Abstract

Great power rivalry has changed the “seascape” of maritime order in Southeast Asia. Until quite recently, China and the Southeast Asian claimant states are the only major players in conflict over the South China Sea. The great power competition spearheaded by the trade war and hegemonic struggle over technological supremacy between Washington and Beijing have apparently added another layer in the maritime disputes in the region, putting much stress on role of international law and various regional multilateral institutions. This webinar looks to share preliminary findings of a research project examining the impact of great power rivalry on the rules-based order in Southeast Asia. This project is part of the Policy Research Network on Contemporary Southeast Asia (PRN-SEA) initiated by GRIPS and co-organised with RSIS and CSIS Indonesia.

About the Speakers

Yusuke Takagi received a doctoral degree of the science of law from Keio University and worked at the Embassy of Japan in the Philippines and De La Salle University – Manila before joining GRIPS. His book, Central Banking as State Building: Policymakers and their Nationalism, 1933-1964 (Singapore: NUS Press, Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila UP, Kyoto: Kyoto UP, 2016) received the 34th Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Award in 2018 and a finalist of the National Book Award in the Philippines in 2017. His latest works include, Yusuke Takagi, Veerayooth Kanchoochat and Tetsushi Sonobe eds. Developmental State Building: The Politics of Emerging Economies (Springer Open, 2019).

Jane Chan is a Senior Fellow and Coordinator of the Maritime Security Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) in Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. Her main research interests include maritime security issues in Southeast Asia, law and order at sea, regional maritime cooperation and confidence-building measures, and regional boundary delimitation and territorial disputes. She is an affiliated faculty at the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF)-NTU Academy (SNA). Her recent publications include Christian Bueger and Jane Chan (eds.), Paving the Way for Regional Maritime Domain Awareness: Information Fusion Centre, Nanyang Technological University, 2019.