The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been one of the world's most dynamic and fastest-growing regions over the years. Its average combined GDP growth rate is more than 6% and the total combined GDP was valued at US$3.0 trillion in 2018. ASEAN countries have managed to significantly reduce their national poverty over the last few decades. Although a correlation exists between economic growth and poverty reduction, millions of people in ASEAN countries still do not have sufficient incomes to fulfill their basic needs including food, shelter, clothes and sanitation. This book is a collection of working group papers contributed by members of Network of ASEAN-China Think-tanks (NACT) and covers best practices on poverty alleviation in ASEAN member states as well as in China, and ASEAN-China cooperation. It discusses experiences of ASEAN member states and China such as with regard to national policies, principles, definitions, approaches, progress, and challenges in poverty reduction. It reviews and evaluates the way forward including existing joint projects, opportunities, and challenges in the future cooperation and offers policy recommendations from both national and regional perspectives to help policymakers better cope with the daunting poverty challenges.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been one of the world's most dynamic and fastest-growing regions over the years. Its average combined GDP growth rate is more than 6% and the total combined GDP was valued at US$3.0 trillion in 2018. ASEAN countries have managed to significantly reduce their national poverty over the last few decades. Although a correlation exists between economic growth and poverty reduction, millions of people in ASEAN countries still do not have sufficient incomes to fulfill their basic needs including food, shelter, clothes and sanitation. This book is a collection of working group papers contributed by members of Network of ASEAN-China Think-tanks (NACT) and covers best practices on poverty alleviation in ASEAN member states as well as in China, and ASEAN-China cooperation. It discusses experiences of ASEAN member states and China such as with regard to national policies, principles, definitions, approaches, progress, and challenges in poverty reduction. It reviews and evaluates the way forward including existing joint projects, opportunities, and challenges in the future cooperation and offers policy recommendations from both national and regional perspectives to help policymakers better cope with the daunting poverty challenges.

Preventive Diplomacy (PD) has been recognized as a useful tool to address security issues in the Asia-Pacific region. To explore a PD mode compatible with the regional situation step by step on the basis of consensus has become the common will of the regional countries. Since the region is facing various new challenges, this requires innovation in theories and practices of PD. Focusing on the practice of preventive diplomacy, this book conducts empirical and comparative studies on the application of preventive diplomacy in various issue areas and by different countries.

Preventive Diplomacy (PD) has been recognized as a useful tool to address security issues in the Asia-Pacific region. A step by step exploration of a PD mode on the basis of consensus compatible with the regional situation has become the common will of countries in the region. Since the region is facing various new challenges, innovation in theories and practices of PD is required. This book intends to promote discussions on the new ideas and new approaches of PD in the region, which can be effectively used to address the needs of the region and promote peace and security.

The conventional portrayal of Japan’s role in international affairs is of a passive political player which – despite its position as the world’s second largest economic power – punches below its weight on the world stage: its foreign policy driven by Washington, mercantilism and constrained by domestic pacifism. This book examines Japan’s emerging identity as an important participant in conflict prevention and peace-building in Southeast and South Asia, demonstrating that Japan has increasingly sought a positive and active political role commensurate with its economic pre-eminence. The book considers Japanese involvement in many of the region’s most serious recent conflicts: including Japan’s part in the brokering and maintaining of peace in Cambodia, which in 1992 saw the first dispatch of troops abroad by Tokyo since the end of World War II, and the attempts to bring peace to Aceh, Sri Lanka, East Timor and Mindanao. The Japanese example, when compared with other countries prominent in the fields of conflict prevention, suggests that Tokyo – given its pacifist strategic culture – relies on diplomacy and Official Development Assistance rather than peace enforcement through military means. Overall, this book provides a lucid appraisal of Japan’s overall foreign policy, as well as its new role in conflict prevention and peace-building - analysing the reasons behind this shift towards an active international role and assessing the degree of success it has enjoyed.

In the turbulent decade since the ending of the Cold War in Europe, a new element of the international relations of Asia and the Pacific has been the emergence of multilateral security dialogues. Both in governmental arenas such as the ASEAN Regional Forum and numerous "track two" channels including the Council for Security Co-operation in Asia-Pacific, it has been a decade of creative interaction and new thinking. The Asia-Pacific Security Lexicon identifies the key phrases and ideas that have been the foundation of these dialogues, looking at their origins in international diplomacy and tracing their specific adaptation and modification to the conditions of a trans-Pacific setting. Of interest to both theoreticians and practitioners, the Lexicon is at once a handbook for regional diplomacy and an assessment of the factors that have shaped regional discussions.

Preventive Diplomacy (PD) has been recognized as a useful tool to address security issues in the Asia-Pacific region. To explore a PD mode compatible with the regional situation step by step on the basis of consensus has become the common will of the regional countries. Since the region is facing various new challenges, this requires innovation in theories and practices of PD. Focusing on the practice of preventive diplomacy, this book conducts empirical and comparative studies on the application of preventive diplomacy in various issue areas and by different countries.