Mohamad Zreik

Small power systems subject to hazards in the island cities of Southeast Asia increase the vulnerability of energy security, and require good climate-risk management, data integration and adaptive energy planning. This study proposes and validates a model that connects climate-risk salience to island energy security through renewable-energy planning capability, and investigates the institutional coordination as a moderating variable. We examined four constructs with 22 seven-point items with a cross-sectional survey online with 428 respondents from a range of utility, regulatory, municipal, developer, finance, research and community stakeholders across seven island contexts in the region. Ordinary least squares estimation with 5000 bootstrap resamples, mediation, moderation and ten-fold predictive assessment were used to estimate a component-based structural model. Energy security is negatively predicted by climate-risk salience (β = −0.142) while planning capability is positively predicted (β = 0.487). Island energy security is strongly associated with planning capability (β = 0.557) which mediates the relationship between climate-risk salience and energy security (β = 0.271). Greater institutional coordination strengthens the association between planning capability and energy security (β = 0.172). The model accounts for 54.5% of security variance, indicating that risk awareness is effective when applied in coordinated adaptive planning.

Environmental NGOs (ENGOs) play an important role in promoting climate governance as Southeast Asia is highly vulnerable to climate change and has limited governance capacity. Despite the existing research, however, the factors that affect ENGO participation have been identified, but not the hierarchies between these factors, any structural dependency, or strategic implications, which could help to understand the conditions that enable effective participation. To fill this gap, this study proposes a framework of 16 important factors with a structured literature review and expert consultation and builds a matrix of factor relations on the basis of assessments made by 11 experts of various regional experiences. These different factors are used to reveal the hierarchical structure of these factors and their driving–dependence relationships by means of Interpretative Structural Modeling (ISM) and the Matrice d’Impacts Croisés-Multiplication Appliquée à un Classement (MICMAC) methods. The results show that the foundation of the structural conditions, such as institutional stability, resource predictability, organizational governance, and capacity allocation, is the most important factor in ENGO participation, and the strategic actions of social trust, network embedding, advocacy and accountability only work when these foundation conditions are met. Based on these results, four successive strategic pathways are suggested to enhance ENGO involvement in climate governance: institutional embedding, capability assetization, network embedding, and accountability and initiative upgrading. Theoretically, the study contributes to the field of climate governance research as a demonstration of a hierarchical process of structural preconditions for ENGO participation, not just strategic actions. In the practical sense, the evidence generated contributes to the formulation of policy and design of governance and participation strategies at ASEAN and at the national level by NGOs and other environmental groups. The results are based on expert knowledge used to build the ISM–MICMAC matrix and represent only a structural reflection of the relationships between the factors and not a causal relationship.

This article examines China's ambitious blueprint for becoming a global leader in artificial intelligence (AI) by 2030 and its potential implications for international power structures. Through a detailed analysis of policy documents and case studies, the study highlights how China's AI strategy is poised to transform its economic, military, and geopolitical stature. By prioritizing AI research and development, fostering public-private partnerships, and implementing comprehensive educational reforms, China aims to catalyze innovations that could underpin future technological supremacy. The article assesses the potential outcomes of China's AI ascendancy, including shifts in global economic power, advancements in military capabilities, and the redefinition of international alliances. The article concludes by offering insights into how other nations might respond to China's growing influence in AI and suggests pathways for international collaboration and regulation.

This paper examines the relationships between higher education institutions in the People’s Republic of China and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries in the era of a multipolar world. It explores the role of these partnerships in educational diplomacy, economic diversification, institutional capacity development and regional positioning. The study is a qualitative, document-based research study that analyzes official policy documents, institutional reports, university announcements, partnership information published on the internet, descriptive secondary data, and selected case examples of China-GCC higher education initiatives. The results indicated that China-GCC collaboration can help reshape the academic and geopolitical environment of the GCC region by providing an opportunity for research collaboration, offering support for technology-oriented education programs, and introducing China as another academic partner in addition to Western countries. The study also reveals that these partnerships dovetail into China’s Belt and Road initiative and the national development strategies of the GCC countries with emphasis on innovation, human capital development, and economic diversification. This paper focuses on the relationship between higher education and international relations to account for the potential of education cooperation as a soft power tool, as an engagement through institutions, and as a regional diversification in the current international context.

This article examines China's ambitious blueprint for becoming a global leader in artificial intelligence (AI) by 2030 and its potential implications for international power structures. Through a detailed analysis of policy documents and case studies, the study highlights how China's AI strategy is poised to transform its economic, military, and geopolitical stature. By prioritizing AI research and development, fostering public-private partnerships, and implementing comprehensive educational reforms, China aims to catalyze innovations that could underpin future technological supremacy. The article assesses the potential outcomes of China's AI ascendancy, including shifts in global economic power, advancements in military capabilities, and the redefinition of international alliances. The article concludes by offering insights into how other nations might respond to China's growing influence in AI and suggests pathways for international collaboration and regulation.

This special issue focuses on the Arab Spring and the growing interest of China in the Middle East through an interdisciplinary view of political philosophy, sociology, and anthropology. It transcends binaries, including East versus West, security versus economy, to examine how China practices its relationships to build order based on the ideas of he 和 (harmony), li 礼 (ritual propriety), ren 仁 (humaneness), and wangdao 王道 (humane rulership). Reborn civilizational concepts, such as the Belt and Road Initiative and mediation efforts that led to the Saudi–Iran Reconciliation Agreement, have fostered credibility, connectivity, and trade. This special issue aims to aid in understanding Middle Eastern security and development in the twenty-first century, as well as China's role as a world power.

The rapid evolution of technology has brought about significant shifts in education, marking the emergence of Education 5.0 as a pivotal moment in this transformation (Carayannis and Morawska-Jance...