Global Summitry Podcasts: Recent Episodes
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Join Professor Alan Alexandroff as he interviews fellow academics, policymakers, and former officials about global governance and the contemporary global order.
It is with great pleasure that I have invited Pascale Massot back into the Virtual Studio for this episode of the ‘Now’ Series. This is Episode 2 of Season 4. With Pascale today I am particularly interested in how she sees the recent ‘Middle Power’ actions of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and how the Carney government is dealing with Trump trade and foreign policy actions. I was also very interested in Pascale’s view of China's foreign policy actions, after a visit to China. I was keen to explore the state of US-China relations as the Trump-Xi Summit approaches. Pascale is an Associate Professor in the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa, a non-resident Honorary Fellow, Political Economy at the Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis in New York, and a Senior Fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada in Vancouver.Pascale is the author of China's Vulnerability Paradox: How the World's Largest Consumer Transformed Global Commodity Markets, Oxford University Press, 2024. Her research interests include the global political economy of China’s rise, China’s impact on global extractive commodity markets—including debates around de-risking, critical minerals and economic security, Canada-China relations, and the advent of Indo-Pacific strategies around the world.
It is with great pleasure that I invited my colleague, Miles Kahler into the Virtual Studio for this episode of ‘Shaking the Global Order’, S4, Ep 2. With Miles in the Virtual Studio I was particularly interested in how he understands the conflicts that President Trump has engaged in, from: Ukraine, Venezuela and fairly evidently the US-Israel conflict with Iran and the current ceasefire in Gaza. What do all these actions say about Trump’s understanding of interstate relations and what he means when he speaks of ‘America First’. Miles is a research professor-in-residence and distinguished professor emeritus at American University’s School of International Service. Miles Kahler is also a nonresident scholar in the Global Order and Institutions Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Before joining the faculty of SIS, Kahler was Rohr Professor of Pacific International Relations and Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego.
It is with great pleasure that I have invited my colleague Stewart Patrick back into the Virtual Studio for this inaugural episode of the ‘Now’ Series – this will be Season 4. With Stewart today I am particularly interested in how he sees the possible action of Middle Powers (MPs) in the current Trump administration’s global order actions. There has been growing interest in the role of MPs in the global order as we’ve seen rising geopolitical tensions: US-China, US-Russia but also their role with potential for a more autonomous Europe. There are many questions: who are the MPs, what role do they, and can they play, especially in the face of the declared ‘Rupture’ in the Liberal Order as described by Canadian Prime Minister Carney recently at the World Economic Forum in Davos? There are many more questions than answers yet a propitious place to start, I hope, is with Stewart Patrick.Stewart is senior fellow and director of the Global Order and Institutions Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP). His primary areas of research focus are the shifting foundations of world order, the future of American internationalism, and the requirements for effective multilateral cooperation on transnational challenges. Stewart is an expert in the history and practice of multilateralism. He is particularly interested in the international governance dilemmas posed by shifting power dynamics, emerging technologies, anti-globalization sentiments, the planetary ecological crisis, and growing competition in the global commons, including the oceans and outer space.He recently posted at CEIP, “The Middle Power Moment”.
It is with great pleasure that I have invited my colleague Tom Wright back into the Virtual Studio for this episode of ‘Shaking the Global Order’, the first of the new season. With Tom today I am particularly interested in how he sees the current Trump administration's efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict, but also take a ‘peek’ at President Trump's ‘New Imperialism’ examining Venezuela, Iran, Greenland and more. Today, Tom is a senior fellow with the Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy and Technology at the Brookings Institution. In the Biden administration, Tom served as special assistant to the president and senior director for strategic planning at the National Security Council. At the White House, Tom worked on a wide range of projects and issues, including the 2022 U.S. National Security Strategy, the Russia-Ukraine war, European security and U.S.-China relations among other issues. Tom continues his writing and has published relatively recently in Foreign Affairs and he contributes also to The Atlantic magazine.
So, it was with great pleasure that I was able to arrange this podcast with Dan Bilak to discuss: - the state of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, - the prospect for a successful conclusion to the war, - Ukraine’s efforts to bring about a cessation of the violence, - he difficult interactions with US President Donald Trump, and - most importantly Dan’s own involvement in Ukraine and ultimately his involvement in this most dramatic European war.Dan is currently a partner at Kinstellar, a law firm that acts as counsel to leading investors across Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), Southeast Europe (SEE) and Central Asia. Before that Dan served as Chief Investment Advisor to the Prime Minister of Ukraine (2016 – 2019) and headed UkraineInvest, the Ukrainian government’s foreign investment promotion agency, where he supported companies in navigating the Ukrainian investment environment. As Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Ukrainian State Railways (UkrZaliznytsia), and twice as Chief of Staff to the Minister of Justice of Ukraine, Daniel oversaw governance reforms and developed anti-corruption strategies in the public sector.Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Dan has served in the Territorial Defence Forces of Ukraine, a branch of Ukraine’s military. He has been awarded recognition by the Minister of Defence of Ukraine “For Support to the Armed Forces of Ukraine”.Though I have not been in touch with Dan for a number of years, in fact we were colleagues at the McGill Law School in the early 1980’s. As is evident Dan has been personally involved in this still raging war in Ukraine. So let’s welcome Dan to the virtual studio for this podcast.
It was a real pleasure to invite Julia Ganter into our Virtual Studio to talk about today’s role, and possible future roles for Middle Powers, in a world of rising disorder. Which are today’s Middle Powers and what role do Middle Powers play in today’s global order? Is there a characteristic Middle Power Diplomacy?Julia Ganter is the Programme Director of the Emerging Middle Powers Initiative and Editor-in-Chief of “The Berlin Pulse”, the annual foreign policy publication and public opinion survey of the German foundation Körber-Stiftung. (https://www.global-solutions-initiative.org/person/julia-ganter/)
Summit Dialogue S3, Ep 2: Mihaela Papa on the enlarged BRICS Summit in Brazil by globalsummitry
So it was a real pleasure to invite CEIP’s Stewart Patrick back into the Virtual Studio to talk about the shape and influence of the BRICS, or BRICS+, as it is often referred to these days.Stewart Patrick is senior fellow and director of the Global Order and Institutions Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP). His primary areas of research focus are the shifting foundations of world order, the future of American internationalism, and the requirements for effective multilateral cooperation on transnational challenges. Stewart is an expert in the history and practice of multilateralism. He is the author of a number of volumes and most recently he has led the research at CEIP for the volume: “BRICS Expansion and the Future of World Order: Perspectives from Member States, Partners, and Aspirants”.Stewart has authored many articles, essays, chapters, and reports on problems of world order, U.S. global engagement, the United Nations and other international organizations, and the management of global issues.
I am pleased to welcome back into the virtual studio, Thomas Wright. After serving in the Biden National Security Council for a number of years, Tom has returned – to civilian life – at the Brookings Institution in Washington. I wanted to begin to explore with Tom his assessment of where US foreign policy is now that Donald Trump has begun in such a flurry the second presidential term. I am particularly interested in discussing Trump’s efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict with Tom. Where is this effort likely to end? And what relationship does Trump want with Putin’s Russia?Currently Tom is a senior fellow with the Strobe Talbott for Security, Strategy and Technology at the Brookings Institution. Tom most recently served as special assistant to the president and senior director for strategic planning at the National Security Council in the Biden administration. Before Tom left for the Biden administration, Tom had been very active writing on contemporary politics and in particular the impact of President Trump on US foreign policy, Trump 1.0. Tom continues his writing and just recently published the Foreign Affairs article titled, “The Right U.S. Strategy for Russia-Ukraine Negotiations: How American Pressure Can Bring the War to an Acceptable End”.
