Solar plants on a large scale are prone to land disputes, especially where there are uncertain tenure status or indigenous communities. By Mehmet Enes Beşer The ASEAN region boasts some of the finest solar irradiation in the world, offering a geographical advantage in tapping solar power to meet its rapidly growing energy needs. With Southeast Asian economies industrializing, urbanizing, and ...
Infrastructure, Trust, and Innovation By Mehmet Enes Beşer Southeast Asia stands at a crossroads in the evolution of its healthcare. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of digital health technologies—everything from telemedicine and AI-driven diagnostics to wearable health devices and electronic health records. Yet despite the push, the region threatens to experience uneven growth in driving digital health to a ...
The region must act with a sense of urgency—not merely to insure today, but to build food security tomorrow. By Mehmet Enes Beşer Well before the recent memory global rice price spike, food insecurity had already become more entrenched in its grip on Southeast Asia. Already in the region were millions of individuals experiencing limited access to healthy, affordable food ...
Southeast Asia is not a chessboard, but a luxuriant network of diplomatic diplomacy of keen mind, and long memory. By Mehmet Enes Beşer Throughout the years of heightened strategic rivalry between China and the United States, Southeast Asia is normally portrayed as a geopolitics arena—a theater wherein the two great powers struggle over influence, domination, and strategic depth. That dyadic ...
Navigating Security in an Era of Strategic Competition By Mehmet Enes Beşer Southeast Asia is one of the world’s most strategic sea highways where global commerce passes through, strategic rivalries, and environmental risk points meet. From Malacca Strait to South China Sea, Southeast Asian seas are as vital to global economic being as they are to Southeast Asian seas’ diversity ...
A Strategic Balancing Act By Mehmet Enes Beşer As the world hurtles towards a green energy, electric mobility, and high-technology future, rare earth elements (REEs) have emerged as the unsung cornerstone of the global green economy. These metals—vital to wind turbines, EV motors, semiconductors, and military uses—have emerged as a valuable asset on which economic and geopolitical competition is increasingly ...
To learn Mandarin is not to surrender to China—it is to learn to know China By Mehmet Enes Beşer Southeast Asia has always been a rich weave of cultures, languages, and identities. Diverse as that has been, it has also required a unifying linguistic strand that enables trade, diplomacy, and frequent intercourse across borders. European languages such as English, Dutch, ...
Experts interpret recent events unfolding in Myanmar as the US’ military, political and economical loss of power and the rise of China in the Asia Pacific. Myanmar is an energy-rich country in Southeast Asia, calling attention especially with its oil and gas reserves. Additionally, Myanmar is neighbor to India, Bangladesh, China, Laos and Thailand, thus located geostrategically important for energy ...