Archives & Recordings – Page 27 – Sigur Center for Asian Studies

9/10/18: The Great Australian China Debate: Issues and Implications for the United States and the World

August 27, 2018May 18, 2021Archives & Recordings1 Comment

Check out Prof. Rory Medcalf’s article on “Australia And China: understanding the reality check” in the link below!!

Monday, September 10, 2018
12:30 PM – 1:45 PM
Room 505
1957 E St. NW
Washington DC 20052

Australian navy on the waters

As China increasingly exerts its power around the world, one country has become an unlikely front line in the contest for influence: Australia. This country recently introduced tough laws against foreign interference and espionage, followed by a decision effectively to ban Chinese corporates from its 5G network. These actions have defined Australia’s position at the leading edge of a global trend to push back against the ‘sharp power’ of China’s Communist Party in influencing the internal affairs of other states.

In this public lecture, prominent Australian strategic analyst Rory Medcalf will examine this vital US ally’s new assertion of its interests and independence. He will position Australia’s China debate in the broader dynamic of strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific region and consider wider implications for the United States, allies and partners in managing Chinese power while avoiding both capitulation and conflict.

Light refreshments will be available.

About the Speaker:

Portrait of Rory Medcalf, head of the National security College

Professor Rory Medcalf is Head of the National Security College at the Australian National University in Canberra. He has led the College’s expansion to leverage its academic and training programs as a key think tank for futures analysis and policy contestability in Australia’s national security community. His career spans diplomacy, intelligence analysis, think tanks, academia and journalism. He was founding director of the international security program at the Lowy Institute and an adviser on Australia’s 2016 Defence White Paper. Professor Medcalf is known internationally as an early proponent of the increasingly influential Indo-Pacific concept of the Asian strategic environment. He is a Nonresident Senior Fellow with the Brookings Institution.

Moderator: Benjamin D. Hopkins is a specialist in modern South Asian history, in particular that of Afghanistan, as well as British imperialism. His research focuses on the role of the colonial state in creating the modern states inhabiting the region. His first book, The Making of Modern Afghanistan, examined the efforts of the British East India Company to construct an Afghan state in the early part of the nineteenth century and provides a corrective to the history of the so-called ‘Great Game.’ His second book, Fragments of the Afghan Frontier, co-authored with anthropologist Magnus Marsden, pairs a complex historical narrative with rich ethnographic detail to conceptualize the Afghan frontier as a collection of discrete fragments which create continually evolving collage of meaning.

brown book cover with photo of Japanese surrender in WWII; text: Memory, Identity, and Commemorations of World War II edited by Daqing Yang and Mike Mochizuki foreword by Akira Iriye

8/31/18: Book Launch: Memory, Identity, and Commemorations of World War II – Anniversary Politics in Asia Pacific

August 10, 2018May 14, 2021Archives & Recordings, New Books in Asian StudiesLeave a Comment

Friday, August 31, 2018
12:30 PM – 1:45 PM EDT
Lindner Commons – Room 602
1957 E St. NW
Washington DC 20052

Book cover of Memory Identity and Commemorations of WWII

Why do some governments and societies attach great significance to a particular anniversary year whereas others seem less inclined to do so? What motivates the orchestration of elaborate commemorative activities in some countries? What are they supposed to accomplish, for both domestic and international audience? In what ways do commemorations in Asia Pacific fit into the global memory culture of war commemoration? In what ways are these commemorations intertwined with current international politics?

This book presents the first large-scale analysis of how countries in the Asia Pacific and beyond commemorated the seventieth anniversaries of the end of World War II. Consisting of in-depth case studies of China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Singapore, the Philippines, United States, Russia, and Germany, this unique collective effort demonstrates how memories of the past as reflected in public commemorations and contemporary politics—both internal and international—profoundly affect each other.

