Previous Events at the East-West Center in Washington
April 26 Event: An Assertive China and Asia's Emerging Regional Order: The View from a Potentially Conflicted American Ally
It is widely recognized that Asia’s regional order is experiencing a period of flux due to the shifting fortunes and policies of the region’s major powers. Uncertainty about the future is widespread and a key driver of the recent increases in military spending across the region. Dr. Nick Bisley argued that while not entirely settled, many of the key components of Asia’s emerging order are already in place, most particularly the policies of the US and the PRC toward the region... Read more...
April 19 Event: Maintaining the Momentum: APEC in 2012
Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) received a substantial boost in recent years due to a renewed focus on securing tangible, concrete outcomes toward increased trade and investment flows and deeper regional economic integration. U.S. Senior Official for APEC, Ambassador Hans Klemm gave an overview of the history of APEC as an institution, its recent revitalization, and previewed what topics will be highlighted at the summit in 2012, while Assistant U.S. Trade Representative Wendy Cutler went over the accomplishments and lessons learned from last year when the U.S. hosted APEC. Read more...
March 26 Event: Pakistan Media Perspectives on US-Pakistan Relations
The US-Pakistan relationship is one that has been crucial to regional stability, yet as producer at Pakistan’s Geo News network, Shabbir Ahmed put it, US-Pakistan relations have never been stable. He described them like a rollercoaster “based on high expectations and low trust.” Ahmed was among four members of Pakistan’s media participating in the East-West Center’s Pakistan-United States Journalists Exchange Program who lead a discussion on this complex relationship while visiting Washington D.C. as part of their multi-city study tour of the United States. Read more...
March 5 Event: China or Japan: the Rivalry for the Economic and Strategic Leadership of Asia
The twenty-first century will doubtless be that of Asia, which by 2030 will be home to three of the world's mightiest economies, including India. According to a widely held view, Asia's future is already mapped out with the irresistible rise of China and the ineluctable decline of Japan, already eclipsed by China in 2010 as second-biggest economy. However, Dr. Claude Meyer warns that such a view is probably ill-advised, just as the notion of an unstoppable Japan proved to be in the 1980s. Read more...
March 2 Event: Human Rights in the Year of China’s Leadership Transition
2012 is the year of leadership transition in China; China’s President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao will “exit stage left” in the next 12 months. They will turn over the reins of power of the world’s second largest economy to their presumptive successors Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang. Drawing on Human Rights Watch’s wide body of work on human rights in China, Dr. Nicholas Bequelin and Phelim Kine asked what will be the human rights legacy of the Hu/Wen era? Read more...
March 1 Event: The Past, Present, and Future of the Fukushima Nuclear Crisis
Over the past fifty years, Japan has developed one of the most advanced commercial nuclear power programs in the world, largely due to the Japanese government’s broad repertoire of policy instruments that have helped further its nuclear power goals. By the 1990s, however, this carefully cultivated public support was beginning to break apart. Following the earthquake and tsunami of March 2011 and resulting nuclear crisis in the Fukushima nuclear complex, the political and social landscape for energy in Japan has been dramatically altered, Dr. Daniel Aldrich explained. Read more...
February 7 Event: Futenma Relocation: The View from Henoko
In 2006 the American and Japanese governments agreed to a base realignment plan to relocate the Marine Corp Air Station Futenma from its dangerous high-population location near Okinawa’s capital to the more remote Nago City to the North. Since then the local political situation in Nago has shifted against the relocation of the base to the city’s Henoko ward, as the base issue in Okinawa continues to be a point of contention between Naha, Tokyo, and Washington. Nago City mayor Susumu Inamine came to DC to explain that the majority of the citizens of his town are against the plan to build the replacement facility in Henoko, and that it has become a “grave” political and social issue. Read more...
January 30 Event:
Reforms, Regionalism, and Trade in China and India
In the world economy, still recovering in many regions from the effects of the 2008 financal crisis, China and India have emerged as Asia’s economic “giants.” With the PRC ahead in world trade due to manufacturing, and India leading in skill-intensive IT exports, Dr. Ganeshan Wignaraja, of the Asian Development Bank characterized the giants rise as “impressive,” but warned that many uncertainties lie ahead and how each country moves to meet them will determine their continued success in the future. Dr. Ganeshan was joined by Dr. Ellen Frost of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in a discussion on the economic strategies and aims of China and India. Read more...