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]]>The post Investigating the Perception of Taiwanese Youth on Migrant Workers appeared first on Asia Pacific Research Network.
]]>This study aimed to describe the perception of Taiwanese students on the range of factors related to migrants and migrant workers — their impact on Taiwan’s economy; respondents’ personal experience with migrants; migrants’ participation, impact or assimilation to Taiwan society and culture; and, migrants rights and equality. A total of 312 students were surveyed using a 40-item self-administered questionnaire. Data were compared along demographic variables of age, location, academic area, academic level, frequency of exposure to migrants, and family employment of a migrant worker. Significant differences were found among the various scales except for students coming from either rural or urban areas. Key finding is the counterintuitive result of those who have employed migrants have a less positive perception on migrants on several scales versus their counterparts who have not employed one. Results have implication on student organizing strategies and policy advocacy.
Keywords: Migrants, students, perception, attitudes
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]]>In the past year, governments across the world imposed restrictions on immigration. Japan, despite its need for additional labor force amid a declining birthrate and an aging population, has been taking similar steps. In the political background, rightwing politicians have been advocating additional restrictive policies pointed towards foreign residents. Now, foreign residents and migrant workers are facing a possibility of major changes in the country’s immigration policy.
This study examines Japanese citizens’ perceptions of foreign residents and migrant workers against the background of restrictive policies, rise of xenophobic rhetoric, and fear-driven misinformation through social networking sites (SNS). A 38-item survey was designed to approximate attitudes toward migrants in the workplace, public spaces, and interpersonal domains. The results of the study show generally positive attitudes toward foreign workers especially on role and contribution to the economy though there were contradicting perceptions emerged on scale items pertaining to social and cultural integration. Predictor variables of age, location, and educational attainment comparisons were made.
Overall, the study highlights that simple interactions alone are insufficient to encourage genuine inclusion towards foreign residents and migrant workers. Instead, the quality, reciprocity, and range of interactions are crucial in transforming utilitarian and practical tolerance into meaningful social integration in Japanese society.
Keywords: Migrants, Japanese, perception, attitudes
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]]>The post US Intervention and Continuing Unpeace in the Philippines appeared first on Asia Pacific Research Network.
]]>During the Cold War era, the propaganda that the USSR and communism are bad was perpetuated by the US throughout the non-socialist world. The idea has become deeply entrenched and has made its way into the education of young minds. Clearly, the US is subtly shaping young minds through its proxy, called education. Is this considered an intervention? Yes. Intervention could take an indirect form. This is one of them, and it has historical roots.
There is also the saying that, “If you want peace, you must prepare for war.” This is not only oxymoronic but contradictory. Peace is a huge concept, not just what is implied in that old phrase. Peace is something that needs to be experienced and lived.
Psalms 85:10 says, “peace and justice shall embrace”. In the Philippine context, what does this mean? From socio-political-psychological perspectives, peace values of the Filipino include: discipline and order; emotional stability including peace with oneself; freedom from fear of tyranny; freedom from oppression; freedom from want that includes employment, housing, decent shelter; absence of poverty; non-discrimination, respect for human rights and culture; integrity and national sovereignty; fair and just distribution and sharing of resources; absence of non-direct or structural violence; care of environment; empowerment — democratic participation, right to self-determination; access to education (Rada, 2020).
As you can see, Filipinos’ concept of peace is broad – from the individual to family; from a small group to a larger community; and from nation to global relations. This is similar to other peace literature. If we look closely at the indicators of peace, we see that they are the same indicators or operational definition of justice. “Justice” provides the standard for the quality of life in the community of God’s people (Grimsrud, 2010); and most certainly to all peoples of the world.
Historically, the US has always intervened in the affairs of the Philippines, making us a colony in the old historical sense and in modern parlance. It has deeply entrenched itself in our political, economic, social, and cultural life since the Mock Battle of Manila Bay. Since then, they have intervened in every way – economic, political, and social. Sometimes, the intervention is subtle and strategically long-term, such as in the area of education through policy by the US’ Philippine Commission under the auspices of the Secretary of War. There were the Thomasites in 1902, and the establishment of the Philippine Normal College (now PNU) to train the next generations of Filipino teachers who will continue to ingrain so called “American ideals”. Not that American ideals are inherently bad, but the entire education system also brought about colonial mentality; a mentality that everything American is superior to that of ours. This is the worst form of discrimination – a discrimination of the self, of one’s products, culture, and values as inferior to that of the colonizer.
In the economic sphere, the historic Bell Trade Act is a clear economic intervention and a mockery of Philippine sovereignty. It allows the US full and equal access to Philippine natural resources for them to exploit, to access the Philippine market, and dump surplus goods. Nothing much has changed, 80 years later. In 2025, President Marcos, Jr. signed a bilateral agreement with President Donald Trump, agreeing to a 19% tariff on Filipino goods exported to the US, while imposing zero tariffs for US goods entering the Philippines, making the country an open market for the US. How lopsided is that? According to Sonny Africa of IBON Foundation, “It is a surrender of economic sovereignty”. He goes on further to say that “Subservience [economic] is not strategy, sovereignty is.” (Africa, 2025).
International financial institutions (IFIs) such as the IMF-WB and the ADB are instruments of US intervention in the economic sphere. While one may argue that ADB is largely Japan-led, the US has an equal share of 15.6%.
Loans extended by these IFIs are indirect interventions in the Philippine economy as well as to its politics and governance because the conditionalities of these loans are anchored on creating legislation and policies (which they term as prior actions) before the loan can be approved. These laws and policies are regressive as they conform to the neoliberal framework that liberalizes and deregulates the economy. They do not benefit the people and, in fact, make them more vulnerable to situations of un-peace.
The World Bank development policy loan in 2020, under “Promoting Competitiveness and Enhancing Resilience to Natural Disasters Sub-program 1 (P170052),” required the Philippines’ prior action of liberalizing the rice sector under the Country Partnership Framework. Indeed, the Rice Tariffication Law (RA 11203) was enacted in February 2019 despite strong opposition from farmers and farmers’ groups because they knew the implications. Farmers are now feeling the brunt of its impacts – their already low income has further decreased, which may not be considered as enough for subsistence; and, consequently, they will be unable to send their children to school. For those few farmers who own a plot of land, they may be forced to mortgage or sell off the land as they will be unable to sustain farming as a livelihood (Abelo & Umil, 2022).
Similarly, before granting a loan by the ADB under its Climate Change Action Program, the Philippine government had to enact the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act (R.A. 11285) to achieve nationally determined contributions (NDCs) towards the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The Public Utility Vehicle Modernization Program (PUVMP) rests on this Act and delegates procurement of vehicles that have low GHG emissions to small drivers and operators. The high cost of the vehicle is simply unaffordable to them, even if the government extends loans through banks. The maximum loan will not even cover one vehicle and is subject to 6% interest per annum payable within seven years. The program will practically disemploy 140,000 drivers and 60,000 operators (APRN, 2024).
