Suchergebnisse

This policy report seeks to enhance the understanding of China's humanitarian action in relation to the BRI. It evaluates China's approach to humanitarian aid, analyses the major issues facing related Chinese actors, and explores possible partnerships between China and participating Southeast Asian countries. This report finds that although the BRI per se does not have a humanitarian angle,6 the countries that engage in the BRI are primary beneficiaries of China's humanitarian aid. A lack of clarity in how humanitarian aid and the BRI are related has hampered China's aim to increase the impact of its aid and drive support for the development of the BRI.

The Chinese government formed two new bodies in 2018 that have been expected to improve China's response to natural hazards and humanitarian emergencies in other countries. What are the implications for Southeast Asia, where the risk and threat of different types of disaster persist?

Disaster relief has been a channel for trust-building and reassurance between Southeast Asia and China since the 1990s. The signing of the ASEAN-China Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in Disaster Management in 2014 seemingly heralded greater engagement between the two sides in this area. However, this research finds that China is yet to become a key player in disaster management in Southeast Asia, despite strengthened interactions and increased funding support. The challenges of the China-Southeast Asia disaster cooperation include the low priority of aid work in China's diplomacy, new trends in disaster relief in Southeast Asia which include the changes induced by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the sensitive nature of military cooperation. To move forward, it is important that offers of assistance match the need of the affected communities. For this to happen, there must be increased communication at multiple levels between China and Southeast Asia.

The Chinese government declared a war to restore blue skies during the annual meeting of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's legislature, in March 2017. The increasing attention to air pollution by China's leadership underscores the urgency of and the difficulty in addressing environmental issues, which is also shared by ASEAN countries.

Disaster governance is a key element to building a resilient ASEAN community. Vulnerability to natural hazards has led to their prioritisation in disaster governance in the regional bloc. With the set of regional frameworks, bodies and facilities established over the past two decades, ASEAN has become a leading regional actor for dealing with natural hazards. In comparison, during the COVID-19 outbreak, ASEAN's role has largely been limited to facilitating information-sharing and coordination. The challenges in national COVID-19 responses and the humanitarian needs induced by the pandemic remind us that public health emergencies deserve equal attention as natural hazards in regional disaster governance. Moreover, the risk of concurrent pandemics and natural hazards points to the need for an integrated approach. This NTS Insight argues that a holistic approach to disaster governance is necessary for ASEAN's community building, which appreciates the linkages between different disasters and integrates regional mechanisms. As the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami accelerated improvement in ASEAN's management of natural hazards, COVID-19 should be the catalyst for integrated disaster governance in the region.

Marine plastic pollution poses a serious threat to the global marine ecosystem, according to a recent UN report. Southeast Asia and the broader East Asia region are facing the toughest challenge in this regard. There has been growing momentum in East Asia and the international community to look for solutions, evidenced by the inclusion of the issue in the agenda of G20 Summit in Japan this year. This policy report argues that the solution should be comprehensive and multi-sectoral – that includes not only reduction in the use of single-use plastic products but also better waste management, technological solutions, and sustainable economic models. The political will and collective action of East Asian countries can have a global impact through multilateral channels like the UN system and G20 Summit.

The South China Sea (SCS) is an important water body that affects a wide range of human security aspects, including the economy, food, health, and environment of the countries and people around it. Despite its importance, however, the marine environment in the SCS is deteriorating at an alarming rate. There is currently no overarching regional environmental protection regime in the SCS. Cooperation in this area between ASEAN and China is therefore critical, since marine environmental problems are often transboundary. This policy report identifies four policy pathways that are key to the effective protection of the marine environment in the SCS: a regional mechanism, law enforcement, marine scientific research, and multi-stakeholder cooperation.

Image-building has been an important goal of China's foreign policy. Humanitarian diplomacy provides a useful instrument to build a benign international image, given the altruistic nature of humanitarian action. China's humanitarian diplomacy has undergone changes in recent years, such as substantial increases in humanitarian spending, institutional reforms and the emergence of Chinese non-state actors. The existing literature on China's humanitarian activities is scant due to the country's limited engagement in global humanitarian action previously. This article aims to contribute to the scholarship by examining China's humanitarian activities in Southeast Asia during the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of image-building. Specifically, it answers the questions of how China uses humanitarian action to improve its international image and how effective such efforts have been. This article finds that the outcome of China's image-building through humanitarian activities is influenced by the severity of the crisis, the national response of the country affected and the perceived legitimacy of China's action. It concludes that China's humanitarian diplomacy has achieved mixed outcomes in Southeast Asia. While China has been recognized as a major provider of help during the pandemic, its assistance has not substantially improved its image in the region.