US-China relations during the Biden administration was marked by growing competition and rivalry. Many of the aspects of US-China relations of the first Trump presidency were retained by the Biden administration. We have now returned to a second Trump administration. What are we likely to now see in US foreign policy under a second Trump presidency; what will US-China relations likely be going forward? What will be the state of relations of each with players in Europe and in the Indo-Pacific?To examine these critical matters, it was with great pleasure that I invited my colleague Rush Doshi into the Virtual Studio for our new Season 3 of podcasts of ‘Shaking the Global Order’. Today’s podcast with Rush explores these critical global power issues.Rush Doshi is the C.V. Starr senior fellow for Asia studies and director of the China Strategy Initiative at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He is also an assistant professor in the Security Studies Program in Georgetown’s Walsh School of Foreign Service. Rush was deputy senior director for China and Taiwan on the National Security Council (NSC) from 2021 to 2024, where he helped manage the NSC's first China directorate. He is the author of The Long Game: China’s Grand Strategy to Displace American Order (Oxford University Press, 2021).So, let’s join Rush in the Virtual Studio to examine all these issues.
US-China relations during the Biden administration have been marked by competition and rivalry. Many of the aspects of US-China relations of the first Trump presidency were retained by the Biden administration. We have now returned to President Trump. What are we likely to see now in US foreign policy under a second Trump presidency; what will be US-China relations going forward? To explore all this I invited back into the Virtual Studio my good colleague Yves Tiberghien.Yves currently is a Professor of Political Science, Director Emeritus of the Institute of Asian Research, Konwakai Chair in Japanese Research, and Director of the Center for Japanese Research at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada. Yves recently completed a study leave and was a visiting scholar at the Taipei School of Economics and Political Science (2023-2024). Yves specializes in comparative political economy and international political economy with an empirical focus on China, Japan, and Korea. His latest book is The East Asian Covid-19 Paradox, August 2021.Come join Yves in the Virtual Studio to examine these issues.
Season 3—The current state of global relations: An introduction by Alan Alexandroff by globalsummitry
It is with great pleasure that I continued the conversation with my colleague Yves Tiberghien for this episode on ‘Shaking the Global Order’. After a short break I continued the discussion with Yves as to the current state of relations with the US and China. I was also able to extend our examination to include the impact of this competition on the Middle Power countries in the Indo-Pacific. The discussion extended to Japan, Korea, Taiwan and others. Yves is a Professor of Political Science, Director Emeritus of the Institute of Asian Research, Konwakai Chair in Japanese Research, and Director of the Center for Japanese Research at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada. Yves recently completed a study leave and was a visiting scholar at the Taipei School of Economics and Political Science (2023-2024). Yves specializes in comparative political economy and international political economy with an empirical focus on China, Japan, and Korea. His latest book is "The East Asian Covid-19 Paradox" (August 2021) with work forthcoming on a new book titled "Game-Changer: How Covid-19 Has Reshaped Societies and Politics in East Asia".So, let’s rejoin Yves in the Virtual Studio in this examination of US-China relations and its impact on the Indo-Pacific.
It is with great pleasure that I have invited my colleague Yves Tiberghien back into the Virtual Studio for this episode on ‘Shaking the Global Order’. The US-China relationship has been marked by continuing competition and rivalry. So, I sat down again with Yves Tiberghien to examine what the current state of the US-China relationship is today while remaining mindful of the upcoming US election. I was particularly curious to see what the impact, if any, of the recent visit to Beijing by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan might have had on current US-China relations.Yves is a Professor of Political Science, Director Emeritus of the Institute of Asian Research, Konwakai Chair in Japanese Research, and Director of the Center for Japanese Research at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada. Yves recently completed a study leave and was a visiting scholar at the Taipei School of Economics and Political Science (2023-2024). Yves is an International Steering Committee Member at Pacific Trade and Development Conference (PAFTAD) and a visiting professor at Tokyo University and Sciences Po, Paris. He has held other visiting positions at National Chengchi University (Taiwan), GRIPS (Tokyo), and the Jakarta School of Public Policy (Indonesia).So, let’s join Yves in the Virtual Studio to examine the current state of US-China relationship.
It is with pleasure that I was able to invite my colleague Gregory T Chin into the Virtual Studio to discuss all matters related to the BRICS+. Greg has been an observer of the BRICS for some time, and its main institutional creation the New Development Bank (NDB).I was keen to explore the BRICS - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa now that it has extended membership to Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Where is the BRICS+ headed in this evolving geopolitical environment? And I wanted to explore with Greg the major BRICS institution, the NDB, and what the BRICS+ hopes to accomplish with this Multilateral Development Bank (MDB).Gregory T Chin is an Associate Professor of Political Economy in the Department of Politics, and Faculty of Graduate Studies at York University (Canada), with a focus on China, Asia, the BRICS, global governance, and the political economy of international money and finance. He is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow of the Global China Initiative at Boston University's Global Development Policy Center, and of the Foreign Policy Institute at The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).Prior to joining York University in 2007, he was First Secretary (Development) at the Canadian Embassy in Beijing 2003-2006. He handled strategic policy engagement with decision-makers in China, government agencies, key Chinese think tanks, and liaised with diplomatic representatives of other countries, the major multilateral development banks and international organizations, and private international foundations and donors.His recent publications include: an "Introduction - The Evolution of New Development Bank", "Bangladesh and New Development Bank", and "US Financial Statecraft and China" (published in Italian by Istituto Treccani). Also he recently published on the New Development Bank with – “Introduction – The evolution of New Development Bank (NDB): A decade plus in the making”.
It is with great pleasure that I welcome back into the Virtual Studio, Homi Kharas. I wanted to explore with him the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the halfway point for their completion. I was looking for his assessment of current progress especially after he, John W McArthur, and Odera Onyechi published a new Report at Brookings: “How is the world doing on the SDGs? Four tests and eight findings”. Also, I wanted to get his views of what we can expect at the upcoming UN Summit of the Future, scheduled for September 22nd and 23rd in New York during the High Level Panel Week. This Summit is the second of two Summits called for by the current UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Homi is a senior fellow in the Center for Sustainable Development, housed in the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings. In that capacity, he studies policies and trends influencing developing countries, including aid to poor countries, the emergence of the middle class, and global governance and the G20.His most recent co-authored/edited books are: “The Rise of the Middle Class: How the Search for the Good Life Can Change the World” (2023), “Breakthrough: The Promise of Frontier Technologies for Sustainable Development” edited with John McArthur and Izumi Ohno (2022) and “Leave No One Behind: From Summits to Solutions: Time for Specifics on the Sustainable Development Goals" edited with John McArthur and Izumi Ohno (2019).
The US-China relationship has been marked by growing competition and rivalry. Nevertheless, the two have made efforts to stabilize the relationship notably with the meeting between Presidents Xi and Biden at the margins of the APEC Summit in San Francisco in 2023. More recently, the ministers of defense have met at the margins of the Shangri-La Dialogue. Secretary Austin and Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun agreed to work toward better communications to stabilize military relations and avert crises, according to a statement from the Defense Department. The United States and China will “convene a crisis-communications working group by the end of the year.”So, what is the current state of the US-China relationship today and how are the two reshaping the global order in the face of US-China relations? Joining me in the Virtual Studio is Pascale Massot to discuss the state of the US-China relationship.Pascale is an associate professor in the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa. She is also non-resident Honorary Fellow, Political Economy at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis, and a Senior Fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. She also has served as the Senior Advisor for China and Asia in the offices of various Canadian Cabinet ministers, including the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Pascale is the author of “China’s Vulnerability Paradox: How the World’s Largest Consumer Transformed Global Commodity Markets” (Oxford University Press, 2024).Her research interests include the global political economy of China’s rise and impact on the liberal international order, China’s impact on global extractive commodity markets, including debates around de-risking, Canada-China relations, Canadian public opinion on China and China narratives more broadly, as well as the advent of Indo-Pacific strategies around the world.
