Centre on Asia and Globalisation
Major Power Relations
Globalisation and Trade
Geopolitics and Technology
International Relations of Southeast Asia

Major Power Relations

On major power relations, CAG will focus on three themes: US-China rivalry, China-India relations, and Asia’s increasing engagement with Europe as the latter inserts itself in Asia-Pacific affairs.

US-China rivalry poses the greatest challenge for Asia today and in the decades to come. China’s risen status has changed its thinking regarding its periphery from a region it merely engages to one that it must actively manage and shape. Beijing seeks to blunt US influence in the region and ensure that countries in the region align with its core interests. The United States is reluctant to cede the region to China because it sees its hegemonic status as a vital interest and the key to the stability of the region. East Asia has thus become the vortex in the struggle for supremacy between the two superpowers. The competition between them will significantly impact regional order in East Asia.

CAG has several projects that examines the impact of US-China rivalry on East Asia. Among these are “The Anatomy of Choice: Southeast Asia between the Superpowers” (AOC)” project that is funded by a prestigious Social Science Research Thematic Grant. The AOC project seeks to trace and explain the alignment movements of the ten ASEAN countries in the context of the US-China geopolitical competition. The outputs will include a set of books, scholarly articles, policy papers, Op-Eds and an interactive website that traces the alignment moves of the ten ASEAN countries over a quarter of a century.

A second area of research looks at how China’s security interventions in Asia are shaping the region’s security architecture. Much work has been done on the Belt and Road Initiative and CAG has completed several projects examining the impact of Chinese economic initiatives on the region. Moving forward, we are interested in examining China’s security footprint as it seeks to protect its assets and citizens overseas and how that is shaping the region’s security architecture. We have two projects lined up. One project examines the impact of China’s security interventions to manage its transnational criminal syndicate engaging in illicit activities in Southeast Asia’s border areas with southern China. The second project investigates how Southeast Asian states build security structures, institutions, and programs in policing, intelligence, and the military. We are especially interested in states with weak governance capacities and close security ties with China, such as Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar, as well as US security allies and strategic partners, including Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

The second crucial dyadic relationship in Asia is China-India relations. The two countries are the most populous in the world and are engines of growth in the developing world. In recent few years, relations have sunk to a new low because of border clashes in Doklam, Bhutan, and the Galwan Valley region. CAG seeks to delve more systematically into the drivers and contours of these conflicts to contribute to existing analyses as well as serve as a bridge between the two sides, encourage dialogue and improve understanding and trust between them. We also aim to facilitate the creation of the next generation of scholars and thought leaders on both sides that understand each other.

With these goals in mind, we have devised several programs. First, our flagship China-India Brief provides a regular platform for academics and policy experts to share their views and analysis on the diplomatic, economic, and strategic interactions between China and India. It covers a broad range of topics including how the two countries manage their border disputes, trade dynamics, and regional security. The Brief aims to offer insights into the complexities of China-India relations and serve as a resource for policymakers, scholars, and anyone interested in Asian geopolitics. We are also in the process of producing the second edition of The Routledge Handbook of China-India Relations, which contains essays from senior and emerging scholars in the China-India field. CAG is also collaborating with Harvard-Yenching Institute, the India-China Institute located in The New School, and the Center for Global Asia at New York University-Shanghai to convene biennale conferences on China-India. Additionally, CAG is working with the Asia Research Institute (ARI) and Mr George Yeo to establish a distinguished visiting professorship on China-India relations. The purpose is to produce an “encyclopedia” on China-India relations that spans from antiquity to the present. We are also planning to train youngers scholars under this program. Another ongoing project examines China-India relations over the past decade under Narendra Modi, focusing on how international and domestic politics have influenced shifts in India’s foreign policy towards China during this period.

A new and increasingly important angle to analyze Asia’s interactions with the world is to assess Asia-Europe relations because of the European Union’s (EU) aspiration to play a more active role in Asia. The first pertinent theme in this research stream is China-Europe relations. China’s rise has led the EU to recalibrate its relations with China. The latter has remained the EU’s partner but has also become its competitor and systemic rival depending on the issue area. Furthermore, while the EU has close security ties with the US, it seeks to pursue its own strategic autonomy. Therefore, the EU does not want to take sides in the US-China rivalry. Rather, it aims to cooperate with China where possible and compete with China where necessary. Given this context, we aim to elucidate how the EU and China have been navigating their multifaceted relationship. This involves explaining their foreign policy decision-making towards each other and clarifying their patterns of cooperation on global challenges.

