The concept of soft power, famously theorized by Joseph Nye, describes a state’s ability to achieve preferred outcomes through attraction rather than coercion or payment. Tiwary and Gunasekaran apply this framework to a domain that has received comparatively little systematic attention in international relations scholarship: the restoration, conservation, and celebration of Hindu and Buddhist temple sites across Southeast Asia. Their study traces how India’s historical ties with the region, rooted in shared religious traditions and sustained cultural exchange dating back more than a millennium, form the foundation for contemporary diplomatic initiatives. From the Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms that flourished in Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Thailand to the circulation of the Ramayana epic across the region, the authors contend that this deep civilizational substrate gives India a distinctive form of cultural capital that few other powers can credibly claim.

The methodological core of the study is a qualitative analysis of key examples of temple restoration projects, cultural exchanges, and educational collaborations. India’s involvement in the conservation of the Angkor Wat complex in Cambodia stands as the most prominent case in this tradition, alongside restoration work at other heritage sites across the region. Such projects, the authors argue, operate on multiple levels simultaneously. At the material level, they transfer technical expertise in archaeology, epigraphy, and conservation science. At the symbolic level, they signal respect for the host nation’s heritage and frame India as a custodian of a shared civilizational legacy rather than a foreign power pursuing narrow strategic interests. The researchers highlight how these initiatives promote mutual understanding and cooperation, generating goodwill that conventional diplomatic instruments often struggle to achieve.

The study situates temple diplomacy within India’s broader foreign policy evolution, from the Look East policy of the 1990s to the more assertive Act East framework of recent decades. Under the current administration, soft power instruments including Buddhism, the diaspora, and yoga have been consciously elevated in Indian diplomacy, and temple diplomacy extends this repertoire into the architectural and ritual domain. The authors note that cultural dimensions have become increasingly central to India’s engagement with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, complementing trade agreements, connectivity projects, and security dialogues. In their assessment, temple diplomacy strengthens India’s soft power while contributing to the broader goals of regional stability and cultural connectivity across Southeast Asia.

What makes the study particularly timely is the competitive context in which it is written. The authors devote significant attention to the challenges India faces, including cultural misunderstandings and competition from other regional powers. China has invested heavily in heritage diplomacy of its own, from the Sinocentric historicisation of transnational World Heritage Sites in Central Asia to Buddhist cultural diplomacy linking Chinese and Thai temples. Japan has long deployed pop-culture diplomacy, South Korea has pursued cultural engagement through its New Southern Policy, and infrastructural competition between India and China plays out across Myanmar, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Against this crowded field of cultural statecraft, the study suggests that India’s advantage lies in authenticity: the temple traditions of Southeast Asia are genuinely intertwined with those of the subcontinent, making Indian engagement in this sphere difficult for rivals to replicate.

The research also engages with the relational dimension of soft power, emphasizing that temple diplomacy works through people-to-people bonds rather than top-down messaging. Educational collaborations, cultural festivals, dance traditions such as those celebrated at Konark in Odisha, and the shared narrative repertoire of the Ramayana all create channels of contact between Indian and Southeast Asian publics. The authors argue that these channels matter because attraction, unlike military capability, cannot simply be decreed by governments; it must be cultivated through sustained, credible interaction. Sacred sites, in this reading, function as what might be called diplomatic infrastructure: physical spaces that anchor recurring pilgrimages, scholarly exchanges, and ceremonial events that keep bilateral relationships warm even when high-level politics cool.

The study does not present temple diplomacy as a panacea. Cultural misunderstandings remain a real risk, since the religious symbolism that resonates with one audience may be misread or contested by another. Southeast Asian nations guard their foreign policy autonomy carefully and are wary of any initiative that appears to assert Indian cultural primacy over their own distinctive traditions. The authors are candid that the effectiveness of these initiatives varies, and that temple diplomacy must be pursued with sensitivity to local ownership of heritage. A restoration project perceived as generous conservation partnership builds goodwill; one perceived as cultural appropriation could damage it. This tension between civilizational narrative and national sovereignty is, in the authors’ view, the central management problem of temple diplomacy.

The geopolitical stakes are considerable. The study situates its analysis within the broader literature on India’s China strategy, minilateral and multilateral soft balancing in the Indo-Pacific, and the evolving geopolitics of India-ASEAN engagement. In this framing, temple diplomacy is not a substitute for hard power but a complement to it, part of a portfolio of instruments through which India constrains the influence of competitors without direct confrontation. The authors draw on recent scholarship describing how geopolitical codes are constructed through both material projects and discursive claims, and temple diplomacy operates precisely at this intersection: it is a material intervention in physical heritage sites that simultaneously makes a discursive claim about who belongs to which civilizational community. The finding that such cultural strategies contribute to regional stability suggests that soft power instruments may play a stabilizing role even amid intensifying great power rivalry.

For the field of international relations, the study contributes to a growing body of work on cultural approaches to diplomacy, joining analyses of gastronomic diplomacy, sport mega-events, film co-productions, and textile heritage as instruments of national branding. Its distinctive contribution is to demonstrate that religious architecture, often treated by political scientists as a static backdrop to politics, can be analyzed as an active variable in diplomatic strategy. The authors conclude that temple diplomacy not only strengthens India’s soft power but also positions India as a pivotal player in the evolving geopolitical landscape of Southeast Asia. As competition for influence in the Indo-Pacific intensifies, the study suggests that the contest may be decided not only in naval deployments and trade negotiations but also in the quiet, patient work of restoring sacred stones that two civilizations have shared for over a thousand years.