It is with great pleasure that I have invited Elizabeth Sidiropoulos into the Virtual Studio for this episode of ‘Summit Dialogue’. With South Africa’s national and provincial elections just concluded and with South Africa about to take the Presidency of the G20 after the conclusion of Brazil’s hosting it seemed like an opportune moment to speak with Elizabeth about South Africa’s future and its leadership of the Informals, especially the G20.Elizabeth is the chief executive of the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), an independent foreign policy think-tank based in Johannesburg. She holds an MA in International Relations (cum laude) from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. She has headed the Institute since 2005. Elizabeth is also the editor-in-chief of the South African Journal of International Affairs. Elizabeth has co-edited a volume: Values, Interests and Power: South African Foreign Policy in Uncertain Times (2020), She has also co-edited two books exploring the rise of the new development cooperation providers.Her research focus is South Africa’s foreign policy, global governance and the role of emerging powers in Africa. Most recently she has focused on Russia’s renewed presence in Africa, against the background of SA’s membership of the BRICS grouping.So, let’s join Elizabeth in the Virtual Studio to examine South Africa’s future.
So it was a real pleasure to invite CEIP’s Stewart Patrick back into the Virtual Studio to talk about this critical UN Summit – the Summit of the Future (SoTF). This Summit will take place this year on September 22nd -23rd. The effort leading to this Summit began with the 75th UN anniversary and the call for the Secretary General (SG) to prepare recommendations for the future. And he in turn prepared the Report - “Our Common Agenda” among many recommendations the SG proposed a Summit of the Future (SoTF). The General Assembly then decided that the SoTFwould take place in September 2024, building on the earlier Sustainable Development Goals summit in September 20203 – the ‘SDG Summit’. The outcome envisioned for the SoTF would be an intergovernmentally negotiated, action-oriented ‘Pact for the Future’.Stewart Patrick is senior fellow and director of the Global Order and Institutions Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP). His primary areas of research focus are the shifting foundations of world order, the future of American internationalism, and the requirements for effective multilateral cooperation on transnational challenges. Stewart is an expert in the history and practice of multilateralism, He is the author of three books, including: The Sovereignty Wars: Reconciling America with the World; Weak Links: Fragile States, Global Threats, and International Security; and The Best Laid Plans: The Origins of American Multilateralism and the Dawn of the Cold War. He has authored many articles, essays, chapters, and reports on problems of world order, U.S. global engagement, the United Nations and other international organizations, and the management of global issues.
It is with great pleasure that I have invited Feliciano de Sá Guimarães into the Virtual Studio for this episode of ‘Summit Dialogue’. Feliciano is currently the Academic Director and Senior Researcher at CEBRI. I hope, with Feliciano’s help to explore Brazil’s hosting of the G20. What designs and hopes does Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, or Lula as he is known, the returned President of Brazil have for Brazil’s G20 Presidency.Feliciano is currently the Academic Director and Senior Researcher at the Brazilian Center of International Relations (CEBRI). Feliciano holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of São Paulo (2006-2010. Feliciano is an Associate Professor (livre docente) at the Institute of International Relations at the University of São Paulo (USP). He is also an associate editor of the journal Foreign Policy Analysis and Editor-in-chief of the CEBRI Journal.So, let’s join Feliciano in the Virtual Studio to examine Brazil’s hosting year for the G20.
It is with great pleasure that I have invited my colleague Bruce Jones into the Virtual Studio for this episode on ‘Shaking the Global Order’. ‘The US-China relationship has been marked by growing competition and rivalry but leaders did gather for a Xi-Biden Summit on November 15th that took place near San Francisco at the margin of the APEC Summit. So what is the state of US-China relations as a result of that Summit, tensions between the two over Taiwan and in the Indo-Pacific. How are the two reshaping the global order in the face of US-China relations?Bruce Jones is a senior fellow with the Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution; he also works with the Center for East Asia Policy Studies. From 2015 to 2020, Bruce served as the vice president and director for the Foreign Policy program.His research expertise and policy experience is in international security. Bruce’s current research focus is on U.S. strategy, international order, and great power relations. His most recent books on the topic are “To Rule the Waves: How Control of the World’s Oceans Shapes the Fate of the Superpowers” (Scribner, 2021) and “The Marshall Plan and the Shaping of American Strategy,” (Brookings Institution Press, 2017)Bruce also has had significant experience on multilateral institutions. He was a senior advisor to Kofi Annan on U.N. reform and served as deputy research director to the U.N.’s High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, as well as lead scholar for the International Task Force on Global Public Goods.So, let’s join Bruce in the Virtual Studio to examine the US-China relationship and relations between the two in the Indo-Pacific.
It is with great pleasure that I have invited my colleague Yves Tiberghien back into the Virtual Studio for this episode on ‘Shaking the Global Order’. ‘The US-China relationship has been marked by growing competition and rivalry. This increasing tension seemed to reach a dramatic moment when a high-altitude balloon originating from China flew across North American airspace from January 28 to February 4, 2023 only to be shot down over U.S. territorial waters off the coast of South Carolina. As a result China suspended all military to military communications. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponed a visit. US-China relations languished until the recent Xi-Biden summit on November 15th that took place near San Francisco at the margin of the APEC Summit.So, what is the current state of the US-China relationship today and how are the two reshaping the global order in the face of US-China relations?Yves currently is a Professor of Political Science, Director Emeritus of the Institute of Asian Research, Konwakai Chair in Japanese Research, and Director of the Center for Japanese Research at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada. Yves is currently on study leave from UBC and is a visiting scholar at the Taipei School of Economics and Political Science (2023-2024). Yves specializes in comparative political economy and international political economy with an empirical focus on China, Japan, and Korea. His latest book is The East Asian Covid-19 Paradox. August 2021 with work forthcoming on a new book (titled 'Game-Changer: How Covid-19 Has Reshaped Societies and Politics in East Asia').So, let’s join Yves in the Virtual Studio to examine the US-China relationship
It is with great pleasure that I welcome back to the Virtual Studio, Homi Kharas. In September during the High-Level Week at the UN General Assembly heads of state and government gathered at the invitation of the Secretary General to examine at the halfway point the progress made in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). I wanted to get Homi’s views of the progress he saw in achieving the 17 goals of Agenda 2030. I also wanted to get Homi’s view of the two reports – ‘The Triple Agenda’ - of the Independent Expert Group (IEG) convened during the G20 India Presidency. The two volumes focused on the enhancement of the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) and their focus on global development and the green transition. Homi was, in fact, the lead author for both volumes of the ‘Triple Agenda’.Homi is a senior fellow in the Center for Sustainable Development, housed in the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings. In that capacity, he studies policies and trends influencing developing countries, including aid to poor countries, the emergence of the middle class, and global governance and the G20.His most recent co-authored/edited books are: “The Rise of the Middle Class: How the Search for the Good Life Can Change the World” (2023), “Breakthrough: The Promise of Frontier Technologies for Sustainable Development” edited with John McArthur and Izumi Ohno (2022) and “Leave No One Behind: From Summits to Solutions: Time for Specifics on the Sustainable Development Goals" edited with John McArthur and Izumi Ohno (2019).