More direct and heightened US intervention is in militarism and militarization, not only in the Philippines but in the entire Asia Pacific. The US has always backed Israel’s Zionist Project against the Palestinians, the numerous wars (proxy or otherwise) it waged with countries in West Asia, and now its aggression on Iran. The US’ pivot to the Indo-Pacific is rooted in economics and to “contain” the rise of China as a world power. In today’s multi-polar world, the US insists on its sole hegemony after the dissolution of the USSR in 1991.
Why set sights and direct efforts towards Asia-Pacific? For one, it is a large area — geographically, demographically and economically. It is home to 60% of the world’s population of around 4.3 billion people (UNFPA, n.d.). In 2025, its share of global economic growth is 60%. It is a large region with a large economic potential – a large market for trade, export, a dumping ground of surplus products and a source of cheap labor. It is no wonder that other developed nations such as Canada and the European Union have also their versions of an Indo-Pacific strategy.
More importantly for the US, it wants to secure the region by maintaining a military posture. The narrative they maintain is to provide “security and stability” in the Asia-Pacific. US and its NATO allies have stated that China’s “ambitions and coercive policies challenge our interests, security and values” (NATO, 2022). Such pronouncements contribute much to the volatility of peace in the region. Does deterrence provide stability? No. On the contrary, it fans embers of “skirmishes” within the region (e.g. border and maritime disputes) which has the potential to escalate to full-blown conflicts. The Philippines-China dispute over the West Philippine sea is one such example. The US is capitalizing on this issue to further entrench its hold in Philippine military affairs and even legislation.
The military agreements – Mutual Defense Treaty (1951), Visiting Forces Agreement (1998), Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA; 2014), Mutual Logistics Support Agreement (renewed in 2017) — the Philippines have entered into with the United States put the Philippines at-risk of being dragged in the US’ militarist adventurism and possibly to its wars of aggression towards other countries. Especially with EDCA, it allowed the US to establish 9 bases in the Philippines. (Philippine officials would rather use the term, facilities that are operated by the Armed Forces of the Philippines). EDCA has practically turned the entire archipelago into a military base of the US. These agreements undermine the sovereignty of the Philippines.
Related to these agreements are other documents. One of these is the US-Philippines Bilateral Defense Guidelines. Accordingly, it allows for US intervention on Philippines’ budget planning in relation to defense. In the 2026 Budget, we see a 14% increase in defense spending to PhP 430.9 billion. This figure reflects a 150% increase from the 2024 budget (Africa, 2025). This is a stark demonstration of where the priorities of the Philippine government lie. Instead of spending on basic social welfare and social services such as health and education, a large chunk of the budget goes to militaristic pursuits. For the Filipino people, this translates to continuing social distress and poverty; teachers’ salaries remain low; school infrastructure to accommodate the vast number of students is wanting; unemployment continues because there is no real public spending on industrialization that would create jobs; and, erodes public health by diverting more funds to defense and militarism. Forty-three percent (43%) of Filipinos’ spending for health is from out of their own pockets because of the inadequate health system (Piedad, 2025). This is the situation of un-peace as lived by millions of Filipinos.
The military posturing of the US in Asia-Pacific is also consistent with war economy and the military-industrial complex. And the Philippines is all too willing to cooperate, making it complicit in perpetuating this evil system. The U.S. has $1.033 billion in active government-to-government sales cases with the Philippines under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) system (USDS, 2025). In this system, it is the US that dictates all conditions. Last year, the US State Department has approved a USD 5.5B-weapons package (Chavez, 2025). Closer to home, the US’ deployment of its Typhon missile in an undisclosed location in the Northern Philippines (Business World, 2025) is a cause of uncertainty and anxiety for the people.
On the ground, the Balikatan US-Philippines military exercises, have caused a lot of un-peace among the people – fear, uncertainty, and disruption to livelihood of farmers and small and artisanal fisherfolk because their movements are restricted and they are banned to go at sea during the exercises, respectively. They are not compensated for this and if ever, minutely and not everyone. This makes them even more vulnerable to hunger. There is also damage to the environment. Troops and heavy equipment movement, and the toxic waste generated disrupts ecosystems, pollutes soil and water, and impacts the health of the people (Umil, 2024). Let us not forget the gendered impacts and the landmark case of US Marine Joseph Scott Pemberton for the murder of Jennifer Laude, a transgender woman.
Under the Marcos Jr. regime, the Philippines faces an alarming escalation of state violence, widespread violations of international humanitarian law, and deepening militarization. Counter-insurgency operations are increasingly reinforced by U.S. military aid, further entrenching the country within intensifying geopolitical tensions.
Clearly this is far from the vision of peace in Isaiah 11:6 where “Wolves and sheep will live together in peace, and leopards will lie down with young goats. Calves and lion cubs will feed together, and little children will take care of them.” (GNT). Christian discipleship entails working for peace and justice. Micah 6:8 succinctly puts it, “The Lord has told us what is good. What he requires of us is this: to do what is just, to show constant love, and to live in humble fellowship with our God.” (GNT)
In the 1980s, faith communities played a vital role in building international solidarity with the Filipino people, gathering at Stony Point to denounce the Marcos dictatorship and strengthen global coordination for justice and human rights.
The year 1991 marked a historic victory for the Filipino people when they successfully prevented the renewal of the treaty that allowed the continued operation of the Subic Naval Base. While it is unfortunate that the presence of foreign military forces has since returned with renewed force, it is important to remember that this achievement was the result of a strong and united people’s movement against U.S. military bases and intervention.
The continuing realities of un-peace underscore that people’s movements are crucial as they are powerful forces in the struggle for justice and lasting peace. For peace to genuinely take root in the Asia-Pacific and the rest of the world, the unity of people’s movements and their solidarity against imperialism are essential. This entails mobilizing organizations and individuals—from local, national, and international levels to coordinate, cooperate, support one another, and collectively struggle against imperialism and its agents in all its forms. Let us build an anti-imperialist united front.
References
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]]>What lies ahead is less a question of “if” and more a matter of when. The trajectory of the current international situation points toward further escalation, making it necessary to ground analysis in a clear and systematic framework. This requires examining:
The wars unfolding today are expressions of the deeper and interconnected crises. It is rooted in the contradictions of the global economic system and exacerbated by political, social, and strategic tensions. Economic stagflation, uneven development, supply chain disruptions, and financial instability converge to generate conditions in which conflict becomes an outlet and an instrument for imperialist powers to survive. These worsening crises sharpen competition and intensify the drive toward war, making it a recurring feature of the current international order.
At the center of the conflict stands the US, which continues to act as the principal promoter of war. Yet, this role must be understood alongside its current internal contradictions. The US faces mounting national debt, persistent fiscal deficits, and structural vulnerabilities within its economy, leading to growing inequality and political polarization that reflect the decline of US imperialism within an increasingly multipolar world.
In this context, the imposition of tariffs emerged as a key economic and political tool. While it is framed as a means to protect domestic industries, revive manufacturing, and generate state revenue, it is also a defensive response to widening fiscal gaps and declining competitiveness. By raising duties on imports, especially within strategic sectors, the US sought to reassert control over global trade flows and counter rival powers.
