Peace studies in China has had meaningful initial developments, but the sustainability of the field’s development has been constrained by an authoritarian political atmosphere. Rights and justice are core issues in peace studies, but these remain unaddressed in China. Thus, this article highlights studies on rights movements as de facto peace studies in an authoritarian setting and compares the movement among the middle class and that of peasants/workers, which can help us understand current contradictions and disharmony in Chinese society. Maintaining the stability of a turbulent society is becoming a crucial agenda for the Chinese state. Accordingly, studies on rights movements will become increasingly important.

Why has the United States (US) changed its stance toward China and kept it in the digital economy domain, despite the change in its government? The extant literature finds causes from China yet barely addresses perceptual factors. This study, however, argues that the strategy and policy of the US have undergone a process whereby the US has securitized the domain by designating China as a threat instead of a risk. Furthermore, the US has internationalized securitization to include its allies and close partners among the Indo-Pacific countries. Analytical narratives examine the US’ economic statecraft, including commercial, industrial, and investment policies. A close examination reveals that the US-China technology competition has been undergoing partial decoupling in global supply chains of critical technologies.

This article unpacks the dynamics of group hedging in international relations by examining the Southeast Asian states’ collective efforts to use ASEAN-led multilateral institutions as a platform to hedge against a range of risks surrounding intensifying big-power rivalry and increasing global uncertainties. It argues that ASEAN’s collective hedging is a converged but not necessarily coordinated act. Despite the states’ diverging attributes and outlooks, they converge on shared vulnerabilities, collective memories, and disadvantaged positions. Southeast Asian states thus view ASEAN-based multilateralism as an indispensable, albeit insufficient, means to engage big powers and manage other challenges. Through the functions of institutional binding, buffering, and building, ASEAN’s group hedging serves to mitigate and offset risks while shaping Asian order amid deepening uncertainties in the age of the Indo Pacific.

The immediate cause of the East Asian states’ pursuit of new economic statecraft, which has led to changes in the regional order, was the rise of US-China strategic rivalry. However, one structural factor behind the adoption of this statecraft is the economic network formed in East Asia. The emergence of new economic statecraft has had systemic effects, such as the spread of network sanctions, the adoption of divergent strategies, and the dual dynamics of cooperation and competition between states.

The US-China strategic competition, combined with other structural changes such as the global spread of COVID-19, climate change, and competition for technological innovation has dramatically increased uncertainty in Asia. Against this backdrop, the strategic competition between the US and China in the 21st century shows profound differences from the hegemonic competition in the past. The systemic consequences of hyper-uncertainty, as we are witnessing, are protectionism, nationalism, and the proliferation of conflicts and disputes between states. A collection of four papers in this special issue systematically examine the way in which the US-China strategic competition combined with other factors amplify the instability of the regional order, and explain the dual dynamics of competition and cooperation that Asian countries demonstrate in responding to US-China strategic competition and redesigning the regional order.

United Nations (UN) entities have repeatedly been asked to mainstream their support for South-South and triangular cooperation (SSTC). However, there is hardly any systematic evidence on whether and how they have done so. This article contributes to addressing this gap. The analysis focuses on organizational efforts over the last two decades to integrate SSTC support into institutional processes across the UN development system. It centers around a scorecard of fifteen UN entities that maps the levels and contours of their organizational focus on SSTC. In light of a highly diverse SSTC support landscape and the complex political dynamics behind mainstreaming efforts, the article discusses the way ahead for UN engagement with SSTC, including the potentials and challenges of a continued focus on mainstreaming itself.

Redressing biases in extant literature linking Chinese official finance and state repression, this article employs standard multiple regression analysis to comparatively assess the effects of different attributes of Chinese and traditional official finance on variations in rates of repression across Africa over the period of 2001-2018. Statistical outputs reveal more similarities than differences in the effects of Chinese and traditional official finance on repression. To prevent diversionary use of foreign official finance on repression, reforms towards specification of purposes of inflows in recipient African states are recommended.

The aim of the present study is to shed light on the diplomatic achievements of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), by exploring the way in which it has dealt with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) implemented by China. ASEAN is little more than an association of minor powers with insignificant military and economic capabilities. However, in its dealings with the BRI, it has proactively advanced its own interests by skillfully conducting equidistant diplomacy with China and the US, without becoming too remote from or too close to either one of them, thereby reaping benefits from its favorable relations with each of them.

The Third Panglong Peace Conference convened in Naypyitaw in July 2018 has led to the accession of two more armed groups to the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement bringing the total number of signatories to ten groups now. Conversely, this development has weakened the United Nationalities Federal Council that previously housed the non-signatories collectively. There were far less agreements this time around and major sticking points include the military’s insistence that the armed groups agree not to secede from the Union of Myanmar which the latter have refused thus far. The military is also interested in discussing disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration while the armed groups are keen on broader security reforms. China again facilitated the Northern Alliance’s attendance of the meeting.

This article interprets and analyzes the role of China in and the prospects of denuclearization of North Korea. Driven by its ruling party’s peculiar political interest of resisting, reducing, and replacing American power at the expense of its national interest of cooperating with the United States, Beijing has been alternatively facilitating (somewhat) and fettering (mostly) North Korean denuclearization to make the cause unavoidably long and arduous, if doable at all. The latest resumption of Beijing-Pyongyang ties, in reaction to the Trump-Kim summit, suggests that a fundamental change in Beijing’s strategic stance on the North Korean nuclear issue has taken place, making genuinely enabling peaceful denuclearization of the DPRK rather difficult as it would require literally a political change-of-heart in Beijing.

