Event - China in the South and East China Seas
The intentions behind China's activities in the South China Sea and East China Sea are the source of considerable debate in Australia, in the region, and around the world. China asserts it is peacefully protecting its historic sovereignty. Many Western analysts fear that China is aggressively attempting to become the predominant power in the region. However, despite heated discussion, it is difficult to say with certainty what China is aiming to achieve, or what the implications and unintended consequences might be.
Join Lowy Nonresident Fellows Bonnie Glaser and Linda Jakobson in a panel chaired by East Asia Program Director Merriden Varrall for an in-depth examination of the motivations behind China's activities in the maritime arena, drawing on their many years of experience working on China's foreign policy.
Bonnie Glaser is a senior adviser for Asia in the Freeman Chair in China Studies, Bonnie 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.
Linda Jakobson is a Nonresident Fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy. In January 2014, she became an independent researcher and took up the position of Visiting Professor at the United States Studies Centre at Sydney University. From 2011 to 2013 she served as East Asia Program Director at the Lowy Institute. Before moving to Sydney in 2011 she lived and worked in China for 20 years and published six books on China and other East Asian societies. Her last position in Beijing was Director of the China and Global Security Programme and Senior Researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) 2009-2011. A Mandarin speaker, Jakobson has published extensively on China’s foreign policy, the Taiwan Straits, China’s energy security, China's Arctic aspirations, and its science & technology polices. In 2014 Linda Jakobson co-founded China Matters Ltd, a not-for-profit company registered as a charity under Australian law. The goal of China Matters is to stimulate and sustain a nuanced and informed public discourse in Australia about China’s rise and its implications for Australia. Her publications include “The PLA and Maritime Security Actors,“ in Phillip C. Saunders and Andrew Scobell, eds., PLA Influence on China’s National Security Policymaking (Stanford University Press, forthcoming 2015); Australia's Relations with China in Turbulence (Asan Forum, January 2014); Australia-China ties: In search of political trust (Lowy Institute Policy Brief, June 2011); China's Arctic Aspirations (SIPRI Policy Paper, Nov. 2012, with Jingchao Peng); and New Foreign Policy Actors in China (SIPRI Policy Paper 26/2010, with Dean Knox). Jakobson’s research focuses on China’s foreign and security policy, Northeast Asian political dynamics, maritime security in Indo-Pacific Asia, Australia-China ties, and China's Arctic activities.
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.
