia amid US-China Competition
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Prashanth Parameswaran assesses the accelerating proliferation of military exercises in Asia, driven by intensifying US–China strategic competition. As Washington solidifies its alliances and Beijing makes new regional inroads, local middle powers are struggling to manage alignment pressures while increasingly engaging with a more diversified group of partners. Drawing on extensive field research and interviews with regional policymakers and exercise planners, Parameswaran offers a critical look at how this shifting exercise mix will ultimately shape the future norms and balance of power across Asia’s core subregions.
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In an exclusive commentary written for APLN, Cho Hyun, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea, argued that any move towards ROK nuclear armament would erode the US-ROK alliance, trigger regional proliferation, and devastate its globally integrated economy.
In response to Minister Cho’s remarks, Adam Mount and Toby Dalton argue that while his words provide a compelling rebuttal to pro-nuclear advocates, they do not resolve the underlying ambiguity of South Korea’s dual-use capabilities. To distinguish Seoul’s intentions from deliberate hedging and mitigate the risks of nuclear latency, they urge the ROK government to adopt a policy of “active non-proliferation.” |
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APLN has over 180 members from 24 countries in the Asia-Pacific.
Each week, we feature their latest contributions
to global and regional security debates.
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| Kim Won-soo, former Under Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs of the United Nations, wrote for The Korea Times, arguing that President Trump’s recent visit to China resulted in an anticlimactic “strategic pause” that cooled bilateral tensions but failed to achieve substantive policy breakthroughs. |
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| Nobumasa Akiyama, APLN Senior Associate Fellow, shared Japan’s approach to the evolving security landscape and the likely effects of its nuclear policy on global arms control and collective security at an event hosted by the U.S.-Asia Law Institute, New York University School of Law. |
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| Alka Acharya, Director of the Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi (ICS), spoke with Raj Gupta and Shruti Jargad to examine how Beijing frames the war in Iran for domestic and external audiences. Their discussion highlights the growing tension between China’s professed multilateralism and a rising nationalist discourse that stresses hard power, self-reliance, and the need to prepare for a more conflictual global order. |
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| Huong Le Thu, Deputy Director of Asia Program at the International Crisis Group, wrote for Foreign Policy and warned that shifting U.S. priorities and norm-breaking actions in the Middle East have severely eroded regional confidence in Washington’s security assurances. |
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| Kazuko Hikawa, Professor at Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition, Nagasaki University, published a paper in the Journal for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament, arguing that creating an autonomous system based on intrinsic incentives is more crucial than an extrinsic, incentive-based heteronomous system that relies on control for prevention. |
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