Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies最新文献

Kaczmarski, Marcin. 2026. ‘China-Russia Partnership: An Axis of Revisionism?’ Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies: e70066. https://doi.org/10.1002/app5.70066.

The following reference ‘Fong, B. C. H. (2026). “Alliance Politics in the 21st Century Great Power Competition: A Power-Balancing Coalition Framework”, Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies.’ was included in this article without page number and DOI. This has been corrected as follows ‘Fong, B. C. H. 2026. “Alliance Politics in the 21st Century Great Power Competition: A Power-Balancing Coalition Framework,” Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies: e70063. https://doi.org/10.1002/app5.70063.’

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This study examines how international tourism affects Vietnamʼs bilateral trade flows with major partners, framing the analysis within a structural gravity model of trade. Using system-GMM estimation on panel data from 20 countries (2008–2022), the analysis disaggregates trade flows by direction (exports vs. imports) and by category (goods vs. services, with tourism-related service trade excluded to avoid tautology) to capture tourismʼs varied effects. The results show that tourist arrivals significantly enhance Vietnamʼs trade performance even when travel service exports are excluded from the trade measures. FTAs, GDP per capita, consumer prices, and population positively influence bilateral trade flows, while distance creates expected barriers. Exchange rate movements show asymmetric effects—boosting imports while having mixed impacts on exports. Tourism emerges as a robust facilitator of trade, indicating that policies fostering inbound tourism can stimulate greater exports and imports. The findings provide empirical support for integrated tourism-trade strategies, viewing tourism development as a catalyst for trade expansion. Coordinating tourism and trade policies can yield benefits beyond traditional tourism receipts, with investments in tourism integrated with export promotion strategies to support sustainable economic growth.

This article examines system- and unit-level drivers that create a lattice work of Indo-Pacific alliances and security partners. Consequently, these developments are leading to a multilateral security network that is comparable to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). It observes the emergence of an Asian-style NATO in the Indo-Pacific region, which is gradually replacing the Cold War-era hub-and-spoke system of alliances. It argues that this type of security architecture has emerged as a result of Chinaʼs rise as a great power in the Indo-Pacific region, with a focus on expansion in the South and East China Seas, as well as Washingtonʼs decision to engage Beijing in strategic competition. The following variables indicate the formation of this Asian-style NATO: a changing US grand strategy vis-à-vis China, the creation of mini-laterals, and US alliesʼ efforts to confront Chinaʼs expansion and aggression by strengthening their alliance with the US. In conclusion, the article argues that this Asian-style NATO is still in its formative stages compared to the time-tested, well-established, and highly institutionalised Euro-Atlantic NATO.

This editorial introduces a special issue that examines the drivers, pathways, and policy implications of inclusive rural transformation (RT) across Bangladesh, China, Indonesia and Pakistan. Drawing on the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) multi-country project, the issue advances a stage-based analytical framework—grounded in Huang Segmentation—to understand how institutions, policies, and investments (IPIs) shape long-term structural and livelihood changes in rural economies. The collected articles provide new empirical evidence on RT measurement, stage segmentation, and the role of targeted public interventions, complemented by comparative analyses of irrigation, gender inclusion, infrastructure, water governance, and engagement with global value chains. Together, they highlight that RT is a multi-decade, path-dependent process that requires adaptive, stage-specific facilitation prioritising inclusiveness and sustainability. Insights from diverse country experiences, as well as Australiaʼs productivity-driven transformation, underscore the importance of strong institutions, gender-responsive policies, and integrated approaches to water and resource management. This special issue contributes a coherent diagnostic and policy toolkit for accelerating equitable and sustainable RT in developing economies, offering guidance for both researchers and policymakers navigating the challenges of structural transformation in the Asia–Pacific region.

The Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) has emerged as a viable intergovernmental organisation with a vibrant security portfolio. With its recent expansion it now boasts ten members, including rising great powers Russia, China, and India, as well as nuclear-armed Pakistan, and regional power Iran. However, the organisation is beset with internal inconsistencies and regional rivalries (Pakistan-India, India-China in particular) that may preclude its viability. Despite this, the SCO, led by China and Russia, has set itself up as a major counterweight to NATO and other security organisations in Eurasia. This article examines the feasibility of the SCO in forming its own concert of powers in Eurasia in the new multipolar system, with three powers—China, India, and Russia balancing in Eurasia. The research will feature a multi-methods design, based on the aggregate capabilities model, and using statistical analysis of arms trading and defence budgets amongst the SCO powers, that will enhance the specific case studies. This includes examining what system- and unit-level factors are pushing the member states towards a regional concert, including internal and external, and what unit-level factors may, or will, prevent a concert from forming.