Subject of Research: Temple diplomacy as a soft power strategy in India's relations with Southeast Asian nations

Article Title: Temple diplomacy: India’s cultural strategy for enhancing soft power in southeast Asia

Article References: Temple diplomacy: India’s cultural strategy for enhancing soft power in southeast Asia. (n.d.). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43545-026-01753-6

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s43545-026-01753-6

Keywords: temple diplomacy, soft power, India, Southeast Asia, cultural diplomacy, religious heritage, Angkor Wat, Act East policy, India-ASEAN relations, Hinduism, Buddhism, geopolitics

The study adopts a qualitative approach that combines document analysis with a case study method, conceptualizing Vietnam as a representative middle power. Middle powers occupy an awkward middle ground in international politics: too large and capable to simply bandwagon with a stronger state, yet too small to shape the international system on their own. For such states, hedging offers an alternative to the binary choices of balancing against one power or aligning with another. Instead of committing, a hedging state keeps its options open, spreading its dependencies so that no single great power can dictate its foreign policy.

What makes Vietnam’s version of hedging distinctive is its ideological framing. The country’s leadership has articulated the approach through the metaphor of bamboo diplomacy, first systematically laid out by General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong at the National Conference on Foreign Affairs in December 2021. Trong described a distinctive school of foreign affairs rooted in the image of the Vietnamese bamboo, characterized by firm roots, a solid trunk, and flexible branches. The metaphor captures the technical logic of the strategy: principles remain fixed while tactics bend with circumstances. The bamboo sways in the storm but does not break, and it does not uproot itself to escape the wind.

The security dimension of this doctrine is codified in Vietnam’s 2019 National Defence White Paper, which commits the country to what analysts describe as a set of explicit refusals. Vietnam will not join military alliances, will not align with one country against another, will not allow foreign states to establish military bases on its territory or use Vietnamese soil for military activities against other nations, and will not use force or threaten its use in international relations. This stands in deliberate contrast to, for example, NATO members bound by Article 5, which treats an attack on one ally as an attack on all and obligates collective response. Hanoi’s four noes are designed precisely to avoid such binding entanglements that would collapse its maneuvering space into a single bloc.

Economically, the hedging strategy manifests as simultaneous deepening of ties with both rivals. Vietnam and China have recorded unprecedented expansion in bilateral trade, with China remaining deeply embedded in Vietnamese supply chains as a source of inputs and machinery. At the same time, the United States has become one of Vietnam’s most important export markets and a growing source of multi-sectoral investment trending toward higher value chains. The study notes that this dual dependence functions almost as a form of mutual deterrence: each superpower has substantial economic stakes in Vietnam, giving both reasons to compete for Hanoi’s goodwill rather than coerce it. Researchers have described this dynamic as economic mutual assured dependence, a strategic tool that middle powers can wield against far larger rivals.

The return of President Donald Trump and the America First agenda has injected new stress into this equilibrium. The study documents how Washington’s tariff decisions have directly tested Vietnamese resilience, prompting high-level engagement from Hanoi, including discussions between General Secretary To Lam and President Trump aimed at reducing import tariffs, with Vietnam signaling readiness to negotiate tariff levels down to zero percent. The authors frame these episodes as evidence that hedging is not passive. It requires constant active management, as Vietnamese officials pursue economic and trade policy dialogues with the United States while simultaneously cultivating stable foundations for relations with China.

The diplomatic record of 2025 and early 2026 illustrates the balancing act in fine grain. Vietnam has consistently described the United States as a leading strategic partner, upgrading the relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership, the highest tier in its diplomatic hierarchy. Yet in the same period, Vietnam conducted its first joint army drill with China, an episode analysts at the Carnegie Endowment interpreted as a signal that Hanoi remains neither comrade nor ally to either power. The study reads these seemingly contradictory moves as coherent within the hedging framework: each gesture toward one power is counterweighted by a gesture toward the other, preventing either from claiming exclusive influence.

The analytical core of the paper lies in its assessment of conditions. The authors find that hedging has enabled Vietnam to maintain strategic maneuvering space and derive short to medium term benefits from engagement with both Washington and Beijing. But they emphasize that the strategy is conditional rather than permanent. Hedging can be sustained only so long as strategic polarization between the United States and China does not cross the threshold that compels states to align explicitly. In other words, hedging works while the great powers compete but do not demand commitments. Its inherent limitations, the study argues, are likely to become increasingly pronounced as competition escalates, echoing earlier scholarship warning of the structural dangers of a Thucydides trap dynamic between an established and a rising power.

The research also situates Vietnam within a broader global pattern. Companion studies in the same journal examine how Europe pursues strategic autonomy in response to Trumpism and how Trump-era policies are reshaping China’s global strategies, suggesting a worldwide reassessment of how states dependent on American security guarantees and Chinese economic integration should position themselves. For Southeast Asian states watching Vietnam’s experience, the findings carry practical weight: hedging is viable and rewarding, but it is a strategy for an intermediate phase of rivalry, not a permanent shield.

Funded by Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City, the study ultimately offers a sober assessment rather than a celebration. Vietnam’s bamboo diplomacy has proven remarkably effective at keeping options open in a polarizing world, allowing a middle power to talk trade with Washington one week and drill with the People’s Liberation Army the next. But the authors’ central conclusion is that flexibility has structural limits. If the US-China contest intensifies to the point where both capitals demand that smaller states choose, the bamboo may bend as far as it can, and Vietnam, like other middle powers, will face the unenviable arithmetic of alignment.