The week of September 18th was the central week for UN activity – the High Level Week - with the opening of the 78 UNGA’s. Many Heads of State attended and there was a series of summits during the week including the High Level Panel Forum’s (HLPF) SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) Summit, the Climate Ambition Summit and a ministerial gathering for the Summit of the Future that is planned for next year’s High Level Week. So it was a real pleasure to invite back CEIP’s Stewart Patrick into the Virtual Studio to talk about this critical UN week. What advances occurred and the continuing challenges for multilateralism. Stewart Patrick is senior fellow and director of the Global Order and Institutions Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP). His primary areas of research focus are the shifting foundations of world order, the future of American internationalism, and the requirements for effective multilateral cooperation on transnational challenges. Stewart is an expert in the history and practice of multilateralism, He is the author of three books, including: The Sovereignty Wars: Reconciling America with the World; Weak Links: Fragile States, Global Threats, and International Security; and The Best Laid Plans: The Origins of American Multilateralism and the Dawn of the Cold War. He has authored many articles, essays, chapters, and reports on problems of world order, U.S. global engagement, the United Nations and other international organizations, and the management of global issues. [The SDGs – “Adopted in 2015, the SDGs are a set of 17 goals that, combined, seek to improve health and wellbeing, reduce inequalities and exclusion, and ensure a just transition toward environmentally sustainable societies for all of the world’s inhabitants.” ]
COP15 was designed to to agree on a new set of goals to guide global action through the next decade through the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) post-2020 framework process to halt and reverse nature loss. Nature is critical to meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees. So I was happy to bring Stewart Patrick from CEIP back into the Virtual Studio to discuss the conclusion and consequences of COP15, the just completed UN Biodiversity Conference.Stewart Patrick is senior fellow and director of the Global Order and Institutions Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP). His primary areas of research focus are the shifting foundations of world order, the future of American internationalism, and the requirements for effective multilateral cooperation on transnational challenges. Stewart is an expert in the history and practice of multilateralism, He is the author of three books, including: The Sovereignty Wars: Reconciling America with the World; Weak Links: Fragile States, Global Threats, and International Security; and The Best Laid Plans: The Origins of American Multilateralism and the Dawn of the Cold War. He has authored many articles, essays, chapters, and reports on problems of world order, U.S. global engagement, the United Nations and other international organizations, and the management of global issues.
So, it was my great pleasure to sit down again with my colleague, Colin Bradford in the Virtual Studio to talk about the Indonesian G20 Summit and beyond. Colin has voiced concerns recently over the prospects for progress at this G20 Summit and beyond with the tensions over Russia’s war in the Ukraine and growing geopolitical rivalry between the US and China. These geopolitical tensions seem to raise critical difficulties among the G20 members in achieving progress at the G20 on critical, even existential global governance issues such as global health prevention, climate change serious debt relief for many low- and medium-income countries from the Global South.In 2004 as a Brookings expert, Colin Bradford was the first person to push for transforming the G8 to G20 at leaders’ level and became a leading convener of conferences, workshops, and seminars to work for international institutional reforms to bring the emerging market economies more fully into the global system. Colin continues to be the Lead Co-chair of the CWD, the China-West Dialogue and a Co-Chair in the V20, Vision20, an unofficial engagement group of the G20, Colin has participated in all the recent Global Solutions Summits out of Berlin and has been named a GSS Global Fellow. Currently, Colin is a Non-resident Senior Fellow of the Global Economy and Development Program, Brookings Institution.So come join Colin and I as we examine the threat to the roles of the G7 and the G20 and in particular the challenges that Indonesia faces for this Bali G20 Leaders’ Summit.
I was so pleased to invite Oliver back into the Virtual Studio to discuss the Brazilian Presidential run off. That second round resulted in a narrow victory for the former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula over the current President Jair Bolsonaro. This podcast explores the Lula’s Presidential victory, and Bolsonaro’s loss, and then looks at the consequences for Brazilian democracy, the effort to save the Amazon Rainforest and then the possible impact of Lula’s return to the Presidency beyond BrazilOliver is an associate professor of international relations at Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV) in Sao Paulo. There, with several colleagues, he launched a new School of International Relations. He is also a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC, a non-resident Fellow at the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi) in Berlin, and a columnist for Estado de São Paulo and Americas Quarterly.Oliver has written extensively on the politics of the rising powers, including The BRICS and the Future of the Global Order and his most recent book from Polity, Post-Western World: How Emerging Powers are Remaking the Global Order. He is a frequent commentator on Brazilian politics as well the Hemisphere. He contributes extensively to journals and the media in Brazil and across the region.Oliver provides real insights into Brazil’s immediate politics and the consequences for Brazil of Lula’s win and Bolsonaro’s loss. Please join Oliver in this effort to really ‘dive deep’ into Brazil and its politics.
I was pleased to invite Jessica Chen Weiss into the Virtual Studio to discuss the outcomes of the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) held from October 16 to October 22, 2022. I was interested in exploring with her the consequences of the 20th on Chinese foreign policy and in particular on the US-China relationship.
Jessica Chen Weiss is the Michael J. Zak Professor for China and Asia-Pacific Studies and an Associate Professor of Government at Cornell University, a political science editor at the Washington Post Monkey Cage blog, and a non-resident Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Jessica is the author of Powerful Patriots: Nationalist Protest in China’s Foreign Relations (Oxford University Press, 2014).She has written recent important articles in The New York Times and Foreign Affairs on the rising US-China competition.
So come join us for this important podcast.
I was pleased to invite into the Virtual Studio former Chilean Ambassador Jorge Heine to discuss, first, the state of politics in Chile following the September 4th rejection of the proposed constitution and then to assess the impact on this rejection on the current government of Gabriel Boric of the Left in Chile. Finally, I wanted to assess the state of politics currently in Latin America.
Jorge is currently a research professor at Boston University Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies and a non-resident Wilson Center Global Fellow at The Wilson Center in Washington D.C., Jorge Heine is a lawyer, IR scholar and diplomat with a special interest in the international politics of the Global South
Jorge has served as ambassador of Chile to China (2014-2017), to India (2003-2007) and to South Africa (1994-1999), and as a cabinet minister in a past Chilean Government. Jorge was CIGI Professor of Global Governance at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, Wilfrid Laurier University, from 2007 to 2017, and a Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI).
He has published some seventeen books, including most recently Latin American Politics in the New World Order: The Active Non-Alignment Option (Anthem, forthcoming), the 21st Century Democracy Promotion in the Americas (with B. Weiffen, Routledge, 2015); the Oxford Handbook of Modern Diplomacy (with A. Cooper and R.Thakur, Oxford University Press, 2013,2015); and The Dark Side of Globalization (with R.Thakur, UN University Press, 2011), and some 100 journal articles and book chapters.
So, come join Jorge Heine and I in the Virtual Studio as we explore the current state of politics in Chile and the wider Latin American scene.
I am pleased to invite Zachary Paikin into the Virtual Studio to discuss the state of EU foreign policy. While the major countries in Europe – France, Germany and Italy maintain national foreign policies, the EU has continued to strive to promote an EU foreign policy under the leadership of the current High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security, Josep Borrel. This is perceived to be particularly significant in the light of Russia’s war against Ukraine and the rising tensions between the US and China.
Zach Paikin today is a Researcher in the EU Foreign Policy unit at CEPS (Centre for European Policy Studies). He is also a Nonresident Research Fellow with the Institute for Peace & Diplomacy in Toronto and a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Global Policy Institute in London. Zach is also an affiliated expert with the Minsk Dialogue Council on International Relations.
