www.asia-studies.com

   home search about subscribe contact  

 

 

 

 

  

Home

  

 

 

 

 

Welcome to Asia-Studies Full-Text Online

The Most Comprehensive and Authoritative Source of
Asia-Pacific Information
 
 

Asia-Studies Full-Text Online is the premier database for the study of modern Asia Pacific. As the exclusive licensee for many of the region's most prestigious research institutions, Asia-Studies.com brings together thousands of full-text reports covering 55 countries* on a multitude of business, government, economic, and social issues. more . . .

  
 

Accessibility Policies

  
 

 

  
     
 

 

  
 

 

  
 

Library Journal eReview rates Asia-Studies Full-Text 10/10 on content and 9/10 overall.

  
 

* Library Journal is a trademark of Media Source

    
 

 

  
 

 

  
 

 

  
 

We index full-text journals with open access platforms in our Asia-Studies Full-Text Plus section. Here is the list of journals available.

  
 

 

  
 

 

  
 

 

  
 

August 2026 Current Topics

  

Source

 

 

  

 

Monetary Authority of Singapore: Macroeconomic Review, Volume XXV, Issue 3, July 2026 (Full Report). The Singapore economy outperformed in Q2 despite the headwinds from the oil price shock. Near-term growth momentum should stay firm, supported by sustained AI-related demand and its spillovers to adjacent industries and business confidence. Inflation picked up mainly reflecting some passthrough of higher global energy prices to transportation-related services as well as to goods inflation. MAS Core Inflation is projected to increase in Q3 and stay elevated before stepping down in H2 2027. In July, MAS increased the rate of appreciation of the S$NEER policy band very slightly, with no change to its width and the level at which it is centred.

  

MAS

MAS Survey of Professional Forecasters, June 2026. The Singapore economy expanded by 6.0% year-on-year in Q1 2026, slightly exceeding the respondents’ median forecast of 5.8% in the previous survey. In the current survey, the respondents expect the economy to grow by 4.3% year-on-year in Q2 2026. The respondents expect GDP to expand by 3.5% this year, down slightly from 3.6% in the previous survey. According to the respondents, the most likely outcome is for the Singapore economy to grow by 3.0% to 3.4%, with an average probability of 27%. In comparison, the previous survey identified 3.5%–3.9% as the most probable growth range...

  

MAS

How Great Power Rivalry Returned to the Indian Ocean and the Stakes for Australia, July 2026. For decades, Australia’s strategic policy has focused on the Pacific and Southeast Asia — a natural orientation given its geography and the historic absence of threats from the Indian Ocean. However, great power competition has now returned to the Ocean’s littoral states. The Iran war has closed the Strait of Hormuz, and the resulting disruption to global trade routes is affecting Australian economic security and the credibility of its main ally in real time. Unlike the latent threat of conflict in the Western Pacific, the consequences of the Iran war are immediate and measurable...

  

Lowy

Between the Superpowers: Southeast Asia’s Strategic Supply Chain Dilemma, July 2026. Southeast Asia’s strategic supply chains — those tied to renewable energy and advanced technologies — have been among the region’s most dynamic sectors. Southeast Asia’s role as a “connector” economy between the US and Chinese blocs has served the region’s trade- and investment-led growth model well. However, that same role is now a vulnerability. US–China competition is creating conditions far less favourable, or outright hostile, than only a few years ago, and the indirect linkages running through the region leave it exposed to decisions made in Beijing and Washington...

  

Lowy

Understanding Democratic Erosion Report, July 2026. Democratic erosion is the incremental and multifaceted deterioration in the freedoms, guarantees, and processes vital to the functioning of democracy. Various studies have tried to pinpoint one cause or set of causes of democratic erosion. But we argue that democratic erosion is a systems problem that is best understood by applying systems thinking to identify and explore the complex processes and pathways behind the phenomenon...

  

Lowy

From the Old World to the New: Why German Rearmament Matters for Australia, July 2026. When then chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz delivered the famous Zeitenwende (epochal shift) speech outlining the urgent need for change in defence and security policy as a response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, he presided over a military that reportedly struggled to participate in even basic NATO operations. Today by contrast, Germany is the world’s fourth largest military spender and has committed to military and industrial uplift with zeal...