Subject of Research: Vietnam's hedging strategy toward US-China great power competition

Article Title: Vietnam’s hedging strategies amid intensified US-China competition

Article References: Nghi, N. T., & Tu, N. C. (2026). Vietnam’s hedging strategies amid intensified US-China competition. Global Public Policy and Governance, 6(1), 82-97. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43508-026-00141-3

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s43508-026-00141-3

Keywords: Vietnam, hedging strategy, US-China competition, bamboo diplomacy, middle power, strategic autonomy, Trump tariffs, South China Sea, foreign policy, Southeast Asia, comprehensive strategic partnership, economic dependence

The research team, led by Sarah J. McLaren of Massey University alongside Graham A. McAuliffe, Thomas C. Ponsioen, Ratna C. Purwestri, Flaminia Ortenzi, and Ty Beal, addressed a persistent blind spot in nutritional life cycle assessment, or nLCA. Previous reviews had documented that most nLCA studies are concentrated in high-income countries, rely on nutrient indices developed from United States data, and suffer from a lack of consensus on how to define a nutritional functional unit. Indonesia, now the world’s sixteenth largest economy yet still home to a poverty rate of 9.4 percent unevenly spread across its islands, had virtually no local life cycle inventory data for its foods. Existing global meta-analyses leaned heavily on proxy data from other countries that poorly reflect Indonesian agroecological conditions, cooking practices, and waste treatment.

To close this gap, the researchers assessed 90 foods spanning five groups: animal-source foods; pulses, nuts, and seeds; starchy staples; vegetables; and fruits. The environmental side of the analysis covered seven impact categories from cradle to grave, meaning from primary production through post-harvest handling, processing, packaging, distribution, retail, home or street preparation, and finally waste treatment. The categories included climate change, scarcity-weighted water use, marine and freshwater eutrophication, terrestrial acidification, particulate matter formation, and land use. Crucially, the team modelled distinctly Indonesian realities: cooking on liquefied petroleum gas stoves, congee prepared as street food, and end-of-life treatment dominated by open dumping and burning.

The nutritional side employed the Nutritional Value Score, or NVS, a recently developed profiling system scaled from 1 to 100 that captures both essential nutrient density and protective factors against noncommunicable diseases. The NVS is the weighted mean of seven normalised dietary attributes: vitamins at 20 percent, minerals at 20 percent, protein at 12.5 percent, omega-3 fatty acids at 10 percent, fibre at 7.5 percent, calories at 7.5 percent, and nutrient ratios covering sodium to potassium, saturated to unsaturated fat, and carbohydrate to fibre at 22.5 percent, with a 25 percent penalty applied to ultraprocessed foods. Traditional Indonesian fermented foods such as tempeh and tofu are not classified as ultraprocessed and therefore escape the penalty. The functional unit was defined as 100 NVS, the highest nutritional value on the scale, of food as consumed, which required accounting for inedible fractions, cooking yield, and consumer waste when calculating the quantity of food that must be purchased.

The results expose enormous heterogeneity. Among animal-source foods, dairy products other than cheese achieved the highest enviro-nutritional efficiencies, while beef, lamb, rabbit, pork, and tilapia ranked lowest. Water use within this group ranged from 0.12 to 79.8 cubic metres per functional unit, and land use from 0.01 to 28.2 square-metre-years of crop equivalents. The drivers are well understood: enteric fermentation from ruminants generates methane, manure management produces nitrous oxide and contributes to eutrophication and acidification, and high feed conversion ratios inflate the footprint of monogastric meats. Economic allocation, which assigns most livestock system impacts to meat rather than to lower-value co-products, explains why chicken organs rank comparably to dairy products despite coming from the same birds.

In the pulses, nuts, and seeds group, cashews stood out for all the wrong reasons, showing the lowest efficiencies across most environmental categories, driven largely by poor fertiliser use efficiency in cashew cultivation. Soybean products, by contrast, achieved the highest efficiencies, aided by leguminous nitrogen fixation that reduces fertiliser requirements. Excluding cashews, variability in this group was modest for several categories but reached 211 times the lowest result for marine eutrophication, water use, and land use, while nutritional scores varied little, from 46 to 65, meaning the efficiency differences were almost entirely attributable to supply-chain activities rather than nutritional composition.

Among starchy staples, congee, the study’s only multi-ingredient food, performed three to five times worse than the next least efficient item across every category, a consequence of its high salt content as street food, an unfavourable carbohydrate-to-fibre ratio, and low overall nutrient density. White rice and rice noodles also ranked poorly, while whole wheat pasta and sweet corn performed best. Vegetables told a striking story: the five dark green leafy vegetables studied, including pumpkin leaves, drumstick leaves, sweet potato leaves, tree fern, and water spinach, achieved the highest efficiencies in the group, partly because they are low-value co-products assigned zero primary production burdens. Among fruits, imports from China ranked among the least efficient, primarily due to high water use, and durian emerged as a cautionary example: its skin comprises 76 percent of the fruit and carries more than half of its climate change impact through transport and methane emissions at end of life.

Across the life cycle, primary production dominated, contributing at least 30 percent of impacts for all categories and typically more than 95 percent for land use. Yet the relationship between nutritional value and environmental performance proved far from universal. Overall, the correlation between NVS and the enviro-nutritional single score was weak, with an R-squared of just 0.03. It was strongest for starchy staples, where per-kilogram impacts are relatively homogeneous so nutritional score drives the ranking, at R-squared 0.65, moderate for fruits at 0.30, weak for vegetables at 0.15, and effectively absent for animal-source foods at R-squared 0.00, where both nutritional value and environmental impact vary substantially and independently. The practical implication is that nutritional quality alone cannot predict environmental performance, and vice versa, particularly for animal products.