About the Speakers:

Mike Mochizuki, pictured in professional attire

Dr. Mike Mochizuki holds the Japan-U.S. Relations Chair in Memory of Gaston Sigur at the Elliott School of International Affairs at The George Washington University. Dr. Mochizuki was director of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies from 2001 to 2005. He co-directs the “Memory and Reconciliation in the Asia-Pacific” research and policy project of the Sigur Center. Previously, he was a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He was also Co-Director of the Center for Asia-Pacific Policy at RAND and has taught at the University of Southern California and Yale University.

Daqing Yang, pictured in professional attire

Dr. Daqing Yang graduated from Nanjing University and received his Ph.D. from Harvard University. He specialized in the history of modern Japan. His research interests include the Japanese empire, technological developments in modern Japan, and the legacies of World War II in East Asia. In 2004, Dr. Yang was appointed a Historical Consultant to The Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group at the U.S. National Archives. Professor Yang is a founding co-director of the “Memory and Reconciliation in the Asia Pacific” program based in the Sigur Center for Asian Studies, and is currently working on a new project on postwar China-Japan reconciliation. He is the author of Technology of Empire: Telecommunications and Japanese Expansion in Asia, 1883-1945. He co-edited the following books: Historical Understanding that Transcend National Boundaries, which was published simultaneously in China and Japan; Rethinking Historical Injustice and Reconciliation in Northeast Asia; and Communications Under the Seas: The Evolving Cable Network and Its Implications.

Robert Sutter, pictured in professional attire

Dr. Robert Sutter is Professor of Practice of International Affairs at the Elliott School of George Washington University beginning in 2011. He also serves as the school’s Director, Program of Bachelor of Arts in International Affairs. A Ph.D. graduate in History and East Asian Languages from Harvard University, he has published 21 books, over 200 articles and several hundred government reports dealing with contemporary East Asian and Pacific countries and their relations with the United States. His most recent books are: Foreign Relations of the PRC: The Legacies and Constraints of China’s International Politics since 1949 (Rowman & Littlefield 2018); US-China Relations: Perilous Past, Uncertain Present (Rowman & Littlefield 2018); Chinese Foreign Relations: Power and Policy Since the Cold War (Rowman & Littlefield 2016); The United States and Asia: Regional Dynamics and 21st Century Relations (Rowman & Littlefield 2015). Professor Sutter’s government career (1968-2001) focused on Asian and Pacific affairs and US foreign policy.

Dr. Lily Gardner Feldman is currently the Harry & Helen Gray Senior Fellow at AICGS at Johns Hopkins University. She also directs the Institute’s Society, Culture & Politics Program. She has a PhD in Political Science from MIT. Dr. Gardner Feldman has published widely in the U.S. and Europe on German foreign policy, German-Jewish relations, international reconciliation, non-state entities as foreign policy players, and the EU as an international actor. Her latest publications are: Germany’s Foreign Policy of Reconciliation: From Enmity to Amity, 2014; “Die Bedeutung zivilgesellschaftlicher und staatlicher Institutionen: Zur Vielfalt und Komplexität von Versöhnung,” in Corine Defrance and Ulrich Pfeil, eds., Verständigung und Versöhnung, 2016; and “The Limits and Opportunities of Reconciliation with West Germany During the Cold War: A Comparative Analysis of France, Israel, Poland and Czechoslovakia” in Hideki Kan, ed., The Transformation of the Cold War and the History Problem, 2017 (in Japanese). Her work on Germany’s foreign policy of reconciliation has led to lecture tours in Japan and South Korea.