  

ASPI

Past Its Use-By-Date: Turning End-Of-Life Technology Risk Into National Advantage, July 2026. End-of-life technology is no longer simply an IT management problem. Across governments and critical infrastructure, unsupported systems are becoming a structural risk to national security, economic resilience and the continuity of essential services. Systems designed for the threat environments of the 1990s and 2000s continue to support energy networks, telecommunications, healthcare, public administration and other essential functions...

  

ASPI

Polar Security: Strategic Competition at the Ends of the Earth, July 2026. The Arctic and Antarctica were strategic theatres in which the Cold War played out, but they were also regions in which concerted efforts were made to bring together the rival superpowers. The polar regions became beacons of global cooperation, Cold War East-West dialogue and best practice statecraft. Today, the polar regions host new ‘players’ or stakeholders and are shaped by increasingly novel forces. The dynamics at the ends of the earth have clearly changed, and the fragile status-quo born from our Cold War system of managing state power (and ambitions) is incredibly brittle...

  

ASPI

Northern Australia’s Strategic Operating System: Industry, Infrastructure and National Resilience, July 2026. Northern Australia has become a nationally significant strategic operating environment. Its industrial continuity, infrastructure resilience and sovereign capability directly shape Australia’s ability to withstand coercion, disruption and strategic competition. The region sits at the centre of Australia’s economic strength and strategic posture. It underpins nationally significant industries, sustains regional communities and supports the infrastructure, workforce and supply chains that enable Australia’s economic security and strategic endurance...

  

ASPI

Primed for Pressure: A Preparedness, Resilience and Redundancy Scorecard, July 2026. Northern Australia has become Australia’s principal strategic operating base. As the nation’s forward line of deterrence and power projection, its ability to support sustained military operations will be critical in any future crisis or conflict. If deterrence fails, Australia’s capacity to generate, sustain and recover combat power will depend not simply on individual bases or capabilities, but on the resilience of the interconnected systems that underpin northern defence. Over the past decade, Australia has made significant investments in northern defence infrastructure, force posture and alliance integration...

  

ASPI

New Governments, New Opportunities: US Relations with Bangladesh and Nepal Three Months In, June 2026. In the past two years, Bangladesh and Nepal have experienced significant upheaval in their respective political orders. Both witnessed violence in response to public protests and ousted their leaders. Both transitioned from interim governments and conducted elections with new prime ministers entering office. During roughly the first 100 days of the two governments, both have had the United States reach out through official visits, agreements, and opportunities for future cooperation...

  

EWC

Nepal’s Elections and the Opportunities for Youth-led Transformation, May 2026. Nepal is undergoing a rapid political transformation after last year’s Gen Z protests and is now anchored through the March 5 elections. The way youths were elected through the elections and dominate the parliament is a real generational shift in Nepali politics. Also, conventional and regional political parties were nearly routed and a relatively new political party–Rastriya Swatantra Party–secured a thumping majority winning 182 seats in a 275-member House of Representatives...

  

EWC

Bangladesh’s Post-Uprising Election and the Struggle for Strategic Space, May 2026. The February 2026 parliamentary election in Bangladesh is the first truly important political event after the collapse of the Sheikh Hasina-led system amid massive public protests and subsequent transition period. The election allowed political competition and some democratic legitimacy to return to Bangladesh, while simultaneously revealing several structural trends which will determine the country’s future development: the rising demands of young demographics, the ongoing tug-of-war between political reform and revenge politics, and challenges related to Bangladesh's strategic neutrality in a geopolitically polarized environment...

  

EWC

Navigating China’s Maritime Silk Road and Economic Coercion, July 2026. China’s 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (MSR), the maritime component of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), is reshaping global geopolitical and geoeconomic dynamics. While Beijing presents the MSR as a connectivity and infrastructure initiative, this brief argues that it also serves as a strategic instrument for expanding China’s influence, leveraging economic dependence and challenging the United States’ maritime primacy. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of Rush Doshi, Xu Chenggang, and Wang Huning, it examines the strategic, institutional, and ideological foundations of China’s maritime statecraft...

  

ISDP

Redesigning Extended Deterrence in the Third Nuclear Age: Alliance Modernization in the ROK-U.S. Alliance, July 2026. The international nuclear order is entering the “Third Nuclear Age,” defined by simultaneous near-peer nuclear competition with Russia and China alongside North Korea’s advancing capabilities. This brief argues that pressure to redesign extended deterrence now originates as much from Washington’s strategic requirements as from allied demand. The United States faces credibility challenges regarding not only its willingness to employ nuclear weapons but also the sufficiency of its nuclear capabilities. Using the Republic of Korea as a primary case, this brief examines how the alliance must evolve from a provider-protectee model toward genuine co-management of the nuclear order...

