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How does India navigate contested regional multilateral frameworks in the Asia‐Pacific? This question has important implications for India's multilateral foreign policy and diplomacy that seeks to emerge from regional to global power. The authors argue that India's foreign policy involves seeking institutional balancing and avoiding rising power dilemmas. Based on the conceptual framework of institutional balancing and rising power dilemma, the paper examines how seeking institutional balancing helps India advance its diplomatic prowess vis‐à‐vis rising China while simultaneously leveraging its multi‐alignment strategy against the United States. Furthermore, the paper discusses India's key priorities for avoiding the rising power dilemma, thus exhibiting its reluctance to conform to the US hegemony and addressing its internal and external dilemma concerning China. The evaluation suggests that India's foreign policy rationality navigates between obtaining comprehensive security and economic gains in dealing with contested regional multilateralism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops a theoretical framework on the conditions and mechanisms of informal governance in international organizations by a major power. It argues that the condition for informal governance is that the major power has favourable outside options, i.e. the alternatives that bring about considerable gains in the absence of cooperation, while other countries do not. When conditions are not in place, the major power is unable to exert informal influence. Based on the theoretical lens of the conditions and mechanisms of informal governance by major powers in international organizations, this article assesses China's influence in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). It finds that China's influence in the AIIB does not remain static. In the early years after the establishment of the AIIB, China was not in a position to exercise informal governance and did not demonstrate influence beyond the confines of the AIIB's formal rules. As the situation of outside options for European countries worsening and as China's outside options improving, China became well placed to implement informal governance. Under such circumstances, China's preferences are well reflected in the AIIB's decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's attitude towards the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) has evolved from resistance to acceptance with reservations. Having endorsed R2P, China reinterpreted the emerging norm and put forward four principles of implementing R2P, namely target state consent, regional consensus, non-coercive means or coercive means authorized by the UN Security Council, and no precedent-setting, which are followed when implementing R2P. This article explores China's change in attitude towards R2P and its different attitude on different R2P-related issues in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) as the key target area of R2P, arguing that the combination of socialization mechanism and localization mechanism explains a series of China's behaviours including its change of attitude towards R2P, reinterpretation of R2P and stance on implementing R2P on specific issues. Through examining the Darfur issue, the Libyan crisis and the Syrian crisis, the article demonstrates how China supports or opposes the implementation of R2P under the combined influence of socialization and localization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a complex multifactorial disease associated with the dysfunction of retinal pigment epithelium (RPE). Aloperine is a quinolizidine alkaloid that has been proven to possess broad pharmacological activities. However, the effects of aloperine on AMD remain unclear. In the present study, we used hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) to induce oxidative injury in human RPE cells (ARPE-19 cells). ARPE-19 cells were pretreated with different concentrations of aloperine for 2 h, followed by H2O2 exposure. Cell cytotoxicity was determined using lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) release assay. Cell viability was measured using Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) assay. The reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, malondialdehyde (MDA) level, superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-PX) activity were detected to reflect oxidative status. Western blot was performed to detect the expressions of bcl-2, bax, nuclear factor-erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2), and heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1). The activity of caspase-3 was also assessed to indicate cell apoptosis. In addition, ARPE-19 cells were transfected with siNrf2 to knock down Nrf2. Our results showed that pretreatment with aloperine elevated the reduced cell viability of H2O2-induced ARPE-19 cells in a dose-dependent manner. Aloperine greatly decreased the production of ROS and MDA, and increased the activities of SOD and GSH-PX in H2O2-stimulated ARPE-19 cells. H2O2-caused a decrease in bcl-2 expression and increases in bax expression and caspase-3 activity were mitigated by aloperine. Moreover, aloperine treatment enhanced the expression levels of Nrf2 in nuclear fraction and the HO-1 expression in lysates. Knockdown of Nrf2 reversed the protective effects of aloperine on H2O2-induced ARPE-19 cells. In conclusion, these findings demonstrated that aloperine protected ARPE-19 cells from H2O2-induced oxidative stress and apoptosis in part via activating the Nrf2/HO-1 signaling pathway. The findings suggested a therapeutic potential of aloperine for the treatment of ADM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]