However, the tariff strategy has exposed its own contradictions with increasing clarity under the Trump administration. Domestically, tariffs have driven up costs for consumers and industries dependent on imported inputs, disrupted supply chains, and provoked resistance from key segments of capital. Internationally, these measures have sparked sharp retaliatory responses – for example, with its rival China, and allies like Canada, thereby escalating trade disputes and contributing to the further fragmentation of the global trading system.
Moreover, the scale and intensity of these measures have been difficult to sustain. Extreme tariff escalations have given way to negotiated reductions, legal challenges, delayed implementations, and the proliferation of exemptions and carve-outs. Overall, these reversals and adjustments have further strained the already burdened public finances of the US and exposed the limits of unilateral economic coercion within the framework of a global economy.
Attempts to manage imperialist decline through protectionist and coercive measures can generate new contradictions locally and on a global scale. In this sense, trade policy becomes inseparable from the broader geopolitical strategy of economic pressure, military posturing, and managing alliances in a maneuver to maintain hegemony. The current situation not only reflects intensifying imperialist aggression but also the instability of a system under strain. The relative decline of US dominance does not lead to a peaceful transition, but instead heightens the risks of confrontation as competing powers maneuver within an increasingly contested global landscape.
The current security strategy of the US is anchored in two interrelated war policies: the intensified reliance on the military-industrial complex and the expansion of its spheres of influence. Together, these strategies reflect an attempt to sustain its global dominance under conditions of mounting economic strain and geopolitical competition.
The use of the military-industrial complex aims to maximize profit while avoiding the high costs of prolonged ground wars and direct territorial control. Thus, the US increasingly prioritizes more “efficient” forms of power projection, such as arms production and exports, military aid packages, proxy engagements, intelligence-sharing, and the forward deployment of strategic assets. This allows for the continuous circulation of capital within the defense sector while minimizing the political and economic risks associated with prolonged direct warfare.
This approach is interlinked to the second strategy, which involves securing and expanding the US spheres of influence. In many ways, this is a revival of the logic underpinning the Monroe Doctrine: the assertion of dominance over strategic regions and the exclusion of rival powers. Today, this extends to different parts of the globe where the US seeks to contain or prevent emerging challengers. This has been particularly evident in its recent posturing toward states aligned with alternative political economic blocs, such as the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), where political pressure, economic sanctions, and military signaling have intensified in response to perceived challenges to US imperialism.
The 2026 US National Defense Strategy (NSS) by the Trump administration further codifies these priorities. The NSS emphasizes intensified strategic competition with China through a “denial-based defense” posture aimed at constraining China’s ability to project power. This strategy demands an increased defense spending among US allies, reportedly up to 5% of GDP, and places renewed emphasis on industrial capacity and rapid arms production over long-term innovation. At the same time, it reconfigures alliance responsibilities: European partners are expected to assume greater responsibility for regional defense, particularly within NATO, as the US recalibrates its focus toward the Indo-Pacific. This also comes at a time when the Taiwan Strait is emerging as a flashpoint as China continues to reaffirm its claim over Taiwan.
However, a key difficulty in shaping the US war policy lies in the ability of the US to manage its alliances and balance its relations with the EU, NATO, and QUAD – each with differing strategic priorities and internal contradictions. Understanding China’s posture also remains critical. While its actions in the South China Sea and broader North East Asia are often framed as defensive and sovereignty-driven, these could shift toward more assertive or offensive measures given the centrality of the reintegration of Taiwan to Chinese state policy.
Ultimately, the deepening global crisis is placing increasing strain on US war policy itself. The turn toward the military-industrial complex is not only strategic, but it is an attempt to offset economic stagflation, maintain geopolitical leverage, and stabilize domestic conditions. However, the more the US leans on war and militarization to manage decline and preserve dominance, the more it risks intensifying economic and military instabilities that it initially seeks to contain.
The character of the war in the present period cannot be easily defined in traditional terms. It continues to unfold as a struggle across economic, political, and military fronts, marking a significant shift in how power is exercised and contested. War is not just confined to the battlefield, but rather, it is also embedded in trade regimes, financial systems, technological competition, and the everyday functioning of global production.
The question of spheres of influence today goes beyond fixed territorial boundaries. While classical geopolitical control over land and strategic chokepoints remains important, influence today is exercised across multiple overlapping domains – geographic, financial, industrial, and technological. Control over supply chains, currency systems, digital infrastructure, and international multilateral institutions has become crucial as the control over territory. Power is asserted not only through military bases and alliances, but through investment flows, sanctions, debt structures, and technological ecosystems.
The different layers of human activity are now elements of the spheres of influence. Economic production, scientific research, communications, and even social platforms become areas of strategic competition. Rival powers struggle to dominate key sectors ranging from semiconductors and artificial intelligence to energy systems and logistics networks because they underpin both economic strength and military capacity. The competition for critical resources, particularly rare earth minerals essential for advanced devices and weapons systems, further intensifies these dynamics. In this sense, the conflicts today reflect the deepening integration of all aspects of social and economic life into the logic of geopolitical struggle and imperialist wars.
The current landscape is not defined by a rigid or clearly demarcated East vs. West. While there is a degree of alignment within the Western bloc, anchored in alliances such as NATO and strategic formations such as the QUAD, there is no equivalent, unified military bloc in the East. This marks a significant departure from earlier periods, such as the world wars or even the Cold War, where rival camps are more formally structured and consolidated.
Although Russia and China cooperate within platforms like the BRICS and the SCO, these do not constitute a coherent or binding military alliance. Their coordination remains selective, shaped by converging interests rather than formal obligations. Global alignments today are more fluid, overlapping, and situational, lacking the binary structure of two consolidated imperialist camps. At the same time, the Western bloc led by the US itself is far from monolithic. It is heavily marked by internal contradictions, diverging economic interests, and tensions over burden-sharing, particularly between the US and its European allies.
Given this configuration, the US is increasingly targeting secondary partners of Russia and China. In the absence of this unified “Eastern bloc”, pressure is applied to countries that form part of the broader geopolitical orbit of Russia and China. This is evident in sustained US actions towards Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba, where sanctions, blockades, and political isolation function as primary instruments of control.
These measures are often justified through narratives of nuclear proliferation, narco-politics, or human rights concerns. These maneuvers serve a broader strategic objective of weakening governments that maintain ties with US rivals while disrupting alternative networks of economic and political cooperation. Sanctions have become increasingly expansive and complex, targeting states, financial systems, trade flows, and third-party actors, underscoring how sanctions function as calibrated tools of pressure, coercion, but at the same time, negotiation.
There is also a marked change in the conduct of war. Large-scale ground invasions such as those seen previously in Iraq and Afghanistan have become politically and economically costly, generating long-term instability and requiring sustained military presence from the end of the US. In response, there is a growing emphasis on remote and technological modes of warfare: missile strikes, drone operations, naval blockades, cyber warfare, economic sabotage, and information campaigns. These methods allow for sustained intervention while minimizing direct troop deployment and domestic political backlash.