  

ISDP

Forging the Arsenal Corridor: China–Pakistan Defense Integration and the New Strategic Supply Chain, July 2026. China’s military partnership with Pakistan has undergone a significant transformation over the past decade, evolving from a traditional supplier-recipient relationship into a deeply integrated strategic arrangement. This issue brief examines how Chinese defense transfers, technology sharing, and industrial cooperation have reshaped Pakistan’s military capabilities across the air, land, maritime, and emerging technology domains. It argues that Beijing’s support serves not only to balance India’s conventional military advantage but also to advance broader Chinese strategic objectives associated with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)...

  

ISDP

The Slow Death of the Russian Internet: How Russia Is Reshaping Its Digital Infrastructure, July 2026. The ongoing internet restrictions in Russia have been unprecedented in scope. Never before has a country with a previously free and open internet environment attempted to build domestic barriers to block external influence by using such aggressive tactics. Through the passing of legislation, the installation of monitoring devices, and the buildup of a domestic digital services ecosystem, Russia appears to be attempting to sever itself from the global internet system, of which it has been a part since its inception. The ramifications of this effort have been reverberating across the Russian public and economy, with daily disruptions to everyday life occurring in major cities across the country...

  

ISDP

China and the Hormuz Crisis: Fresh Momentum for the Green Transition? July 2026. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz—through which roughly 20 percent of global oil consumption transits—triggered what the International Energy Agency (IEA) described as the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market. Beyond the immediate market shock, the crisis has underscored the strategic risks associated with continued dependence on fossil fuels and a small number of critical maritime chokepoints. This issue brief analyzes how the Hormuz Crisis is reinforcing China’s centrality within the emerging clean energy order and the broader geostrategic implications of this shift...

  

ISDP

Latest APEC publications:

  

APEC
Latest ADBI Working Paper Series:  

ADB
Latest ADB Working Paper Series:  

ADB
Latest ADB Publications:  

ADB

 

 

  

 

 

 

  

 

July 2026

  

 

 

 

  

 

High Frequency Macroeconomic Forecasts Current Quarter Model: 2026Q3, July 2026. Buoyed by robust goods exports, strong demand for AI-related equipment, and continued improvement in local consumer sentiment, Hong Kong’s GDP grew by 5.9% in 26Q1. However, with inventory accumulation slowing, Hong Kong’s economic growth is estimated to moderate to 4.2% in 26Q2 , though underlying fundamentals remain solid. The labour market remains stable, with the unemployment rate expected to edge down from 3.7% in 26Q2 to 3.6% in 26Q3. The conflict in the Middle East has kept energy costs elevated, and rising costs will progressively be passed on to consumers, which is expected to lift CPI inflation to 2.5% in 26Q3. Growth in the second half of 2026 will be driven mainly by domestic demand...

  

HKU

2026 Lowy Institute Poll: Australians Register Historic Levels of Distrust and Unease in 2026. Australians are wary of the two superpowers, placing low levels of trust in both the United States and China. Australians’ trust in the United States to act responsibly in the world has fallen to 31%, the lowest level ever recorded in the Lowy Institute Poll. By contrast, trust in China has risen eight points from last year to 28%, narrowing the gap with the United States to just three points. That gap was 53 points in 2022. Australians remain trusting of liberal democracies...

  

Lowy

Understanding the Chinese Military Threat to Australia, June 2026. China’s ability to direct military force against Australia operates primarily through domains other than direct strikes on the Australian landmass. Its ability to interdict Australia’s maritime trade, sever undersea communications infrastructure, conduct sophisticated cyber operations, and project naval power into Australian waters is robust and will grow substantially over the coming decade. China can already strike northern Australia with ballistic missiles deployed to its South China Sea outposts...

  

Lowy

Modern War and the Systemic Learning Deficit in Western Military Institutions, June 2026. Western military institutions exhibit a systemic learning deficit that prioritises exploitation of existing competencies over exploration of new solutions. The result is dangerously slow adaptation to battlefield innovations, demonstrated in Ukraine and Iran despite unprecedented access to openly available evidence. The inability to rapidly implement proven innovations is a failure of organisational culture, of promotion systems that reward conformity over innovation...