Zach has a number of publications with CEPS, including with colleagues: ‘The EU’s Strategic Compass: A guide to reverse strategic shrinkage?’
So come join Zach Paikin and I as we examine EU foreign policy.
I was pleased to invite Elizabeth into the Virtual Studio to discuss the state of South Africa both its foreign policy in the midst of the Russian War against Ukraine, its participation in the BRICS and the state of its politics under the continuing governance by the ANC.
Elizabeth Sidiropoulos is the chief executive of the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), which she has led since 2005. She has over two decades of involvement in politics and international relations in South Africa, and her expertise lies in South Africa’s foreign policy, South-South Cooperation and the role of emerging powers in Africa. Elizabeth is also the editor-in-chief of the South African Journal of International Affairs.
Elizabeth has published on various aspects of South Africa’s foreign policy. She has co-edited a volume on: Values, Interests and Power: South African Foreign Policy in Uncertain Times (2020), and she has also recently completed a collaboration with scholars across five continents on the Handbook on Development Cooperation for Achieving the 2030 Agenda, published by Palgrave in 2021.
So join me in the Virtual Studio to discuss the state of South African politics and policy with Elizabeth Sidiropoulos.
It was great to invite Peter Draper back into the Virtual Studio to discuss the state of the WTO following conclusion of the WTO 12th Ministerial that took place in June finally after several lengthy delays. It was an opportunity to examine whether the WTO Ministerial had been able to make progress in resolving the many issues challenging this multilateral institution and to assess the leadership of the current Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. Finally, I wanted to get Peter’s view on how much growing geopolitical tensions, especially between US and China are hindering reform progress at the WTO.
Peter Draper is currently the Jean Monnet Chair in Trade and the Environment and the Executive Director of the Institute for International Trade, University of Adelaide, Australia. Peter is also the Deputy Dean International: Faculty of Arts, Business, Law, and Economics. Peter is also non-resident senior fellow of the Brussels-based European Centre for International Political Economy and an Associate Researcher at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS) formerly the German Development Institute.
So, it is my pleasure to sit down with my colleague, again, Yves Tiberghien. I wanted bring Yves into the Virtual Studio to talk about the recently assassinated Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe. What was Abe’s impact on Japan and Japanese foreign policy of this long serving Japanese Prime Minister.
Yves is the Director Emeritus of the Institute of Asian Research at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and is currently a Professor of Political Science. The Director of the Centre for Japanese Research and the current holder of the Konwakai Chair in Japanese Research at the University of British Columbia. He is also a Distinguished Fellow at the Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada and the Canadian PAFTAD Chair. His most recent publication is The East Asian Covid-19 Paradox, published in 2022 with Cambridge Elements.
So come join Yves and I as we explore the impact of Shinzo Abe.
We were glad to welcome back Matthew Goodman from CSIS in Washington to the Virtual Studio. As you can see from his short bio below, Matt has had both public and private sector roles and has been directly involved with the G7/8 and G20 in past U.S. administrations.
it was great to catch up with him to focus our attention on the Indo-Pacific and Biden Administration policy in the region as well as the recently concluded German G7 Summit. We also wanted to explore with Matt the growing difficult relationship between the two leading states of the region, the U.S. and China, and how the relationship has shaped Biden foreign policy. Matthew is senior vice president, senior adviser for Asian economics, and holds the Simon Chair in Political Economy at CSIS. Matthew has served in both the private sector at Goldman Sachs and Albright Stonebridge Group and has also held several significant roles in the public sector including early in his career as an international economist at the U.S. Treasury Department and at the Tokyo Embassy. Subsequently, he was director of international economics on the National Security Council staff responsible for the G20 and, the then G8, and then former White House Coordinator for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the East Asia Summit (EAS).
We are entering a very busy ‘Summit Season’ and I thought I would kick off this Summit Season with a conversation with Paola Subacchi. I wanted to review with her the consequences of the just completed G7 Summit hosted by Germany at Schloss Elmau, the NATO Summit in Spain, and also look forward to the November G20 Leaders’ Summit hosted by Indonesia.
Paola is a Professor of International Economics and Chair Advisory Board at the Global Policy Institute at Queen Mary, University of London, and Adjunct Professor at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the University of Bologna. Previously, she was Director of International Economics Research at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) for over ten years. She is the founder and director of Essential Economics, an independent economic research service. She writes widely about global financial issues and her most recent book from Yale University Press is The Cost of Free Money (2020).
Paola has long been an acute observer of these global summits and their consequences for global governance and global order. Let’s join Paola in the virtual studio to discuss these recent or pending Summits.
It was a great pleasure to invite Scott Kennedy back into the virtual studio. Scott has just recently returned from Asia after 5 weeks of travel and discussion and I wanted to get his insights into the how China is viewed in the Asia-Pacific but also how the United States is viewed following President Biden’s first Asian trip. Among other diplomatic steps Biden met with the new President of Korea Yoon Suk Yeol; in Tokyo Biden held meetings with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and launched the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) involving the United States and 13 other countries, and held a leaders’ gathering of the Quad.
Scott is the Senior Advisor and Trustee Chair in Chinese Business & Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington. Scott focuses on Chinese economic policy including industrial policy, technology innovation, business lobbying, US-China commercial relations and global governance. Scott has written extensively on China including most recently: Michael J. Green and Scott Kennedy CSIS Commentary: "U.S. Business Leaders Not Ready for the Next U.S.-China Crisis" https://www.csis.org/analysis/us-business-leaders-not-ready-next-us-china-crisis, Scott Kennedy TCH Blog Post: Bridging Differences with Friends on China https://www.csis.org/blogs/trustee-china-hand/bridging-differences-friends-china, and Gerard DiPippo, Ilaria Mazzocco and Scott Kennedy, CSIS Report: “Red Ink: Estimating Chinese Industrial Policy Spending in Comparative Perspective”. https://www.csis.org/features/how-inequality-undermining-chinas-prosperity.
Before coming to Washington, Scott was a professor at Indiana University (IU), where he established the Research Center for Chinese Politics & Business and was the founding academic director of IU’s China Office.
I was pleased to sit down with Nick Bisley again in the virtual studio to explore the impact of a new Labour Government in Australia on its foreign policy and the views from Canberra of the Indo-Pacific and all the Biden Administration initiatives.
Nick Bisley is the Dean and Head of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences and Professor of International Relations at La Trobe University in Melbourne. His research and teaching expertise is in Asia's international relations, great power politics and Australian foreign and defence policy. Nick is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs and he served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Australian Journal of International Affairs between 2013 and 2018, the country's oldest scholarly journal in the field of international relations. Nick is the author of many works on international relations.
So join me as we continue to examine the changing dynamics in the Indo-Pacific and the impact of a new Australian government on these changing dynamics.
So, it was my pleasure to sit down with my colleague, Lim Wonhyuk in the Virtual Studio. Lim Wonhyuk has just recently returned to the Republic of Korea (Korea) after two years of research and teaching at SAIS in Washington D.C. as a Visiting Professor. Given President Biden visiting the Asia-Pacific region for the first time since becoming President, it seemed opportune to sit down with my colleague Lim Wonhyuk to explore the consequences of the trip and focus more generally on the Biden Administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy. Lim Wonhyuk is a professor at the KDI School of Public Policy and Management in South Korea most recently has served as Associate Dean, Office of Development Research and International Cooperation, at KDI School. Lim Wonhyuk recent publications include: Opinion Polarization in Korea (KDI, 2019, edited) and Understanding the Drivers of Trust in Government Institutions in Korea (OECD, 2018, co-edited), Lim Wonhyuk holds a PhD in Economics from Stanford University So come join us in the virtual studio to examine Biden’s Indo-Pacific strategy including the development of the Quad and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework and US relations with Korea, and others including China.
