Asia

Civil society in Southeast Asia is increasingly shaped by a geopolitical language that it did not choose. As great power rivalry intensifies, groups working for human rights, democracy, and environmental justice find themselves in a struggle for survival. 

Diversification strategies in green technology must be technology-specific rather than uniformly applied. Balancing openness with resilience will allow the EU to mitigate supply risks while leveraging China’s scale and innovation capacity.

To strenghten their joint leadership in global decarbonization, the EU and China should counter growing fragmentation by aligning clean tech supply chains, harmonizing standards, and advancing triangular cooperation with the Global South.

Southeast Asia’s record in promoting the notion of non-violence to achieve state and human security is inconsistent. And, while ASEAN’s commitment to the principle of non-interference has been crucial to maintaining peace among its member states, it has assumed practically no role in diffusing intra-state tensions in the region. 

China’s industrial strategy follows a playbook of state-backed scaling, limited consolidation, and outbound expansion. To stay competitive, secure supply chains, and advance decarbonization, the EU should adopt a sector-specific approach to clean tech.

The dilemma between climate targets and economic security calls for a pragmatic and nuanced policy. A strategy of sectoral protectionism would allow the EU to manage the risks of its relationship with China while harnessing its benefits.

As the US retreats from the global climate agenda and the EU struggles to fill the leadership gap, many are looking to China and ask: What can we expect from China's new Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) for 2035?

Dieses Dossier zielt darauf ab, die Rolle von jungen Menschen in pro-demokratischen Bewegungen im asiatischen Raum zu untersuchen und sie im Rahmen des Programms "Young Advocates For Democracy" (YA4D)  zu unterstützen.

This think piece is not a roadmap but a provocation—a call to rethink, reimagine, and reorient Cambodian civil society in a moment of deep crisis. There is no golden bullet, but a chance to build something new and enduring.