  

Lowy

Australian Security in an Era of Uncertainty: Views From the Defence Strategy Program in the Strategist: 2025-26 Edition, June 2026. It brings together articles published in ASPI’s The Strategist over the past 12 months, examining the most significant strategic, operational, technological and economic challenges facing Australia at a consequential moment in its history. The structure of the volume reflects the breadth of the challenges confronting Australia across five thematic parts: strategy and deterrence; regional security; Taiwan; capabilities; and defence spending...

  

ASPI

From Common Threats to Narrative Defence: An Intelligence-Led Mission Approach for Australia–Japan Cooperation, June 2026. Australia and Japan are both targets of state-linked disinformation designed to exploit historical grievances, domestic political divisions and alliance anxieties. Beijing’s reaction to Japan’s May 2026 intelligence reforms demonstrates that even legitimate democratic measures will be contested in the information domain. The two countries bring complementary strengths to this challenge. Australia has developed a comparatively mature legislative, transparency and public-attribution architecture for countering foreign interference...

  

ASPI

Synergies for the Future: Australia–South Korea Pathways in Strategic Defence Technology Cooperation, June 2026. Australia and the Republic of Korea face an increasingly complex Indo-Pacific security environment in which technological competition, industrial resilience and the ability to sustain advanced military capability have become central to national security. While both countries maintain strong alliance relationships with the United States, evolving Indo-Pacific dynamics increasingly encourage cooperation among technologically capable regional powers able to complement national strengths and address structural constraints. In this context...

  

ASPI

Pressure Points Part 3: China in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, June 2026. Using a range of tools, including a growing bluewater navy, paramilitary forces and localised policing cooperation arrangements, China ‘is steadily building a pattern of access, presence and influence that’s reshaping regional security dynamics.’ China’s long-term strategy of normalisation aims to create a region in which ‘its access is expected, and its influence is embedded.’ To achieve this, China has adopted distinct approaches in the Southwest Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and the immediate vicinity of Australia and New Zealand...

  

ASPI

Reading the Room: Redesigning Intelligence Product for the AI Age, June 2026. While intelligence collection and analysis have advanced significantly, the formats, delivery methods and user experience of intelligence products have changed far less. As ministers, policymakers and operational leaders increasingly expect information that is faster, more interactive, more tailored and easier to use, the report warns that intelligence risks losing relevance unless it adapts deliberately. Three plausible scenarios are explored: secure conversational AI interfaces that allow users to query intelligence holdings directly...

  

ASPI

Make Stuff Here…or Else: A Framework for Deciding What Australia Must Produce, Repair or Regenerate Domestically, June 2026. Australia’s prosperity rests on systems that appear permanent but depend on continuous, often unseen, inputs that arrive from beyond its borders. That model worked in an era of stable global trade, but recent shocks, from the Covid-19 pandemic to geopolitical disruption, have exposed a structural weakness. Australia must now shift from optimising for cost to securing continuity, and it must do so with urgency and discipline. This paper draws on public policy documents, industry case examples and published data to frame resilience as a practical national problem...

  

ASPI

Darwin Dialogue 2026 – From Exposure to Endurance: Competitive Architecture for High-Esg Mineral-Specific Supply Chains, June 2026. The Darwin Dialogue has become one of the Indo-Pacific’s leading forums for critical minerals, bringing together senior leaders from government, industry, finance, defence and strategic policy to address one of the defining economic and security challenges of our time: how democratic nations build trusted, resilient and competitive mineral supply chains. The 2026 Darwin Dialogue brought together participants from Australia, the United States, Japan, India, the Republic of Korea, Canada and partners across Europe and the Indo-Pacific to examine a hard reality...

  

ASPI

North of 26 South and the Security of Australia: Views From the Strategist Volume 13, June 2026. The articles are authored by a diverse group of experts across national security, economic policy, infrastructure, regional development and defence. Together, they examine how northern Australia is increasingly central to Australia’s strategic posture, economic resilience and long-term national preparedness. Volume 13 also features a foreword by Senator the Hon Nita Green, Assistant Minister for Northern Australia. This foreword frames northern Australia as central to the nation’s security, economic resilience, and regional engagement at a time of growing global uncertainty...