The current trajectory of US-led wars targeting countries such as Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba cannot be understood in isolation from their broader global consequences. While these interventions appear geographically contained, their effects reverberate across the world, shaping economic conditions and deepening the everyday hardships experienced by billions. Wars today are not just confined to the battlefield; they are also transmitted through markets, supply chains, and social systems, ultimately borne by the people.
Oil prices have surged beyond $100 per barrel amid disruptions to supply routes such as the Strait of Hormuz, which is a critical artery for global energy flows. For much of North East and Southeast Asia, sub-regions heavily dependent on imported oil, this has immediate and far-reaching consequences. Countries such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore rely on oil imports for electricity generation, industrial production, and transportation, making them highly vulnerable to global energy shocks. Even a mere 10% rise in oil prices can significantly reduce regional economic output, exacerbate inflationary pressures, weaken global currencies, and reduce purchasing power and economic growth across the region.
The effects are particularly acute for emerging economies in Southeast Asia, particularly in Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines, where higher energy costs ripple through transportation, food production, and manufacturing. In the Philippines, these pressures manifest concretely in rising fuel prices, transport costs, electricity rates, and ultimately the price of basic commodities. Government responses, such as fuel subsidies, potential tax adjustments, and energy-saving measures, reflect attempts to cushion the impact, yet they also highlight the limits of national policy in the face of dependence on global markets and imperialist interventions. The burden is disproportionately carried by ordinary people, particularly workers and the poor, whose livelihoods are most vulnerable to inflation and economic instability.
These dynamics highlight the importance of grounding any analysis of war not only in geopolitical strategy but also in its concrete, country-specific economic impacts. Understanding how global conflict translates into local hardship allows for a more comprehensive grasp of the present situation.
What emerges from this analysis is not a trajectory toward peace, but toward further intensification of war and conflict under US imperialism. While these wars differ from the world wars of the past, they do not make it less dangerous and, in fact, may be more destabilizing, precisely because they blur the boundaries between war and peace, battlefield and society.
Given this reality, the task before the people is both urgent and strategic. Addressing the deeper contradictions of the current global order is essential as inter-imperialist rivalry escalates and is continuously being imposed on populations without their consent. At the center of this dynamic remains the US, which continues to deploy military, economic, and political power in an effort to maintain its dominance amid relative decline.
Across the globe, there is a growing imperative to resist being reduced to pawns, proxy battlegrounds, or logistical bases in conflicts not of the making of the people. The path forward lies in deepening political education, strengthening international solidarity, and building organized movements capable of advancing an alternative vision—one rooted in sovereignty, justice, and a social order that no longer treats human lives as expendable in the pursuit of imperialist power.
What is unfolding is a decisive period in which the future and the conditions of life for billions are being reshaped. In the face of escalating war and systemic crisis, the challenge is not only to resist but to envision and build a new order grounded in solidarity, sovereignty, and the primacy of the welfare of the people over profit.
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]]>This Regional Brief by APRCEM synthesizes critical findings, insights, and actionable recommendations on advancing Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) in climate change and renewable energy policies across the Asia Pacific. It examines global frameworks, sectoral dynamics, and country experiences in India, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Fiji, and Thailand, while elevating the perspectives of fisher folks and Indigenous Peoples. By identifying the gap between policy commitments and real-world implementation, and highlighting successful women-led initiatives, the Brief offers clear guidance toward gender-responsive, inclusive, and sustainable climate and energy transitions.
Authors: Ajay Kumar Jha (CECOEDECON), Ravadee Prasertcharoensuk (SDF Thailand), Daksha Vaja (Community Science Centre), Shaila Shahid (GenderCC), Robeliza Halip (Right Energy Partnership), Chinkie Peliño-Golle (EcoWaste Coalition)
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]]>The post At the Eye of the Imperialist Storm: The Situation in the Asia Pacific appeared first on Asia Pacific Research Network.
]]>Aaron Ceradoy
Chairperson, Asia Pacific Research Network
Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants
The Asia Pacific region is home to 4.72 billion people, representing the majority of the world’s population. Women constitute a significant portion of this population, accounting for 67%, while the youth, aged 15 to 24, make up 15% or approximately 1.2 billion people.
With the abundant natural and human resources, our region has been and still is a stage for the fight for dominance of global powers. For many countries in the region, their history and development have been majorly shaped by colonialists and, within the era of imperialism, neoliberalism and neocolonialism.
In this context, how may we look at the situation of our region?
The contradictions between workers and oppressed, on one hand, and the ruling class, on the other hand, continue to deepen across the region. Wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few while millions struggle to survive. In many countries, the richest 10% control more than half of the national income, starkly highlighting the widening gap between those who produce society’s wealth and those who benefit from it. The Asia Pacific now has the highest number of billionaires in the world at 981 – a figure growing faster than any other region, even as workers, peasants, and various sectors in the society face increasing precarity and exploitation.
This prosperity for the few stands in stark contrast to the daily hardships faced by the people. Around 320 million people live in extreme poverty, surviving on less than 2.15 USD per day. Hunger and food insecurity are widespread, with half of the world’s moderately to severely food-insecure population concentrated in the Asia Pacific, and 70% of them in South Asia. These conditions underscore the systemic failure to guarantee the most basic rights to food and livelihood.
Most of the poor and the hungry are in the rural areas – peasants, farm workers, fisherfolks, indigenous people, etc. Many countries of the region remain agrarian and backward with economies shaped by those who benefit from the rich natural resources and abundant raw materials – be they foreign powers or the local land monopolists or local “partners”, or rather hosts of parasitic foreign businesses.
Unemployment and underemployment remain pressing challenges. According to World Bank estimates, the region’s unemployment rate was 3.9% in 2023, while the ILO places it slightly higher at 4.2%, equivalent to 88.5 million unemployed. An additional 164 million continue to seek work but remain unable to secure jobs, with youth unemployment at a staggering 13.9%. Meanwhile, 50% of workers receive only 10% of total labor income, reflecting some of the highest levels of inequality globally.
Informal and insecure work is prevalent. At least 1.2 billion workers operate in the informal economy without contracts, social protection, or fair wages. In developing and emerging economies in the Asia Pacific, informal employment reaches 71%, compared to only 22% in advanced economies, revealing how deeply exploitation shapes the daily lives of workers.
The logic of capitalism reinforces these conditions. It requires the continuous creation of a vast reserve army of labor – a surplus population kept in precarity to drive down wages and intensify competition among workers. This “race to the bottom” is systemic, ensuring that profits remain high while livelihoods are pushed to the edge. Through labor export policies, wage suppression, and deregulation, governments have effectively become traffickers of their own people, facilitating the commodification of labor for global capital.
In countries hosting migrants, the false narrative of migrants as job-stealers or freeloaders in social services, is promoted. What Trump is doing in the US is echoed and replicated especially within their allies in the region.
Labour migration in and out of Asia-Pacific is one of the major features of global migration, and is a major issue in our region. Our region hosts the biggest countries of origin and some of the major host countries. Economies of countries in South and Southeast Asia are kept afloat by migrant remittance. Asia Pacific remained as the major recipient of remittances which stands at 38% in 2023.