Dr. Christine Kim is Associate Professor of Teaching in the School of Foreign Service of Georgetown University. An historian by training, she teaches courses on modern Korea and East Asia at both the undergraduate and graduate levels; topics include comparative colonialisms, twentieth century conflicts, political symbolism, and film. Her research and writing focus on national identity, material culture, and political movements. The King Is Dead (forthcoming) explores the ways that colonization and modernization influenced Korean polity and identity during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She is also engaged in a study examining cultural heritage and arts management in Korea in the twentieth century. Kim is the recipient of numerous fellowships, including ones from the Department of Education (Fulbright-Hays), the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Korea Foundation, the Academy of Korean Studies, and the East-West Center.

historical photo of Taraknath Das with white border

8/29/18: Migration, Surveillance, and Inter-Imperial Spaces: Taraknath Das in North America, 1908–1925

August 9, 2018December 9, 2021Archives & RecordingsLeave a Comment

Wednesday, August 29, 2018
12:30 PM – 1:45 PM
Chung-wen Shih Conference Room
1957 E St. NW, Suite 503
Washington DC 20052

This event is free and open to the public and media.

black and white photo of Taraknath Das

“The Tyee: the Book of the Class of
1912″ Vol. X11, 1911 p.33

This discussion will consider the impact and significance of South Asians in U.S. and Canada borderlands in the early twentieth century, a period of rising global white supremacy and the “global color line,” through the experience of Taraknath Das, an itinerant nationalist and political activist. By considering the itinerary of Das in the first two decades of the twentieth century – from study in the Norwich military academy to service in the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in 1907-08, work with the Ghadar movement, arrest and conviction in the Hindu-German Conspiracy Trial of 1917-18, imprisonment in Leavenworth prison through 1919, and subsequent education and writings – this discussion will explore the nationalism of “expatriate patriots” as seen within the context of settler colonialism and the frontiers of expanding settler states. Finally, Dr. Bose will briefly comment on how a study of this topic advances discussions about the role of Asians in settler contexts, referencing recent debates in North America as well as the significance of Das, and his contemporaries, for a study of Indian nationalism.

Light refreshments will be available. This event is on the record and open to the media.

About the Speaker:

Headshot of Neilesh Bose in brown shirt Neilesh Bose is Assistant Professor of History and Canada Research Chair of Global and Comparative History at the University of Victoria in Victoria, BC, CANADA. Dr. Bose is an historian of modern South Asia with interests in colonialism and decolonization, settler colonialisms, migration, nationalism, literary history, and intellectual history. Published work includes the book Recasting the Region: Language, Culture, and Islam in Colonial Bengal (Oxford, 2014) as well as journal articles and review essays in Modern Asian Studies, the Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, and Modern Intellectual History, among others. Current work features a biography of Taraknath Das, the itinerant nationalist and activist (1884-1958) as well as a special edition of South Asian History and Culture about decolonization across East and West Bengal.

collage of four paintings by Ku Chin Yih

7/26/18: Taiwan Art Exhibition Opening Reception

July 17, 2018May 14, 2021Archives & RecordingsLeave a Comment

Art Exhibition Opening Reception:

Taiwan, A Beautiful Landscape

Thursday, July 26, 2018
4:30 PM – 6:30 PM
2nd Floor, Elliott School of International Affairs

1957 E St. NW, Washington, DC 20052

This event is co-sponsored with the Global Taiwan Institute, the Sigur Center for Asian Studies, the GW Department of East Asian Languages & Literatures, and the Elliott School of International Affairs. This event is free and open to the public and media.

Collage of four paintings

Event Description:

The Global Taiwan Institute, the Sigur Center for Asian Studies, the GW Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, and the Elliott School of International Affairs are pleased to present Taiwan, a Beautiful Landscape by Taiwanese artist Ku Chin Yi (Temi Minu) at the Elliott School of International Affairs. The art exhibit is part of GTI’s ongoing series of cultural programs, which are supported in part by Spotlight Taiwan, a project of Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture.

Doors for the opening reception will open at 4:30 pm and a tour of the exhibition by the artist will begin at 5:00 pm. Light snacks and refreshments will be provided. Please contact GTI Program Assistant Jonathan Lin (jlin@globaltaiwan.org) if you have questions or concerns.