  

ASPI

Chips, Code, and Control: Rewriting the Economics of Old Tech Wars, June 2026. Is the emerging global technology order still defined by a single United States–China rivalry, or has that binary narrative already become obsolete? This paper argues that contemporary techno-geopolitics is no longer a unified “tech cold war,” but a fragmented competition across two distinct domains: semiconductors and artificial intelligence ecosystems. The semiconductor contest is shaped by export controls, manufacturing chokepoints, strategic denial, and industrial subsidies...

  

ISDP

The Social Dimensions of CPEC in Pakistan, June 2026. This issue brief examines the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as a social and political process, not merely an infrastructure project. It argues that while CPEC has improved energy supply, connectivity and investment prospects, its benefits remain unevenly distributed. The analysis focuses on five dimensions: regional inequality, debt and transparency, gender, environment, and securitization. It shows that CPEC has strengthened older patterns of centralized decision-making and uneven development in Pakistan...

  

ISDP

Security Without Institutions: China’s Global Security Initiative and Fragmenting Order, June 2026. China’s Global Security Initiative (GSI), introduced in April 2022, is a norm-driven foreign policy framework through which Beijing seeks to reshape global security governance without building a formal collective security system. Anchored in sovereignty, regime stability, and “indivisible security,” the GSI prioritizes state authority and non-intervention over conditionality and accountability, functioning less as a fixed doctrine than as a flexible instrument within China’s “four-in-one” architecture linking development, governance, security, and civilizational narratives...

  

ISDP

The ‘Hormuz Shock,’ China’s 15th FYP, and Guangdong’s Energy Dilemma, June 2026. This issue brief examines how the Middle East conflict, particularly the disruption of energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz, reinforces the strategic logic underpinning China’s 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030). Contrary to analyses that focus primarily on great-power competition or China’s diplomatic posture, the brief argues that the crisis highlights a fundamental challenge for China’s technological modernization agenda: the dependence of advanced industrial development on secure...

  

ISDP

China’s Strategic Corridor in Pakistan: Progress, Dependency, and the Uncertain Future of CPEC, June 2026. The China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) was promoted as a transformative partnership to modernize Pakistan’s economy, address energy shortages, and enhance regional connectivity. More than a decade later, however, CPEC increasingly reflects Pakistan’s gradual transformation into a “Silk Cage” state, where infrastructure connectivity and economic dependence are closely linked to China’s expanding strategic influence. This Focus Asia paper argues that while CPEC Phase I delivered visible gains in roads, energy infrastructure, digital connectivity...

  

ISDP

Report of the Taiwan-Nordic Forum 2026: Resilience as Defense, April 2026. The forum, organized by the Stockholm Taiwan Center of the Institute for Security and Development Policy, served as a platform for Nordic, Baltic, and Taiwanese experts and scholars to discuss emerging common defense challenges linked to gray-zone tactics in Taiwan, the Nordic, and the Baltic regions. It was the first time the forum extended its scope to Baltic states...

  

ISDP

Maritime Order in Asia: Australia and the Indo-Pacific, March 2026. This report summarizes Professor Bec Strating’s presentation, which explored Australia’s maritime security agenda. The discussion examined how Australia’s identity as an ocean-dependent state shapes its security outlook across the Indian, Pacific, and Southern Oceans. It further explored Australia’s construction and promotion of the Indo-Pacific as a strategic maritime region in the era of shifting global power dynamics. In particular, the discussion focused on the context of intensifying the U.S.-China competition, uncertainty in traditional alliances, and the growing importance of middle powers’ engagement...

  

ISDP

Intra-Industry Trade and Export-Circumventing Transshipment, June 2026. Assessments of export circumvention based on casual observations and aggregate data can be misleading. When the characteristics of such activities are carefully considered, the suspected circumventions through Southeast Asian economies are likely to be far smaller than press accounts suggest, and they vary considerably across products and countries. The key policy implication is that, given the more limited scale of these activities, responses should be targeted at the product and/or country level, accompanied by effective law enforcement and inter-governmental cooperation...

  

ISEAS

Language Identity & Management in Singapore: Updated Findings from the IPS Survey on Race, Religion and Language, May 2026. This paper analyses language-related findings from the IPS Survey on Race, Religion and Language (RRL), conducted in 2013, 2018, and 2024. The latest wave is based on an approximately 45-minute self-administered survey conducted from April to August 2024, with a sample of 4,000 Singapore residents derived from Department of
Statistics household listings. This included a booster sample of about 1,000 Malay and Indian respondents to support finer-grained comparisons...