This NTS Insight is the second part of a series of two that engages in the debate on the South China Sea (SCS) from the perspective of marine environment. In this NTS Insight, focal areas that are important for effective marine environmental protection (MEP) are identified, which include protection and conservation, legal frameworks, enforcement, and scientific research. An assessment of the status of national and regional MEP in the SCS is provided. MEP practices in other regions are examined to generate lessons for better cooperative protection in the SCS. Possible avenues are proposed for strengthening cooperation. This NTS Insight argues that MEP cooperation between ASEAN and China is critical since marine environmental problems are often transboundary and geopolitical tensions should not hinder cooperative efforts in order to advance marine environmental security.

The South China Sea (SCS) is an important body of water that affects a wide range of human security aspects, including economy, food, health and environment, of the countries and people around it. In view of the growing international will to protect the marine environment, it is timely to examine whether and how such commitment can be successfully translated into effective policies, actions, and cooperation in the SCS. This NTS Insight is the first part of a series of two that evaluates the current challenges in marine environmental protection in the SCS and explores opportunities for improvement. An analysis of why the environment in the SCS is a non-traditional security issue is presented. The examination of the causes behind environmental degradation in the SCS and the implications for the security of countries and people in the region leads us to conclude that the alarming state of the environment in the SCS points to the urgency for enhancing cooperation among concerned countries.

This article examines China and India's status-seeking efforts in Southeast Asia through the lens of disaster relief cooperation. It explores status-seeking processes and the region's responses, as well as how these shape the regional security order in the Asia-Pacific. We argue that the outcomes of China and India's status-seeking are determined by their own behaviours and the region's interpretations of them. Our analysis reveals that China seeks to elevate its status to become a leading security partner of Southeast Asia, which has only been partially accepted by the region, as demonstrated by its active and institutionalized cooperation with ASEAN but its haphazard bilateral HADR engagement with individual Southeast Asian countries. Meanwhile, India has gone from a low-key player to an important partner, primarily in military terms, as shown by its membership in regional multilateral institutions, the holding of regular bilateral exercises and an acceptance by Southeast Asian states of the deployment of its military for HADR missions. (Contemp Southeast Asia / GIGA)

Viewed through the standard prisms of international politics, escalation of security tensions is the definitive feature in the evolution of relations between China and Southeast Asia over the last decade. Disagreements over territorial ownership of and rights to the South China Sea sharpened and arguably became the defining feature of regional geopolitics. Yet, China and Southeast Asia have also managed to prove predictions of fateful conflict to be premature. In this article, we study Chinese and Southeast Asian strands of security discourse, which provide political and diplomatic cover for cooperative interaction in parallel with little or no compromise on security principles. Then we select interactions between China and the Philippines and China and Vietnam as cases to illustrate our observations. We conclude by postulating that, at least in the maritime space, tension management rather than conflict resolution is more likely to be the continuing feature into the future.

Non-Traditional Security Issues in ASEAN examines the current state of governance of non-traditional security challenges confronting the ASEAN region. The book takes an issue-specific approach to investigating how ASEAN states and societies govern many of the pressing non-traditional security issues, such as climate change, food security, environmental protection, humanitarian assistance and disaster response, health security, nuclear security, and human trafficking and forced displacement. With non-traditional security as an established concept in the policy and scholarly communities in ASEAN, this book moves beyond securitization and focuses on capacity-building, regional cooperation and institutions for dealing with non-traditional security challenges in the region. Through the development of a comprehensive analytical framework that examines the processes of governing non-traditional security problems, the editors put together chapters that identify some of the major gaps and challenges in managing many of the pressing security issues in Southeast Asia. Non-Traditional Security Issues in ASEAN provides a systemic assessment of the state of governance of the most pressing challenges in the region. The authors analyse the ways in which particular issues are addressed at national and regional levels and by different stakeholders. In spite of the differences among various non-traditional security issues, the analysis of the chapters converge on three core themes for enhancing governance, which include engagement of multiple actors, effective enforcement of national and regional laws and regulations, and better coordination between different actors. As such, Non-Traditional Security Issues in ASEAN contributes to policy making by highlighting the key agendas that call for national action and promoting and deepening regional cooperation in governing non-traditional security.

Non-Traditional Security Issues in ASEAN examines the current state of governance of non-traditional security challenges confronting the ASEAN region. The book takes an issue-specific approach to investigating how ASEAN states and societies govern many of the pressing non-traditional security issues, such as climate change, food security, environmental protection, humanitarian assistance and disaster response, health security, nuclear security, and human trafficking and forced displacement.