So, it was my pleasure to sit down with my colleague, Colin Bradford in the Virtual Studio to talk about the rising geopolitical tensions in the global order and the evident threats to the continuation of global governance, especially in the G20. There continues to be sharp relations between China and the United States. These relations have only become more difficult with the conflict between Russia and the Ukraine. How can the Bali G20 Summit proceed with the current determination by Russia’s President Putin to attend the Summit and the US insistence that it cannot be “business as usual”? It imposes real pressure on the G20 host Indonesia with respect to the attendance and the agenda.
In 2004 as a Brookings expert, Colin Bradford was the first person to push for transforming the G8 to G20 at leaders’ level and became a leading convener of conferences, workshops, and seminars to work for international institutional reforms to bring the emerging market economies more fully into the global system. Colin continues to be the Lead Co-chair of the CWD, the China-West Dialogue and a Co-Chair in the V20, Vision20, an unofficial engagement group of the G20, Colin has participated in all the recent Global Solutions Summits out of Berlin and has been named a GSS Global Fellow. Currently, Colin is a Non-resident Senior Fellow of the Global Economy and Development Program, Brookings Institution.
So come join Colin and I as we examine the threat to the roles of the G7 and the G20.
It was my pleasure to welcome back into Virtual Studio our University of British Columbia (UBC) colleague, Yves Tiberghien. The order of the day was to examine closely China’s position, that is Xi Jinping’s and the Party and Government’s position on Russia. What is the impact of the April 4th partnership and then the Russian aggression against Ukraine? Also, I wanted Yves to describe for us the state relations between the EU and China.
Yves is currently a Professor of Political Science and the Konwakai Chair in Japanese Research at the University of British Columbia. He is also a Distinguished Fellow at the Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada and the Canadian PAFTAD Chair. We actually are finding Yves in Paris. We found Yves in Paris where he is currently a Visiting Professor at the Paris School of International Affairs.
Join us as we discuss China’s policies on Russia, the EU and the global order.
I was pleased to invite Steven Slaughter into the virtual studio to discuss the Indo-Pacific and the changing role for Australia. I wanted to get Steven’s take on recent Australian foreign policy moves, Australia’s decision to join with the UK and the United States in Aukus whereby Australia will purchase nuclear submarines and nuclear technology from the UK and the US and displace an agreement with France to purchase conventional submarines. Aukus created quite the crisis among Australia’s allies. I was also quite interested in understanding what Australia saw as the future of the Quad (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue) which in the fall saw the first leaders’ summit – Australia, India, Japan and the United States. This leaders’ level gathering event marked a milestone for the group.
Steven Slaughter is an Associate Professor in International Relations at Deakin University, Victoria, Australia. Steven is a researcher who works within the fields of International Relations, Global Political Economy, and International Political Theory with respect to the political implications of globalisation and global governance. He also follows the efforts of the G20.
Come join Steven and I as we discuss the Indo-Pacific and strategic changes being undertaken in arguably the most important region of the globe.
I was pleased to have John Ikenberry back in the virtual studio with us to focus in part on current American foreign policy under the Biden Administration. The immediate occasion was the recently concluded ‘Summit for Democracy’ called for by the President when he ran against then President Trump. More broadly I wanted to explore with John the rising tensions in the US-China relationship and its impact on the liberal international order that John has written and spoken about over the last two decades.
So join me and John as we explore current American foreign policy and how it is reshaping the global order.
G. John Ikenberry is the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University in the Department of Politics and the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. He is also Co-Director of Princeton’s Center for International Security Studies.
Professor Ikenberry is the author of eight books, mostly recently A World Safe for Democracy: Liberal Internationalism and the Crises of Global Order (Yale 2020), and Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American System (Princeton, 2011) and After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order after Major Wars (Princeton, 2001)
I was excited to invite back David Victor into the virtual studio to discuss the consequences of the COP26 Glasgow Summit on climate change and whether technology is the answer to our transition to a low carbon world. David was at Glasgow and he has been a voice for the importance of technologies in the effort to transition to a low carbon emission world.
David G. Victor is a global thought leader on climate change policy and the energy-systems transformation that is required if we hope to create a low-carbon future. David is a professor of innovation and public policy at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at UC San Diego where he holds the Center for Global Transformation Endowed Chair in Innovation and Public Policy. He has published over 200 articles and books on climate change and the transition to a low carbon world.
Come join David and I as we discuss COP26 and what comes after.
I was pleased to invite Valerie Karplus into the virtual studio to examine the progress towards the upcoming COP26 Glasgow Summit scheduled for November 1 -12th. Many see this Summit as the best last chance to receive national commitments (NDCs) that will achieve the 45% cut based on 2010 levels, that scientists say is needed by 2030 to limit global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Will the key CO2 emitters – the US, China, India, Brazil, etc. be willing to make those kinds of commitments at Glasgow.
Valerie and colleagues recently released a new report: “China’s CO2 Emissions Trading System: History, Status, and Outlook”. I was keen to review with Valerie the efforts by China to create a Emissions Trading System (ETS) to reduce carbon emissions.
Valerie Karplus is currently an Associate Professor in the department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon. Previously, Karplus served as an Assistant Professor of Global Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Karplus studies resource and environmental management in firms operating in diverse national and industry contexts. She works with a collaborative team of researchers to study the micro and macro determinants of clean energy transitions in emerging markets, with a focus on China and India. From 2011 to 2015, she directed the MIT-Tsinghua China Energy and Climate Project, a five-year research effort focused on analyzing the design of energy and climate change policy in China, and its domestic and global impacts.
Susan Thornton was good enough to join me in the Virtual Studio to examine closely the US-China relationship and the rising tensions between the two over Taiwan. The podcast interview was a perfect opportunity to examine more closely with Susan the current Biden foreign policy of ‘competition without catastrophe’ with China and to assess particularly the risks of conflict between the two over Taiwan. Susan brings real knowledge of the current players in the Administration and insights from her many years in the State Department.
Susan was acting Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs when she retired from the State Department after a 28-year diplomatic career focused primarily on East and Central Asia. Susan worked on China and Korea policy, including stabilizing relations with Taiwan, the U.S.-China Cyber Agreement, the Paris Climate Accord, and she led a successful negotiation in Pyongyang for monitoring of the Agreed Framework on denuclearization
We have been lucky enough in the last several years to have Susan join us, for our China and the West Dialogue (CWD) Project. Susan is currently the Visiting Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School and Senior Fellow at the Paul Tsai China Center there.
Susan has much to say on the current state of relations between China and the US so join us for this insightful podcast.
Ryan Hass joined me in the Virtual Studio to examine closely the US-China relationship and the rising tensions between the two. The podcast interview was a perfect opportunity to examine with Ryan early Biden foreign policy from a former US foreign policy official. Ryan brings real knowledge of the current players in the Administration and insights from his focus on China and Taiwan.
Ryan Hass is a senior fellow and the Michael H. Armacost Chair in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings, where he holds a joint appointment to the John L. Thornton China Center and the Center for East Asia Policy Studies. He is also the Chen-Fu and Cecilia Yen Koo Chair in Taiwan Studies. Ryan is also a non-resident affiliated fellow at the Paul Tsai China Center at Yale Law School. From 2013 to 2017, Hass served as the director for China, Taiwan and Mongolia at the National Security Council (NSC) staff. In that role he advised President Obama and senior White House officials on all aspects of U.S. policy toward China, Taiwan, and Mongolia,
Join me and Ryan Hass in the Virtual Studio to examine all things US-China.