  

IPS

Latest APEC publications:

  

APEC
Latest ADB Working Paper Series:  

ADB
Latest ADBI Working Paper Series:  

ADB
Latest ADB Publications:  

ADB

Asian Development Review, Vol. 43, No. 2, June 2026 (Full Report). A mini symposium on rural development, sustainability, and welfare highlights the evolving nature of rural development, looking at environmental land use policy, infrastructure investment, and targeted redistribution. It examines findings on the Green Great Wall program in the People’s Republic of China, rural road expansion in Nepal, and Thailand’s welfare card program. The articles show that the rural sector continues to matter because it remains central to livelihoods, sustainability, and equity.

   ADB

 

 

  

 

 

 

  

 

June 2026

  

 

 

 

  

 

South Korea’s Trust-Building with North Korea: Failure and Outlook, May 2026. This article explores South Korea’s efforts to build trust with North Korea and examines why attempts to improve inter-Korean relations have failed. The GRIT (Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension Reduction) conflict strategy is used to explain South Korea’s approach. The assumption by previous progressive administrations that North Korea’s reciprocation depends on Seoul’s actions overlooks internal and external factors salient to Pyongyang that are the key drivers of North Korea’s decisions...

  

EWC

Chinese Illegal Fishing: Problems and Solutions. April 2026. China is not only the country that catches the most fish, but also the country whose fishing fleets are the most implicated in illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. Moreover, the state-subsidized Chinese commercial fishing industry has built a unique infrastructure that allows Chinese fishing vessels venturing to the distant waters off Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Pacific islands to minimize the transparency of their activities. The results include depletion of foreign fishing grounds, which often causes economic hardship for the local fishing communities...

  

EWC

After Annexation: How China Plans to Run Taiwan, May 2026. Beijing’s thinking on Taiwan has shifted decisively from peaceful accommodation to absorptive control. As Taiwanese identity and democracy have become entrenched, Xi Jinping’s unification terms have hardened, demanding full political integration rather than offering genuine autonomy. Drawing on PRC academic and policy literature, this paper finds that Chinese scholars see a form of phased subjugation for the island: an immediate security crackdown neutralising political opponents; institutional restructuring beyond what has taken place in Hong Kong; and a decades-long psychological re-engineering project so Taiwanese come to identify with the CCP’s China...

  

Lowy

Low Earth Orbit Satellites: Closing the Indo-Pacific Digital Divide, May 2026. The Indo-Pacific’s digital divide is substantial but uneven. Highly connected economies, such as Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore, stand in stark contrast to the estimated 600 million people across Southeast Asia, South Asia, and the Pacific Islands region who remain offline or under-connected. Rural and remote communities have even less access than urban populations. Additional barriers, including dispersed geographies, mountainous terrain, and the cost of laying fibre-optic cables and building mobile towers, limit access in isolated communities.In each case, the challenge varies: rural usage gaps in mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia; thousands of unconnected islands in maritime Southeast Asia...

  

Lowy

Between Backyards and Nakamals: Shifting Australia–Vanuatu Relations, May 2026 . Australia’s current relations with Pacific Island countries are infused with strategic anxiety; Canberra holds genuine concerns about China’s exponential growth in bilateral security engagements and its more assertive posture in a region once carelessly described as “Australia’s backyard”. In its attempts to become the Pacific’s partner of choice, Australia has at times suffered an identity crisis and been characterised as “heavy-handed” in its engagement with the region...

  

Lowy

Mainstreamed but Sidelined: Global Funding for Gender Equality, May 2026. Gender equality is central to sustainable development and is a crucial enabler of global security, stability, and prosperity. Yet progress is stagnating or regressing across much of the developing world, especially in core areas related to basic needs, access to essential services, personal safety, and women’s rights. Meanwhile, international support is collapsing amid political opposition to gender equality initiatives and steep cuts to foreign aid by a number of donors, most notably the United States. Despite this pullback, several donor countries, including Australia and key European nations, retain strong policy commitments to supporting international gender equality...

  

Lowy

The Cost of Defence: ASPI Defence Budget Brief 2026-2027, May 2026. Australia’s 2026–27 Defence Budget commits the Commonwealth to spending approximately $181.9 million on defence every day. The headline number is sobering. The composition is more so. Australia’s strategic environment has not eased since last year’s The cost of Defence. China continues to lift its military investment at a pace few of our regional partners can match. Russia’s war in Ukraine has not ended. Conflict in the Middle East has flared and subsided and flared again. The United States continues to recalibrate the terms of its alliances. Rearmament is underway in Europe, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific...