For Indonesian policy, the findings point toward concrete opportunities. The authors identify dark green leafy vegetables, chayote, carrots, papaya, guava, cantaloupe, milk, yogurt, chicken organs, whole grains, and soy products as nutritious foods with comparatively low environmental footprints. Four items, beef and chicken organs, edamame, mussels, and tuna, scored at least 65 on the NVS while ranking in the top 20 percent least impactful foods for four or more impact categories, marking them as candidates for local prioritisation. Beyond food choice, the study highlights improvements in preparation and waste management, such as reducing salt in congee and removing durian skins before distribution, alternative sourcing of domestically produced fruits and nuts, and supply-chain gains in fertiliser and irrigation efficiency. The authors caution, however, that these attributional results should be complemented by consequential analysis before recommending large dietary shifts, and that the approach requires contextualisation rather than oversimplified recommendations.

The study also delivers a substantial data contribution: an open-access life cycle inventory for Indonesian foods, built from Agri-footprint 6.3, ecoinvent 3.9.1, Agribalyse 3.1, and the World Food LCA Database 3.5, adapted with country-specific water flows and electricity grid mixes and prioritising geographical and technological representativeness. Limitations remain, including reliance on the largest supplier country for each food, inability to capture sub-national heterogeneity from Java’s volcanic soils to mountainous farming systems, and uncertainty in water scarcity characterisation factors and toxicity categories, which contributed more than half of the single score for 14 of the 90 foods. Future work should extend the method to composite dishes such as nasi goreng and soto, localise nutrient profiling weightings, and invest in sub-nationally disaggregated data on livestock, transport, and food losses. As a proof of concept, the study demonstrates that nLCA can counteract what the authors call carbon tunnel vision, replacing single-issue metrics with a nutritional lens that spans the entire food supply chain and can be adapted to other low- and middle-income countries striving to feed growing populations within planetary boundaries.

Subject of Research: Integrated enviro-nutritional life cycle assessment of commonly consumed local foods in Indonesia

Article Title: Integrated environmental and nutritional efficiencies of local foods in Indonesia: a cradle-to-grave enviro-nutritional life cycle assessment

Article References: McLaren, S. J., McAuliffe, G. A., Ponsioen, T. C., Purwestri, R. C., Ortenzi, F., & Beal, T. (2026). Integrated environmental and nutritional efficiencies of local foods in Indonesia: a cradle-to-grave enviro-nutritional life cycle assessment. The Lancet Regional Health – Western Pacific, 74, Article 101977. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lanwpc.2026.101977

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1016/j.lanwpc.2026.101977

Keywords: life cycle assessment, Indonesia, nutrition, food systems, Nutritional Value Score, sustainable diets, environmental impacts, greenhouse gas emissions, animal-source foods, leafy vegetables, food policy, Southeast Asia

Treeshrews are small, agile mammals that inhabit the forests of South and Southeast Asia, with some species extending into southwestern China. Despite their name, they are neither true shrews nor particularly arboreal in all cases; they occupy a bewildering middle ground in mammalian classification that has fascinated evolutionary biologists for more than a century. Their most celebrated claim to scientific fame is their phylogenetic position within Euarchonta, the grand clade that also contains primates, colugos, and rodents and rabbits in the broader Euarchontoglires grouping. This placement makes treeshrews a living reference point for understanding what the ancestors of primates may have been like, and it underpins their growing status as biomedical models in studies of vision, immunity, and metabolism.

The review’s authors emphasize that treeshrews offer a rare combination of features that make them unusually informative for studying mammalian evolution. They are phylogenetically distinctive, meaning that their lineage separated early and retains a mosaic of ancestral and derived traits. Their history of diversification is heterogeneous, with island species in maritime Southeast Asia following very different evolutionary trajectories from their mainland relatives, producing natural experiments in isolation, dwarfism, and speciation. And the recent explosion of genomic resources for the group means that researchers can now move beyond morphology-based trees to test hypotheses about relationships and adaptation with genome-scale data.

On the phylogenetic front, the review organizes treeshrew evolutionary history across three nested levels. At the interordinal level, the question is where Scandentia sits relative to primates and colugos within Euarchonta, a problem that has oscillated across decades of molecular and morphological analyses. At the intraordinal level, the review traces the diversification of treeshrew families and genera, including the split between the largely terrestrial, plains-dwelling tupaiids and the more scansorial ptilocercids, exemplified by the pen-tailed treeshrew, as well as the subsequent radiations that produced the species richness seen today. At the intraspecific level, the authors examine population differentiation within widespread species, where geography, altitude, and habitat fragmentation have carved genetic structure into populations that often look deceptively uniform in the field.

Biogeography emerges as a central theme of the synthesis. The islands of Southeast Asia, from the Sunda Shelf to the Philippines and Sulawesi, have repeatedly acted as both cradles and traps for treeshrew lineages. Sea-level fluctuations during Pleistocene glacial cycles alternately connected and severed land bridges, allowing populations to mix and then isolate in pulses. The review highlights that mainland and island treeshrews have followed qualitatively different diversification histories, with island populations frequently showing deep genetic divergence over small geographic distances, particularly on ecologically complex islands such as Borneo and Sulawesi. Disentangling these patterns requires explicit testing of alternative biogeographic models, something the authors flag as a major priority rather than an afterthought.

