Event: AMP China Series: Intentions Behind China's Foreign Policy

For Australia, China's foreign policy, particularly in the Asian region, is of critical importance. To respond effectively to China's activities in a way that protects Australia's interests, we need to know not only what China is doing, but why. There appears to be a contradiction in Chinese foreign policy that Xi Jinping is prioritising good relations with countries on the periphery, however at the same time, insists China will not compromise on any issue pertaining to its territorial sovereignty. How can this apparent tension be resolved, particularly when China blames tensions around its periphery on the U.S. Rebalance to Asia, not on its own policies. The U.S. says China is intimidating its neighbours and not abiding by international law. Who is right?
 
Join John Garnaut and Bonnie Glaser in a discussion of China's regional policy with Lowy Institute East Asia Program Director Merriden Varrall.

Dr Merriden Varrall is Director, East Asia Program at the Lowy Institute. Before joining the Lowy Institute Merriden was the Assistant Country Director and Senior Policy Advisor at UNDP China, where she worked for the past three years on China's role in the world, focusing on its international development cooperation policy. Merriden has spent almost eight years living and working in China, including lecturing in foreign policy at the China Foreign Affairs University and conducting fieldwork for her doctoral research. Prior to that she worked for the Australian Treasury. Merriden has a PhD in political anthropology from Macquarie University, Sydney, and the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. Her dissertation examined the ideational factors behind China's foreign policy. She has a Masters Degree in International Affairs from the Australian National University, and completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Technology Sydney.

John Garnaut is Fairfax Media's Asia Pacific editor. Most recently he was a long-serving China correspondent. John graduated in law and arts from Monash University and worked as a commercial lawyer at Melbourne firm Hall & Wilcox before joining the Sydney Morning Herald as a cadet in 2002. He is an advisory board member of China Matters, a non-profit policy guiding platform, and speaks regularly on Chinese elite politics. He is author of The Rise and Fall of the House of Bo.

Bonnie Glaser is a senior adviser for Asia in the Freeman Chair in China Studies, where she works on issues related to Chinese foreign and security policy. She is concomitantly a senior associate with CSIS Pacific Forum and a consultant for the U.S. government on East Asia. From 2003 to mid-2008, Ms. Glaser was a senior associate in the CSIS International Security Program. Prior to joining CSIS, she served as a consultant for various U.S. government offices, including the Departments of Defense and State. Ms. Glaser has written extensively on Chinese threat perceptions and views of the strategic environment, China’s foreign policy, Sino-U.S. relations, U.S.-China military ties, cross-strait relations, Chinese assessments of the Korean peninsula, and Chinese perspectives on missile defense and multilateral security in Asia. Her writings have been published in the Washington Quarterly, China Quarterly, Asian Survey, International Security, Problems of Communism, Contemporary Southeast Asia, American Foreign Policy Interests, Far Eastern Economic Review, Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, New York Times, and International Herald Tribune, as well as various edited volumes on Asian security. Ms. Glaser is a regular contributor to the Pacific Forum quarterly Web journalComparative Connections. She is currently a board member of the U.S. Committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and she served as a member of the Defense Department’s Defense Policy Board China Panel in 1997. Ms. Glaser received her B.A. in political science from Boston University and her M.A. with concentrations in international economics and Chinese studies from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.