This book analyses the complexity of South and Southeast Asia in international health, taking into account the impact of the geopolitics of the Cold War on the development of public health and development in the regions. In light of the recent health pandemic, which has mobilized experts and governments and led to a securitized approach to global health, this book offers a regional approach to global health histories. The chapters provide case studies ranging from the Cold War to the present time and covering countries from across South and Southeast Asia. Contributors analyse issues related to disease control, an adjunct to wider Cold War geopolitics. They also examine the responses of regional organizations, particularly the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation), towards COVID-19. Collectively, the book illustrates how narrowly-conceived global health programs implemented by aid agencies failed to account for the local, national or regional contexts. Situating health in South and Southeast Asia in broader global contexts, the book will be a valuable contribution to the History of Medicine and Health and Political Economy of South and Southeast Asia.

Providing an immediate, contemporary example of a region networking its response to disease outbreak events, this insightful book will appeal to global health governance scholars, students, and practitioners.

China’s rise and stepped-up involvement in Southeast Asia have prompted a blend of anticipation and unease among its smaller neighbors. The stunning growth of China has yanked up the region’s economies, but its militarization of the South China Sea and dam building on the Mekong River has nations wary about Beijing’s outsized ambitions. Southeast Asians long felt relatively secure, relying on the United States as a security hedge, but that confidence began to slip after the Trump administration launched a trade war with China and questioned the usefulness of traditional alliances. This compelling book provides a snapshot of ten countries in Southeast Asia by exploring their diverse experiences with China and how this impacts their perceptions of Beijing’s actions and its long-term political, economic, military, and “soft power” goals in the region.

The Indo-Pacific is fast becoming the world's dominant region. As it grows in power and wealth, geopolitical competition has reemerged, threatening future stability not merely in Asia but around the globe. China is aggressive and uncooperative, and increasingly expects the world to bend to its wishes. The focus on Sino-US competition for global power has obscured "Asia's other great game": the rivalry between Japan and China. A modernizing India risks missing out on the energies and talents of millions of its women, potentially hampering the broader role it can play in the world. And in North Korea, the most frightening question raised by Kim Jong-un's pursuit of the ultimate weapon is also the simplest: can he control his nukes? In Asia's New Geopolitics: Essays on Reshaping the Indo-Pacific, Michael R. Auslin examines these and other key issues transforming the Indo-Pacific and the broader world. He also explores the history of American strategy in Asia from the 18th century through today. Taken together, Auslin's essays convey the richness and diversity of the region: with more than three billion people, the Indo-Pacific contains over half of the global population, including the world's two most populous nations: India and China. In a riveting final chapter, Auslin imagines a war between America and China in a bid for regional hegemony and what this conflict might look like.

FROM THE AUTHORS: As an academic field in its own right, the topic of border studies is experiencing a revival in university geography courses as well as in wider political commentary. Of course, something about the postmodernist sensibility readily embraces the ambiguity, impermanence, transience, and twilight nature of bordered spaces among the planet's 192 territorially defined states. But we have another motivation in assembling this book, one rooted in contemporary rivalries sited in one of the world's most open regions. Until recently, border studies in contemporary Southeast Asia ap¬peared as an afterthought at best to the politics of interstate rivalry and national consolidation. The maps set out all agreed postcolonial lines. Meanwhile, the physical demarcation of these boundaries lagged. Large slices of territory, on land and at sea, eluded definition or delineation. That comforting ambiguity has disappeared. Both evolving tech¬nologies and price levels enable rapid resource extraction in places, and in volumes, once scarcely imaginable. The old adage that God really does have a sense of humor ("after all, look where He/She put the oil") holds as true in Southeast Asia as in the Middle East. The beginning of the 21st century's second decade is witnessing an intensifying diplomacy, both state-to-state and commercial, over off¬shore petroleum. In particular, the South China Sea has moved from being a rather arcane area of conflict studies to the status of a bellwether issue. Along with other contested areas in the western Pacific and south Asia, the problem increasingly defines China's regional relationships in Asia-and with powers outside the region, especially the United States. Yet intraregional territorial differences also hobble multilat¬eral diplomacy to counter Chinese claims. For the region's national governments, the window for submission and adjudication of maritime claims under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas marks a legal checkpoint, but daily management of borders remains burdened by retrospective baggage. The contributors to this book emphasize this mix of heritage and history as the primary leitmotif for contemporary border rivalries and dynamics. Whether the region's 11 states want it or not, their bor¬dered identity is falling into ever sharper definition-if only because of pressure from extraregional states. Chinese state and commercial power dovetails almost seamlessly with Beijing's formal territorial demands. Yet subregional rivalries and latent suspicions also remain firmly in place-as in those among Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia, or between Thailand and those states that encircle the kingdom. Tracing back to its history of tributary states, the Chinese colossus has fixed views about all states contiguous to its territory; in some Chinese dialects, Vietnam is still referred to as a "renegade province." We chose to organize the chapters by country to elicit a broad range of thought and approach as much as for the specific areas or nation-states examined in each chapter. For both Southeast Asia and the outside world, the current era portends another unsettled period of border disputes and contentious territorial claims. Complex claims also have unsettled the Arctic and inland seas like the Caspian. The precision we laud in global positioning and tracking systems has also wreaked havoc on the apparent certainties bequeathed by all the carefully surveyed (at least by 19th-century standards) boundaries left behind by the departing colonial powers. Of course, these new uncertainties about the place on the terrain of exact map coordinates can probably remain safely unsettled for a long time-but only so long as no resource discoveries emerge, which can lift the problem from obscurity to prominence in the political equivalent of a heartbeat. Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) at the National Defense University (NDU).