The genetic diversity section of the review underscores how much remains unknown about treeshrew species boundaries. Morphology alone has historically underestimated diversity in the group, and mitochondrial genetic studies have revealed cryptic lineages within what were once considered single widespread species. The authors argue for integrative taxonomic revision, combining genome-wide markers, acoustic and ecological data, and museum specimens to redraw the species map of Scandentia. This matters not only for evolutionary theory but for conservation, since several treeshrew species are restricted to narrow island ranges or threatened forest habitats, and mislabeled species boundaries can hide endangered lineages within seemingly common ones.

Perhaps the most technically rich portion of the review concerns the molecular mechanisms underlying adaptive evolution in treeshrews. The authors survey evidence for the genetic basis of specialized sensory, immune, and metabolic traits that set treeshrews apart. Treeshrews possess remarkable visual acuity among small mammals, and studies have identified signatures of selection in phototransduction and cone-related genes consistent with their diurnal, color-rich lifestyles. Their immune systems have drawn attention because treeshrews tolerate certain pathogens differently than laboratory rodents, making comparative immunogenomics both medically relevant and evolutionarily revealing. Metabolic adaptations, including the famous ability of some treeshrews to consume large quantities of fermented nectar rich in ethanol without apparent intoxication, point to accelerated evolution in alcohol-metabolizing enzymes and related pathways, a trait that has made them a favorite case study in debates about the evolutionary origins of ethanol metabolism in primates.

The review does not stop at cataloguing these adaptations; it frames them as candidate systems demanding experimental validation. Genome scans and comparative analyses can identify genes with signatures of positive selection, but the authors stress that demonstrating function requires experimental work, from gene expression studies to physiological assays and, ultimately, functional validation of candidate adaptive genes. This call for mechanistic rigor reflects a broader shift in evolutionary biology from correlation to causation, and treeshrews, with their emerging genomic resources and established laboratory husbandry protocols, are well positioned to make that transition.

Looking forward, the authors lay out a clear set of research priorities. Comprehensive taxon sampling remains fundamental, since many species and populations have never been included in molecular analyses. Chromosome-level genome assemblies and population resequencing across the full geographic range would provide the resolution needed to reconstruct demographic history, detect local adaptation, and settle long-standing phylogenetic disputes. Integrative taxonomy should be applied systematically to resolve species boundaries. Biogeographic hypotheses need to be tested formally against explicit models rather than accepted by narrative plausibility. And candidate adaptive genes emerging from comparative genomics must be validated experimentally. Each of these priorities, the review argues, is now technically feasible given advances in long-read sequencing, computational phylogenetics, and genome editing.

The broader significance of the review lies in its insistence on integration. Genomic data alone, the authors contend, cannot resolve the evolutionary history of Scandentia; it must be woven together with morphological, ecological, and functional evidence. Treeshrews sit at a phylogenetic crossroads that illuminates the deep history of Euarchonta, yet their species-level diversity remains incompletely described, their biogeography only partly modeled, and their adaptive biology only beginning to be understood at the molecular level. By consolidating what is known and specifying what must be done next, Gu and colleagues have effectively set the agenda for a field that is small in numbers of researchers but outsized in evolutionary importance. For anyone watching the intersection of genomics, biogeography, and mammalian diversity in tropical Asia, treeshrews are no longer a footnote; they are fast becoming a textbook example of how modern evolutionary biology dissects the origins of a lineage.

Subject of Research: Phylogenetic relationships and adaptive evolution of treeshrews (order Scandentia)

Article Title: Phylogenetic and adaptive evolution of treeshrews (Scandentia)

Article References: Gu, T., Zhang, H., Mu, R., Qi, H., Lin, Z., & Zhu, W. (2026). Phylogenetic and adaptive evolution of treeshrews (Scandentia). Frontiers in Zoology. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12983-026-00633-2

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12983-026-00633-2

Keywords: treeshrews, Scandentia, phylogenetics, biogeography, genetic diversity, adaptive evolution, Euarchonta, molecular evolution, species boundaries, genomics, Southeast Asia, mammalian evolution

The dimensions of the problem are not confined to the clinic. Digital spaces and online platforms have introduced new and complex risks with direct mental health consequences, including cyberbullying, exposure to harmful content and patterns of excessive or unregulated use that can erode sleep, attention and self-esteem. These pressures are compounded in Malaysia by persistently high levels of stigma surrounding mental illness, and by longstanding social and structural inequalities that leave some groups of young people far more exposed than others. Despite the evident urgency, youth-focused mental health research in the country remains scarce, and gaps persist in both policy frameworks and in services specifically designed to reach adolescents and young adults. The result is a widening distance between a rapidly evolving burden of disease and the systems meant to address it.

A research initiative now underway in neighbouring Cambodia and Vietnam offers a possible template for closing that gap. The Mental health capacity Building and stRengthening In Global HealTh systems, or M-BRIGHT, study is designed to build capacity for youth-targeted mental health services in settings where specialist clinicians are in short supply. Its architecture rests on four key elements. First, the intervention is co-adapted with young people aged fourteen to eighteen alongside teachers, government representatives, non-governmental organisations and faith leaders, ensuring that what is delivered reflects the realities and values of the communities involved. Second, the intervention is delivered in schools, embedding support in an institution young people already attend. Third, capacity is built among non-specialists, including teachers, so that delivery does not depend on scarce clinical staff. Fourth, the approach is embedded and scaled up through sustained multi-sectoral stakeholder engagement rather than remaining a stand-alone research project.

