Humanitarian policy and action in Asia: analysing challenges, exploring opportunities

The article introduces a special issue of the Journal of Asian Public Policy devoted to humanitarian policy and action in Asia. It first sketches the context for contemporary debate and then previews articles by Martin Searle on humanitarianism and the fourth industrial revolution; Alistair D. B. Cook, Jonatan Lassa and Mely Caballero-Anthony on disaster policy reform in Southeast Asia; Junli Lim and Elisabeth Wickeri on humanitarian engagement with Afghanistan; Lina Gong on China’s new pursuit of ‘striving for achievement’ in the humanitarian space; Qibin Lu et al. on South–South humanitarianism as exemplified by the action of Chinese NGOs in response to the 2015 Nepal earthquake; and Ian Holliday, Aung Kaung Myat and Alistair D. B. Cook on humanitarian engagement with Myanmar in the wake of the 2021 coup. Together, these articles cover the extensive region and provide food for thought about significant continuities in experience within Asia, highlighting the ‘multiplex, polycentric’ world in which we live from the vantage point of those within or with extensive knowledge of the region.