As an academic field in its own right, the topic of border studies is experiencing a revival in university geography courses as well as in wider political commentary. Until recently, border studies in contemporary Southeast Asia appeared as an afterthought at best to the politics of interstate rivalry and national consolidation. The maps set out all agreed postcolonial lines. Meanwhile, the physical demarcation of these boundaries lagged. Large slices of territory, on land and at sea, eluded definition or delineation. That comforting ambiguity has disappeared. Both evolving technologies and price levels enable rapid resource extraction in places, and in volumes, once scarcely imaginable. The beginning of the 21st century's second decade is witnessing an intensifying diplomacy, both state-to-state and commercial, over offshore petroleum. In particular, the South China Sea has moved from being a rather arcane area of conflict studies to the status of a bellwether issue. Along with other contested areas in the western Pacific and south Asia, the problem increasingly defines China's regional relationships in Asia, and with powers outside the region, especially the United States. Yet intraregional territorial differences also hobble multilateral diplomacy to counter Chinese claims, and daily management of borders remains burdened by a lot of retrospective baggage. The contributors to this book emphasize this mix of heritage and history as the primary leitmotif for contemporary border rivalries and dynamics. Whether the region's 11 states want it or not, their bordered identity is falling into ever sharper definition, if only because of pressure from extraregional states. This book aims to provide new ways of looking at the reality and illusion of bordered Southeast Asia.

Intensifying geopolitical rivalries, rising defence spending and the proliferation of the latest military technology across Asia suggest that the region is set for a prolonged period of strategic contestation. None of the three competing visions for the future of Asian order – a US-led ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific’, a Chinese-centred order, or the ASEAN-inspired ‘Indo-Pacific Outlook’ – is likely to prevail in the short to medium term. In the absence of a new framework, the risk of open conflict is heightened, and along with it the need for effective mechanisms to maintain peace and stability. As Asia’s leaders seek to rebuild their economies and societies in the wake of COVID-19, they would do well to reflect upon the lessons offered by the pandemic and their applicability in the strategic realm. The societies that have navigated the crisis most effectively have been able to do so by putting in place stringent protective measures. Crisis-management and -avoidance mechanisms – and even, in the longer term, wider arms control – can be seen as the strategic equivalent of such measures, and as such they should be pursued with urgency in Asia to reduce the risks of an even greater calamity.

A timely look at the impact of China's booming emergence on the countries of Southeast Asia Today, Southeast Asia stands uniquely exposed to the waxing power of the new China. Three of its nations border China and five are directly impacted by its claims over the South China Sea. All dwell in the lengthening shadow of its influence: economic, political, military, and cultural. As China seeks to restore its former status as Asia's preeminent power, the countries of Southeast Asia face an increasingly stark choice: flourish within Beijing's orbit or languish outside of it. Meanwhile, as rival powers including the United States take concerted action to curb Chinese ambitions, the region has emerged as an arena of heated strategic competition. Drawing on more than a decade of on-the-ground experience, Sebastian Strangio explores the impacts of China's rise on Southeast Asia, the varied ways in which the countries of the region are responding, and what it might mean for the future balance of power in the Indo-Pacific.