Beyond the Island Dispute: Democracy, Regionalism, and Global Politics in Southeast Asia

DATE: Friday March 24, 2017
TIME: 2:30 to 7:30 pm
LOCATION: College of General Studies, 871 Commonwealth Ave. (West Campus), Auditorium 511

Southeast Asia has moved once again to the center stage of global politics. Sovereignty disputes over islands in the South China seas raise the prospect of a Sino-American military clash. China’s drive to create new multilateral institutions – the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Maritime Silk Road – promises to vastly expand its economic and political presence in the region, possibly at the expense of the United States and the existing global economic regime. Yet, peace and prosperity in the region involves issues far broader than the competition between Washington and Beijing. The countries of Southeast Asia are undergoing dramatic social, economic and political changes. It is they who have the greatest stakes, and it is they who will have a decisive voice in their region’s future. How will the rapidly changing environment within Southeast Asia interact with the shifting geostrategic context? Can the great powers accommodate critical changes within the region? Will Southeast Asia’s long-standing multilateral institutions be able to endure the oncoming tides of change and what forms will they assume?

Sponsored by the BU Center for the Study of Asia, Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies.

For details about schedule and speakers, see https://www-staging.bu.edu/asian/news/7664-2/