The “Future of Governing” has been discussed for over 20 years. Many scholars agree that the transformation of government is prevalent; however, questions remain unanswered regarding the direction of these changes and how they have unfolded differently across countries. By analysing all the press releases of the US federal departments (including large agencies such as the SSA and EPA) and the corresponding ministries of the South Korean government, this study responds to those questions. Since the primary function of press releases is to announce and inform the public about the administrative actions of the departments, they are suitable for analysing changes in perspectives in practice. We mapped each press release in embedding space using downstream tasks of a pre-trained language model and clustered them into market, participative, flexible, deregulated governance, or traditional hierarchy model. Identifying trajectories of these changes through dimension reduction and clustering analysis, this study found a significant shift toward participative models in the US, while South Korea exhibited a gradual and incremental movement toward market models. This study contributes to the extant literature on governance by tracking evolving governance perspectives and offering several insights into administrative reforms.

This article analyses AUKUS through the theoretical lens of neo-offensive realism, with its distinctive emphasis on the articulation between system-level and unit-level variables for understanding alliance formation and dynamics. In so doing, it examines both system-level, geostrategic developments that pre-dispose the AUKUS partners to collectively balance against China, and the unit-level national politics of those countries, which differentially shape engagement with and enthusiasm for AUKUS. Empirically, the article charts systemic changes in relative economic and military power between China and the AUKUS partners, drawing on data from the World Bank and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. This is followed by an examination of those contradictory unit-level forces that tend towards the consolidation of AUKUS, while simultaneously generating political opposition. Here official documents from the defence agencies of all three participants are examined. Finally, the article considers the future of AUKUS.

I examine the changing nature and characteristics of China-Russia partnership in the context of their escalating rivalries with the US, using the two-level explanatory framework. This article begins with an investigation of the causal impact of the shifting global power balance on China-Russia relations at system-level level, followed by an analysis of various domestic factors that shape the two revisionist powersʼ individual strategic behaviours at unit-level level. I scrutinise three cases of Russia and Chinaʼs responses to external pressures, 2014–2018, 2018–2022, and 2022–2024. I demonstrate how Russiaʼs reduced room for manoeuvre led to making concessions towards China in such areas as energy and security, ultimately strengthening the ties between the two states. In turn, Moscowʼs lack of capabilities prevented it from supporting China in the areas of economic and technological competition with the US. I also briefly discuss the impact of Trumpʼs initial policy moves for the Sino-Russian relationship.

US-China competition in the Indo-Pacific is setting the stage for a new tale of alliance politics. To contain Beijingʼs expanding power and influence in the Indo-Pacific, Washington is currently leading several coalitions, namely the US-Japan Alliance, Quad, Squad, and AUKUS; To counter US balancing efforts, Beijing is now strengthening its own alliances especially the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the China-Russia partnership. Using an integrative review approach, this article synergises the existing system- and unit-level theories into a “Power-Balancing Coalition Framework” (PBCF) for investigating the 21st century alliance politics. This framework hypothesises that system-level forces (i.e., relative power distribution across states/blocs of states) will dispose countries to “behave similarly” in terms of engaging a power-balancing coalition in a similar direction, on the one hand; it also hypothesises that unit-level forces (i.e., stateʼs geopolitical position, political-economic systems, and ideology) will domestically shape states to drive countries to “behave differently” in terms of engaging a power-balancing coalition in a different pace, on the other hand. Such a framework has the potential to shed light on state alliance behaviours not only in the Indo-Pacific but also all over the world.

This study provides an in-depth analysis of Chinaʼs film trade policies following its accession to the World Trade Organisation in 2001. It examines the factors behind the limited international success of Chinese films. Through a corpus-based critical discourse analysis of nine national policy documents (2001–2020), the research investigates how the Chinese government has aimed to develop its domestic film industry while maintaining strict control over cultural trade. It finds a strategic shift toward a state-regulated socialist cultural market, employing mechanisms such as censorship, licensing, import quotas, and state monopolisation to mitigate the influence of global trade liberalisation. The study also highlights the governmentʼs use of film festivals and exhibitions as tools for political propaganda, aligning them with foreign policy objectives and promoting official ideology. These practices underscore the tension between Chinaʼs aspirations for cultural soft power and its reliance on state control, which may hinder the global appeal of Chinese films.