Alan Chong is Senior Fellow at the Centre for Multilateralism Studies within the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) in Singapore. He has published widely on the notion of soft power and the role of ideas in constructing the international relations of Singapore and Asia. This has stemmed from his doctoral work on soft power in the early 2000s. These ideational angles have also led to inquiry into some aspects of ‘non-traditional security’ issues in Asia. His publications have appeared in The Pacific Review; Contemporary Southeast Asia; South East Asia Research; Cambridge Review of International Affairs; Armed Forces and Society; Journal of Strategic Studies; Global Studies Quarterly, Geopolitics, and the Review of International Studies. He has also edited the book International Security in the Asia-Pacific: Transcending ASEAN towards Transitional Polycentrism (Palgrave, 2018), and served as co-editor (with Quang Minh Pham) of Critical Reflections on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (Cham: Springer Nature under the imprint of Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). In 2023, he co-edited with Nicole Jenne, under the Bristol University Press imprint a book titled Asian Military Evolutions: Civil-Military Relations in Asia. His interest in soft power has also led to inquiry into the sociological and philosophical foundations of international communication. This culminated in the publication of The International Politics of Communication: Representing Community in a Globalizing World (University of Michigan Press, 2025). Alan Chong can be contacted at: [email protected]

• International Relations Theorizing of Southeast Asia
• Foreign Policy, Political Economy and Political Thought of Singapore
• Post-1945 Southeast Asian Political Thought
• Soft Power and International Communication
• Cybersecurity in Asia

• Research Officer, Ministry of Defence, Singapore, 1994-1995
• Research Assistant, then Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew, 1995-1998
• Senior Tutor, Department of Political Science, National University of Singapore, 1996-2002
• Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, National University of Singapore, 2002-2009
• Affiliated Faculty, SAF-NTU Academcy, Singapore, 2010-Present
• Occasional Lecturer, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, 2012-Present
• External Examiner, UNISIM, Department of Political Science, 2013-Present

RSIS Commentary Series

• Volodymyr Zelensky at Shangri-La: Strategising Candid Multilateralism

  04 June, 2024

• Remembering K. J. Ratnam: Indigenising Political Solutions and Structural Challenges in Postcolonial Southeast Asia

  15 March, 2024

• Armed Naval Multilateralism in the Red Sea

  18 January, 2024

• Fiery Climate Change Introduces Fresh Environmental Stewards

  04 October, 2023

• The Airstrike on Pazigyi – Time for ASEAN to Enlarge Humanitarian Protection

  05 May, 2023

• Global Warming: Rethinking International Relations

  22 July, 2021

• Germany and Indo-Pacific: Berlin’s ASEAN-Style Regionalism?

  20 November, 2020

• China-Taiwan Mask Diplomacy: Wooing Southeast Asia?

  08 May, 2020

• EU and ASEAN: In Common Disunity

  27 April, 2020

• Remembering Robert Mugabe: Hero or Despot?

  11 September, 2019

• CO18104 | A Tale of Two Endings

  22 June, 2018

• CO18101 | Trump-Kim Summit: The Razzmatazz of Public Diplomacy

  20 June, 2018

• CO18096 | S. Rajaratnam and Singapore’s Role

  12 June, 2018

• CO18090 | Pre-Summit Posturing: The Trump-Kim Manoeuvres

  31 May, 2018

• CO18034 | ‘Indo-Pacific’ vs ‘Asia-Pacific’: Contending Visions?

  28 February, 2018

• CO17207 | Trump and Southeast Asia: Portents of Transactional Diplomacy

  02 November, 2017

• CO17157 | Radicalisation of the Female Worker

  31 August, 2017

• CO17022 | Foreign Policy Lessons from the Terrex Episode

  02 February, 2017

• CO17020 | Frictions on the New Silk Road

  25 January, 2017

• CO17002 | Earthquakes and Environmental Refugees: Time for ‘Green’ Engineering

  03 January, 2017

• CO16197 | Resilience of the ASEAN Way: Consensual Diplomacy in Vientiane

  01 August, 2016

• CO16188 | The Singapore-KL High Speed Rail: Tracking the Challenges Ahead

  22 July, 2016

• CO16086 | Securing Singapore: Applying Biopolitics

  15 April, 2016

• CO15246 | Transboundary Pollution: Arrival of the Haze Refugee?