More recently, the neoliberal design on migration has been further concretising the utilisation of remittance as source of so-called “development finance”. Under empty rhetorics of migration for development, capitalists and states are greedily eyeing remittance and other financial gains from migration for their own profit. However, we know that current migration will not usher in genuine and sustained development.
Migration in all its forms will continue.
These realities present a stark truth: while the ruling few amass unimaginable wealth, the vast majority remain trapped in poverty, hunger, and insecurity. The contradiction between the rich and the poor is not theoretical; rather, it is the lived experience of billions in the Asia Pacific region. Under imperialism, there can be no genuine recovery or relief, only deeper exploitation disguised as development. Understanding these regional trends and their relationship to the global situation is crucial for charting a comprehensive approach to people’s struggles and forging a new path toward a just, equitable, and inclusive Asia Pacific region.
Major trade blocs continue to shape the Asia Pacific region’s economic landscape. These include the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). These blocs continue to exert substantial influence on trade, investment, and production with uneven impact across countries and social strata in the region.
APEC, with 21 member economies, was established to promote trade and investment liberalization across the region. RCEP, which came into force in 2022, brings together a large portion of the Asia Pacific economies, creating the world’s largest trading bloc in terms of participating countries and population. CPTPP, while smaller in membership, offers deeper liberalization and governance in areas such as investment protection, services trade, labor, and environment.
Membership in these trade blocs has expanded market access for capitalist enterprises, attracted foreign direct investment, and integrated firms into global value chains. However, the benefits are uneven. Countries with advanced industrial bases often capture the bulk of the gains, while underdeveloped economies struggle to compete or secure dividends. Trade liberalization has exacerbated inequalities, as gains accrue mainly to corporations and regions already integrated into global production. Workers, small producers, and marginalized populations continue to face intensified competition, low wages, and job displacement.
In Central Asia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan face pressure to liberalize their agricultural and mineral sectors, leaving small farmers vulnerable. In North East Asia, while Japan and South Korea consolidate high-value manufacturing and services, less industrialized regions of China and Mongolia see growing inequality and labor precarity. In the Pacific, countries like Papua New Guinea and Fiji face challenges integrating into global markets without compromising local livelihoods and their environmental sustainability.
International financial institutions (IFIs) further reinforce these inequalities. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is the principal IFI in the region, extending loans, grants, and technical assistance primarily to sovereign governments. Its major shareholders include Japan and the United States (each holding 15.6% of total shares), followed by China (6.4%), India (6.3%), and Australia (5.8%). As of 2022, most of ADB’s portfolio is composed of sovereign loans, which increase developing countries’ exposure to external debt. Rising debt heightens vulnerability to currency devaluations, spikes in borrowing costs, and other global financial shocks, undermining development and deepening inequality.
In the Philippines, ADB-backed projects illustrate how IFIs promote modernization under the guise of a “just transition”. The Davao Public Transport Modernization Project, approved in 2023, phases out thousands of public utility jeepneys in favor of an electric-bus fleet, aiming to serve 800,000 passengers daily and cut greenhouse-gas emissions by 60%. Although the project includes a social development program for affected drivers, operators, and allied workers, questions remain about the adequacy of livelihood support and protection for informal transport workers.
Beyond transport, ADB’s clean-energy initiatives, such as the Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM) partnership with the Philippines and Indonesia, and the 2024 2.85 million USD Energy Transition Support Program, aim to retire polluting assets and boost renewable energy investments. While these programs are framed as socially inclusive, they reflect a broader pattern in which IFIs drive structural change through privatization, sectoral restructuring, and integration into global markets. This mechanism often shifts the burden of adjustment onto workers, small producers, and informal sector participants, exposing the limits of “just transition” rhetoric in ensuring people’s development.
For over eight decades, the IMF-WB has acted as an instrument of global monopoly finance capital. These undemocratic and unaccountable institution have systematically facilitated the extraction of wealth and natural resources from the Global South under the guise of “development” and “structural adjustment”. In the region, their interventions have frequently exacerbated social inequality and economic dependency rather than fostering genuine progress.
Historical and recent examples illustrate this dynamic. During the 1997 to 1998 Asian Financial Crisis, IMF-imposed austerity in Indonesia led to mass layoffs and extreme poverty, sparking widespread protests. In Thailand, IMF-WB structural reforms promoting privatization of public utilities and deregulation met strong opposition from labor unions and peasant movements. In the Philippines, decades of conditional loans tied to agricultural liberalization and privatization of key industries deepened rural poverty and weakened labor protections. In South Korea, IMF-mandated reforms forced corporations to downsize massively, triggering protests and labor strikes. In Central Asia, IMF-WB-supported programs in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have pressured governments to implement structural reforms that disproportionately affect small-scale farmers and local industries. In the Pacific, IMF-WB programs have tied funding to privatization and fiscal austerity, often undermining social services and local development priorities.
Recent interventions continue to draw criticism. In Bangladesh, a 4.7 billion USD IMF loan program since 2023 carries strict conditionalities that have delayed disbursement and limited investment in infrastructure, health, and education. Several World Bank-funded projects totaling over 3 billion USD remain stalled due to bureaucratic and implementation bottlenecks, leaving communities without adequate sanitation, flood control, and social services. In Pakistan, IMF-backed bailout programs impose austerity measures, including subsidy cuts and higher taxes, disproportionately affecting low-income populations while emphasizing fiscal discipline over social welfare.
In addition to the long-standing Washington-led IFIs, China has established its own institutions to shape regional and global development finance. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), headquartered in Beijing, finances infrastructure, energy, transport, and water projects across Asia and beyond, with China holding about 26% of the voting share. Many AIIB projects align with China’s Belt and Road Initiative, channeling Chinese capital, engineering services, and state-owned firms into partner countries.
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has invested heavily in Central Asia, focusing on transport, energy, logistics, and industrial development. Key projects include the Khorgos Gateway dry port in Kazakhstan, which links the rail network of China and Kazakhstan; the Central Asia-China Gas Pipeline, transporting Turkmen, Uzbek, and Kazakh gas to China; and the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan Railway, designed to shorten transit routes to Europe. BRI investments also extend to industrial and manufacturing projects, such as the Pengsheng Industrial Park and electric-vehicle cluster in Uzbekistan. While these projects enhance regional connectivity and economic integration, they increase dependence on China’s capital, technology, and trade corridors, raising concerns about structural economic and political leverage in the region.
The New Development Bank (NDB), created by BRICS countries and headquartered in Shanghai, supports infrastructure and sustainable development in emerging markets. While presented as an alternative to Western IFIs, China’s influence in capital, governance, and strategic direction is significant. Both AIIB and NDB replicate patterns of large loans, debt exposure, and donor-driven development priorities, making borrowing countries financially dependent and often leaving social, labor and environmental concerns secondary to China’s strategic and economic interests.