The second related theme is Europe-Indo-Pacific relations. Europe seeks to enhance its role in the Indo-Pacific region, which raises several questions. First, what are the sectors with most synergies between the EU and its Indo-Pacific partners? Second, to what extent do the Indo-Pacific regional middle powers seek involvement from Europe? Third, how does European increased presence in the Indo-Pacific affect regional order?

CAG staff are writing papers that examine these issues. One paper deals with Germany’s foreign economic policy changes towards China, with special focus on the role and agency of business elites. Another paper investigates how ASEAN, Japan and South Korea view European engagement in their maritime domains and provides policy recommendations for an effective and sustainable maritime cooperation in the Indo-Pacific.

China and Russia have grown progressively closer over the last two decades, yielding a China-Russia “axis” uniquely capable of challenging the United States and of revising key aspects of the international order. Although the scholarly literature has offered detailed descriptions and various ad hoc explanations of this trend, the Sino-Russian bilateral relationship has been the subject of very little scrutiny using rigorous theory, which has precluded the formation of logically coherent and empirically supported explanations for increasing China-Russia cooperation. Moreover, the cooperative post-Cold War trend in the bilateral relationship is puzzling for each of the major paradigms of international relations theory: realism, constructivism and liberalism.

This project brings together leading IR scholars from various theoretical perspectives, as well as theoretically-informed experts in Chinese and Russian foreign policy. The chapters develop and apply nuanced theoretical arguments to derive testable hypotheses for the cooperative trend in China-Russia relations. In contrast to existing scholarship, the book offers generalizable insights that both improve our understanding of a crucially important contemporary case, while also advancing IR theory in substantial ways.

Publications

Principal Investigators

  • Brandon Yoder

China and India are both frequently cited as rising states in the international system, which have already gained considerable power and are projected to continue their ascents in the ranks of great powers for the foreseeable future. What does the simultaneous rise of China and India relative to the West, coupled with China’s prospective decline relative to India in the long term, mean for the Sino-Indian bilateral relationship, the Asia-Pacific region, and the global international order? Sino-Indian relations have been subjected to very little inquiry using rigorous theory. We aim to address the theoretical lacunae in the literature on China-India relations by bringing together leading international relations theorists and experts on Chinese and Indian foreign policy. In aggregation, we aim to advance novel explanations for empirical puzzles in China-India relations, generalize from these explanations to advance new developments in IR theory, and derive prescriptions and predictions for contemporary policy makers.

Workshop

  • IR Theory and China-India Relations Conference June 21, 2021.

Publications

Principal Investigators

  • Brandon Yoder
  • Kanti Bajpai

CAG aims to understand the changes underway in Southeast Asia and to comprehend the relationship between those changes and emerging conceptions of regional order. The reset of US foreign policy, the rise of China under Xi Jinping, the growing activism of Japan, the Act East Policy of India, and the challenges to ASEAN centrality as well as global and regional economic changes point to a potential transformation of Singapore's region.  

Why and how do Asian countries conceptualize and practice their strategic views of the international order? This project seeks to answer this broad question by investigating two specific sets of questions pertaining to the strategic thought and practices of a dozen regional countries: China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Brunei.

First, on strategic thought, we seek to answer the following questions. How do Asian powers think about international order? How do they regard the present international order, usually described as a liberal international order? Do they have alternative conceptions of international order? Would they modify the current order, or would they change it more radically? In either case, what kinds of changes do they envisage? Do regional policymakers distinguish between regional order and international order? Why and how do they conceptualize the distinction and connection between regional and international orders? We examine these questions in what we call the Conceptualizing International Order component or cluster of our project.

