Handbook on Humanitarianism and Inequality - Chapter 29 - International humanitarianism in East Asia

January 20, 2026

Every two weeks I am going to feature one of the chapters of our Handbook on Humanitarianism and Inequality which was published in spring 2024.
This week we are taking a closer look at Chapter 29 - International humanitarianism in East Asia - contributed by Alistair D.B. Cook, Lina Gong and Oscar A. Gómez.

From the introduction
The aim of this chapter is to explore how humanitarianism is manifested in Asia to contribute an alternative approach and challenge the dominant understanding of humanitarianism. In describing this alternative approach, we highlight two principal observations.
First, regional institutions in East Asia play a buffer role in contesting international interventionism while benefiting and, indeed, depending on traditional international humanitarian resources for its functioning. This dependence however constrains how and to what extent East Asian countries can change the inequality in power in the global humanitarian system.
Second, the rise of strong national governments dealing with crises by themselves makes the disaster management cycle the main logic for action after crises, to which not only international humanitarians but also civil society need to adapt, blurring the artificial differentiation of humanitarianism and development (Gómez and Kawaguchi, 2018). The disaster management model centres around national government and illustrates a network of national, international, and non-state actors vying for access to decision-making, resource allocation, and financing, as illustrated in our cases of natural hazards, conflicts, and pandemics in Asia.
This investigation is shaped by our own individual and collective understandings of the humanitarian experience in Asia as scholars based in Southeast Asia and Japan for over a decade and with PhDs from universities in Australia, Singapore, and Japan. With the diversity of experience across Asia, this chapter focuses primarily on our experience in China, Japan, and Southeast Asia as the sites of humanitarianism under investigation. These cases illustrate humanitarianism in China as a significant emerging actor that broadly challenges the dominant status quo and offers insights into the direction that a powerful Asian country contributes to the international system. Japan offers insights into a developed Asian country with an active history of participation in the international humanitarian and development system, and Southeast Asia offers insights into the emergence of regional humanitarian action through the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) that both challenges and supports the international humanitarian and development system. It illustrates a system that is more fluid than dominant understandings allow.

Note on contributors
Alistair D.B. Cook is Coordinator of the Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme and Senior Fellow at the Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS Centre), S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore.
His research interests focus geographically on the Asia-Pacific, and Myanmar in particular, and thematically on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR), foreign policy, and regional cooperation.
Recent publications include co-edited books on Humanitarianism in the Asia-Pacific: Engaging the Debate in Policy and Practice (Springer, 2021) and Non-Traditional Security in the Asia-Pacific: A Decade of Perspectives (World Scientific, 2021) and articles in scholarly and policy publications.

Lina Gong is Assistant Professor in the Department of International Studies at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. Her research interests include humanitarian studies, global governance, and non-traditional security studies in East Asia.
Her recent publications include two journal special issues on Humanitarian Diplomacy in the Asia-Pacific, one co-edited book on Humanitarianism in the Asia-Pacific: Engaging the Debate in Policy and Practice (Springer, 2021), and one special journal issue Southeast Asian Non-traditional Security Engagement.

Oscar A. Gómez is associate professor at the College of Asia Pacific Studies, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University.
His main interest is in global governance and the practice of human security ideas, particularly in relation to crises. He was Research Fellow at Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Research Institute for five years and helped drafting several papers for UNDP Human Development Reports (2014, 2016, 2020, 2022). Recent publications include edited books and papers on human security and humanitarianism in East Asia and Latin America.