The Exhibition:

Taiwan, a Beautiful Landscape depicts landscapes throughout various parts of Taiwan, with a focus including but not limited to the island’s diversity, architecture, culture, ecology, and humanities. Taiwan is about the size of the state of Maryland and Delaware, and has a diverse geological features ranging from mountains to plateaus to basins. Taiwanese artist Ku Chin Yi (Temi Minu) based his works on the element of ink wash painting, an East Asian type of black and white brush painting, combined with the addition of colors, perspectives and techniques of Western paintings. His style of Taiwanese modern color ink wash painting was developed in the early 1980s in Taiwan and has become a modern artistic style among contemporary artists. The opening reception on July 26 will include a guided tour of the paintings by the artist.

About the Artist:

Ku Chin Yi (Temi Minu) graduated with a MA in Fine Arts from National Taiwan Normal University in 2003, and has held several exhibitions in Taiwan including Kenting Impressions in 2010, Epitome of Kinmen in 2011, and the Current-Trend of Water-Ink Paintings in Taiwan in 2016. He is the principal of Bo Ai Elementary School in Taichung, Taiwan, and currently the Chairman of Taichung Creative Ink Wash Painting Association.

wind turbines in Taiwan at sunset, with silhouette of person taking pictures

7/24/18: Taiwan’s Energy Future

July 10, 2018May 12, 2021Archives & RecordingsLeave a Comment

Event Recording

Tuesday, July 24, 2018
12:30 PM – 1:30 PM
Lindner Family Commons – Room 602 (6th Floor)

Elliott School of International Affairs
1957 E St. NW, Washington, DC 20052

This event is co-sponsored with the Global Taiwan Institute. This event is free and open to the public and media.

Wind turbines in the sunset

Wind Turbines in Taichung, Taiwan, June 19, 2016. Image Credit: EPA/Ritchie B. Tongo

Event Description:

Climate change is as much an environmental issue as it is a national security concern for Taiwan. While Taiwan is not a member of the United Nations, its energy policies are guided by the Paris Climate Accord. Although Taiwan was not even among the top 10 countries for offshore wind in 2017, it is now leading the way in Asia through partnerships with several European companies, which see Taiwan as an entry to the Asian offshore wind power market.

Taiwan’s recent push towards renewable energy follows the 2011 Fukushima Disaster in Japan. In the aftermath of that disaster, public opinion in Taiwan shifted dramatically against the use of nuclear power due to its potential danger. President Tsai Ing-wen was elected into office in 2016 on a promise that Taiwan will become “nuclear-free” by 2025. Yet in 2017, the island experienced significant power outages that raised some doubts about the viability of the government’s ambitious plan for Taiwan’s energy future.

Please join the Global Taiwan Institute and co-sponsor, The Sigur Center for Asian Studies at George Washington University, on July 24th to explore the future of Taiwan’s energy. This event is the third installment of the Civil Society and Democracy Series, which is partially funded by the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy. The panelists will discuss Taiwan’s policy and opportunities in sustainable energy, how it will impact the Asia-Pacific region, and what it means for US interests.

Please direct questions or concerns to Global Taiwan Institute Program Associate Marzia Borsoi-Kelly.

