RSIS Webinar Series on Post-Pandemic Multilateralism and Diplomacy

Abstract

While great power competition was already on the rise, the insertion of COVID-19 into an already tense mix introduced new dynamics, both in terms of risks of antagonism as well as opportunities for cooperation. This panel seeks to explore questions such as: To what extent has the pandemic impacted great power relations, changed the power balance, reinforced trends, or created new fault lines? Has COVID-19 advanced China’s regional leadership role in Asia? Has COVID-19 harmed America’s Indo-Pacific plans, and how will a new President Biden change U.S. policy towards multilateralism in Asia? What kind of multilateralism could replace the version that so many lost faith in before COVID-19?

About the Speakers

Beverley Loke is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in International Relations at the University of Exeter, UK. Her research interests include great power responsibility, hegemony, global order, Chinese foreign policy, and the international relations of the Asia-Pacific. She has published in journals such as the European Journal of International Relations, International Studies Review, The Pacific Review, and Asian Security.

Gao Jian is the Senior Researcher and Secretary General of Shanghai Academy of Global Governance and Area Studies at Shanghai International Studies University. He also holds the position of Director of the Centre of British Studies and the Centre of Sino-Britain People-to-people Dialogue, and Director of the Centre for European Studies at Shanghai International Studies University. His primary academic interest lies in Comparative Cultural Studies, Chinese and World Intellectual History and International Strategic Studies. He is the distinguished researcher of China Forum by Tsing Hua University and Honourable Expert of the Committee of Oriental Think Tank by Shanghai Oriental Media Group. Professor Gao is a renowned columnist for varied medias domestic and abroad.                                                                                    

Brad Glosserman is Deputy Director of and Visiting Professor at the Center for Rule-making Strategies, Tama University. He is also a Senior Adviser (nonresident) at Pacific Forum, in Honolulu Hi, where he served for 13 years (2004-2017) as executive director.

Brad is the author of Peak Japan: The End of Grand Ambitions (Georgetown University Press, 2019; a Korean edition was released in 2020 by Korean Copyright Center) and co-author (with Scott Snyder) of The Japan-South Korea Identity Clash (Columbia University Press 2015). He is the editor, with Tae-hyo Kim, of The Future of U.S.-Korea-Japan Relations: Balancing Values and Interests (CSIS, 2004). He is also the English-language editor of the journal of the New Asia Research Institute (NARI) in Seoul. A frequent participant in US State Department visiting lecture programs and the US Navy’s Regional Security Education Program, he speaks at conferences, research institutes and universities around the world. His commentary regularly appears in media around the globe. He has written dozens of monographs and articles on US foreign policy and Asian security relations and he has contributed numerous chapters to books on regional security.

He was for 10 years a member of the editorial board of The Japan Times and continues to serve as a contributing editor. He now writes a weekly column on foreign policy and international affairs for the paper.

He is an adjunct lecturer at the Management Center of Innsbruck (MCI). He has a JD from the George Washington University National Law Center, an MA from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a BA from Reed College.