  

ASPI

Lethal Humidity and the Systemic Risks of Climate Change, May 2026. One of the great challenges in understanding the extraordinary consequences of global warming is our tendency to think in silos. Climate change is still often regarded as solely an environmental issue—and is generally coordinated in governments by environment ministries—rather than as a systemic crisis that affects every aspect of society. That same tendency helps to explain why the rising threat of lethal humidity, which is a combination of extreme heat and high humidity that can exceed the limits of human survival, has been overlooked until relatively recently...

  

ASPI

Hedging Our Bets: A Potential Japanese Option for Managing Risk in the AUKUS Optimal Pathway, May 2026. Australia’s ‘Optimal Pathway’ to acquiring and maintaining a nuclear-propelled, conventionally armed submarine capability from the 2030s and beyond has been agreed by all three AUKUS nations and is a matter of public record.1 This paper is supportive of pursuing that path. To be clear: AUKUS represents the best opportunity for Australia to acquire an essential strategic capability underpinning its future defence. However, the Optimal Pathway has significant cumulative risk involved...

  

ASPI

Northern Capability, National Defence: Building the North and Strengthening the Nation: Views From the Strategist, NT Defence Week 2026 Special Edition. Drawing on contributions from government, industry and academia, the compendium examines the central role of northern Australia in Australia’s defence posture – spanning force projection, logistics, fuel security, infrastructure and industrial capability – while highlighting the gap between a strategy that has shifted north and the systems needed to sustain operations at scale. It argues for treating the north as an integrated operating system capable of generating, sustaining and scaling combat power, and identifies key constraints...

  

ASPI

Sweden–Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Diplomatic Relations – A History, May 2026. Sweden is frequently referred to as the “bridge to the West” of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, commonly referred to as North Korea) due to its long-standing and reliable diplomatic presence in Pyongyang. Sweden was the first Western country to open an embassy in the DPRK in 1975, and it is still one of the few European nations with a presence there. Using its historical neutrality and stable engagement with Pyongyang, Sweden has taken on the crucial duty of promoting the interests of several countries involved in the security dynamics on the Korean Peninsula...

  

ISDP

Greenland and Arctic Security: What’s at Stake? May 2026. Greenland has emerged as a key focal point in Arctic security, driven by its strategic location between the Arctic and the North Atlantic and its role in missile warning, space surveillance, and monitoring activity across the Greenland-Iceland-UK (GIUK) gap. As climate change increases access to Arctic shipping routes and critical resources, the island’s geostrategic importance is rising, placing it at the center of evolving security and economic dynamics in the High North. Recent developments highlight intensifying geopolitical competition around Greenland...

  

ISDP

The DPRK’s War Dividend in Ukraine: Capabilities Gained, Trajectory Shifted, and the Long-Term Strategic Impact, May 2026. The DPRK’s support to Russia in its invasion of Ukraine has shifted from a denied but documented relationship into a tacitly acknowledged partnership. While this cooperation has helped sustain Russian firepower and battlefield operations, it has also generated significant strategic gains for Pyongyang. This includes battlefield learning at scale, accelerated weapons development cycles, political legitimation through a formal treaty with Moscow...

  

ISDP

Blue Economy, Strategic Seas: China’s Maritime Statecraft in Southeast Asia and Bay of Bengal, May 2026. This policy brief analyzes China’s evolution into a proactive maritime power, a transition central to its “Great Rejuvenation” and national security. Beyond mitigating the “Malacca Dilemma,” Beijing seeks to establish a stable maritime order aligned with its strategic interests. The research examines a dual-theater strategy that links China’s domestic “Blue Economy” with regional infrastructure development to promote maritime industrial and supply chain integration across Southeast Asia and the Bay of Bengal...

  

ISDP

China’s Global Initiatives: Limited Reach, Strategic Openings in the Indian Ocean, May 2026. Fragmentation of the global, multilateral order is visible even in the range of purportedly cooperative initiatives on offer by great powers, which represent competing and alternative systems, (counter-)narratives, and poles of influence. This includes several “global” initiatives that China has put forward over the past several years—the Global Development Initiative (GDI) and the Global Security Initiative (GSI) among them. Intensified stakeholder competition limits the scope and impact of these initiatives...