In May 2026, this model was brought directly into conversation with Malaysia. M-BRIGHT researchers, together with the United Nations University–Global Health, co-convened a stakeholder engagement and priority-setting workshop in Kuala Lumpur to discuss the M-BRIGHT approach and explore how it might be adapted to a Malaysian context. The gathering was unusually broad in composition. It drew together government representatives from the Ministries of Health, Education and Digital, alongside participants from the private sector, non-governmental organisations, United Nations agencies, academia and clinical practice. Over the course of the workshop, participants examined youth mental health trends, risk factors, existing programmes, service gaps and priority concerns, and considered lessons emerging from M-BRIGHT’s work elsewhere in the region. One observation surfaced repeatedly: while some local programmes are demonstrably effective, infrastructural challenges must be addressed if their reach and sustainability are to improve.

From those discussions, five interrelated priority areas crystallised. The first concerned target groups. Although young people aged ten to eighteen were widely recognised as the priority population for mental health research and programming, participants stressed that particular attention may be needed for those easiest to overlook: youth who are out of school, young people living in challenging home environments, refugees, vulnerable minorities and undocumented children. These are precisely the groups least likely to be captured by school-based screening or to present voluntarily at clinics, and their invisibility in routine data compounds the risk that services are designed around the needs of the most visible rather than the most vulnerable.

The second priority area defined the focus of future programming and research. Participants identified specific topic areas demanding attention, including eating disorders, adverse childhood experiences, suicide, and risky sexual and social behaviours. They also emphasised digital spaces, framing them in dual terms: as drivers of youth mental ill-health, and simultaneously as an opportunity, a channel through which prevention, literacy and support could be delivered at scale. The third strand centred on prevention itself, including early intervention and the promotion of mental health literacy, so that problems are recognised and addressed before they escalate into clinical crises that overwhelmed services cannot absorb.

Reaching young people emerged as the third priority. Schools were identified as the key platform, and for good reason: they offer consistent access to large numbers of adolescents within existing structures. Yet participants were careful not to treat schools as the only entry point. Religious groups, madrasah schools, sports teams and centres, community centres, workplaces, digital spaces and peer networks were all noted as potential routes through which support could reach young people who might otherwise be missed. This pluralistic delivery strategy reflects a pragmatic recognition that in a country as diverse as Malaysia, no single institution can carry the entire burden, and that trust is built through the settings where young people already live, learn, pray, play and socialise.

The fourth and fifth priorities concerned the surrounding ecosystem of care. Family-focused programmes were deemed critical to raise awareness of mental health, promote improved dialogue between parents and children, and address the stigma that still clings to psychological distress in many households. Without parental understanding and acceptance, even well-designed school programmes risk collapsing at the doorstep of the family. Integration into existing systems was judged equally essential: this means embedding mental health literacy into school curricula and strengthening delivery systems, including through the training of lay mental health providers who can extend the reach of the formal workforce. Sustainability and scale, participants argued, depend not on creating parallel structures but on weaving mental health into the systems that already function every day.

Advancing these priorities, the workshop concluded, requires genuine multi-sectoral collaboration, particularly across government ministries whose remits intersect in the lives of young people. The Kuala Lumpur meeting itself represented an important first step in that process, placing the Ministries of Health, Education and Digital in the same room as NGOs, United Nations agencies, academics, clinicians and the private sector, all of whom bring complementary expertise spanning Malaysian and international experience. Building on existing initiatives through partnership, rather than duplicating them, was highlighted as a guiding principle. As a critical next step, participants proposed establishing a multi-stakeholder, multi-sectoral Community of Practice to facilitate knowledge and resource sharing, coordinate new initiatives and advocate for greater attention to youth mental health in Malaysia.

The vision behind the proposed Community of Practice is deliberately participatory. It aims to co-create, together with young people, parents and those with lived experience of mental ill-health, a tailored approach to supporting youth mental health in Malaysia, one that ensures cultural and religious relevance and can be embedded within existing structures and systems. Crucially, the ambition does not stop at the border. The Community of Practice is also intended to support regional learning and collaboration, creating opportunities to adapt and scale the approach across Southeast Asia, where many countries face similar demographic pressures, digital transitions and workforce constraints. If the doubling of mental health difficulties among Malaysian children in four short years is a warning, the response taking shape in Kuala Lumpur suggests that regional solidarity, shared evidence and youth partnership may yet turn a gathering crisis into a manageable public health challenge. The cost of inaction, researchers warn, will be measured in a generation’s wellbeing; the opportunity is to act now, with the evidence and the coalition finally in place.

Subject of Research: Youth mental health in Malaysia and Southeast Asia and capacity-building approaches for youth-targeted mental health services

Article Title: Addressing youth mental health in Southeast Asia: a call to action with a spotlight on Malaysia

Article References: Samuels, F., Murray, A., Palar, S., Muniandy, K., Shanmugam, P. K., Zainuddin, N. A., Riha, J., Morgado, P., & Lopes, C. A. (2026). Addressing youth mental health in Southeast Asia: a call to action with a spotlight on Malaysia. The Lancet Regional Health – Western Pacific, 74, Article 101972. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lanwpc.2026.101972

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1016/j.lanwpc.2026.101972

Keywords: youth mental health, Malaysia, Southeast Asia, M-BRIGHT, mental health literacy, digital well-being, stigma, schools, Community of Practice, capacity building, Addressing, youth

The scale of the discrepancy between old and new estimates matters for anyone tracking the health of the ocean. Microplastics, defined as plastic fragments smaller than five millimeters, have become one of the most pervasive and durable pollutants on the planet. Tens of millions of metric tons of plastic enter the environment each year, and a substantial share eventually fragments into microscopic particles that travel through soils, air, and waterways before settling in coastal and open-ocean ecosystems. Rivers act as the primary conveyor belt connecting inland sources to the sea, but quantifying that flux has proven extraordinarily difficult, with published global figures spanning orders of magnitude.

