This week at APLN, Vijay Naidu writes about how the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty is being threatened by geopolitical competition, Lauren Sukin and Woohyeok Seo share findings from their survey on “nuclear anxiety” in East Asia, and we provide details about our upcoming webinar on the climate-nuclear-geopolitical nexus in the Pacific.

As always, we share recent activities from our network, including analysis on the North Korean balloon incident, India-Japan relations, feasibility of a No-First-Use Treaty, and more. 

In this report, Vijay Naidu argues that the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone (SPNFZ) Treaty is under threat due to intensifying geostrategic competition in the Asia-Pacific and names four developments that are significant sources of risk for the South Pacific.

Despite its weaknesses, Naidu says that the SPNFZ Treaty is an important part of the non-proliferation regime and must be protected. He concludes the paper with suggestions on how to strengthen the SPNFZ Treaty, including continually calling on the United States to ratify the treaty protocols.

US allies and partners in the region – Australia, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan – have seen a surge in “nuclear anxiety” in their citizens. To understand how this sense of nuclear anxiety informs and drives US foreign policy in the region, Lauren Sukin and Woohyeok Seo analyse the results of an original survey conducted in June 2023, which looked at public perceptions of regional nuclear threats and explored how citizens seek reassurance in this threat environment.

Based on the results of the survey, Sukin and Seo determine that both abandonment and entrapment concerns shape public preferences, and US policy responses to nuclear anxiety should take both kinds of pressures into account.

Online only | Wednesday, June 19 from 1:00pm to 2:15pm KST

Join us on June 19 from 1:00pm to 2:15pm KST for a webinar exploring the interplay of climate change, nuclear policies and practices, and geopolitical dynamics in the Pacific. The event will feature a panel of Pacific experts and a discussion on the findings from our “Voices from Pacific Island Countries: Nuclear Disarmament and the Anthropocene” project. The findings will also be published in an upcoming project synthesis report on APLN’s website.

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APLN has over 150 members from 22 countries in the Asia-Pacific.
Each week we feature their latest contributions
to global and regional security debates.

The Strategic Dilemma of Philippine Disarmament Diplomacy