** Media that would like to bring additional crew members or equipment, please contact Ms. Borsoi-Kelly directly.

Panelists

Wen-Yu Weng is a low-carbon energy and sustainability consultant. Currently based at the Carbon Trust in the UK, she delivers and designs low-carbon strategy and implementation projects in Southeast Asia, East Asia, the UK, and other European countries, working closely with local partners, governments, the private sector, and international organizations. She has particular interests in solar and wind energy, storage and grid issues, energy policy, circular economy, green finance, and the application of IT innovations for a low-carbon future. Outside her environmental consultancy and research work, Wen-Yu co-founded the Emerging Leaders Program at the Caux Dialogue on Land and Security in Switzerland, and is also the Co-founder of the non-profit Taiwan Debate Union. She received her M.Sc. in Environmental Policy from the University of Oxford, as well as a M.Sc. in Development Studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Clara Gillispie is the Senior Director of Trade, Economic, and Energy Affairs at the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR). Her subject-matter expertise focuses on shaping program and research agendas on energy security, trade and innovation policies, public health and the environment, and geopolitical trends in the Asia-Pacific. Prior to joining NBR in 2011, Ms. Gillispie served as a consultant for Detica Federal Inc. (now a part of BAE Systems), where she conducted program assessments and policy reviews for US government clients. She has also worked both at the US House Committee on Science, Technology, and Space and the American Chamber of Commerce in the People’s Republic of China. Ms. Gillispie graduated from the London School of Economics and Peking University with a dual M.Sc. in International Affairs. Prior to her graduate studies, Ms. Gillispie received a B.S. from Georgetown University and attended Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan, for language training.

Lotta Danielsson is the Vice President of the US-Taiwan Business Council. Lotta’s duties include membership retention and development, research on current Taiwan policy issues, and research to identify the needs of U.S. businesses in Taiwan. She oversees all member products and services, and manages the development of new value-added membership services. She also oversees all events and conferences, and she has planned the annual US-Taiwan Defense Industry Conference – which serves as an important platform for bilateral dialogue on Taiwan’s national security and defense needs – since its inception in 2002. As a student in the three-year International MBA program (Chinese Track) at the University of South Carolina, Lotta spent 19 months studying Mandarin Chinese in Taipei, Taiwan and in Beijing, China. Lotta also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from Georgia State University.

historical map of China's Qing Empire from around 1811 printed in blue ink

09/21/18: Historical Cartography in East Asia

July 6, 2018May 18, 2021Archives & RecordingsLeave a Comment

Friday, September 21, 2018
2:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Gelman Library

International Brotherhood of Teamsters Room, 702 (7th floor)
2130 H St NW, Washington, DC 20052

This event is co-sponsored with the GW Department of East Asian Languages & Literatures. This event is free and open to the public and media.

scroll with blue inking of a landscape

Complete Map of the Everlasting Unified Qing Empire (c. Da qing wannian yitong dili quantu), China, Qing Dynasty, Jiaqing period (1796-1820), ca. 1811, Eight-panel folding screen, wood block printed paper, blue on white, 112 x 249 cm., MacLean Collection[/caption]

Powerpoint Presentation

Maps are rich cultural objects presenting and transmitting information about time and place of production. This lecture will provide some of the particular practices and relationships between text and image in East Asian map making that are unique in world cartography. It will present, through comparison, certain similarities and distinctive differences in the representations of space, both real and imagined, in early modern cartographic traditions of China, Korea and Japan and will also examine the introduction and some unique integrations of European map making techniques into these traditions.

Speaker:

Dr. Richard A. Pegg (BA ’83 and MA ’90 in Chinese and Japanese language and literature, GW) is currently Director and Curator of Asian Art for the MacLean Collection, outside Chicago, and author of the book Cartographic Traditions in East Asian Maps (University of Hawai’I Press, 2017).

Night View of Taiwan President's Office with red tint at sunset

7/11/18: Taiwan’s Role in Countering CCP Political Warfare

June 29, 2018July 20, 2021Archives & RecordingsLeave a Comment

Wednesday, July 11, 2018
1:30 PM – 3:00 PM
Elliott School of International Affairs
**B12**
1957 E St. NW, Washington, DC 20052

This event is co-sponsored with the Global Taiwan Institute. This event is free and open to the public and media.

night view of taiwan presidential office building

Event Description:

The Trump administration’s 2017 National Security Strategy warned that adversaries “are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies.” Indeed, there is a growing consensus that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is currently engaged in a comprehensive coercive campaign that utilizes political warfare to influence and undermine democracies through coercive, corrupt, and covert means. The impact of China’s authoritarian influence is being felt throughout the world, but most visibly in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Czech Republic, United States, and Taiwan. To be clear, the government in Taiwan has the longest experience contending with CCP political warfare than any other governments. Consequently, Taipei’s counter-measures to this emerging challenge deserves careful study. Please join GTI and the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at the George Washington University on July 11 for a timely discussion with a panel of experts: Toshi Yoshihara (Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments), Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian (The Daily Beast), and Shanthi Kalathil (National Endowment for Democracy).