  16 November, 2015

• CO15066 | Lee Kuan Yew and Singapore’s Foreign Policy: A Productive Iconoclasm

  25 March, 2015

• CO13123 | America's Quest for a New Equilibrium with Asia: Pivoting to Surrogacy?

  03 July, 2013

• CO13030 | Norodom Sihanouk: His Mercurial Art of Preserving a Small State

  14 February, 2013

• CO12214 | Breaking Up is Hard to Do: ASEAN and the South China Sea

  30 November, 2012

• CO12078 | Asian Diplomatic Ambiguity – Calming the South China Sea?

  03 May, 2012

• CO12071 | Pyongyang’s Information Age Missile Diplomacy

  23 April, 2012

• CO11095 | Framing Cyber Warfare: Between Offence and Defence

  28 June, 2011

• CO10164 | The Real Lesson of Wikileaks: Virtues of Diplomatic Confidentiality

  03 December, 2010

• CO10008 | Lessons from the Haiti Earthquake: Protecting Small States

  21 January, 2010

Books

• Forward Engagement: RSIS as a Think Tank of International Studies and Security in the Asia-Pacific

  01 February, 2017

Authored Books

• The International Politics of Communication: Representing Community in a Globalizing World. .: University of Michigan Press, 2025
• Chong, Alan. Foreign Policy in Global information Space: Actualizing Soft Power. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, May 2007.

