South China Sea Conference: Opening session
The South China Sea (SCS) has become a centre of global attention. It involves not only territorial disputes among multiple claimants, but also a shift of the strategic balance in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. Territorial disputes in the SCS have brought about rising tensions.
The Australia-China Relations Institute (ACRI) presented an international conference in collaboration with one of Singapore’s leading think-tanks: the Centre on Asia and Globalisation at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore from February 10-11. The conference focused on the position and policies of major user-states in the South China Sea (SCS). It featured scholars from the US, Russia and Europe, as well as from Australia and Asian nations.
The opening session on February 10 featured a presentation by Professor Jing Huang, Director, Centre on Asia and Globalisation, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore with remarks by Professor the Hon. Bob Carr, Director, Australia-China Relations Institute, University of Technology Sydney. This was followed by Panel Session 1: South China Sea – an overview.
Panellists provided an overview of the SCS dispute, the differing perspectives of the regional strategic balance and how the dispute has become an arena for the major powers to engage each other. Specifically, the panel addressed how China’s rise has brought about the re-emergence of the SCS dispute, how the dispute has become the centre of international attention and how the shifting strategic balance has impacted managing the dispute, which is not only urgent but also critical for regional peace and stability. The panel also examined the role of the US, its rebalance towards Asia policy and how the SCS has become an area of fundamental interest.
The panel presenters were Evelyn Goh, Shedden Professor of Strategic Policy Studies, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University; Mira Rapp-Hooper, Senior Fellow, Center for a New American Security; and Qing Liu, Director, Asia Pacific Department, China Institute of International Studies. ACRI Director Bob Carr was discussant.
Download the full conference report here.
Gallery
Speakers
Professor Jing Huang (黄靖)
Professor Jing Huang is a Lee Foundation Professor on US-China Relations and Director of Centre on Asia and Globalization (CAG) at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP). As an internationally recognized expert on Chinese politics, China’s foreign relations and security issues in Asia-Pacific, Huang has written three books, edited 5, and numerous journal articles, book chapters, policy papers, and op-eds on Chinese politics, China’s development strategy, China’s foreign policy, US-China relations, China-India relations, the military, and security issues in the Asia-Pacific. His book, Factionalism in Chinese Communist Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), won the prestigious Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Prize in 2002. Huang is also a columnist for several English and Chinese newspapers and magazines.
Professor Huang is on the Board of Directors of the Fujitsu-JAIMS Foundation Japan, the Board of Directors Keppel Land, the Advisory Board of the European-House Ambrosetti, the Steering Committee of the NUS Research Institute in Suzhou, and the WEF Global Agenda Council. He also serves as a Senior Overseas Economic Analyst for China’s Xinhua News Agency. Before joining the LKYSPP, Huang was a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution (2004-2008). He also taught at Harvard University (1993-1994), Utah State University (1994-2004) and Stanford University (2002-2003). Huang received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University, MA from Fudan University, and BA from Sichuan University. Huang was a Residential Fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center in 2012 and is a Richard von Weizsäcker Fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy.
Evelyn Goh
Evelyn Goh is the Shedden Professor of Strategic Policy Studies at the Australian National University, where she is also Research Director at the Strategic & Defence Studies Centre. She has published widely on U.S.-China relations and diplomatic history, regional security order in East Asia, Southeast Asian strategies towards great powers, and environmental security. These 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’, International Security 32:3 (Winter 2007/8):113-57; and Constructing the US Rapprochement with China, 1961-1974 (Cambridge University Press, 2004). Most recently, she edited the volume Rising China’s Influence in Developing Asia (Oxford University Press, 2016).
Evelyn moved to Australia and the ANU in August 2013, and has held previous faculty positions at Royal Holloway University of London (2008-13); the University of Oxford (2006-8); and the Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore (2002-5). She has held various visiting positions, including Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center, and Southeast Asian Fellow at the East-West Center, both in Washington DC. Major project grants include a UK Economic & Social Research Council Mid-Career Fellowship (2011-12); an East Asia Institute Fellowship (2011); and research grants from the British Academy, MacArthur Foundation, Sasakawa Peace Foundation, and Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation.
Mira Rapp-Hooper
Dr Mira Rapp-Hooper is a Senior Fellow with the Asia-Pacific Security Programme at CNAS. She was formerly a Fellow with the CSIS Asia Programme and Director of the CSIS Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative. Her expertise includes Asia security issues, deterrence, nuclear strategy and policy, and alliance politics. She was previously a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Dr. Rapp-Hooper’s academic writings have appeared in Political Science Quarterly, Security Studies, and Survival. Her policy writings have appeared in The National Interest, Foreign Affairs, and The Washington Quarterly,and her analysis has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and on NPR and the BBC, among others.
Dr Rapp-Hooper was the Asia Policy Coordinator for the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign. She was a Foreign Policy Interrupted Fellow, and is a David Rockefeller Fellow of the Trilateral Commission and an Associate Editor with the International Security Studies Forum. She holds a B.A. in history from Stanford University and an M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University.
Qing Liu
Dr Qing Liu is Director of the Department of Asia-Pacific Studies at the China Institute of International Studies (CIIS). He was Director of the Department of American Studies, CIIS from 2010-2012. Mr. Liu served at the Chinese Embassy in Australia as First Secretary from 2012 to 2015. His research includes the US, Asia and the Pacific, geopolitics and international security, and regional integration. He has chaired a number of programmes related to the US and Asia. He has written extensively on various aspects of US foreign policy, including China-US relations, the US alliance in the Asia Pacific, and US relations with East Asia.
Dr Liu is the author of Theory and Practice of International Arms Control and Disarmament (World Affairs Press, 2012). He is co-author of The Twilight of a Feast on Power: The U.S. “Rebalancing to the Asia-Pacific” and China’s Countermeasures (World Affairs Press, 2015), China-US Cooperation: Key to the Global Future (China-US Joint Working Group, jointly released by the Atlantic Council and China Institute of International Studies. 2013), A Yearbook on International Situation and China’s Foreign Affairs 2007/2008 (World Affair Press, 2008), and Response and Security (Renmin University Press, 2005). He received his master and doctorate degrees from Renmin University of China, and bachelor degree from Hunan University of Science and Technology. Dr Liu was a visiting scholar at the University of Southern California in 2008.
