Traditional leaders can boost Pacific Islands unity
Pacific Island nations have declared a campaign to move toward recognition of indigenous and traditional leaders in policy development.
Pacific Forum asian news
South Korean officials naive about data sovereignty
Data are considered a key component of artificial intelligence and information technology. With many superpowers and middle powers competing to become the vanguard of AI and IT services, data sovereignty is becoming increasingly significant worldwide.
Time for an AI arms control agreement?
AI’s increasing presence on the battlefield is a major concern for strategic stability. In the ongoing conflict in Gaza, the alleged use of AI for targeting should raise alarm bells and motivate greater efforts towards regulation and arms control.
Kim a mortal menace or playing mind games?
This is part one in a two-part series on the implications of North Korea’s recent official change of stance toward South Korea, and is adapted from the author’s recent chapterin Comparative Connections: A Triannual E-journal of Bilateral Relations in the Indo-Pacific.
PALM10: Japan’s extended hand to the Pacific Islands
At the April US-Japan summit, President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida agreed on the necessity of continued engagement with more Indo-Pacific countries, specifically mentioning the Pacific Island countries. Thus, ongoing dialogue between Japan and PICs could not be more timely as Japan prepares to host the triennial PALM10 summit this July 16-18.
Biden places politics over strategy in US Steel sale
Eight years ago, then-president Barack Obama made a decision that has undermined US standing and influence in the Indo-Pacific to this day.
Charting the future of the US alliance network
The recent US-Japan alliance bilateral summit between President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Kishida Fumio not only launched more than 70 deliverables that spanned the interagency, across the defense, across space, education, and technology, it also launched a new trilateral with the Philippines (at the summit level, at least), adding one more minilateral partnership to a lexicon that now includes AUKUS (Australia-UK-US), the Trilateral Strategic Dialogue (US-Japan-Australia), the US-Japan-UK naval trilateral, and the US-Japan-South Korea trilateral and the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (“Quad”).
Countering China’s rare earth dominance and coercion
In December, the People’s Republic of China announced a retaliatory restriction of rare-earth element processing technology, a continuation of its strategy to monopolize the critical mineral market.