Journal Articles

• “Climate Change as Spatial Change: Impetus to Rethink State Obligations and Embrace Supra-Sovereign Knowledge” in Geopolitics, 2023
• “Economic Security in Southeast Asia: An Introduction” in Asian Journal of Comparative Politics, Vol. 7, No. 1, 2022, pp. 3-9
• “The Cosmopolitan Silk Road Worldview: Developing an Interfaith Ethic of Hospitality in Ancient Buddhist and Christian Writings” in Global Studies Quarterly, Vol. 2, No. 1, 2022, pp.1-11
• “Hegemonic Distortions: The Securitisation of the Insurgency in Thailand’s Deep South” (with Nicole Jenne, and Chang Jun Yan) in TRaNS: Trans-Regional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia, 7, 2, 2019. pp. 209-232
• “Developmental Railpolitics: The Political Economy of China’s High-Speed Rail Projects in Thailand and Indonesia” (with Wu Shang-Su) in Contemporary Southeast Asia, Vol. 40, No. 3, 2018. pp. 503-526
• “The International Politics of Air Disasters: Lessons for Aviation Disaster Governance from Asia, 2014-2015” (with Chang Jun Yan) in Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 31, 3-4, 2018. pp. 249-271
• Chong, Alan; Samuel Chan. "Militarizing civilians in Singapore: preparing for 'Crisis' within a calibrated nationalism", The Pacific Review, published online 07 November 2016, doi:10.1080/09512748.2016.1249906.
• Chong, Alan. "An Unfinished ‘Diplomacy of Encounter’ – Asia and the West 1500–2015", Japanese Journal of Political Science, Volume 17, Issue 2, June 2016.
• “Security Competition by Proxy: Asia Pacific Interstate Rivalry in the Aftermath of the MH370 Incident” (with Chang Jun Yan) in Global Change, Peace & Security, 28, 1, 2016. pp. 75-98
• Chong, Alan. “Smart Power and Military Force: An Introduction,” Journal of Strategic Studies 38:3 (2015): 233-244.
• Chong, Alan; K.S. Balakrishnan. “intellectual Iconoclasm as Modernizing Foreign Policy: the Cases of Mahathir bin Mohamed and Lee Kuan Yew”, The Pacific Review, forthcoming December 2014.
• Chong, Alan. “The Catholic Church in International Politics’, E-International Relations: the World’s Leading Website for Students of International Politics, 14 November 2014; available at: http://www.e-ir.info/2013/11/14/the-catholic-church-in-International-politics/.
• Chong, Alan; Ong Weichong. “Waging ‘Small Wars’ in the New Millennium: Chameleonic Missions and Virtual Aggression—An introduction”, Armed Forces and Society, 40(1), 2014, pp. 3-16.
• Chong, Alan. “information Warfare? The Case for an Asian Perspective on information Operations”, Armed Forces and Society, published online before print May 9, 2013, doi: 10.1177/0095327X13483444.
• Chong, Alan. “Pre-Modern Southeast Asia as a Guide to International Relations between Peoples: Prowess and Prestige in ‘inter-Societal Relations” in the Sejarah Melayu”, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 87(2), 2012, pp. 87-105.
• Chong, Alan; Jodok Troy. “A Universal Sacred Mission and the Universal Secular Organization: The Holy See and the United Nations”, Politics, Religion and Ideology, 12(3), 2011, pp. 335-354.
• Chong, Alan; Matthias Maass. “introduction: the Foreign Policy Power of Small States”, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 23(3), 2010, pp. 381-382.
• Chong, Alan. “Small State Soft Power Strategies: Virtual Enlargement in the Cases of the Vatican City State and Singapore”, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 23(3), 2010, pp. 383-405.
• Tan, See Seng, and Alan Chong. 2009. “Teaching International Relations in Singapore 1956–2008: From Supporting Development to Global City Aspirations?” International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 9:19–54.
• Chong, Alan; Natasha Hamilton-Hart. “Teaching International Relations in Southeast Asia: Historical Memory, Academic Context, and Politics – An introduction”, International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, 9(1), 2009, pp. 1-18.
• Chong, Alan; Tan See Seng. “Teaching International Relations in Singapore 1956-2008: from Supporting Development to Global City Aspirations?”, International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, 9(1), 2009, pp. 19-54.
• Chong, Alan. “Asian Contributions on Democratic Dignity and Responsibility: Rizal, Sukarno and Lee on Guided Democracy”, East Asia: an International Quarterly, 25(3), 2008, pp. 243-265.
• Chong, Alan. “Singapore’s Political Economy 1997-2007: Strategizing Economic Assurance for Globalization”, Asian Survey, 47(6), 2007, pp. 952-976.
• Chong, Alan. “Southeast Asia: Theory between Modernization and Tradition”; “Special Issue on Asian International Relations Theory”, International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, 7(3), 2007, pp. 391-425. Reprinted in See Seng Tan (ed.), Regionalism in Asia, (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009), a compendium of essential scholarship on Asian regionalism. Also, republished with minor embellishments as Chapter 6 in Amitav Acharya and Barry Buzan (ed.), Non-Western International Relations Theory. Perspectives On and Beyond Asia (Abingdon: Routledge, 2010).
• Chong, Alan. “Lessons in International Communication: Carr, Angell and Lippmann on Human Nature, Public Opinion and Leadership”, Review of International Studies, 33(4), 2007, pp. 615-635.
• Chong, Alan. “Singapore’s Foreign Policy Beliefs as ‘Abridged Realism’: Pragmatic and Liberal Prefixes in the Foreign Policy Thought of Rajaratnam, Lee, Koh and Mahbubani”, International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, 6(2), 2006, pp. 269-306.
• Chong, Alan. “Classical Realism and the Tension between Sovereignty and intervention: Constructions of Expediency from Machiavelli, Hobbes and Bodin”, Journal of International Relations and Development, 8(3), 2005, pp. 257-286.
• Chong, Alan. “Singaporean Foreign Policy and the Asian Values Debate, 1992-2000: Reflections on an Experiment in Soft Power”, The Pacific Review, 17(1), 2004, pp. 95-133.
• Chong, Alan. “The Post-International Challenge to Foreign Policy: Signposting “Plus Non-State” Politics”, Review of International Studies, 28(4), 2002, pp. 783-795.
• Chong, Alan. “Analysing Singapore’s Foreign Policy in the 1990s and Beyond: Limitations of the Small State Approach”, Asian Journal of Political Science, 6(1), 1998, pp. 95-119.