Please direct questions or concerns to Global Taiwan Institute Program Associate Marzia Borsoi-Kelly.

** Media that would like to bring additional crew members or equipment, please contact Ms. Borsoi-Kelly directly.

Panelists

Toshi Yoshihara is a Senior Fellow at CSBA. Previously he held the John A. van Beuren Chair of Asia-Pacific Studies at the U.S. Naval War College where he taught strategy for over a decade. He was also an affiliate member of the China Maritime Studies Institute at the War College. Dr. Yoshihara has been a visiting professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University since 2012. He has also taught as a visiting professor at the School of Global Policy and Strategy, University of California, San Diego and as a visiting professor in the Strategy Department at the U.S. Air War College. He has served as a research analyst at the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, RAND, and the American Enterprise Institute. Dr. Yoshihara has testified before the Defense Policy Board, the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. He is the recipient of the Navy Meritorious Civilian Service Award in recognition of his scholarship on maritime and strategic affairs at the Naval War College.

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian is a Security Reporter at The Daily Beast and previously a contributing reporter at Foreign Policy. She was previously an assistant editor at Foreign Policy’s China channel Tea Leaf Nation. Bethany has appeared on CNN, C-SPAN, BBC, Al Jazeera, PRI, and Deutsche Welle, among other outlets, and her work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic. She covered the 2017 German federal elections as a correspondent in Berlin and has also reported from Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Austria, China, Japan, and Taiwan. She was a 2017 Arthur F. Burns Fellow in Berlin, a 2016 Jefferson Fellow at the East-West Center, and a 2015 fellow with the International Reporting Project. Before joining Foreign Policy, she lived and worked in China for more than four years. She holds an M.A. in East Asian studies from Yale University and a graduate certificate from the Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies. Bethany speaks and reads Chinese.

Shanthi Kalathil is Director of the International Forum for Democratic Studies. Her work has focused primarily on issues pertaining to democratization, development, and the impact of information and communication technology, with a particular emphasis on Asia. Previously in her career, she served as a senior Democracy Fellow at the U.S. Agency for International Development, an associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a non-resident associate with the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University, and as a consultant for the World Bank, the Aspen Institute, and other international affairs organizations. Kalathil has appeared on media including NPR, BBC, VOA, RFA, C-SPAN, and others, and has authored or edited numerous policy and scholarly publications, including Diplomacy, Development and Security in the Information Age (Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, 2013), Developing Independent Media as an Institution of Accountable Governance (The World Bank, 2008), and (with Taylor C. Boas) Open Networks, Closed Regimes: The Impact of the Internet on Authoritarian Rule (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2003). A former Hong Kong-based staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal Asia, Kalathil lectures on international relations in the information age at Georgetown University. She holds degrees from U.C. Berkeley and the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Part 1 Audio Recording

Part 3 Audio Recording

Part 2 Audio Recording

Part 4 Audio Recording

Event Gallery

view of event room packed with audience from the back of the room

panelist answering audience questions while making hand gestures

event panelists listening attentively to audience questions

panelist answering audience questions while other panelists take notes and listens

panelist addressing other panelists while answering audience questions

audience member at event asking panelists a question while other audience listens

event audience some looking towards panelists and some looking down at phone

panelists sitting at panelist table preparing to speak

panelists at event sitting at panelist table addressing the audience

6/19/18: NBR-Sigur Center Roundtable: Implications of DPRK Diplomacy for Taiwan

June 13, 2018July 20, 2021Archives & Recordings, Taiwan RoundtablesLeave a Comment