I was pleased to invite Jonathan Luckhurst into the virtual studio to examine the progress toward the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Rome that occurs and the end of October. Jonathan has long been a student of the Informals including work on the G7 and the BRICS as well as the G20. He has worked with many in the G7 and G20 Research Groups at the University of Toronto. I wanted to get Jonathan into the Studio with several months to spare to examine the progress of the Italian. Presidency in the drive toward the G20 Leaders’ Summit.
Jonathan Luckhurst is a Professor of International Relations at the Graduate School of International Peace Studies, at Soka University in Tokyo Japan. He has written extensively on the Informals - the informal international institutions, such as the G7, the BRICS and of course the G20.
It was great pleasure to bring Michael Beckley into the Virtual Studio to discuss US-China tensions and rivalry and the consequences of these tensions for the evolving global order. Michael has written a dynamic series of articles in Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy concerned with the US, China, and US-China relations. Michael has examined the threat, or not, of Xi Jinping’s China as well assessing what a more aggressive China means for the United States, especially its military posture and strategy in the key strategic flashpoints from the Taiwan Straits, the South China Sea and elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific. Some come join us in the Virtual Studio.
Michael Beckley is the Jeane Kirkpatrick Visiting Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where his research focuses on US-China competition, long-term trends in the US-China power balance, US alliances and grand strategy, and US economic and defense policy in East Asia. Concurrently, he is an Associate Professor at Tufts University. Michael is the author of Unrivaled: Why America Will Remain the World’s Sole Superpower (Cornell University Press, 2018).
The new book by Cheng Li - Middle Class Shanghai: Reshaping US-China Engagement, published by Brookings was an excellent moment to bring Cheng Li into the Virtual Studio to explore the influence on the rise of the Middle Class but particularly Shanghai’s middle class on China’s foreign policy. There was so much to ask Cheng Li about the impact of the middle class on the Party and the Government. We will have to bring Cheng Li back but for now a real opportunity to explore Chinese foreign policy from a unique position, the transformation of political leaders, generational change, the Chinese middle class, and technological development in China.
Cheng Li is the director of the John L. Thornton China Center and a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings. He is also a distinguished fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto. And he is a director of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.
Li is the author or the editor of numerous books including most recently, “China’s Political Development: Chinese and American Perspectives” (2014), “Chinese Politics in the Xi Jinping Era: Reassessing Collective Leadership” (2016), “The Power of Ideas: The Rising Influence of Thinkers and Think Tanks in China” (2017), and the just recently released, “Middle Class Shanghai: Reshaping U.S.-China Engagement”.
In 1985, Cheng Li came to the United States, where he received a master’s in Asian studies from the University of California, Berkeley and a doctorate in political science from Princeton University.
I was pleased to invite into the virtual studio Stewart Patrick to discuss the many efforts to tackle the dramatic decline in biodiversity. Today, there are many summit initiatives underway to deal with the alarming decline in biodiversity. The need to reverse the decline in biodiversity is all too apparent. Humans have already transformed more than 70 percent of the planet’s ice-free land surface, primarily for agriculture and ranching, as well as for mining and human settlements. Around 1 million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction, many within decades, more than ever before in human history. There are many initiatives underway from deserts to wetlands to the High Seas all to deal with the rapid decline in biodiversity. But are they effective? So, Stewart agreed to join us in the Virtual Studio to talk about all these efforts.
Stewart M. Patrick is James H. Binger senior fellow in global governance and director of the International Institutions and Global Governance (IIGG) Program at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). His areas of expertise include multilateral cooperation on global issues; U.S. policy toward international institutions, including the United Nations and a focus biodiversity and climate change. From September 2002 to January 2005, Stewart served on the secretary of state's policy planning staff. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of five books. These days Stewart writes the blog, The Internationalist.
Stewart graduated from Stanford University and received two master’s degrees and his doctorate in international relations from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.
It was a pleasure to have Angel Hsu back in the Virtual Studio. As I have pointed out there will be a burst of Summits and Global Summits this fall 2021. Many of these summits will tackle various aspects of climate change and the impact on the Anthropocene.
To discuss the issues of climate action I could think of no one better than my colleague, Angel. Today, Angel is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and the Environment, Ecology and Energy Program (E3P) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is also Founder and Director of the Data-Driven EnviroLab, an interdisciplinary research group that innovates and applies quantitative approaches to pressing environmental issues. The last time we had a chance to sit down was just following the Global Climate Action Summit that took place in San Francisco in September 2018. The EnviroLab had just before the Climate Summit released the first Report: Global Climate Action from cities, regions, and businesses. Since then, two other reports have been prepared.
Angel explores the intersection of science and policy and the use of data-driven approaches to understand environmental sustainability, particularly in the areas of climate change and energy, urbanization and air quality. Angel holds a PhD in Environmental Policy from Yale University, an MPhil in Environmental Policy from the University of Cambridge, and a BS in Biology and BA in Political Science from Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC.
So, join me as I invite Angel Hsu into the Virtual Studio.
It was a pleasure to invite Joshua Busby back into the virtual studio to discuss the Leaders’ Earth Summit just recently concluded and the current state of climate efforts to reduce emissions and keep the average temperature to as close to 1.5 degrees Celsius ads possible. President Biden invited 40 world leaders to the Leaders’ Summit on Climate which he hosted virtually on April 22nd and 23rd. The Summit brought together the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, which brought together the 17 countries responsible for approximately 80 percent of global emissions and global GDP. The President also invited the heads of other countries that are demonstrating strong climate leadership, are especially vulnerable to climate impacts, or are charting innovative pathways to a net-zero economy. A small number of business and civil society leaders also participated in the Summit. This Earth Day Summit is a major event on the road to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) scheduled for this fall in Glasgow. What was committed to by Leaders to this Summit? Where were commitments not made and what are the consequences? What can we expect from the Glasgow COP26 meeting in October following the G20 Leaders Summit in Rome? All of this is part of the discussion that Josh and I had on the continuing global climate change efforts. Joshua Busby is an Associate Professor of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and a Distinguished Scholar at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law. In 2018, Josh joined the Center for Climate & Security as a Senior Research Fellow. Josh is the author of numerous studies on climate change, national security, and energy policy that have been published by peer-reviewed academic outlets and various think tanks.
We are just entering the ‘Summit Season’ and I thought I would kick off the Season with a conversation with Paola Subacchi on the question of the Italian G20 Leaders’ Summit. Paola has been involved in G20 summits going back some years. And she has links to those organizing the Italian Rome Summit that will occur possibly in person in the fall.
Paola is a Professor of International Economics and Chair Advisory Board at the Global Policy Institute at Queen Mary, University of London, and Adjunct Professor at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the University of Bologna. Previously, she was Director of International Economics Research at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) for over ten years. She is the founder and director of Essential Economics, an independent economic research service. She writes widely about global financial issues and her most recent book from Yale University Press is The Cost of Free Money (2020).
Let’s join Paola in the virtual studio to discuss the G20 Leaders’ Summit.
I invited Nick Bisley into the virtual studio to explore the changing dynamics of the global order in Asia. We have seen the conclusion recently of the RCEP, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership that includes 15 countries including China. In addition, in March we saw the first meeting of leaders of the Quad. The Quadrilateral Initiative made up of the United States, Japan, India and Australia was formed in 2007 but this was the first leaders meeting, though virtually. It was one of the first multilateral gatherings that included President Biden. U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan noted that each of the four leaders present had described the meeting as “historic.” This podcast was an opportunity then to talk with Nick about the significance of this meeting, the rising Australia-China tensions and the consequences for the region of the rising US-China tensions.
