Tuesday November 2nd, 6.30 to 7.30pm

LLC Commons Room, Webster University Geneva

(mandatory for in person & online participants)

Hybrid Event:

- Come to our campus located Route de Collex 9, 1293 Bellevue (Please note that if you wish to attend the event in person, it is mandatory to present an ID matching a valid COVID Certificate with QR code to enter the room)
- Watch the event on Zoom and submit Q&A questions (link shared with registered participants)

Speakers:

The Webster Geneva Global Dialogue (WGGD) conference series brings together three prominent experts to discuss the rise of China and its impacts on the US foreign policy in the Indo-Pacific:
 

Bonnie S. Glaser is director of the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, nonresident fellow with the Lowy Institute in Sydney and senior associate with the Pacific Forum. She was previously senior adviser for Asia and the director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. For more than three decades, she has worked at the intersection of Asia-Pacific geopolitics and US policy.

Michiel Foulon is a Senior Researcher on US grand strategy towards China, its implications for European strategy, and International Relations Theory with a focus on neoclassical realism at the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich. In September he co-edited a report on “The Future of European Strategy in a Changing Geopolitical Environment: Challenges and Prospects” at The Hague Center for Strategy Studies (link), and he is currently finalizing his book on US grand strategy towards China during 1991-2020.

Kazushige Kobayashi is a Visiting Lecturer at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, and a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Graduate Institute's Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding. His current research focuses on global IR theory, peacebuilding/conflict management, and the role of non-Western powers (especially Russia, Japan, and China) in the transformation of international orders.

 

Moderator: Lionel Fatton is Assistant Professor of International Relations at Webster University Geneva and Research Collaborator at the Research Institute for the History of Global Arms Transfer, Meiji University, Tokyo.

Synopsis:

Amidst China’s continued military and economic rise and growing assertiveness, new US-led regional groupings are emerging and institutionalizing. AUKUS between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, and the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) between the latter, Australia, Japan and India, are examples of a new type of security partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region. Differing from Cold War-era alliances between Washington, on the one hand, and Asian countries (e.g. Japan, South Korea, the Philippines), on the other, these new partnerships are minilateral, multifunctional and flexible in nature and do not imply pledges of military support in case of armed attacks on member states. A new regional security architecture seems to be materializing.

In its first iteration, the Webster Geneva Global Dialogue (WGGD) conference series brings together three prominent experts to discuss the rise of China and its impacts on the US foreign policy in the Indo-Pacific. Central questions that will guide the debate include: What explains the shape of these new regional partnerships; is it the multidimensional nature of the Chinese threat, or the reluctance of countries to frontally oppose the economic powerhouse? Are traditional security alliances in the Indo-Pacific outdated relics? Should we expect these new partnerships to expand and involve “like-minded countries” such as South Korea, France and Vietnam? Are these partnerships an early sign of a “new Cold War,” in the sense of a bipolar decoupling, between the United States and China?