The COVID-19 pandemic will have consequences that reverberate across the world. It will also have implications for security in the Asia-Pacific. The pandemic, however, is unlikely to fundamentally reshape the region’s geopolitics. By offering focused, empirically based expert analysis, the Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment 2020: Key developments and trends examines key security challenges that will have enduring significance for the region.
Reflecting the reality that major-power competition in the region continues to grow, there are important assessments of the relations between the United States and China, the implications for Asian security of the collapse of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, and the trajectory of Washington’s alliances and security partnerships in the region. A chapter on diplomacy and North Korea assesses the continuing challenge from North Korea’s nuclear-weapons and missile programmes to the security of the US, Japan and South Korea, and the ramifications for Beijing’s relations with Pyongyang. Several chapters in this Regional Security Assessment also pay considerable attention to the important contributions of middle powers to Asia-Pacific security, with authors investigating Japan’s increasingly assertive regional role; the security implications of worsening relations between Japan and South Korea; Indonesia’s policy towards the South China Sea; Australia’s evolving security and defence outlook; and the tentative efforts by the European Union and some individual European countries to enhance their security roles in the region.
In this webinar launch, chaired by Dr Tim Huxley and Dr Lynn Kuok, a panel comprising several authors of chapters in the Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment 2020 discuss the key regional security challenges and respond to questions from the webinar’s audience.
The Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment 2020 is the seventh in a series of publications covering vital strategic, geopolitical, economic, military and security trends in the Asia-Pacific. It is part of the IISS Strategic Dossiers series and is normally published to coincide with the annual IISS Shangri-La Dialogue (SLD).
