Just Published Asia POlicy 21.4 (October 2026)

 

Happy to pass along this announcement from Jessica Keough, Managing Editor, Asia Policy on the publication of issue 21.4.   

This issue of Asia Policy explores how states are responding to evolving security challenges and emerging technological and economic imperatives. The issue opens with a roundtable on the role of red lines in Southeast and East Asia’s maritime disputes, highlighting how states seek to balance signaling, deterrence, and risk management in contested waters. It features articles and essays on trilateral cooperation among the United States, Japan, and South Korea; Chinese and U.S. interest in deep-sea mining; the dynamics of Quad cooperation; and efforts to strengthen U.S.-Vietnam semiconductor ties. The issue concludes with a book review roundtable on Wen-Hsuan Tsai’s Reshaping the State: Chinese Political Institutions under Xi Jinping.

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I am delighted to share with you the latest Asia Policy issue, vol. 21, no. 4 (October 2026), which was released online today at http://asiapolicy.org. This final issue of our twentieth-anniversary year features:

--a roundtable on red lines as a feature of maritime strategy in Southeast and East Asia, focusing on the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Japan as well as the rise of Asian coast guards (with Emirza Adi Syailendra, Ristian Atriandi Supriyanto and Muhamad Arif, Dianne Faye Despi, Hoang Thi Ha, Murni Abdul Hamid, Arie Afriansyah, Kentaro Furuya, and Geoffrey Till and Jane Chan)
--an article analyzing Japanese, South Korean, and U.S. perspectives on what U.S.-Japan-ROK trilateralism can contribute to regional security (by Jeffrey W. Hornung, Miyeon Oh, and Mark Cozad)
--an essay examining China, the United States, and the environmental diplomacy of deep-sea mining in the Pacific (by Steven F. Jackson)
--an essay assessing the resilience of Quad that compares Japan’s and India’s expectations for the forum (by Arijit Mazumdar)
--an article examining U.S.-Vietnam semiconductor cooperation since the two states' 2023 comprehensive strategic partnership that considers why cooperation has not yet lived up to expectations (by Hoang Hien Thuong)
--a book review roundtable on Wen-Hsuan Tsai’s Reshaping the State: Chinese Political Institutions under Xi Jinping discussing Xi's role in Chinese politics and institutional centralization (with Kjeld Erik Brødsgaard, Jean Christopher Mittelstaedt, Wei Shan, Olivia Cheung, Bo Zhiyue, and Wen-Hsuan Tsai)

The online link to the issue is https://www.nbr.org/publication/asia-policy-21-4-october-2026, and we welcome you to help us share this link and promote the issue via social media and to anyone interested. We will also be sharing the issue and its contents in person, via email, and online. The attached PDF is for your personal use. If you or your colleagues are working on an essay- or article-length paper for peer-review consideration, please keep in mind Asia Policy as a possible outlet! Submission guidelines can be accessed here, and I’d be glad to answer any questions.