Edited Books / Special Issues

• Asian Military Evolutions: Civil-Military Relations in Asia (with Nicole Jenne), Eds. United Kingdom: Bristol University Press, 2023
• Critical Reflections on China’s Belt & Road Initiative (with Minh Pham Quang), Eds. : Palgrave Macmillan, 2020
• Chong, Alan; Faizal bin Yahya, (eds.) State, Society and information Technology in Asia: Alterity between Online and Offline Politics. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing, forthcoming September 2014.

Chapters in Edited Books

• Chong, Alan. “Non-State Actors and Soft Power”, in Math Noortmann, August Reinisch, Cedric Ryngaert (eds.), Non-State Actors in International Law, pp. 323-344. Oxford: Hart Publishing, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015.
  
• Chong, Alan. “Arab Uprisings' Contagion: Electronic Vicariousness and Democratic Empathy in Malaysia and Singapore” in Amin Saikal and Amitav Acharya (eds.), Democracy and Reform in the Middle East and Asia: Social Protest and Authoritarian Rule after the Arab Spring, pp. 203-232. London: I.B. Tauris and Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
• Chong, Alan. “Small State Security in Asia: Political and Temporal Constructions of Vulnerability”, in Clive Archer, Alyson J.K. Bailes and Anders Wivel (eds.), Small States and International Security: Europe and Beyond (Routledge Advances in International Relations and Global Politics), pp. 202-222. Abingdon: Routledge, 2014.
• Chong, Alan. “The State has a Mind: Alexander Wendt’s Social Theory of International Politics”, in Henrik Bliddal, Casper Sylvest, and Peter Wilson (eds.), Classics of International Relations: Essays in Appreciation and Criticism, pp. 218-229. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013.
• Chong, Alan. “Disciplining Globalization for Local Purposes? The Peculiarity of Contending Singaporean Economic Nationalisms” in Anthony D’Costa (ed.), Economic Nationalism in Asia, pp. 177-201. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
• Chong, Alan. “Singapore’s Encounter with information Warfare: Filtering Electronic Globalization and Military Enhancements” in Daniel Ventre (ed.), Cyber Conflict: National Perspectives, pp. 223-250. London: ISTE and John Wiley, 2012.
• Chong, Alan. “A Society of the Weak, the Medium and the Great: Southeast Asia’s Lessons in Building Soft Community among States” in Alexander Astrov (ed.), The Great Power (mis)Management: The Russian–Georgian War and its Implications for Global Political Order, pp. 135-158. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011.
• Chong, Alan. “Goh Chok Tong the Multilateralist” in Bridget Welsh, James Chin, Arun Mahizhnan and Tan Tarn How (eds.), Impressions of the Goh Chok Tong Years in Singapore, pp. 128-134. Singapore: NUS Press and institute of Policy Studies, 2009.
• Chong, Alan. “Singapore and the Soft Power Experience” in Andrew F. Cooper and Timothy M. Shaw (eds.), The Diplomacies of Small States: Between Vulnerability and Resilience, pp. 65-80. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Reprinted in 2013.
• Chong, Alan. “Singapore’s Relations with Taiwan 1965-2005: from Cold War Coalition to Friendship under Beijing’s Veto” in Ho Khai Leong and Hou Kok Chung (eds.), Ensuring interests: the Dynamics of China-Taiwan Relations and Southeast Asia, pp. 177-200. Kuala Lumpur: institute of China Studies & University of Malaya, 2006.
• Chong, Alan. “Michael Leifer and the Security of Southeast Asia’s Maritime Thoroughfares”, in Joseph Chinyong Liow and Ralf Emmers (eds.), Order and Security in Southeast Asia: Essays in Memory of Michael Leifer, pp. 127-140. London: Routledge Curzon, 2005.
• Chong, Alan. “Southeast Asian Regionalism and Identity in the Early Twenty-First Century: A Sceptical Perspective” in Park Sa-Myung and Supachai Yavaprabhas (eds.), Regional Cooperation and Identity Building in East Asia. in the Age of Post-Cold War Globalization, pp. 56-76. Seoul: Korean Association of Southeast Asian Studies in conjunction with ASEAN University Network and the Tradition and Modernity Publisher, 2003.
• Chong, Alan. “Globalised Political Anxiety” in Yap Mui Teng (ed.), Singapore Perspectives 2003, pp. 45-59. Singapore: IPS/Eastern Universities Press, 2003.