The core of the problem, the researchers argue, has been inconsistency. Field studies around the world sample river water with different nets, pumps, and sieves, count particles in different size classes, and report concentrations using incompatible units. Comparing raw numbers across such studies is like mixing currencies without an exchange rate. To overcome this, Qin and colleagues developed a new framework that harmonizes differences in particle size and sampling methodology, effectively converting disparate field observations onto a common scale. Only after this standardization could the team build a coherent picture of microplastic movement at continental and global scales.

On top of the harmonized dataset, the researchers deployed machine learning to disentangle the drivers of microplastic concentrations in rivers. The models accounted simultaneously for human factors, such as plastic consumption, waste management quality, and levels of economic development, and for natural processes, including basin hydrology, terrain, and seasonal weather patterns. Crucially, the framework also captured a phenomenon the authors describe as hydroclimatic pulse enrichment: the way rainfall can either wash large quantities of plastic into rivers or, conversely, dilute concentrations by swelling water volumes. Distinguishing these two opposing effects of rain was essential to producing credible estimates.

The results reveal a stark geographic asymmetry. Plastic use, poorly managed waste, and broader human development emerged as the strongest predictors of where microplastic concentrations run highest, while weather and seasonal conditions govern the short-term ups and downs of what rivers actually carry. Southeast Asia and East Asia together account for more than half of the global riverine microplastic export, a reflection of the region’s dense populations, rapid industrialization, large plastic consumption, and waste systems that have not kept pace with the volume of discarded material. When the Global South as a whole is considered, the region contributes roughly 96 percent of the 263,000-ton annual flux the study estimates for 2022.

Perhaps the most striking and climate-relevant finding concerns rainfall. The analysis shows that extreme rainfall events can substantially accelerate the movement of microplastics into rivers, particularly in regions where plastic use is high and waste management is weak. Heavy downpours scour urban streets, dumpsites, and riverbanks, mobilizing accumulated plastic fragments and flushing them into waterways in concentrated pulses. The authors describe these as short-lived but intense episodes of pollution delivery, meaning that a disproportionate share of annual microplastic export can occur during a small number of storm events rather than being spread evenly across the year.

This hydroclimatic amplification carries a sobering implication for the coming decades. Climate change is expected to make extreme rainfall more frequent and more intense across many of the same regions that already dominate global microplastic export. As storm patterns intensify, the pulse-driven mechanism identified by Qin and colleagues could grow stronger, sending larger and more concentrated surges of microplastics into rivers and, ultimately, marine environments. In effect, a pollution problem driven by human plastic consumption is being supercharged by a changing climate, creating a compound risk that neither waste policy nor climate policy alone can fully address.

The technical advances underlying the study are as important as its headline numbers. By standardizing particle-size classes and sampling methods before modeling, the team reduced the noise that has plagued previous global syntheses. The machine learning approach then allowed the researchers to separate structural drivers, such as a country’s plastic footprint and waste infrastructure, from hydrological variability, such as wet seasons and storm years. This separation matters because it tells decision-makers what they can control. Waste management and consumption patterns are policy levers; rainfall is not. A framework that quantifies both makes it possible to forecast where and when pollution pulses are most likely, and to target interventions, such as improved waste collection and riverbank interception, before storm seasons peak.

The findings land at a moment when microplastics have been detected everywhere from deep-sea sediments and polar ice to human blood and placental tissue, with recognized threats to ecosystems, water quality, and potentially human health. The study’s authors emphasize that the threat is not evenly shared or evenly timed. Regions with the fewest resources for waste management are projected to bear the greatest exposure, and the growing intensity of extreme weather will concentrate pollution delivery into destructive bursts. The research underscores that curbing riverine microplastic export in the Global South, combined with climate adaptation planning for flood and storm management, may represent one of the most effective global strategies for reducing the flow of plastic into the ocean. As the authors warn, if extreme rainfall continues to intensify as projected, the window for cost-effective action may narrow with every storm season.

Subject of Research: Global riverine microplastic transport and its amplification by extreme rainfall

Article Title: Heavy rainfall amplifies riverine microplastic transport worldwide, particularly in developing nations

Article References: Heavy rainfall amplifies riverine microplastic transport worldwide, particularly in developing nations. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: microplastics, rivers, ocean pollution, extreme rainfall, Global South, machine learning, climate change, waste management, Science journal, hydroclimatic pulse enrichment, marine pollution, Southeast Asia

Distant water fishing, by definition, describes fleets that harvest marine resources outside their own exclusive economic zones, often under access agreements, joint ventures, or flag arrangements with coastal states in Africa, the Pacific, and Latin America. For Southeast Asian nations, whose own waters are among the most productive and most heavily exploited on the planet, distant water operations have become both an economic outlet and an ecological escape valve. When domestic stocks are depleted or domestic licensing becomes restrictive, vessels and their investors look outward. The new research examines this outward push not as a static fact but as a dynamic system, one that shifts with fuel prices, bilateral agreements, enforcement regimes, and the health of the fish stocks themselves.

