China and India amid the Iran War: The Implications of Pakistan’s Mediating Role

By Agnieszka Nitza-Makowska

The Iran War has given Pakistan one of its most prominent diplomatic platforms in recent years: a host and facilitator of peace talks in a conflict with global implications. For China–India relations, the significance lies not in whether Islamabad could deliver a final settlement, but in what the process has already conferred: a temporary but politically meaningful elevation of Pakistan’s regional standing.

Navigating the South China Sea: Southeast Asia's Strategic Choices

By Barbora Valockova

The South China Sea sits at the intersection of sovereignty, security, competition and cooperation. Around one-third of global shipping worth trillions of dollars annually transits its waters, and its seabed holds significant reserves of oil and natural gas alongside some of the world's most productive fishing grounds. For the hundreds of millions of people living along its shores, the sea is a source of food, income, and livelihood. Yet overlapping territorial and maritime claims involving six claimants, an intensifying rivalry between the United States and China, and accelerating environmental pressures have made this vital waterway one of the most contested spaces in the contemporary international system. How should Southeast Asian states respond to these compounding challenges is an important governance question with significant implications for regional order in the decades to come?

The Chicken-and-Egg Question for ASEAN: Which Comes First, Readiness or Integration?

By Abigail Andrada

Timor-Leste’s accession to ASEAN revives a long-standing chicken-and-egg question in regional integration: should institutional readiness precede membership, or can integration itself generate readiness? While accession offers opportunities for deeper economic integration and cooperation, Timor-Leste’s limited institutional capacity raises concerns about premature integration and uneven implementation.

Two limits on middle power activism in the Indo-Pacific

By Kanti Bajpai

One of the great security worries of small and medium powers (SMPs) in the Indo-Pacific is the rivalry between China and the US – how it could lead to a kinetic conflagration over (say) Taiwan, and how it could increase pressures to take sides between the two great powers, thereby reducing SMP agency. The region also faces other security dangers, including non-traditional security challenges. The focus of this essay, however, is the China-US rivalry on the SMPs.