Southeast Asia | United States

Date: Wednesday, January 26, 2022. 5:00 PM. Location: Via Zoom Webinar Register: bit.ly/3K2zEZu Southeast Asia is famously diverse.  Yet, all the ASEAN member states have committed themselves to ASEAN Community, including ASEAN Political and Security Community, with the expressed commitment to protect and promote democratic principles, human rights and good governance. As democracy retreats around the world, will autocracy spread throughout Southeast Asia?  How can countries of Southeast Asia navigate the complex dynamics between protection and promotion of democratic principles and human rights on the one hand, and the principle of non-interference in internal affairs on the other?  How can they navigate the similarly complex dynamic between protection and promotion of democratic principles and human rights on the one hand, and the geopolitical tensions and rivalries currently prevailing in the region?   Does ASEAN matter? Few are better positioned by knowledge and experience than former Indonesian foreign m...

Date: Tuesday, October 19, 2021. 4:00 PM. Location: Via Zoom Webinar Register: https://bit.ly/3ulj9jV Angel Hsu, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and the Environment, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Melissa Low, Research Fellow, Energy Studies Institute, National University of Singapore Viewed alongside other world regions, Southeast Asia is uniquely vulnerable to major damage by global warming. Its coastlines are lengthy and subject to searise. Its urban centers of economic and political gravity are mainly riverine or deltaic. Its agriculture requires optimal levels and rhythms of waterflow, as do its polluted main veins, the Mekong and the Irrawaddy.  In already tropical conditions, heatwaves are especially enervating.  Nor has the region escaped extreme weather events.  The ten most afflicted countries worldwide in that regard include Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.  With this background in mind, Angel Hsu and Melissa Low, two scholars with deep regional and policy knowledg...