Working Papers

• Chong, Alan; Jana Valencic, (eds.) The Image, the State and International Relations. Proceedings from the conference on 24 June 1999 at the London School of Economics and Political Science – Selected Papers, intro. Professor Christopher Hill, European Foreign Policy Unit Working Papers No.2001/2. London: Department of International Relations, London School of Economics and Political Science, 2001.

Op-Eds

• “Taylor Swift’s Singapore shows reveal stiff competition for live concerts by A-list stars”, The Straits Times, 6 March 2024
• “Hyper-Surveillance under COVID-19” (with Tamara Nair), East Asia Forum, 4 July 2020
• “Cruise control? Securitizing luxury cruise ships in times of coronavirus” (with Wu Shang-Su), The Jakarta Post, 29 February 2020
• “Ukraine Crash, Global Aviation Governance” (with Chang Jun Yan), The Jakarta Post, 22 January 2020
• “MH370 Report is a Much Needed ‘Wake-up Call’” (with Chang Jun Yan), Bangkok Post, 27 August 2018
• “Global Aviation Needs Stronger Governance” (with Chang Jun Yan), Today, 19 February 2016
• Chew, Emrys; Alan Chong. “Mandela: A Legacy for Asia?”, Today (23 December 2013); also published in The Malaysian Insider, Rediff Realtime News, and Interceder.Net..
• Chew, Emrys; Alan Chong. “U.S.-Southeast Asia Ties: The Necessity of Cultivating Surrogates”, in a special issue dedicated to ‘The U.S. Pivot to Asia: Perceptions Abroad’, The National Strategy Forum Review, 22:2 (Spring 2013).
• Chew, Emrys; Alan Chong. “Norodom Sihanouk: His Mercurial Art of Preserving a Small State”, RSIS Commentaries, No. 030/2013 (14 February 2013), published subsequently in KI Media (20 February 2013) and Eurasia Review (20 February 2013); then repackaged as ‘The Chameleon King Who Preserved His Small Kingdom’, The Nation (22 February 2013)
• Chew, Emrys; Alan Chong. “Breaking Up is Hard To Do: ASEAN and the South China Sea”, RSIS Commentaries, No. 214/2012 (30 November 2012), published subsequently in The Nation (3 December 2012).
• Chew, Emrys; Alan Chong. “Ambiguity Offers Diversion from Nationalism in South China Sea”, Global Times (3 July 2012); reprinted in Peoples Daily Online, Eurasia Review and Observerindia.com.
• Chew, Emrys; Alan Chong. “Asian Diplomatic Ambiguity – Calming the South China Sea?” RSIS Commentaries, No. 078/2012 (3 May 2012), published subsequently in the Weekly Maritime News Survey, Strategic Research Department, Center for Naval Warfare Studies, U.S. Naval War College (4 May 2012); Eurasia Review (8 May 2012); Asia Pacific News Network (8 May 2012).

• IR6029 Foreign Policy Analysis
• IR6025 Global Governance
• IR6031 International Politics of Communication