Second, on strategic practices, we seek to evaluate one of the micro-foundations of the strategic order in Asia: joint military exercises between regional states. Why and how do Asian powers engage in some forms of joint military exercises with one another? Beyond tactical familiarity, what are the strategic lessons and implications of joint military exercises for regional states? Have joint military exercises been beneficial for regional order (e.g., trust building), or have they been detrimental (e.g., tension raising)? What explains the variations in quality, intensity, and frequency of joint military exercises across the region? We examine these questions in what we call the Exercising Regional Order component or cluster of our project.

Workshops

  • Conceptualising International Order workshops held in April 29-30, 2022, and July 15-16, 2022.
  • Exercising Regional Order workshop held in May 5-6, 2022.

Publications

Principal Investigators

  • Kanti Bajpai
  • Evan Laksmana

Territorial disputes over the South China Sea have existed since the end of the World War II. In recent years, however, China’s rapid rise, coupled with its increasing assertiveness over the South China Sea and the U.S. rebalance to the Asia-Pacific region, have provoked lingering tensions between China and the other claimants. These have the propensity to substantially impact regional peace and stability. Current political dialogue over the South China Sea has been polarised by the rhetoric of both China and the U.S. and strong nationalistic sentiment in each country involved in the spat. Constructive, cross-disciplinary and cross-border dialogue on the issue was considered essential to prevent current minor spats from escalating into regional, or even global, conflict. The Centre of Asia and Globalisation is constantly engaged with issues relating to the South China Sea through Workshops and Publications.

Workshops

Centre on Asia and Globalisation (CAG) – Australia China Research Institute (ACRI) South China Sea Conference: February 10-11, 2017 – Sydney, Australia

The Centre on Asia and Globalisation (CAG) in collaboration with the Australia China Research Institute (ACRI) co-hosted a conference on the South China Sea on February 10-11, 2017 at the University of Technology Sydney in Sydney, Australia. The South China Sea dispute not only involves ASEAN, regional states, and China but also the worlds major powers, including Japan, India, Russia, and the United States. The conference’s focus was on why and how these major powers – all considered ‘user states’ – are engaged in the discord, what the stakes are, and how their involvement is effecting the stability and strategic balance in the Asia Pacific. The conference analysed the approaches, roles, policies, and impact of the user states (China, Japan, India, Australia, and the United States) in the on-going dispute. The conference coalesced 20 experts from ASEAN, Australia, China, Japan, India, Russia, and the United States to discuss a range of issues and perspectives relating to the user states and the discord.

Please find the conference report here.

South China Sea Conference, Nanjing, April 2015

With the objective of securing peace and improving stability in the South China Sea, this conference marks the beginning of a long-term cooperation between the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and Nanjing University to provide sustained joint research on South China Sea issues. The topics for discussion include historical origins of the South China Sea disputes; country perspectives of South China Sea claimants; impact of the South China Sea issue on regional peace and security; impact of the South China Sea issue on regional economic development and integration; role of international regimes and governance; and ASEAN and the Management of the South China Sea issue. An edited volume will be published from the proceedings of the conference.

Click here for conference summary.

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The South China Sea: Central to Peace and Security, New York, March 2013

The Centre on Asia and Globalisation collaborated with the Asia Society (a nonpartisan, non-profit institution dedicated to strengthening partnerships between Asia and the United States) to host a conference on South China Sea disputes at the latter’s headquarters in New York from the 13th-15th of March 2013. The aim of the conference –which was held immediately after China’s leadership transition and the U.S. Presidential election–, was to provide a forum for participants from the U.S., China and various Asian countries to candidly exchange their views over the current tensions in the region in an academic manner.

The conference included key policy makers and academics from the United States, China and ASEAN countries that were directly impacted by the dispute, such as Ambassador Stapleton Roy, Director of Kissinger Institute on China and the United States; Mr. Henry Bensurto, former Secretary General of the Commission on Maritime and Ocean Affairs Secretariat (CMOAS); Ambassador Christopher Hill, Dean of the Josef Korbel School of International Studies; University of Denver, Ms. Nguyen Thi Thanh Ha, Director General of Department of International Law and Treaties; Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Viet Nam; Major General Zhu Chenghu, Dean of the Defense Affairs Institute, China’s National Defense University of the People’s Liberation Army Dr. Robert Beckman, Director of the Centre for International Law at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Professor Huang Jing, Director of CAG. Participants engaged in a deep causal analysis of the dispute by presenting historical, legal, geo-political and strategic perspectives on the topic. The key closing remark of the conference was the need for joint cooperation; however a long-term solution any time soon seemed unlikely. Selected papers will be published in the form of an edited volume, scheduled to be published in 2014.

