Asia Trends #8 – Summer 2022 – A year in “Indo-Pacific”

This is the eighth edition of Asia Trends - a biannual publication of the Asia Centre that brings perspectives from Asian countries to the fore. AUKUS is a running theme of the current issue but its scope is not limited to it. This is a multidisciplinary issue that addresses a wide range of questions analysed by experienced and young researchers.

In line with our previous issues and the last, post-Covid issue dedicated to the Republic of Korea, Asia Trends is picking up the threads where it left off – contributing to the knowledge and understanding of Asia and bringing Asian perspectives to the fore. The current issue of Asia Trends focuses on the responsiveness of select Asian countries to AUKUS: What are the implications and ramifications of AUKUS as seen by countries in Asia? And what lessons can we draw from these reactions? The various papers in this series of Asia Trends facilitate a close reading of Asia’s security concerns and their domestic and geostrategic positions regarding the growing interest and presence of Western powers in the Indo-Pacific. Importantly, Asian countries’ responsiveness to AUKUS cannot be delineated from their positions on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The papers in this issue are a useful pointer to the evolution of Asian geopolitics and the rise of collective developmental and security arrangements between Asia and the West - affirmed by the presence of Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and South Korea at the latest NATO summit in Madrid. Similarly, the last G7 Summit in June 2022, hosted by Germany and attended by India and Indonesia, reiterates the growing importance of Asia in the climate, trade and security strategies of the West. Notably, the articles in this issue address the changing political and social mores in Asia and their interplay in shaping ‘the given moment’....