Abstract

This session will focus on the shifting contours of geopolitics and its implication for post-COVID economic recovery and economic multilateralism. How will the rivalry between China and the United States affect the international economic order? To what extent has there been a shift in the locus of economic power to (East) Asia, and what are the implications of this change in the post-COVID era? What role can international and regional actors such as APEC, ASEAN, G20, and the WTO, play?

About the Series

The global economy and the liberal international economic order are at a critical juncture. The US-China “trade war” and COVID-19 have exposed the strengths and weaknesses of the global production networks that have increasingly become the foundation of our thriving global economy. They have also demonstrated the strengths and limits of international cooperation in times of crisis.

While many now feel that the global economy could not, and would not, go back to “business as usual” post-COVID-19, the future is however an open question. Will we see a retreat from globalisation and a concomitant rise in economic nationalism? Should we expect lower economic growth rates to be the new norm? Would capitalism look very different from before? How would such changes affect our economic opportunities, quality of life, and lifestyle? What will become of the liberal international economic order, and its associated economic multilateralism, that prevailed pre-Trump?

Lurking behind these events are two higher-order issues that should be confronted as we ponder an economic future beyond the current COVID-19 pandemic: (a) what are the implications of on-going changes in the hierarchy of global power, and (b) what should be the nature and character of our evolving globalised economy?

This CMS webinar series will address these major questions that confront us as we contemplate the state of economic multilateralism in a post-COVID recovery. This series adopts a unique perspective to these issues by focusing on voices from the Asian region, which has been identified as the region most likely to be both the driver of economic growth coming out of the COVID pandemic as well as the future locus of global economic power.

About the Panellists

Dr Shiro Armstrong is an Associate Professor of Economics at the Crawford School of Public Policy in the College of Asia and the Pacific at The Australian National University. He is Director of the Australia-Japan Research Centre, Editor of the East Asia Forum, and Director of the East Asian Bureau of Economic Research. He is also a Visiting Associate Professor at Keio University, Research Associate at the Center on Japanese Economy and Business at the Columbia Business School and Visiting Fellow at the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry, Japan. He is the Australian representative on the Research Institute Network of the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia, ERIA University.

Mr Eduardo Pedrosa is the Secretary General of the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC) International Secretariat based in Singapore. He leads the Council’s flagship annual report, the State of the Region. He has edited several books including Towards Balanced and Sustainable Growth Strategies for Post Crisis Asia (Institute of Southeast Asian Studies 2010) with Masahiro Kawai, Tan Khee Giap and Grace Aw; and An APEC Trade Agenda: The Political Economy of a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (Institute of Southeast Asian Studies 2007) with Charles Morrison. He has also written extensively on economics and trade issues including: Trade and Connectivity in the Post-COVID-19 World (with Pascal Lamy, World Economic Forum 2020); Globalization, Inequality and the Rise of Protectionism, (Duke, Dialogue Review, 2015);Towards an ASEAN Economic Community: Matching the Hardware with the Operating System (Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009). He is a member of the Advisory Board of the World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report.  Before moving to Singapore, he was the coordinator of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung’s Southeast Asia cooperation program based in Manila and co-editor of its journal on regional economics and politics. He has also worked for the Economist Intelligence Unit and the Philippine government. He is a graduate of the London School of Economics.

Ms Anita Prakash is Senior Policy Advisor (International Economic Cooperation) in the Office of President of Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA), Jakarta, Indonesia. Her key role at ERIA is policy research and policy development for leaders and senior officials of ASEAN, East Asia and Oceania, Europe and Africa. Her policy research covers international trade relations with special focus on trade and investment, GVCs and supply chain connectivity in Southeast Asia, East Asia, and between Asia-Europe and Asia-Africa. Her current research focus is on emerging economic architecture and supply chains in the Indo-Pacific. She provides policy and research support for bilateral and multilateral processes between ASEAN and its Dialogue Partners, the Trade Ministers meetings in ASEAN, the East Asia Summit, the Asia-Europe Meeting, and the G20.

Prior to her work at ERIA, she served as Director in the Government of India in the Department of Commerce and NITI Aayog. She was a Visiting Research Associate at the Graduate Institute, Geneva from 2016 to 2019. Her latest work in 2021 are the studies on ‘GVCs and Investments in Asia’ and ‘UK-ASEAN Trade: Strengthening the Supply Chain Linkages.’

She is currently writing on ‘Regional Integration and New Economic Linkages in Indo-Pacific. She is an alumni of Delhi University (M.Phil) and Australian National University (MBA).

Professor Wang Yong is Professor at School of International Studies, and Director of the Center for International Political Economy, and the Director of the Center for American Studies at Peking University, Beijing, China. He is also Professor at Party School of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China and Distinguished Fellow of Munk School of Global Affairs at University of Toronto, and Member of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Agenda Council on Geopolitics. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of Review of International Political Economy, the Journal of Global Asia, the Journal of Global Governance, the Journal of Contemporary Politics and the Journal of Human Security.

Wang Yong received his B.A. (1987, Law and International Politics), M.A. (1990, Law and IP), and PhD (1996, Law) from Peking University. He joined the faculty of Peking University School of International Studies in 1990. He has been visiting professor or scholar at the University of California San Diego, Pacific Council on International Policy (PCIP), University of Southern California, Indiana University Bloomington, the University of Sheffield and the University of British Columbia.

His major authored books include International Political Economy in China: A Global Conversation (co-edited with Greg Chin and Margaret Pearson, Routledge, 2015), US Political Economy under Barack Obama (Renmin Univ. Press, 2015), The Political Economy of International Trade (China Market Press, 2008), The Political Economy of China-U.S. Trade Relations (China Market Press, 2007), American Politics and Making of Foreign Policy (co-authored, Peking University Press, 2007) and The European Union’s Engagement with Transnational Policy Networks (co-edited with Stephen Kingah and Vivien Schmidt, Routledge, 2016). His recent articles appeared in the journals such as  Review of International Political Economy (USA), Oxford Review of Economic Policy (UK), Pacific Review (UK), Global Asia (Korea), China Security (USA), Asian Survey (USA) and Contemporary Politics (UK), International Politics Quarterly and World Economy and Politics (Chinese, China).