These examples illustrate how IMF-WB, and other IFIs prioritize debt repayment, corporate profits, and integration into global markets, often at the expense of equitable development for the most vulnerable populations. Trade blocs such as APEC, RCEP, and CPTPP reinforce this dynamic by promoting liberalization, market access, and foreign investment that disproportionately benefit advanced industrial economies and multinational corporations, while underdeveloped countries struggle to compete or capture gains. The social and economic pressures created by these policies—ranging from austerity measures and privatization to labor displacement and informalization—have fueled protests, labor strikes, and grassroots resistance across the Asia-Pacific. These patterns expose IFIs and trade blocs as instruments of financial and economic domination rather than agents of genuine development, profiting from the destitution of the people, eroding national sovereignty, plundering natural resources, and subjugating development to corporate interests.
The world today faces escalating wars, militarization, and interventions that devastate lives, with the US at the center of conflicts across the Asia Pacific. US imperialism projects power through nearly 800 overseas bases, alliances like NATO, QUAD, AUKUS, and economic frameworks such as the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF). China, through the BRI, SCO, RCEP, and BRICS, similarly extends its economic, political, and military influence, while territorial disputes in the South China Sea, the West Philippine Sea, Taiwan, and the Korean Peninsula heighten the risk of conflict. The US continues to exploit these regional disputes and positions the Philippines as a strategic outpost under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement – all part of a broader strategy of confrontation with China.
US military campaigns have impacted countries including China, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, the Philippines, Pakistan, and much of West Asia. In Palestine alone, over 65,000 people have died, most of them women and children. The devastation amounts to ecocide compounded by famine deliberately used as a weapon of war. In Lebanon, Zionist Israel has targeted both civilian communities and key resistance leaders, while Syria has endured more than a decade of crippling sanctions designed to suffocate its economy and prevent self-sufficiency. US imperialism continues to exploit oil resources. Yemen has suffered sustained bombing campaigns, and tensions with Iran have escalated. Across West Asia, the Axis of Resistance – comprising Palestine, Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran acts as a counterweight to US-Israel expansionism, even as proxy wars extend beyond the region.
Since the US “Pivot to Asia” in 2012, militarization in the region has accelerated. The Island Chain strategy has effectively reduced countries to pawns in potential conflicts with China, with bases, missile systems, and troops positioned across strategic points. By 2024, US defense spending reached $997 billion—37 percent of global military expenditure—funding advanced stealth aircraft, submarines, missile defenses, and long-range strike systems. Forward bases and rotational deployments from Darwin to Guam, Okinawa, and Diego Garcia extend US power projection, prompting neighboring states to raise their own defense budgets: Japan to $55.3 billion, South Korea to $47.6 billion, Taiwan to $16.5 billion, Australia to just under $50 billion, Singapore to $15 billion, India by 7 percent for US-origin aircraft and radar systems, Vietnam and Malaysia by 4 percent each, and the Philippines to $4.65 billion. Though framed as deterrence, these expenditures ultimately reinforce US imperialist dominance.
Beyond conventional warfare, the US actively promotes counterinsurgency strategies to suppress national liberation movements and political dissent. In countries such as the Philippines, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, West Papua, and Kashmir, these programs mobilize military forces alongside bureaucracies, civil society, and private-sector actors. Measures include red-tagging, terrorist listings, illegal arrests, extrajudicial killings, aerial bombings, and forced relocations. These mechanisms are often reinforced through anti-terror and financial laws shaped by institutions such as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). These policies erode civil liberties, stifle political opposition, and strengthen US-aligned regimes.
In the Global South, where systemic crises of overproduction persist, US imperialism installs compliant local elites to enforce its policies, often through fascistic measures. State violence rooted in anti-communism, nationalism, ethnocentrism, and religious manipulation suppresses resistance and political rivals. Interventions are justified as battles against “terrorists” or “communists,” but their true aim is resource extraction, subjugation, and the maintenance of global hegemony.
The competition for global dominance drives escalating militarization, economic sanctions, and proxy wars, with devastating consequences for ordinary people. As inter-imperialist contradictions intensify, the masses bear the compounded burdens of war, economic instability, and social unrest. Yet these crises also create conditions for resistance. Discontent with governments that prioritize war over public welfare is growing. Communities, organizations, and movements are increasingly vocal in demanding a just system that prioritizes people’s needs over profit and conflict.
Resistance persists across the Asia Pacific. In the Philippines, communities continue to challenge military operations and counterinsurgency campaigns, exposing human rights violations and demanding justice. In Burma, the liberation movement fights the military dictatorship and foreign interference to reclaim democracy and protect civilians. In Palestine, steadfast resistance endures despite decades of US-backed occupation and violence. Across Northeast and Southeast Asia, citizens oppose militarization, foreign encroachment, and arms deployments, calling for governments to prioritize peace and human welfare. In West Papua, indigenous communities defend their land, culture, and resources against exploitation and occupation.
US imperialism depends on economic, financial, and military dominance to suppress national independence and sustain a decaying capitalist system that destroys rather than advances productive forces. Exposing these structural inequalities and advocating alternatives rooted in sovereignty, justice, and liberation is urgent. Only through organized, united action can people worldwide challenge militarization, imperialism, and systemic oppression, building a path toward a more just and peaceful world.
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]]>APRN Research Conference 2025 | Pursuing the Path Towards Peace: People’s Resistance and Collective Solutions
Jiten Yumnam
Center for Research and Advocacy-Manipur
The Asia Pacific region is afflicted by multiple crises, including direct conflict and wars. Border and geopolitical tensions among imperialist and capitalist countries, in efforts to gain access to trading routes and natural resources, contribute to these crises.
Imperialist and capitalist countries continue to rely on violence, from warfare to structural oppression, to establish control for political dominance and economic exploitation of the Asia Pacific, thereby undermining peace in the region.
U.S. imperialism fuels much of today’s wars and conflicts. Imperialist powers, especially the US, rely on systemic violence that reshapes economies and societies to favor their interests, creating conflict, instability, and disturbing peace in the region. As an imperialist power, the US subverts the national sovereignty of countries in the Asia Pacific. They subtly or aggressively intrude in the internal affairs of countries by colluding with the countries’ oligarchs and bureaucrat-capitalists in perpetrating and condoning extreme forms of violence with impunity. These intrusions stir conflict scenarios with China and Russia.
The genocide in Palestine is laid bare to the world’s eyes. The ongoing conflict, humanitarian crisis, and genocide in Palestine, rooted in a long history of colonial occupation and geopolitical manipulation abetted by US imperialism, remain a key flashpoint in the Asia-Pacific. For decades, the Palestinian people have endured occupation, dispossession, and systematic violence. Since October 7, 2023, more than 65,000 Palestinians have been killed, including over 20,000 children. Over 70 percent of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure lies in ruins; famine has been deliberately weaponized. The genocide in Palestine stands as a brutal manifestation of imperialism and neocolonialism, as the US advances plans to displace Gaza’s population and transform the devastated state into a so-called “Riviera.”