Audio Recording Part 1

Audio Recording Part 2

Audio Recording Part 3

Tuesday, June 19, 2018
12:00 PM – 2:00 PM

The Elliott School of International Affairs
State Room – 7th Floor
1957 E St., NW Washington, DC 20052

This event is co-sponsored by The National Bureau of Asian Research and the Sigur Center for Asian Studies

The National Bureau of Asian Research and the Sigur Center for Asian Studies cordially invite you to a panel discussion with experts examining the implications of recent North Korean diplomatic developments for Taiwan, cross-Strait relations, and U.S.-Taiwan relations.

Light lunch will be available.

Agenda:

12:00 PM – 12:30 PM: Registration and Lunch
12:30 PM – 12:45 PM: Welcome Remarks and Introduction
12:45 PM – 2:00 PM: Panel Discussion and Q&A

Panelists:

Patrick Cronin, Senior Director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program, Center for a New American Security

Robert Sutter, Professor of Practice of International Affairs; Director, B.A. Program in International Affairs, The George Washington University

Followed by discussant remarks by Tiffany Ma, Senior Director, BowerGroup Asia and Nonresident Fellow, The National Bureau of Asian Research

Moderator: Alison Szalwinski, Director for Political and Security Affairs, The National Bureau of Asian Research

**Final speaker list to be confirmed**

About the Panelists:

Patrick M. Cronin is a Senior Advisor and Senior Director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). Previously, he was the Senior Director of the Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) at the National Defense University, where he simultaneously oversaw the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs. Prior to leading INSS, Dr. Cronin served as the Director of Studies at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). At the IISS, he also served as Editor of the Adelphi Papers and as the Executive Director of the Armed Conflict Database. Before joining IISS, Dr. Cronin was Senior Vice President and Director of Research at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Tiffany Ma is a senior director at BowerGroupAsia, where she manages BGA’s client relationships and engagements. She directs analysis and activities designed to advise Fortune 500 companies on public policy issues, regional geopolitics and stakeholder management. Prior to joining BGA, Tiffany was the senior director for political and security affairs at NBR in Washington, D.C., where she led major initiatives on geopolitical and international security affairs in the Asia-Pacific that regularly convened senior government officials and specialists from across the region. She began her career as a research associate at the Project 2049 Institute, an Asia security think tank based in Arlington, Virginia, and has also worked at the International Crisis Group in Beijing, the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, and the Lowy Institute in Sydney.

Robert Sutter is Professor of Practice of International Affairs at the Elliott School of George Washington University beginning in 2011. He also serves as the school’s Director, Program of Bachelor of Arts in International Affairs. A Ph.D. graduate in History and East Asian Languages from Harvard University, he has published 20 books, over 200 articles and several hundred government reports dealing with contemporary East Asian and Pacific countries and their relations with the United States. Sutter’s government career (1968-2001) involved work on Asian and Pacific affairs and US foreign policy for the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of State, and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Additional information forthcoming. We look forward to seeing you at the discussion!

06/21/18: North Korea on the Cusp: New Prospects for Science Diplomacy – A Discussion with Richard A. Stone

June 4, 2018July 20, 2021Archives & RecordingsLeave a Comment

Audio Recording Part 1

Audio Recording Part 2

Thursday, June 21, 2018

3:30 PM – 5:00 PM

The Elliott School of International Affairs

Room 505

1957 E St., NW Washington, DC 20052

This event is co-sponsored by the Partnerships for International Strategies in Asia,

Sigur Center for Asian Studies and the GW Institute for Korean Studies

hands shaking with science experiment in background

Reporting on his recent trip to North Korea, Richard Stone returns to the Elliott School to update us on his work with the American Association for the Advancement of Science and their efforts to promote science diplomacy with the Democratic Republic of North Korea.

Light refreshments available. This event is on the record and open to the media.

