| This week, we mourn the loss of our senior network member and renowned theoretical physicist Professor Ramamurti Rajaraman. We publish a new report by Manpreet Sethi, Fang Liu, and Elaine Natalie as part of our Asia Dialogue on China-US Relations. The report analyses how different understandings of multipolarity in China, India, and Indonesia shape geopolitics in the Asia-Pacific.
As always, we highlight recent activities from our network, including analyses on New Zealand’s nuclear policy, the expansion of China’s nuclear arsenal, South Korea’s presidential election, India’s foreign policy, and the localisation of large language models in Southeast Asia. |
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APLN mourns the loss of our senior network member and renowned theoretical physicist Professor Ramamurti Rajaraman. Professor Rajaraman’s distinguished career included being Emeritus Professor of Physics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Founding Member and co-Chairman of the International Panel on Fissile Materials, and former Vice President of the Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi. He was a significant voice in India’s nuclear policy community and a tireless advocate for global nuclear disarmament. APLN is deeply grateful for his support to the organisation and for his contributions to the causes of nuclear physics and disarmament. We extend our sincere condolences to his family and friends.
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Managing Multiple Multipolarities: Evolving interstate relations in the Asia-Pacific
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Manpreet Sethi, Fang Liu, and Elaine Natalie argue that the global order is becoming irreversibly multipolar. No single power, neither the United States nor China, is able or willing to dominate every region, especially in the Asia-Pacific. The authors explain and compare the competing visions of multipolarity as articulated by China, India, and Indonesia to identify the challenges and opportunities for policymakers in the United States, China and in the region.
This report is published under APLN’s Asia Dialogue on China-US Relations, a project supported by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
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| Manpreet Sethi, Frank O’Donnell and Joel Petersson Ivre write on the structural preferences of regional actors concerning regional stability. They examine four types of preferred end-states for actors in the Asia-Pacific, analyse the implications of these end-states, and outline regional strategic approaches and trade-offs to avoid conflict and promote peace-building in each scenario. |
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APLN has over 170 members from 23 countries in the Asia-Pacific.
Each week we feature their latest contributions
to global and regional security debates.
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| Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand, and Kate Dewes, former Director of the Disarmament and Security Centre, will speak at a webinar on 21 July 2025 at 12 PM NZST, and discuss the development, legacy, and future of New Zealand’s nuclear-free stance. |
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| Tong Zhao, Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, was featured on the Sinica podcast, where he joined host Kaiser Kuo for an in-depth discussion on China’s nuclear doctrine and arsenal. They also discussed the implications of Trump’s second term for China’s strategic posture, alongside Beijing’s views on the Golden Dome program, North Korea’s nuclear program, and the deployment of North Korean troops in Ukraine. |
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| Eunjung Lim, Professor at the Division of International Studies, Kongju National University, argued that South Korea’s 2025 presidential election revealed a society riven by generational, regional, and gender divisions. While President Lee Jae-myung’s victory reflects public rejection of authoritarianism, his populist instincts and flexible ideology raise concerns about policy coherence. |
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| C. Raja Mohan, Visiting Research Professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore, was interviewed by The Indian Express, where he analysed how Trump-era policies have reshaped American power and disrupted long-held worldviews in India, from BRICS nostalgia to the MAGA movement’s cultural backlash. |
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| Elina Noor, Senior Fellow in the Asia Programme at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote for Project Syndicate and pointed out that the rapid adoption of US-made, Anglophone large language models has prompted developers in Southeast Asia to build AI tools tailored to the region’s linguistic context. However, creating truly local models requires capturing the region’s deep cultural and historical nuances that have been encoded in language. |
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