The Indo-Pacific is a new strategic denomination for the wider Asian region, giving a key role to India as a regional power and denoting an area in which China plays a relatively lesser role. Initially floated by Japanese Prime Minister Abe in 2007, the Trump administration adopted the concept in 2017. Can a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” (FOIP) strategy promote security cooperation, or counter China’s strong maritime ambitions? What are the prospects for the revived “Quad” (officially the “Japan-Australia-India-US Consultations on the Indo-Pacific”)? How do states in the Indo-Pacific hedge against an uncertain future amidst US-China rivalry? What is the impact of shifting alliances, strategic partnerships, and new forms of alignment on the balance of power in the region? Can Europe play a meaningful role in the Indo-Pacific?
Puhujat
Liselotte Odgaard is visiting senior fellow at Hudson Institute.Odgaard has been a visiting scholar at institutions such as Harvard University, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the Norwegian Nobel Institute. She is the author of numerous monographs, books, peer-reviewed articles, and research papers on Chinese and AsiaPacific security, and she is a frequent commentator on these issues in the media. She regularly participates in policy dialogues such as the Arctic Circle Assembly in Iceland, the Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore, and the Xiangshan Forum in Beijing. She received her bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. in political science from Aarhus University in Denmark, as well as a master’s degree in international studies from the University of Warwick in the UK.
Lynn Kuok is an associate fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a senior research fellow at the University of Cambridge and a visiting scholar at the Paul Tsai China Center at Yale Law School. She has held fellowships at Brookings Institution, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard Law School, and the Centre for International Law at the National University of Singapore. She served as Editor-in-Chief of the Cambridge Review of International Affairs and the Singapore Law Review. Dr Kuok works on the politics, law and security of the IndoPacific, focusing on US-China-ASEAN relations, the South China Sea dispute and the Belt and Road Initiative. She speaks regularly at international conferences and recently gave evidence before the UK Defence Commission on the Security Situation in the ‘Far East’.
Sanjay Chaturvedi is Professor of International Relations and Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences at South Asian University, New Delhi. His research interest revolves around theory and practices of geopolitics, with special reference to Indian Ocean, Polar Regions and South Asia. He is the founding Vice-Chair of Indian Ocean Research Group, Inc. (IORG), currently Observer in the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) and editor of its flagship journal, Journal of the Indian Ocean Region (Routledge). His publications include coauthored Climate Terror: A Critical Geopolitics of Climate Change (Palgrave Macmillan 2015) and co-edited Geopolitical Orientations, Regionalism, and Security in the Indian Ocean, Energy Security and the Indian Ocean Region and The Security of Sea Lanes of Communication in the Indian Ocean Region (Routledge Revivals, 2015). A regular speaker at the National Defense College, New Delhi, he has contributed to Track II dialogues with Australia, Japan and New Zealand.
James J. Przystup has worked on Asia-related issues for over thirty years: on the staff of the United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs; in the private sector with Itochu Corporation and IBM World Trade Americas/Far East Corporation; in the United States Government, on the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff under Secretary of State George P. Shultz and under Secretary of State James A. Baker III, as Senior Member responsible for East Asia and the Pacific; and in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, as Director for Regional Security Strategies on the Policy Planning Staff.
Puheenjohtaja
Bart Gaens is Senior Research Fellow in the Global Security and Governance research programme at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. From May 2021 to April 2023, he led a project on connectivity in the Indo-Pacific region. He also holds the title of Docent at the Faculty of Arts at the University of Helsinki.
In the past he has worked as Project Director for FIIA’s Center on US Politics and Power (CUSPP), Professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Helsinki, and Specially-Appointed Associate Professor at Osaka University in Japan.
He has published widely on Europe-Asia inter-regionalism and the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) process, Japan’s foreign policy and regional role, India’s foreign policy and relations with the EU, domestic politics in Myanmar, and security-related issues in the Indo-Pacific region. He has also (co)edited volumes and reports on connectivity, EU-Asia relations, the US-China rivalry, transatlantic relations, and Japan’s search for strategic partnerships.