The study’s central contribution lies in treating fleet behavior as something that can be characterized quantitatively over time rather than described anecdotally. Rather than simply counting vessels, the analysis focuses on the patterns of activity that emerge when large numbers of fishing vessels operate in concert: where they concentrate, how long they remain in particular grounds, how their presence changes in response to regulatory signals, and how the composition of the fleet evolves as older vessels retire and newer, often larger and more technologically capable ships enter service. This kind of systems-level view is essential because distant water fishing is not merely a collection of independent boats. It is an industry organized around supply chains, processing capacity, ports of convenience, and market demand that spans continents.

Southeast Asia provides a particularly revealing setting for this kind of analysis. The region contains some of the world’s largest fishing nations, with enormous domestic fleets that have historically been supported by fuel subsidies, loan programs, and development policies aimed at expanding seafood production. Those same policy instruments, designed to strengthen food security at home, have inadvertently fueled the capacity that now seeks opportunity abroad. The research highlights this feedback loop: capacity built for domestic waters spills into international ones, and the resulting pressure on foreign stocks can replicate abroad the very overfishing problems the fleets were escaping. Understanding this dynamic is critical for any honest assessment of global fishing effort, because vessels that leave home waters do not simply disappear from the global ledger of exploitation.

The technical challenge of studying distant water fleets has always been data. Fishing vessels operating in remote waters, sometimes under flags of convenience and sometimes with limited transponder coverage, are notoriously difficult to track. The study engages with this problem by synthesizing available information on fleet composition, operational ranges, and the institutional arrangements that govern access to foreign waters. Such synthesis work matters because policy debates about distant water fishing frequently proceed from fragmented or outdated information. Without a coherent picture of how fleets are actually distributed and changing, attempts at regulation, whether by flag states, coastal states, or regional fisheries management organizations, risk targeting the wrong vessels in the wrong places at the wrong times.

One of the most striking themes the research surfaces is the role of governance asymmetry. Coastal states in the waters where Southeast Asian distant water fleets operate often possess limited monitoring, control, and surveillance capacity, while the vessels themselves may be registered in jurisdictions with minimal oversight obligations. This mismatch creates conditions in which illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing can flourish, and it places honest operators at a competitive disadvantage relative to those willing to cut corners. The study situates fleet dynamics within this institutional landscape, showing that the movement and behavior of vessels cannot be understood purely in terms of fish abundance or economics. Where the rules are weak, the fleets concentrate; where enforcement tightens, activity shifts to new grounds. The geography of fishing, in other words, mirrors the geography of regulation.

The implications of these dynamics extend well beyond the fishing industry itself. Distant water fishing touches on food security for coastal communities that depend on fish as a primary source of protein, on the livelihoods of small-scale fishers who compete with industrial vessels for shared stocks, and on the marine ecosystems that absorb the cumulative pressure of decades of industrial extraction. When highly migratory species such as tuna are harvested across vast ocean basins by fleets from many nations, the sustainability of the resource becomes a collective action problem. The research’s systematic account of how Southeast Asian distant water fleets fit into this equation helps clarify which actors bear which shares of the pressure, a necessary precondition for fair and effective international management.

The findings also speak to an ongoing transformation in how the global fishing industry is monitored. Satellite-based vessel tracking, automatic identification systems, and machine-learning analyses of vessel behavior have begun to peel back the opacity that once shielded distant water operations from scrutiny. Studies like this one demonstrate the value of bringing such analytical tools to bear on specific regions and fleet segments. As more nations adopt requirements for electronic monitoring and as regional fisheries management organizations expand their data collection, the possibility of genuine, evidence-based management of high-seas and foreign-access fisheries moves from aspiration toward practice. The Southeast Asian case examined here suggests both the promise of that trajectory and the distance still to be traveled.

For policymakers in the region, the research carries a pointed message: distant water fleets are not an externality of domestic fisheries policy but a direct product of it. Decisions about subsidies, licensing, fleet modernization, and labor standards at home reverberate through fishing grounds on the other side of the world. Conversely, international agreements on fisheries access, port state measures, and transshipment regulation shape the economic calculus of fleet owners in Southeast Asian ports. The study’s systemic framing underscores that meaningful reform requires coordination across this entire chain, from the shipyards and banks that finance vessels to the markets in Europe, North America, and East Asia that consume their catch. Sustainability, in this view, is not a property of individual fishing trips but of the whole interconnected system.

As global demand for seafood continues to rise and wild-capture fisheries approach or exceed their biological limits, the behavior of distant water fleets will only grow in importance. The analysis of Southeast Asian fleet dynamics published in npj Ocean Sustainability provides a rigorous foundation for understanding one of the major forces acting on the world’s ocean resources. It replaces a vague sense of concern about far-water fishing with a structured account of how these fleets operate, where they concentrate, and how they respond to the shifting landscape of regulation and opportunity. In doing so, it gives scientists, managers, and the public something increasingly rare in ocean governance: a clear view of an industry that has spent decades just beyond the horizon.

Subject of Research: The operational dynamics of distant water fishing fleets based in Southeast Asian countries

Article Title: Dynamics of distant water fishing fleets in Southeast Asian countries

Article References: Alam, L., Teh, L., Teh, L., Palomares, M. L., Skerritt, D. J., Issifu, I., Lam, V. W. Y., Villasante, S., Lazzari, N., Kinds, A., Carvalho, A. R., Majluf, P., Aheto, D., Mokhtar, M., & Sumaila, U. R. (2026). Dynamics of distant water fishing fleets in Southeast Asian countries. npj Ocean Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44183-026-00242-w

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1038/s44183-026-00242-w

Keywords: distant water fishing, Southeast Asia, fisheries, ocean sustainability, overfishing, IUU fishing, fleet dynamics, fisheries management, maritime governance, satellite vessel tracking, tuna fisheries, flag states