We are pleased to announce that APLN members and staff have been selected as members of the International Group of Eminent Persons (IGEP) for a World Without Nuclear Weapons, announced by Japanese Prime Minister Kishida. APLN Chair Marty Natalegawa, Board Members Manpreet Sethi and Tong Zhao, Network Member Akiyama Nobumasa and Senior Research Adviser Tanya Ogilvie-White were selected and invited to participate in the group’s first meeting in Hiroshima last week.

Last week, APLN and the European Leadership Network co-hosted a series of roundtables as part of a joint project assessing strategic risks in the Asia-Pacific and the impact on the nuclear non-proliferation regime.

In recent publications, David Santoro reflects on the lessons learned from US-China expert-level nuclear dialogues for supporting official  nuclear talks. Cheon Myeongguk discusses the impact of Russia’s war in Ukraine on the Republic of Korea’s (ROK) attitudes toward nuclear weapons. We also highlight member activities.

APLN members Marty Natalegawa, Manpreet Sethi, Tong Zhao, Akiyama Nobumasa and Senior Research Adviser Tanya Ogilvie-White were selected to serve on Japan’s International Group of Eminent Persons (IGEP) for a World Without Nuclear Weapons.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio announced the establishment of the IGEP as a forum in which participants from nuclear and non-nuclear-weapon States exchange ideas and engage in candid discussions on how to realise a world without nuclear weapons.

The first IGEP meeting took place in Hiroshima last week with an opening address by Prime Minister Fumio and video messages from senior political and diplomatic figures including UN Secretary-General António Guterres; Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese; and former US President Barack Obama.

Last week, APLN and the European Leadership Network held a series of workshops with officials, APLN members, experts, and practitioners from Japan, South Korea, and Australia as part of a joint FCDO-sponsored project assessing changing perceptions of strategic risks in the Asia-Pacific and the impact on the nuclear non-proliferation regime.

The series of workshops culminated in a roundtable event hosted by the Australian Institute of International Affairs in Canberra. Participants discussed current risks and threat perceptions, the impact of emerging technologies and measures to improve regional stability and strengthen the nuclear non-proliferation regime.

David Santoro, President and CEO of the Pacific Forum, reflects on lessons learnt from past expert US-China dialogues, discussing how these initiatives should evolve to improve mutual understanding and support official strategic nuclear talks between the two countries.

He argues that Track-2 and Track-1.5 dialogues have created habits of engagement between US and Chinese experts and epistemic communities; enabled better mutual understanding of where the United States and China stand on key issues; identified areas of convergence and divergence between the two sides; and opened the door to ideas about potential solutions or, at least, mitigation measures.

This report is a part of the APLN China-US-Asia Dialogue, a project exploring ways to improve understanding, reduce misperceptions, de-escalate risks and tensions, and build trust between the United States and China.

Cheon Myeongguk, a visiting researcher at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses (KIDA), explores the possible implications of the Ukraine conflict on ROK attitudes regarding nuclear weapons. He shows parallels between the geopolitical situations of Ukraine and the ROK and suggests that Ukraine’s situation underscores the need for the ROK to maintain strong military alliances and further develop its conventional weapons capabilities.
 

This policy brief is a part of a joint project on Reducing the Risk of Nuclear Weapon Use in Northeast Asia (NU-NEA) with the Nautilus Institute and the Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition, Nagasaki University (RECNA).