Center for Non-traditional Security and Peaceful Development Studies (NTS-PD, Zhejiang University), together with Center for Regional Security Studies (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences ,CASS), Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies of S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS, Nanyang Technological University), and National Institute of International Strategy (NIIS, CASS), co-organized the NTS-Asia Annual Convention 2012-Policy Roundtable on Asian Non-traditional Security. More than 30 NTS researchers and experts from more than 10 Asian countries attended this convention.

RSIS director Mely Caballero-Anthony gave a welcoming remark. This convention centered on four sessions: ‘Climate Change, Environmental Security and Natural Disasters’, ‘Economic Crises and Human Security’, ‘Energy and Human Security’, and ‘Multilevel Approaches to Human Security and Conflict Management’.

Yunlin Zhang, Director of Academic Division of International Studies (CASS) gave a keynote speech on Facing New Challenges of NTS, putting forward those respective emerging challenges of NTS in global, regional and national level, and concluding that an institutionalized and sustainable NTS response system is badly needed in Asia. Dr. J. Jackson Ewing from RSIS explained the causal relation between environmental change and the large scale of population movement and proposed that in the context of Southeast Asia environmental change is the an overwhelming factor of causing mass movements of population. Maj. Gen. ANM Muniruzzaman, president of Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies (BIPSS, Dhaka, Bangladesh), applied sufficient facts and data to explain those security issues closely related with human security, such as environmental change, water security, food security, heath security, gender security and natural disasters. Dr. J. Soedradjad Djiwandono from RSIS took European debt crisis to explore how economic crisis effected human security. Daojiong Zha from Beijing University and former executive director of ASEAN Foundation and Development Specialist  Apichai Sunchindah(Thailand) respectively talked about energy security and Lancang - Mekong River governance. Professor Emeritus in Political Science at the University of the Philippines (Diliman) Carolina Hernandez, Professor of Department of Political Science（University of Dhaka, Bangladesh）Tasneem Siddiqui, researcher of Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS, Jakarta, Indonesia) Lina Alexandra and several other researchers shared their recent studies on human security, Myanmar's Rohingyas and R2P in this special occasion.

Director of NTS-PD Xiaofeng Yu delivered a speech on ‘Governing Non-traditional Security Crisis: A New Perspective’. He proposed a new analytical perspective- Non-traditional Security Crisis-to explain the new challenges of NTS in the 21st century. In addition, by the geographical origin of NTS, Yu categorized NTS into four types: endogenic NTS, exogenetic NTS, dual-genetic NTS, and Polygenetic NTS. He also took European debt crisis as a case to explain how to apply the ‘three-point’ model to govern NTS crisis. Doctoral student of NTS-PD Danzi Liao gave a speech on ‘Non-traditional Security Governance and Institutional Capacity Building of Chinese Civil Protection System’, arguing that both nations and human are facing new challenges of NTS threats during the past 10 years which could be described as more comprehensive, complex, dynamic, diversified, intertwined, and multilevel. A more efficient NTS governance system is highly needed. Chinese civil defense system has statutory responsibilities for assisting non-military threats and has its own structural advantages in conducting those ‘intertwined’ NTS issues. It should be a worthwhile approach to enhance NTS governance capacity by strengthening civil defense system. Those tentative ways might include enacting Civil Defense Law, building institutionalized civil-military interaction mechanism, and bettering civil defense service.

Finally, participants communicated with each other those recent researches and findings of their institutions, and discussed ways and plans to enhance future cooperation. Overall, the 2012 convention provided good opportunities to establish a well practicable NTS research networking in Asia. (from Danzi LIAO)