Cross-Strait relations over the past eight years have witnessed noticeable improvement and contributed to peace and stability in the region. This article argues that Beijing and Taipei have yet to tackle more fundamental issues and move forward with political negotiations on the status of cross-Strait relations. The growing military imbalance over the past decade has eroded Taiwan’s security and undermined its ability to negotiate with Beijing from a position of strength. With the DPP’s Tsai winning the 2016 election and her refusal to formally embrace the “1992 Consensus,” tensions could flare up again. Washington remains committed to Taiwan’s security through defense cooperation and arms sales, but its willingness to do so will be tested by a rising China determined to resolve the issue on its own terms.

The “rise of China,” especially within U.S. academic and policy circles, has been increasingly analyzed through a geopolitical lens. Yet geopolitics alone cannot account for the complex political mobilization of historical memory and how it frames any discussion of peace and cooperation in the region. Drawing on the concept of geobody, or how space and people are connected in a biopolitical manner, this article examines how the territorial disputes in the South China Sea are remaking the identity and interests of China. It develops an alternative theoretical understanding of China’s rise that focuses on identity (or geobody) politics, and explores the risks involved in a further escalation of tensions for peace and cooperation in the area, and in East Asia more generally.

This article seeks to make a contribution to the existing literature on the South China Sea issue by focusing on the impact of regional institutions on conflict management and resolution as well as the limits these institutions face when seeking to de-escalate disputes. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has attempted to preserve its neutrality and unity over sovereignty disputes and has focused on the establishment of a conflict management mechanism with China-the Code of Conduct for the South China Sea. However, ASEAN’s efforts have been undermined by an escalation of the situation in the disputed waters and by rising China-U.S. competition in the region. The article concludes by discussing various scenarios regarding the future of ASEAN’s South China Sea policy.

This article sheds light on the foreign policies of China, Russia, and Turkey towards the controversial Iranian nuclear program and analyzes to what extent their policies are indicative of a security culture that resists hegemony. While advocating a nonhegemonic security culture discursively, China, Russia, and Turkey still partially adhere to hegemonic power structures on a behavioral level. These states’ policies are the outcome of a balancing act between resistance to hegemony and hegemonic accommodation. The analysis in this article nuances the idea that counter-hegemonic discourses of rising powers always herald a revisionist power transition. The article thereby makes a contribution to the scholarly debate about emerging powers and the coexistence between declining hegemonic powers and norm-shapers in the making.

China has underscored its intention for peaceful development with the vision for a “harmonious world.” But at the same time China is keen to play a more proactive role in the international rule-making process, addressing its dissatisfaction with the existing international system. This article examines whether China’s energy diplomacy vis-횪-vis Sudan and Iran has helped or hindered its ambition for peaceful development. China’s dealings with Sudan have departed from its long-standing principle of non-interference in internal affairs to one of active intervention, a change intended to help build China’s image as a “responsible power.” China has also demonstrated its ambition and determination to play a more assertive role in dealing with Iran’s nuclear crisis to facilitate safeguarding China’s energy and economic interests. Yet Beijing has been willing to sacrifice its energy interests when necessary in order to be perceived as a responsible stakeholder within the current international establishment. While it might be natural for China to aspire to a more active international role that befits its economic status, China’s objective of building a harmonious world and its peaceful rise ambition will remain unattainable dreams unless Beijing is prepared to accept some universal principles to guide its energy diplomacy.

Tensions in the South China Sea have risen in recent years for reasons related to conflicting territorial claims and rivalry, competition for access to fish stocks as well as oil and gas fields, and in China’s case, emerging strategic interests. Because international law largely excludes it from an area it regards as historically Chinese, China has recently become more assertive in pushing its claim, resorting to power projection, particularly against smaller claimants, such as Vietnam and the Philippines. China’s actions have drawn in external powers, including the United States, Japan, and India, a development that exacerbates the problem. The danger is not that the United States and China may come into a direct conflict, but that through error or miscalculation a clash may escalate into a conflict involving external powers. Proposals to prevent conflict and stabilize the area include an agreement to avoid incidents at sea. Also a UN-sponsored conference on the South China Sea could contribute to a long-term resolution of the issue by dealing with competing claims in a semi-enclosed sea and other outstanding issues.

Reconciliation between the Japanese people and those of China and Korea may have better prospects for advancement through a new cultural approach that is experience-based, starting at individuals’ levels and interests, rather than focusing solely on victimization and confining activism to more conventional organizationbuilding and public protests. The peace movement opposed to nuclear weapons has continued to center around the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but in the past has not fully dealt with Korean and Chinese forced labor by Imperial Japan. However, the alternative experience-based cultural approach by a number of individuals and relatively small organizations has combined these two historical issues. This article highlights examples of two Japanese who directly witnessed Chinese and Korean forced labor in wartime Japan, but who also opposed the atomic bombings. They became activists themselves in the postwar era and utilized traditional cultural forms (tanka poetry and sumi drawing) to help create awareness of the full dimension of Japan’s wartime history. There is strong potential for extending this alternative social movement model, which may be more effective in achieving reconciliation of unresolved historical injustices, to younger generations.