There is an alarming possibility of the Palestinian genocide being replicated across the region. In preparing for direct wars and suppressing movements and resistance against imperialism, states continue to employ extreme violence and systematically erode people’s fundamental rights. Crimes against humanity and state repression persist in conflict-afflicted areas such as Kashmir, Manipur, Central India, West Papua, the Philippines, and Myanmar. The imposition of neoliberal policies closely intertwined with militarism, repression, and the destruction of indigenous cultures and institutions exacerbates tensions and resistance against imperialism. As a result, peace with justice remains distant and elusive across the Asia Pacific region.
Asia Pacific continues to record escalating geopolitical tensions. Efforts to control land, populations, resources, shipping lanes, trade, and supply routes such as the Suez Canal, Bay of Bengal, Malacca straits, and South China Sea are linked to the heightened conflict and tensions in the region. Competing geopolitical interests and overlapping spheres of influence, for example, India’s Act East Policy (AEP), China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the US’s Indo Pacific Strategy, Japan’s Free and Open Indo Pacific Strategy, the EU’s Global Gateway initiatives, serve as major sources of tension, rivalry, and instability in the Asia Pacific.
Infrastructure projects pursued by the US and its allied countries are often backed by international financial institutions. They are primarily designed to advance geopolitical and strategic interests. For instance, to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the US, Japan, and the European Union have supported India’s connectivity project under the Act East Policy. The Asia Development Bank, World Bank, and other IFIs are financing road, energy, and extractive projects in Northeast India, including the construction of roads. Mizoram to connect Myanmar’s Sittwe Port as part of the Kaladan Multimodal Transit Transport Project as part of the Kaladan Multimodal Transit Transport Project, linking the Bay of Bengal with India’s northeastern frontier.
Cooperation between India and Japan in various infrastructure projects aims to counterbalance China’s regional influence but has also heightened tensions. The Japanese effort to fund road projects in Arunachal Pradesh, NE India, has drawn objections from China, which claims Arunachal Pradesh as part of South Tibet. In response, China condemned the 2017 India-Japan Joint Statement on infrastructure cooperation and the establishment of the India-Japan Act East Forum.
Conflict and fragility across Asia have been induced with the tacit role and support of the US to control the land and resources, as evident in Myanmar, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq, Iran, and Yemen. These conflicts illustrate ongoing struggles over control of trade routes, sea lanes, land borders, strategic territories, and vital resources, including oil and critical minerals.
The US effort to maintain its global hegemony has fueled much of the instability across the region. Expanding military alliances such as the AUKUS and QUAD further intensify regional insecurity. The influx of US weapons and military technology in the Pacific has exacerbated tensions, especially with China. Wars of aggression and increased militarization are closely tied to the unrestrained arms trade and the continued supply of military support from the US and its allies. Military expenditures divert essential resources from basic social services. The defense spending of Asia-Pacific, estimated at 503 billion USD, could have addressed the region’s most urgent needs in education, health, and employment. Notably, China and India hold the record as the second and third highest military spenders, as of 2022.
New military and security agreements between the US and several allied countries in the Asia Pacific are fueling an arms race and pushing the region closer to direct conflict. These agreements, embodied in treaties, often involve expanding stockpiles of nuclear weapons, establishing new military bases or facilities across the Middle East, Central Asia, South East Asia, East Asia, and the Indian Ocean, and conducting regular joint war exercises. This rapid militarization has subjected indigenous peoples and local communities to violence and displacement, while women in areas such as Okinawa, Japan, and the Philippines continue to suffer from sexual abuse and exploitation by stationed troops. This raises a fundamental question: Can there be peace in the Asia Pacific amid expanding military bases, defense collaborations, and the systemic violence imposed on its peoples?
Across the region, movements for self-determination and national liberation continue to be suppressed, and authoritarian regimes receive the support of imperialist powers. These regimes often employ proxy conflicts, mercenary troops, and paramilitary groups to sow division and maintain their control. Militarization and land occupation have become the stark realities for many indigenous communities across the Asia-Pacific, resulting in widespread violence, desecration of cultural sites, food insecurity, hunger, displacement, and a growing humanitarian crisis.
The Indo-Pacific region has become a new frontier of imperialist expansion, where power blocs such as the US and its allies compete for dominance and influence. The Global North continues to weaponize debt, aid, and investment to extract resources and secure strategic advantages. The US and major powers in the Global North continue to pressure resource-rich yet economically vulnerable nations into unequal free trade agreements and neoliberal conditionalities. These arrangements facilitate the unabated plunder of natural resources, extraction and export of critical minerals, ensure control over resource-rich territories through militarization, and guarantee profits for the ruling elite. The economic crisis in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and several other countries across Asia is a direct result of a neoliberal economic framework that is abetted by predatory financing from the US and other capitalist countries.
Imperialist and authoritarian regimes have deepened collaboration for joint exploration of critical minerals and the development of strategic infrastructure to serve geopolitical, military, and economic interests. In October 2024, India and the US signed an agreement to expand and diversify supply chains for critical minerals. International Financial Institutions, multinational corporations, and developed countries are now mobilizing financing for large-scale mining projects – an agenda reinforced in the outcome document of the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development held in Seville, Spain, this year. This intensified conflict on land and resource control has contributed to the mounting tension across the region.
The US continues to assert its economic might by enforcing lopsided tariff rates, penalizing nations that purchase Russian Oil, and imposing economic sanctions on countries that defy its geopolitical interests. The US military foothold in the Middle East, for instance, is meant primarily to advance and protect its interest in oil reserves and other resources (Chomsky, 2004). Control over critical minerals and their supply chains often brings conflict, instability and fragility especially in indigenous peoples’ territories where the minerals are found, such as Myanmar and West Papua. India and the United States are exploring ways to tap Myanmar’s rare earth reserves in conflict-afflicted Kachin State, to also counter Chinese control.
The pursuit of critical minerals and mining profits underpins the US military-industrial complex, ensuring enormous gains for weapons and manufacturers such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Resource extraction and plunder by the US, Australian, British, and Canadian corporations with allied authoritarian undemocratic countries in places like West Papua, North East India, and the Philippines, for profit, has led to land grabs, displacement, environmental destruction, climate change, conflict, fragility, and human rights violations.
The climate crisis and its devastating impact on the people and the environment remain among the most urgent challenges in the region. Neoliberal policies continue to promote false climate solutions and unsustainable development models that harm the land, ecosystems, and climate itself. IFIs and corporate-led development agendas further push for commercially-driven climate solutions that prioritize profit over people and the planet.
Under the guise of renewable energy, these false solutions have proven disastrous. Large-scale dam projects, promoted as tools for climate mitigation, often lead to ecological destruction and endanger communities. The 1200 MW Teesta III Hydroelectric project in Sikkim, for instance, was severely damaged by glacial melting intensified by the climate crisis itself. Dam building, aggressively pursued for a climate solution, is also weaponized. They are used to control water flows and as instruments of war, deliberately flooding and damaging downstream areas, with disregard for the lives of people.
The drive to mine and control critical minerals to sustain capitalist economies, the global war industry, and sustain the US global hegemony amidst its decline, undermines the integrity of forests, wetlands, agriculture, land, and other vital ecosystems – the very biodiversity is essential for absorbing greenhouse gases and mitigating the worsening effects of climate change. False climate solutions disturb peace and heighten fragility within communities. Achieving a truly green and just transition through people-centered policies requires holding imperialism accountable for its historic and ongoing destruction of the planet.
