Southeast Asian Affairs, first published in 1974, continues today to be required reading for not only scholars but the general public interested in in-depth analysis of critical cultural, economic and political issues in Southeast Asia. In this annual review of the region, renowned academics provide comprehensive and stimulating commentary.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations is a miracle. Why?In an era of growing cultural pessimism, many thoughtful individuals believe that different civilisations-especially Islam and the West-cannot live together in peace. The ten countries of ASEAN provide a thriving counter-example of civilizational co-existence. Here 625m people live together in peace. This miracle was delivered by ASEAN.In an era of growing economic pessimism, where many young people believe that their lives will get worse in coming decades, Southeast Asia bubbles with optimism. In an era where many thinkers predict rising geopolitical competition and tension, ASEAN regularly brings together all the world's great powers.Stories of peace are told less frequently than stories of conflict and war. ASEAN's imperfections make better headlines than its achievements. But in the hands of thinker and writer Kishore Mahbubani, the good news story is also a provocation and a challenge to the rest of the world.This excellent book explains, in clear and simple terms, how and why ASEAN has become one of the most successful regional organizations in the world. - George YeoA powerful and passionate account of how, against all odds, ASEAN transformed the region and why Asia and the world need it even more today. - Amitav Acharya

Southeast Asian Affairs, first published in 1974, is an annual review of significant trends and developments in the region. It provides comprehensive commentaries to further the understanding of not only the region's dynamism but also of its tensions and conflicts. Thematic chapters examine key issues for the region as a whole whilst country-specific chapters provide detailed roundups of the developments, and their implications, of the year's events.

Traces the development of Southeast Asian Studies in China, discusses the current status of these studies, examines the problems encountered in the pursuit of these studies, and attempts to evaluate their prospects in the years ahead.

Southeast Asia’s Internet users are far more diverse than usually reported. They range from the urban youth with laptops and highspeed Wi-Fi, to the older generation semi-rural and rural users with affordable mobile phones for Facebook and WhatsApp. Southeast Asians generally trust social media platforms more than in Western societies. This trust in social media reflects a lack of trust in local mainstream media and official sources of information. What campaign information (and disinformation) is being spread and which ones are most successful are essential for understanding how voters in Southeast Asia use and trust social media. Social media platforms and Southeast Asia’s “app industry” need clearer and enforced regulation on their use of data and the extent to which they can sell data to advertisers. These advertisers include, but are not limited to, politicians and political parties. Since the future of social media usage will likely lie in closed groups, the role of big data analyses that have dominated research on social media over the past ten years, is likely to regress. Instead, ethnographic scholars who can access these groups and engage with their particular interests and identities are more likely to be useful in understanding the digital sphere in the future.

Increasing tensions in the South China Sea have propelled the dispute to the top of the Asia-Pacific’s security agenda. Fuelled by rising nationalism over ownership of disputed atolls, growing competition over natural resources, strident assertions of their maritime rights by China and the Southeast Asian claimants, the rapid modernization of regional armed forces and worsening geopolitical rivalries among the Great Powers, the South China Sea will remain an area of diplomatic wrangling and potential conflict for the foreseeable future. Featuring some of the world’s leading experts on Asian security, this volume explores the central drivers of the dispute and examines the positions and policies of the main actors including China, Taiwan, the Southeast Asian claimants, America and Japan. The South China Sea Dispute: Navigating Diplomatic and Strategic Tensions provides readers with the key to understanding how this most complex and contentious dispute is shaping the regional security environment.

This volume investigates the nature of threats facing, or perceived as facing, some of the key players involved in Asian maritime politics. The articles in this collection present case studies on Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, Japan, China, and Southeast Asia as a whole and focus on domestic definitions of threats and conceptualisations of security. These studies map the differing understandings of danger in this region and explore how contending narratives of "threats" and "security" affect the national maritime security policy deliberations within the countries of this region. Those interested in maritime security and management in Asia will find this collection an invaluable addition to the literature on this topic.