WebinarThursday 25 November 2021
12:00pm – 1:00pm
AUKUS and its geopolitical implications for Asia
13/14 Cornwall Terrace, Outer Circle (entrance facing Regent's Park), London NW1 4QP
Organised by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation
The trilateral defence agreement AUKUS represents a significant new strategic development for the Indo-Pacific, with implications for regional and global security. This security pact is seen as a military alliance to counter China’s assertiveness, and has triggered a reaction from France, causing increased uncertainty about future relations between the US and the EU, as well as prompting concerns among ASEAN countries that they may be drawn into a potential conflict between the US and China. What are the implications of AUKUS for the geopolitical landscape in Asia and what is Japan’s perspective on this agreement? In this seminar chaired by Vincent Ni, the panellists discussed the implications of AUKUS and its geopolitical dynamics in Asia.
A short summary of the event can be found via this link, located on the Foundation’s Facebook page, and a video can be viewed below:
About the contributors
Professor Michael Cox
Professor Michael Cox was appointed to a Chair in International Relations at the LSE in 2002. He then helped found the Cold War Studies Centre at LSE in 2004 and was a Founding Director of what went on to become one of the world’s leading university-affiliated foreign policy Think Tanks- LSE IDEAS – in 2008. Professor Cox has lectured to universities world-wide as well as advising and consulting with several government bodies and private companies. He is currently an Associate Fellow on the US and Americas programme at Chatham House in London, sits on the Scholarly Advisory Board of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History in New York, and is a Visiting Professor of International Relations at the Catholic University in Milan. He is the author, editor and co-editor of over 30 books, including a third edition of his co-edited US Foreign Policy (2018), a collection of his essays The Post-Cold War World (2019), a centennial edition of John Maynard Keynes’s, The Economic Consequences of the Peace (2019) and E H Carr’s 1945 classic Nationalism and After (2021). His next book – Agonies of Empire: American Power from Clinton to Biden – will be published in 2022. He is also working on a new history of LSE entitled, The “School”: LSE and the Shaping of the Modern World.
François Godement
François Godement is Senior Advisor for Asia to Institut Montaigne, Paris. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C., and an external consultant for the Policy Planning Staff of the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs. Until December 2018, he was the Director of ECFR’s Asia & China Program and a Senior Policy Fellow at ECFR. A long-time professor at France’s National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilisations (INALCO) and Sciences Po, he created Centre Asie IFRI at the Paris-based Institut français des relations internationales (1985-2005), and in 2005 the Asia Centre. In 1995 he co-founded the European committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific (CSCAP), which he co-chaired until 2008. He is a graduate of the École normale supérieure de la rue d’Ulm (Paris), where he majored in history, and was a postgraduate student at Harvard University. He has written extensively, and his most recently published books are Les mots de Xi Jinping (Dalloz, 2021) and, with Abigaël Vasselier, La Chine à nos portes – une stratégie pour l’Europe (Odile Jacob, 2018).
Noriyuki Shikata
Noriyuki Shikata is Cabinet Secretary for Public Affairs under Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, having been appointed to this post in October 2021. Most recently, he was Assistant Minister/Director General, Economic Affairs Bureau of Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA). His other prior positions include: Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, Deputy Chief of Mission, Embassy of Japan in China; Deputy Director General, Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, MOFA; Political Minister, Embassy of Japan in the U.K.; Director of Global Communications, Prime Minister’s Office. He has also been a Visiting Professor at Kyoto University’s Graduate School of Law/Public Policy, and Associate, Program on U.S.-Japan Relations, Harvard University. He holds a B.A. in Law from Kyoto University and Master of Public Policy (MPP) from Harvard Kennedy School of Government. His Twitter handle is: @norishikata.
Dr Yuka Kobayashi
Dr Yuka Kobayashi, (LL.B Kyoto, MPhil, DPhil Oxon) is Lecturer/Assistant Professor in China and International Politics at SOAS, University of London, and Visiting Research Professor at Nankai University (China) and Visiting Scholar at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Prior to joining SOAS, she was a Junior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. After receiving an LLB (specialising in Public International Law) from Kyoto University, she studied Mandarin and Chinese International Politics at Nankai University and then obtained her M.Phil. and D.Phil. at the University of Oxford. Her research interests include International Relations of China, International Law, Trade and Investment (Belt and Road Initiative/WTO/FDI), Human Rights and Climate Change/Energy. She was formerly Specialist Advisor for the International Relations and Defence Committee (UK) and has advised various governments, think tanks and international organisations on these subjects.
Vincent Ni (Chair)
Vincent Ni (Chair) is the Guardian’s China affairs correspondent.