The Research Division Asia concentrates on the interrelationship between domestic transformation processes, foreign and security policy in southern and Pacific Asia, and their global ramifications.

The main emphasis is on analysing cooperation and competition in the security complexes of southern Asia, Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia and specific hotspots in Kashmir, Afghanistan, Indonesia and the Taiwan Strait, and on the Korean Peninsula.

The Berlin Conference on Asian Security (BCAS) facilitates an exchange of information and views among Asian, American, and European scholars and officials on Asian Pacific security issues.

Together with the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies the Asia Division organizes an annual second track dialogue on »Sino-European Relations and Cross-Strait Relations«.