  

ISDP

Afghanistan in China’s Extended CPEC 2.0 Strategy, May 2026. The May 2025 trilateral agreement between China, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, formalizing the extension of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) into Afghan territory, marked what Beijing celebrated as a turning point in Central and South Asian geopolitics. Within five months however, Pakistan and Afghanistan were exchanging artillery fire and airstrikes across their contested border. This policy brief argues that Beijing’s reliance on economic statecraft as its primary instrument of regional engagement has proven insufficient for the political complexity it confronts...

  

ISDP

Caution at the Crossroads: How China Positions Itself in Taliban-Ruled Afghanistan without Going All In, May 2026. This issue brief examines China’s engagement with Taliban-ruled Afghanistan since August 2021 through four linked dimensions: connectivity and Belt and Road Initiative planning, diplomatic normalization, economic engagement in energy and minerals, and the security calculus linking Xinjiang, Pakistan, and Central Asia. It argues that Beijing’s strategy is best understood as incremental positioning rather than rapid transformation—locking in option-value positions in resources and infrastructure while avoiding high sunk costs or formal recognition...

  

ISDP

Corridors of Influence? The China–Indochina Peninsula Economic Corridor and Beijing’s Expanding Power Architecture, May 2026. This webinar, the fourth in the Silk Cage Series, moves beyond South Asia to examine how China’s continental corridors interface with maritime strategy, influence operations, and broader geopolitical contestation. It situates the China–Indochina Peninsula Economic Corridor (CICPEC) within a wider strategic arc linking the South China Sea to the Bay of Bengal and further into the Indian Ocean Region (IOR)...

  

ISDP

Naval Operations in the Strait of Hormuz and the Greek Perspective, April 2026. This issue brief examines the strategic significance of the Strait of Hormuz in the context of the 2026 regional crisis involving the United States, Israel, and Iran, with particular emphasis on the implications for Greece. It argues that Hormuz is not merely a regional maritime choke point, but a global centre of gravity where energy security, freedom of navigation, international law, naval deterrence, and supply-chain resilience converge. The analysis highlights the vulnerability of global oil and LNG flows, the operational risks created by asymmetric Iranian capabilities, and the limitations of purely military solutions in such a complex maritime environment...

  

ISDP

Trends in Southeast Asia 2026 #18: From Khomeini to Khamenei to Khamenei: The Impact of the Rahbar on the Shi’a Community in Malaysia. The doctrine of Wilayat al-Faqih, while not universally accepted within Twelver Shiʿism, has played a pivotal role in shaping both religious authority and political leadership, culminating in the institutionalization of the rahbar as Supreme Leader. Among Shiʿa communities in Malaysia, the rahbar is widely recognized as the principal marjaʿ, resulting in a close interconnection between religious allegiance and the political identity of Iran. The ideological legacy of Ruhollah Khomeini, particularly his anti-Western stance and position on Palestine...

  

ISEAS

Trends in Southeast Asia 2026 #17: Madani Economics: A Deep-Dive Into the 13th Malaysia Plan (2026–2030). Malaysia Plans are five-year national development plans that have been guiding Malaysia’s economic and social policy since 1956. The 13th Malaysia Plan (13MP, 2026–2030) (“13MP”) is the latest in this series. It is structurally different from the previous Malaysia Plans, totalling only 211 pages compared with the average of 458 pages from the past three editions. The 13MP also saw high direct involvement from civil servants with little direct external help. The 13MP is the first official document to operationalize the Madani economic vision under Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim...

  

ISEAS

Trends in Southeast Asia 2026 #16: Malaysia’s Semiconductor Industry: Performance, Pitfalls and Potential. The semiconductor industry has been part of Malaysia’s growth story for the past fifty years. At present, the sector employs almost 260,000 workers and generates some US$95.6 billion in exports per year. Recent high-profile investments from industry majors are encouraging, and there are emerging capabilities in higher value-added sectors such as integrated circuit design. Looking at the evolution of the semiconductor sector over the past twelve years, we find promising indicators in terms of increasing numbers of firms, workers, salary levels and outputs...

  

ISEAS

Latest APEC publications:

  

APEC
Latest ADB Working Paper Series:  

ADB
Latest ADBI Working Paper Series:  

ADB
Latest ADB Publications:  

ADB

 

 

  

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

  

 
 
 

  

 
 

View Previous Highlights