Speaker: Richard A. Stone, Senior Science Editor, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Moderator: Linda Yarr, Research Professor of Practice of International Affairs, Director of Partnerships for International Strategies in Asia (PISA)

About the Speaker:

Richard Stone is the senior science editor at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Tangled Bank Studios in Chevy Chase, Maryland, where he oversees science content for documentaries and other nonfiction productions and manages media partnerships. Prior to joining Tangled Bank, Stone was the international news editor at Science Magazine, where his own writing often featured datelines from such challenging reporting environments as Cuba, Iran, and North Korea. He made his seventh trip to North Korea this past March.

Stone’s experience in international science and education includes stints as a Fulbright Scholar at Rostov State University in Russia in 1995-96 and at Kazakh National University in Kazakhstan in 2004-05. As a science writer, he has contributed to Discover, Smithsonian, and National Geographic magazines, and is the author of the nonfiction book “Mammoth: The Resurrection of an Ice Age Giant.” Stone earned a B.S. in genetics from Cornell University, and he did graduate work in biophysics at the University of Pennsylvania and in science communication at the University of California, Santa Cruz. In his spare time, he enjoys playing squash and writing science fiction screenplays.

05/07/18: Locating the Global Politics of Diaspora Engagement: Engaging Tamils in Development in Toronto–A Discussion with Visiting Scholar Catherine Craven

April 26, 2018July 20, 2021Archives & Recordings, Visiting Scholar RoundtablesLeave a Comment

Monday, May 7, 2018

12:00 PM – 1:15 PM

Chung-wen Shih Conference Room, Suite 503

The Elliott School of International Affairs

1957 E St. NW, Washington, DC 20052

Recent decades have seen an increase in the adoption of diaspora engagement strategies by states, but also by a more complex global network of non-state governance actors, including the World Bank, NGOs and the private sector. Interestingly, as diaspora engagement is ‘globalized’, it also tends to become depoliticised. Especially in the field of international development diaspora engagement is now overwhelmingly framed as an operational strategy or management tool. And yet, far from an apolitical best practice, diaspora engagement in any policy field necessarily produces hierarchies within and among diaspora groups, and it can create and reify oppressive and exclusionary categories related to diasporas and migrants more widely (the terrorist, or the “model minority”, for example). The politics of diaspora engagement thus deserve critical attention. However, existing scholarship has tended to bracket either the global dynamics or the local context of such politics. In contrast, my thesis proposes to locate the global politics of diaspora engagement in the realm of practice. Practices embody political struggles informed by the hierarchical distribution of capital within emergent global social fields, which I conceptualize as assemblages.

Based on 6 months of multi-method fieldwork, the presentation will focus on mapping the practices of my first case study, the engagement of the Tamil diaspora for development in Toronto. The mapping suggests a complex interplay of global and local practices – both by the diaspora and the engagers – that are deeply intertwined with the places of engagement. Preliminary analysis of the prevalence of certain practices suggests that both social capital (in the form of elite professional networks and the ability to scale jump), and cultural capital (informed by both UN sustainable development norms, and Canadian national identity) significantly shape the politics of diaspora engagement in this context.

This event is free and open to the public.

About the Speaker:

Catherine Craven is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Politics and International Studies at SOAS, University of London and currently a visiting scholar at the Sigur Center for Asian Studies inside the Elliott School of International Affairs at GW. Funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council, her research explores the global and local politics of diaspora engagement in governance through the lens of Tamil diasporans. She has also been a visiting scholar at York University’s Centre for Asian Research, a research associate at the Free University of Berlin’s collaborative research centre (SFB 700) ‘Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood’, and a research assistant at the Global Public Policy Institute. She received her MSc in Global Politics from the London School of Economics, and her BA in Anthropology from the University of Sussex. Her research interests include globalization and global governance, cities, diasporas and transnationalism, practice theory and post-positive thinking in political science.