Asian Peace Programme

The Asian Peace Programme (APP) was launched in July 2020. At that time, peace in Asia faced many potentially destabilising challenges. Just a month prior, in June 2020, Chinese and Indian troops had just had a military clash – their bloodiest in 45 years – along their restive Himalayan border. A year prior, in August 2019, India abrogated Kashmir’s special status, as a result of which the India-Pakistan relations plunged to a new low. The South China Sea remained restive as China and claimant states in Southeast Asia expressed strong, public disagreements. And, as I predicted in my book, Has China Won? (also published in 2020), the US-China contest accelerated significantly. Clearly, there was a need for a credible peace initiative that was Asia-focused, Asia-centred and Asia-led. It was through this need that the APP was born. Read the full introduction