For more details on the conference, click here.

Publications

In the past 40 years, Japan and China have been playing important roles in the stable and vibrant development of East and Southeast Asia. Today, with the readjustment of advanced economies around the globe, particularly, in North America and Europe, intra-regional economic interdependence and integration becomes a strategic basis for maintaining growth. This is a strategy that is important for an area that accounts for much of the world’s population and emerging markets. It is no doubt that Japan and China, two of Asia’s largest economies, will play key roles in strengthening and broadening the region’s interdependence, as Asia rises as a whole.

While both countries will undoubtedly continue to play a positive role in the region, recent relations have been anything but calm. Even more alarming, are emerging signs that may indicate a trend towards ‘cold economic relations’. Given the surge in China’s economic, military, and political power and Japan’s push to revive its national economy and achieve greater presence in world politics, it becomes crucial to enlarge a common base of strategic trust between the government and people of the two neighbouring countries. The task of trust building holds significance not only for Japan and China but also among the countries in the region and the world.

With this in mind, the Centre on Asia and Globalisation in Singapore and the Fujitsu Research Institutein Japan co-hosted successful Forums in 2013 and 2014 with young leaders (under 42 years old age) selected from major think tanks, academic institutions, NGOs, public press, and private sectors in both countries. The inaugural forum in Singapore produced a rare joint-statement voicing the consensual opinion of future generation leaders on contentious issues such as territorial dispute and historical memory. The forum took a practical prognostic approach to trust-building. It was aimed at promoting cooperation and policy solutions to address tough questions in bilateral relations by promoting understanding on the underlying motivations of policy makers and societal actors in their contexts, hence generating confidence among the participants that cooperation is possible between the two countries. It further provides as a platform for generating new and realistic ideas of cooperation in the area of security, trade, media, business, non-profit and public goods sectors of both countries.

Principal Investigators

  • Jing Huang
  • Tomoo Kikuchi
  • Chen Huaiyuan
  • Takehiro Masutomo

‘Russia has long been an intrinsic part of the Asian-Pacific region. We view this dynamic region as the most important factor for the successful future of the whole country, as well as development of Siberia and the Far East’.

President Vladimir Putin, Wall Street Journal, 6th September, 2012

A few days before Russia hosted the 2012 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in the Russian city of Vladivostok, President Putin communicated a shift in the country’s strategic orientation to the Asia-Pacific through an article in the Wall Street Journal. Moscow’s eastward turn is not only motivated by the growth of economic, strategic and political dynamism of Asia-Pacific, but also the impact of the global financial crisis on the United States and Europe that have withdrawn Russia’s historic attraction from the West. Further, Russian elites realised the over-dependence of the Russian economy on energy and that the development of the Far East would give impetus to its “new economy”.

Indeed, with its rich natural resources and geopolitical importance, Russia’s Far East is the last frontier in the region. That said there are several requirements for the development of this region such as capital, labour, market-access and technical know-how. While it seems like China could be the primary provider of these requirements, some argue that this might perpetuate an overreliance on it. Cooperation and collaboration at bilateral and multilateral levels with other Asian neighbours can serve a variety of mutual interests. With this in mind, the Centre on Asia and Globalisation partnered with Valdai Club (Russia) to address the various dimensions related to Russia’s eastern development including economics, trade, geopolitics, maritime security, energy security and the environment. With generous funding from Norway and Singapore, the project is a consortium of the six collaborating institutions, including the Japan Institute of International Affairs, the School of Advanced International and Area Studies in East China Normal University, the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy, the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and the National Research University – Higher School of Economics in Russia.

Inaugural Conference, December 16-18, Singapore

The CAG-Valdai partnership was inaugurated with a two-day conference titled ‘Developing Asia Pacific’s Last Frontier: Fostering International Cooperation in the Development of Russia’s Siberia and Far East’. It was held from the 16-18 December, 2013 at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.

