RSIS Seminar by Professor Evelyn Goh, Ngee Ann Kongsi Professor of International Relations, RSIS; and Shedden Professor of Strategic Policy Studies, and Director of Research, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University

Seminar Abstract

Order in modern East Asia has ultimately depended upon China and Japan, and it will continue to be so going forward. These two indigenous regional great powers must find ways to manage their differences and to coexist peacefully for regional stability to ensue in the medium- to long-term. In the contemporary context, numerous obstacles seem to stand in the way of Sino-Japanese reconciliation and cooperation. These range from balance of power politics, to territorial disputes, to normative contestation over war memories – all fuelled by a potent mix of insecurity, rising nationalism, and unsettling processes of political-economic transformation within both countries. Furthermore, the challenge is not simply a bilateral one: Japan and China operate within a regional order that continues to be deeply penetrated by global forces, interests and institutions. Thus they also have to deal with and often through third parties, primarily the United States. But Japan and China will need to negotiate a new great power bargain between themselves and with other key states in East Asia, for regional security and stability to prevail. This seminat examines four scenarios, all of which require Beijing and Tokyo to negotiate a new great power bargain directly with each other for the first time in living memory.

About the Speaker

Evelyn Goh is the Shedden Professor of Strategic Policy Studies at the Australian National University, where she is also the Director of Research at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre. Her expertise is Asian security and international relations, in theory and practice. She is internationally known as a scholar who uniquely combines empirical rigour and theoretical innovation. She is a regional expert in the sense that she studies China, the U.S., Northeast and Southeast Asia.

Professor Goh has published widely on U.S.-China diplomatic history and contemporary strategic relations; East Asian security cooperation and institutions; Southeast Asian strategies towards great powers; and environmental security. Her key publications include The Struggle for Order: Hegemony, Hierarchy and Transition in Post-Cold War East Asia (Oxford University Press, 2013); ‘Great Powers and Hierarchical Order in Southeast Asia: Analyzing Regional Security Strategies’ in the leading academic journal International Security (Winter 2007/8); and Constructing the US-China Rapprochement, 1961-1974 (Cambridge University Press, 2005). Most recently, she edited Rising China’s Influence in Developing Asia (Oxford University Press, 2016). She is currently finalising a book manuscript on Re-thinking Sino-Japanese Alienation (co-authored with Barry Buzan).

Evelyn moved to Australia in August 2013, and has held previous faculty positions at Royal Holloway University of London; the University of Oxford; and the Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. She holds Masters (1999) and Doctoral (2001) degrees in International Relations and an undergraduate degree in Geography (1996), all from the University of Oxford. She also obtained a Masters in Environment & Development from Cambridge (1997). She is Singaporean, and received a President’s Scholarship in 1993.