pinned publications

Donald Trump’s return to the White House and his commitment to his policy agenda will challenge U.S. relations with Southeast Asia. This compilation looks to understand how the region views its relationship with the United States and to examine whether the region’s goals and interests can be aligned with those of a new administration.

Featuring essays by Lina A. Alexandra (Indonesia), Thomas Benjamin Daniel (Malaysia), Charmaine Misalucha-Willoughby (Philippines), Fuadi Pitsuwan (Thailand), and Nguyen Hung Son (Vietnam). Published on 13 January 2025.

Southeast Asia’s developers have sought to democratize AI by building language models that better represent the region’s languages, worldviews, and values. Yet, language is deeply political in a region as multiculturally diverse and complex as Southeast Asia. Can localized large language models truly preserve and project the region’s nuances?

Written and researched with Binya Kanitroj. Published as a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace paper on 6 January 2025.

Watch the video explainer here: https://carnegieendowment.org/videos/2025/04/western-bias-in-ai-why-local-models-matter-for-southeast-asia?lang=en

By treating undersea cables as critical infrastructure, Southeast Asian stakeholders can better manage geopolitical, environmental, and more conventional risks threatening cable resilience.

Published as a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace paper on 18 December 2024.

Because strategic, economic, and ideological perceptions of China contain multiple, sometimes contradictory facets in Southeast Asia, receptions of and responses to Beijing diverge across and within state lines.

This collection of essays was edited by Evan A. Feigenbaum. Introduction by Chong Ja Ian and me. Published on 7 November 2024. 

International AI governance enshrines assumptions from the more well-resourced Global North. These efforts must adapt to better account for the range of harms AI incurs globally.

This paper, co-written with Aubra Anthony and Lakshmee Sharma, provided an introductory overview to a project aimed at amplifying ideas and perspectives from groups and geographic areas that lack strong representation in current global discussions about AI. The project offers a series of papers from Carnegie scholars and affiliates focused on how those beyond the Global North experience AI, and how approaches to governance could adapt to these realities to improve AI’s trustworthiness for the Global Majority. For more on the project: https://carnegieendowment.org/programs/technology-and-international-affairs/artificial-intelligence-and-the-global-majority?lang=en

This introductory piece was published as a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace paper on 30 April 2024.

This article demonstrates that Southeast Asia has been involved in undersea cable networks since the 19th century and that these cables are increasingly valuable to regional countries—but also increasingly vulnerable. It argues that US-China competition is resulting in a fragmentation of cable networks, and consequently, Southeast Asian countries are increasingly being forced to choose between infrastructure provided by China and infrastructure provided by the US and its partners. 

This article also argues that the region has been remiss in not taking a more comprehensive approach to the construction, routing, and protection of undersea cables. It concludes with recommendations for the creation of a new multi-stakeholder council of interagency officials, industry captains, and foreign policy and security practitioners to discuss cross-cutting technological issues, including undersea cables.

Published in Indo-Pacific Outlook | Volume 1, Issue 5 by the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa on 7 February 2024.