Southeast Asia in 2030: The Future of Intermestic Relations

Описание: The fourth installment in a special event series on the occasion of Shorenstein APARC's 40th Anniversary, "Asia in 2030, APARC@40"

2023 marks the 40th anniversary of APARC. Four decades ago, in 1983, the repercussions of Vietnam's 1978 invasion of Cambodia and China's 1979 invasion of Vietnam were still underway. Those intermestic wars interactively implicated both international and domestic relations. Interstate relations in Southeast Asia have been essentially peaceful ever since, despite some domestic conflicts, as in Myanmar now — but will they remain so?

Join the Southeast Asia Program at APARC’s 40th Anniversary for an expert panel discussion examining this and a host of other questions. Will ASEAN thrive, or merely survive? Will ASEAN's ten countries together constitute the world's fourth-largest economy by 2030 — below the United States, China, and the EU, but above Japan — as predicted by Singapore's prime minister and others? Will ASEAN refuse to choose between the United States and China? Or choose them both? Or somehow choose itself instead? And what would each scenario mean Will minilateralism erode ASEAN's centrality?

Moreover, will the differences between mainland and maritime Southeast Asia split the region into respectively Sinic and Pacific spheres of influence? Is the Indo-Pacific concept dead in the water or gaining ground? Will disinformation fed by social media speed autocratization? How would that matter for foreign policy? Will artificial intelligence help the region or hurt it, or both, and how? In the South China Sea, will the ASEAN claimants resolve their differences for the sake of unity against Beijing, or is it too late for that? How relevant to Southeast Asia's future are the futures of Taiwan and Ukraine likely to be? What are Southeast Asia's greatest strengths/weaknesses and opportunities/challenges going forward?

Speakers:

Richard Heydarian, Senior Lecturer, Asian Center, University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City, is a Manila-based scholar and columnist. His academic career has included professorial positions in political and social science at the University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila University, De La Salle University, and a visiting fellowship at National Chengchi University.

Elina Noor, Senior Fellow, Asia Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, DC. She has written and spoken widely on a range of matters related to Southeast Asia, including currently as a podcaster on Southeast Asia Radio (produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies).

Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Professor, Faculty of Political Science, and Senior Fellow, Institute of Security and International Studies, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok. While leading his university's Institute of Security and International Studies, he has written on Southeast Asia in books, journals, and media, including more than a thousand op-eds in local, regional, and global media outlets. His opinion pieces were commended for excellence by the Society of Publishers in Asia. He serves on the editorial boards of South East Asia Research, Asian Politics & Policy, and the Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs.

Moderator:

Don Emmerson, Director, Southeast Asia Program, Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), Stanford University