The inaugural conference began on a successful note, attracting close to over 50 participants from around the world.

Policy Dialogue, July 7-9, 2014, Moscow

Second Academic Conference, May 14-15, Vladivostok

Russia’s turn to Asia is already in process. Crisis in Russia-West relations gives it an additional powerful push. Russian elites have no more objections to the need for Russia’s integration to APR and rapid development of Russia’s Far East and Siberia – this is already obvious. The role of this conference is to propose such mechanisms from the perspective of the participating countries and make them clear to policy-makers in Russia and other states. It attempts to make discussion as focused and concrete as possible and also pay special attention to the issues that already attract attention of policy-makers to make them more receptive to the provided ideas and policy advice.

You can view the conference report here.

Project Publications

Principal Investigators

  • Jing Huang
  • Alexander Korolev
  • Chen Huaiyuan

National values and cultures play an essential role in foreign policy making and implementation. Yet there is little systematic and comparative study on how, and to what extent, a culture and value system can impact on a nation’s view, strategy and approach towards the outside world.

This question becomes more relevant and indeed imperative in view of the irrevocable evolution towards a multipolar world. It is increasingly evident that the established International Relations theories, based on ‘western values’, can hardly capture the reality in international affairs. In practice, the promotion of the ‘Washington consensus’ has met with not only empirical obstacles but also normative rejections. Rising powers with ancient historical civilisations such as China and India will play increasingly important roles in international governance, it becomes relevant to understand the influence of traditional values on foreign policy perspectives and approaches.

As rising powers are also being seen through the reflection of ‘western’ power’s self-image, this project asks, what might be the values coming from the ‘East’ to guide their rise? To address questions on how a national culture and value system impact on the nation’s foreign policy and how the constitutive nature of visions of world order should be defined (and therefore understood), the international workshop on ‘The Impact of National Cultures on Foreign Policy Making in a Multipolar World’ was held on October 4 at the Robert Bosch Stiftung in Berlin. This workshop has piloted a larger-scale, long-term project for a systematic and comparative study on how, in a multipolar world, traditional values and cultures can impact on a nation’s foreign policy as well as its approach towards global issues.

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Conference on ‘The Impact of National Cultures on Foreign Policy Making in a Multipolar World’, Berlin, October 2014’

Principal Investigators

  • Jing Huang
  • Chen Huaiyuan

Keeping with its theme of domestic politics, the Centre on Asia and Globalisation (CAG) has also attempted to open up the black box of the Chinese State, by hosting a conference on ‘Sustaining China’s Development: Challenges and Choices’ in July 2013, in Shenzen. China’s rise is the most significant phenomenon of this century. China remains prominent with its impressive double digit growth while the western world is suffering from the financial crisis. However, there are several challenges that Chinese leaders are now confronting. These include the implications of its fast economic growth, increasing diversity of interests in society, growing demand for political participation from the masses, rampant corruption, growing socio-economic disparity and finally, the deteriorating ecological system. The ultimate question arising from these challenges is whether China, under the CCP rule, can sustain its economic development and political stability for the long term. CAG has initiated the project with the purpose of providing feasible solutions for current leaders in China to tackle the existing problems. Professor Huang Jing, the principle investigator will be publishing a book on the above mentioned theme in 2014.

The project has engaged experts from both China and abroad. It consists of a roundtable, a book publication and an edited volume of papers written by scholars with expertise on Chinese domestic politics. The roundtable was organised in Shenzhen, China in July 2013 to provide a platform for scholars to exchange ideas and share their thoughts on how the current leaders should do with the existing challenges.

Conference on Sustaining China’s Development: Challenges and Choices

Shenzen, 18th – 20th July, 2013

Sustaining-Chinas-Development-group-photo

Participants of the Conference on ‘Sustaining China’s Development’, Shenzen, July 2013. From Left: Yu Xiaohong (Tsinghua University), Luo Yong (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), Zhao Shukai, (China Development Research Foundation), Zhao Suisheng (University of Denver), Huang Jing (Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy), Liu Yawei, (Emory University), Zou Pingxue,(Shenzhen University) Xu Zhenqing (Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy)