The ANU-MacArthur Asia Security Initiative (ANU-MASI) Partnership

Events

Seminar: ‘Soft-core East Asia: Differentiated cooperation in an amorphous region’

Professor Douglas Webber, Professor of Political Science at INSEAD and International Visiting Fellow at the Monash European and EU Centre.

This lecture is part of the 'Asian Security seminar series', a joint initiative between the Department of International Relations and the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University. This seminar is being offered with the support of the MacArthur Foundation and the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence in Policing and Security (CEPS).

Abstract:
Scholars of East Asian international relations diverge over how politically integrated the region is; whether it is becoming politically more integrated, and to what extent the degree of political integration matters for regional peace and stability.

The argument of this paper is that East Asia has not become much more politically integrated in the last decade. What has developed is rather a pattern of differentiated cooperation distinguished by the central role occupied by ASEAN and the primacy among bilateral relationships of that between ASEAN and China within a region that remains both porous and amorphous.

These four main traits of contemporary East Asian regionalism may be attributable respectively to ASEAN’s status as a regional cooperation pioneer, its perceived harmlessness and the image it enjoys as an ‘honest broker’ among antagonistic regional big powers, to China’s rapid economic rise along with its relatively recent adoption of a positive attitude towards participation in regional organisations, to the continuing significance of external powers, notably the US, in regional affairs and to the concern of many regional states to hedge against an increasingly powerful China, about whose future intentions they remain uncertain.

This seminar is free and open to all. No RSVP is required. Download a flyer for this event » (PDF 0.47MB)

Friday, 23 October 2009: 2.00 – 3.30pm.
Lecture Theatre 2 (room 1.09), ground floor, Hedley Bull Centre (Building 130), Garran Road, ANU Campus.

Seminar: ‘The 'new' geopolitics of energy’

Emeritus Professor Stuart Harris, Department of International Relations, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies (RSPAS), ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, the Australian National University.

Biography:
Stuart Harris is an Emeritus Professor in the Department of International Relations, ANU College of Asia and the Pacific. He has previously held several senior government and academic positions, including as Director, Bureau of Agricultural Economics (1967-72); Senior Official, Department of Trade (1972-75); Director, Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, ANU (1982-82); and Head, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (1984-88). Professor Harris’ research interests include China’s international relations, especially with the US; Northeast Asian economic, political and strategic developments; US foreign policy; and Australian foreign policy. He is the author of numerous books and academic journal articles, including 'Institutionalizing Northeast Asia: The Energy Market', in Martina Timmermann and Jitsuo Tsuchiyama (eds), Institutionalizing Northeast Asia: Regional Steps Towards Global Governance, New York: United Nations University Press, 2008; 'Power and Order in Northeast Asia: A Review', Australian Journal of International Affairs, 62(2) 2008: 245–59; and, 'Economic Dimensions of Energy Security in the Asia-Pacific', in Michael Wesley (ed.), Energy Security in Asia, New York: Routledge, 2007 (co-author). His research focuses mainly on China's international relations, especially with the US; regional, notably Northeast Asian, economic, political and strategic developments; and US and Australian foreign policy.

Abstract:
The purpose of this seminar is, first, to remind ourselves of the importance of economic change and policies to geopolitics; and, second, to note various new dimensions to energy issues that I refer to as the ‘new’ geopolitics of energy. The reality that oil and natural gas are strategic commodities, as the US rejection, largely on nationalist and security grounds of the Chinese oil company (CNOOC)’s bid for Unocal, reminds us, is by no means new though it now has a new intensity.

We have increasingly accepted that you cannot, or at least should not, look at energy without looking at politics; my point here is to ask whether you can now look at international politics without looking at energy. While these new geopolitics may not lead to the dramatic events seen by some observers, there will undoubtedly be consequent and significant changes in the international system and the relations among major states in it including in the Asia-Pacific region.

This seminar is free and open to all. No RSVP is required. Download a flyer for this event » (PDF 0.2MB)

Thursday, 20 August 2009: 2.00 – 3.30pm.
Asia Pacific College of Diplomacy (APCD) Lecture Theatre (room 1.29), ground floor, Hedley Bull Centre (Building 130), Garran Road, ANU Campus.

Seminar: ‘The economic-security nexus and East Asian regionalism’

CEPS Visiting Scholar, T.J. Pempel, Professor of Political Science, Charles and Louise Travers Department of Political Science, UC Berkeley.

This lecture is part of the 'Asian Security seminar series', a joint initiative between the Department of International Relations and the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University. This seminar is being offered with the support of the MacArthur Foundation and the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence in Policing and Security (CEPS).

Biography:
Professor Pempel is renowned for his extensive work in the field of International Political Economy. His research focuses on comparative politics, Japanese political economy, and Asian regionalism. His most recent books include 'Crisis as Catalyst: Asia’s Dynamic Political Economy' (Cornell University Press, 2008), 'Remapping East Asia: The Construction of a Region' (Cornell University Press, 2005), and 'Beyond Bilateralism: U.S.-Japan Relations in the New Asia-Pacific' (Stanford University Press, 2004).

Abstract:
East Asia is becoming more regionalised. But it is doing so in fits and starts: two steps forward and one step back. At present, few Asian governments are bonded through an overarching regional vision; many are highly distrustful of one another; and the region evinces little of the sustained political leadership and conviction necessary to create the robust institutions that might deepen and regularise state-to-state cooperation across a range of complex issues. Yet even with its many halts and missteps, Asia has, beyond question, become a far more institutionally cohesive neighbourhood than it was one or two decades ago.

Commercial integration has been a powerful force in eroding some of Asia's walls of national insulation as cross-border production networks have forged a series of regional bridges leavening previously tight national economic boundaries and weaving a latticework of economic connections across large swaths of the region.

Economic globalisation has undoubtedly facilitated integration of large parts of the region. Nevertheless, particularly within East Asia, national governments have remained the ultimate repositories of power and the primary building blocks in international affairs. Territoriality and national governmental priorities continue to trump the forces of globalised economics. Regional governance continues to lag behind burgeoning corporate linkages. Nevertheless, East Asia’s national governments, as they seek to mediate the extremes of economic globalisation and to search for solutions to the growing number of intra-regional problems that defy solution by any single government, have come increasingly to define their self-interest as lying in greater cross-border cooperation through formal regional institutions. As a consequence, across the region, regional institutions have become increasingly utilised tools in the kits of still-sovereign governments.

Strikingly, even as regional ties have become more institutionalised, a marked imbalance continues between the steadily deepening connections in economics and finance and the much less robust bodies shaping events in the traditional security realm. To many who focus on security tensions, East Asian conditions suggest a region that, in the words of Aaron Friedberg (1993) is "ripe for rivalry." In contrast, however, economic linkages suggest a region "ripe for cooperation."

In this lecture, Professor Pempel will explore the nexus among rising regionalism, economic cooperation and security tensions. Key concerns will be the extent to which cooperation (or tensions) in one area spill over to others, making regional cooperation either easier or more problematic.

Thursday 30 July 2009: 1.30pm – 3.00pm. No RSVP required.
Asia Pacific College of Diplomacy (APCD) Lecture Theatre (room 1.29), ground floor, Hedley Bull Centre (Building 130), Garran Road, ANU Campus.

For enquiries please contact Dr Brendan Taylor, T: 6125.9928, E: brendan.taylor@anu.edu.au.

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