The pursuit of militarization, US-led wars of aggression, and the control of natural resources and critical minerals are accompanied by intensified repression of civil societies and people’s movements. Across the world, people asserting their rights and fighting for a holistic, multidimensional, and justice-based peace are met with state repression. In highly militarized societies, the people endure daily surveillance, intimidation, and severe restrictions on freedom of movement.
The deliberate weakening of laws, creation of disabling environments for civil society, and erosion of what little democratic space remains have become defining features of imperialism in the region. The longest internet ban is recorded in Manipur, spewing misinformation through state-controlled media. The attack on civil society is a clear attack on democracy and democratic values. Emergency laws, namely, the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958, National Security Act, 1980, have been applied in North East India to subdue people’s self-determination and to control civil society. Political repression and war crimes faced by people’s movements in developing countries, exacerbated by US warmongering as governments strengthen their military cooperation with the US.
The Asia Pacific region remains beset by multiple conflicts fueled by imperialism and intensifying US-China tensions. Imperialism continues to shape the region, where peace remains elusive. The rise of authoritarian regimes and the deepening control of capitalist interests reveal how governments have abdicated responsibility for people’s rights and welfare and allowed corporations and IFIs to plunder land and resources. Genuine peace demands people-centered policies, respect for self, respect for self-determination, and an end to extractive, genocidal, and repressive practices.
Amid worsening humanitarian, climate, and development crises, developed countries led by the US continue to shy away from their historic responsibilities, prioritizing defense spending and the military-industrial complex over human survival. Securing peace requires the immediate withdrawal of foreign troops and military bases across the Asia Pacific and the repeal of repressive emergency laws that subdue people’s movements.
The violence of imperialism has been met with people’s resistance. Revolutionary struggles denounce imperialist violence, decolonization, imperialism, and militarism for a just and equitable world. People’s struggle to attain peace that is holistic, multi-dimensional, and justice-based.
Strengthening solidarity, support, and coordination among people’s movements against imperialist war, military bases, economic aggression, and fascist repression is critical for securing genuine peace. Collective struggle, learning, and solidarity are the key to victory, drawing inspiration from the courage and determination. The Gen Z uprising for genuine democracy in Nepal, the people’s uprising to end genocide in Palestine, and the tireless efforts of people across Indonesia, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and North East India, and the rest of the Asia-Pacific region to end neoliberal policies, militarization, and repression are beacons of hope to foster peace in the region. States, institutions should uphold their binding legal obligations to end the genocide, restore justice, dignity, and the right of self-determination of all struggling peoples.
Struggling peoples advocate and strengthen organizing and mobilizing for a peace that prioritizes social justice, access to land, food sovereignty. Uphold peace that is holistic, multi-dimensional, and justice-based. Foster unity and strengthen people’s solidarity and struggles to people solidarity to resist imperialism and militarism. Strengthen grassroots mobilization, networks, and people’s resistance against militarization and imperialism. Let us draw inspiration from our resistance and work collectively toward a more just, equitable, and peaceful world to defeat imperialism, capitalism, and colonialism. People’s power can defeat imperialism! Down with imperialism! Long live people’s struggles! Long live international solidarity!
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]]>Researchers from six Asia-Pacific countries met under the theme “Pursuing the path towards peace: People’s resistance and collective solutions.” Across two days, discussions converged on how inter‑state rivalry, militarized development, and critical‑mineral supply chains shape conflicts and civic space—and on research agendas that foreground rights, accountability, and community‑rooted alternatives. Mr. Daya Sagar, Executive Director of the National Campaign for Sustainable Development (Nepal) welcomed the participants followed by an opening remarks by Ms. Julia Puno, General Secretary of APRN. The conference theme was unpacked through four sub-themes—Women and Militarism; Climate, Digitalization, and Militarism; Peace from Workers’ and Rural Peoples’ Perspectives; and, Resistance, Conflicts and Peace.
Mr. Jiten Yumnam of Center for Research and Advocacy-Manipur (CRAM) gave the keynote address and Mr. Aaron Ceradoy of Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants gave an exposition on the situation of the Asia Pacific. These set the frame and tone of the conference – that of intensifying competition over trade routes, bases, and strategic resources is reordering economies and security architectures, with downstream effects from Palestine to South and Southeast Asia. Presenters linked alliance politics, new basing arrangements, and arms pipelines to rising repression and shrinking democratic space, arguing that “green transition” projects—large dams included—can externalize social and environmental risks to frontier regions.
This thematic focus examined long arcs of gendered harm in conflict‑affected contexts, highlighting how exceptional powers and emergency laws constrain safety, livelihoods, and participation. Discussion emphasized the need for data standards and survivor‑centered documentation to improve comparability across sites and inform redress.
Research papers on this sub-theme interrogated critical‑mineral governance and “new extractivism,” then turned to a case study from Assam. Field evidence tied flood frequency and severity downstream of the Doyang Hydroelectric Project to unregulated releases, weak warning systems, and gaps in relief and compensation—prompting calls for transparent reservoir management, inclusion of local rainfall data in forecasting, and recognition of dam‑induced floods as a human‑rights concern.
The morning of the second day tracked social impacts of securitized development. It spotlighted rural peoples, health, rights, and development under militarization. Analyses presented the rural peoples’ situation including the limited or lack of vital social services such as health and connected these to debt‑driven megaprojects, industrial zones, and new investment vehicles to widening inequality and to the consolidation of state–business–military power around “strategic” sites and supply chains. Panel presenters also cited forms of pushback – from local, community-led initiatives to legal forms and policy advocacy to international solidarity
This panel brought two frontlines into focus. Research on Manipur situated the 2023 ethnic violence and mass displacement within longer histories of emergency legislation and troop deployments, documenting buffer‑zone controls, prolonged internet shutdowns, and renewed agreements with armed groups. The paper traced how connectivity corridors and rare‑earth targeting fold local conflict into wider contests among India, China, and allied powers.
A study on Okinawa demonstrated a “double impunity” in cases of violence associated with the U.S. base footprint—rooted in Japanese prosecutorial practices and the Status of Forces Agreement—and showed how feminist and Indigenous advocacy leverages CEDAW to reframe peace as decolonial, gender‑just, and community‑rooted.
Across the program, contributors converged on a diagnosis: militarized security regimes and debt‑steered “modernization,” coupled with critical‑mineral and logistics imperatives, are reshaping the region’s political economy in ways that heighten risk and curtail rights. Rigorous research that contribute to peace with justice is reaffirmed.
A collaborative workshop reaffirmed three anchors for coordinated work—pro‑people economy and trade; militarism and fascism; natural resources and climate justice—and mapped possible research collaborations like comparative designs across borders, shared repositories, and data‑exchange practices that strengthen transparency and reproducibility. APRN renewed their commitment to do research to aid policy, demand accountability, support peoples’ movements because we believe that people’s research is a form of struggle.
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