Nick Bisley is the Dean and Head of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences and Professor of International Relations at La Trobe University in Melbourne. His research and teaching expertise is in Asia's international relations, great power politics and Australian foreign and defence policy. Nick is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of International served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Australian Journal of International Affairs between 2013 and 2018, the country's oldest scholarly journal in the field of International Relations. Nick is the author of many works on international relations.
I am pleased to welcome back to the virtual studio Thomas Wright from Brookings to explore Biden foreign policy in the wake of the first US-China Summit which took place on March 18th and 19th. What does this meeting between top foreign policy officials tell us about the Biden Administration’s foreign policy, especially between the United States and China? Have we entered Cold War 2.0 between China and the United States? Tom is the director of the Center on the United States and Europe and a senior fellow in the Project on International Order and Strategy at the Brookings Institution. Tom has been very active writing on contemporary politics and in particular the impact of former President Trump and his officials and now President Biden and his officials on American foreign policy. He continues his writing in The Atlantic magazine. Tom’s most recent book, co-authored with Colin Kahl, is entitled: “Aftershocks: Pandemic Politics and the End of the Old International Order” and will be released this coming August.
It is my pleasure to sit with an old colleague who is currently the Executive Director of the Institute for International Trade in the Faculty of the Professions, University of Adelaide, Peter Draper. Much change is afoot in the trade world. First a new Director General has been seated at the WTO, Ngozi Okonjo - Iweala. The DG has much to tackle in the WTO that has been crippled by member actions, especially the Trump Administration. In the Asia - Pacific a new 15 member RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership) has been signed and China has signed an investment agreement with the EU, the CAI. And then there are the growing tensions between China and Australia. It was at this crucial moment, I was able to ‘grab’ my colleague for an in - depth discussion of global trade with a particular Asia - Pacific focus. Besides being the Executive Director of the Institute for International Trade in the Faculty of the Professions, University of Adelaide, Australia. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the International Chamber of Commerce’s Research Foundation; non-resident senior fellow of the Brussels-based Euro pean Centre for International Political Economy; Associated Researcher at the German Development Institute (DIE); and a Board member of the Australian Services Roundtable.
Bruce and I have had some back and forth recently on the definition and importance of Middle Powers in the current global order. I thought that it would be valuable to invite Bruce into the virtual studio to discuss the role and influence of the Middle Powers. In particular I wanted to review with Bruce his recent writings with several colleagues on ‘democratic multilateralism’ and ‘competitive multilateralism’. How could these shape global governance efforts going forward in light of the growing tensions between the two leading states – the United States and China. Bruce Jones is currently the director and a senior fellow in the Project on International Order and Strategy of the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution; he also works with the Center for East Asia Policy Studies. Bruce is as well a consulting professor at the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University. Jones previously served as the vice president and director for the Foreign Policy program. Jones’ research expertise and policy experience is in international security. His current research focus is on U.S. strategy, international order, and great power relations. Recent publications include an article in Foreign Affairs, “Can Middle Powers Lead the World Out of the Pandemic? Because the United States and China Have Shown They Can’t”
It was a pleasure to sit down again with Oliver Della Costa Stuenkel to discuss Brazil and the region. This session with Oliver was designed to focus on Brazilians’ reactions to the violence in Washington on January 6th.Also, I wanted an update on Brazil’s difficult struggle with the pandemic and the efforts in Brazil to roll out vaccinations against Covid-19. It has become clear that Brazil’s President, Jair Bolsonaro has remained highly skeptical over ‘lock down’ measures to safeguard Brazilians. And the numbers of hospitalizations and deaths keep rising. What impact has all of this has on President Bolsonaro’s popularity.
Oliver is an associate professor of international relations at Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV) in Sao Paulo. There, with several colleagues, he launched a new School of International Relations. Oliver has written extensively on the politics of the rising powers, including The BRICS and the Future of the Global Order and his most recent book from Polity, Post-Western World: How Emerging Powers are Remaking the Global Order. He is a frequent commentator on the Hemisphere in journals and in the media across the region.
Hal Brands is a contemporary historian that explores the current global order. He has focused, among other things, on the rising tensions and competition between China and the United States. With Jake Sullivan, a former Obama official and a non-resident senior fellow in Carnegie’s Geoeconomics and Strategy Program, they wrote an intriguing examination in Foreign Policy of the possible paths to global domination by China – “China has two paths to Global Domination.”I explore with Hal this article and ‘dig into’ current Trump foreign policy, especially towards China. Come join us for this global order conversation.
Hal Brands is an American historian. Currently, he is the Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and a Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
It was a great pleasure to welcome back both colleagues into the virtual studio to continue our discussion on the rising tensions in China-US relations it causes and its consequences for the liberal order. While Part 1 of this Episode 31 focused more the ‘China-West’ Dialogue (CWD) Project, this podcast cast a more critical light on the rising tensions between these two leading powers and other powers in the international system exploring in particular what could be down to avoid this growing rivalry.
As a reminder, Colin is a Non-resident Senior Fellow of the Global Economy and Development Program, Brookings Institution. Colin a specialist on global governance and the G20, He has edited Global Leadership in Transition (2010) and Global Governance Reform (2007). As a co-chair of Vision20 (V20) since 2016, Colin has convened annual events with Brookings to encourage longer term strategic thinking for the future.
Yves Tiberghien (Ph.D. Stanford University, 2002 and Harvard Academy Scholar 2006) is a Professor of Political Science, Faculty Associate in the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, Director Emeritus of the Institute of Asian Research at the University of British Columbia (UBC). He has published many articles and book chapters on Japan and China’s political economy, on global governance, global climate change politics, and on the governance of agricultural biotechnology. Yves founded the V20 group in 2015, a new coalition of global scholars and policy-makers aiming at providing a long-term perspective on the challenges of global economic and environmental governance.
It was a great pleasure to welcome both colleagues into the virtual studio to discuss the rising tensions in China-US relations and consequences for the liberal order. We began this discussion – Part 1 of Episode 31 - with the efforts of Colin and Yves to initiate a ‘China-West’ Dialogue (CWD). This effort has brought together experts and former officials from around the globe seeking pathways to ameliorating China-US relations and suggesting a policy of ‘strategic engagement’ as opposed to ‘strategic competition’ or what some Democratic colleagues describe as ‘competition without catastrophe’.
Colin is a Non-resident Senior Fellow of the Global Economy and Development Program, Brookings Institution. Colin a specialist on global governance and the G20, He has edited Global Leadership in Transition (2010) and Global Governance Reform (2007). As a co-chair of Vision20 (V20) since 2016, Colin has convened annual events with Brookings to encourage longer term strategic thinking for the future.
Yves Tiberghien (Ph.D. Stanford University, 2002 and Harvard Academy Scholar 2006) is a Professor of Political Science, Faculty Associate in the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, Director Emeritus of the Institute of Asian Research at the University of British Columbia (UBC). He has published many articles and book chapters on Japan and China’s political economy, on global governance, global climate change politics, and on the governance of agricultural biotechnology. Yves founded the V20 group in 2015, a new coalition of global scholars and policy-makers aiming at providing a long-term perspective on the challenges of global economic and environmental governance.
Colin along with Yves and Alan Alexandroff initiated the ‘China-West Dialogue’ (CWD) holding virtual workshops at Boston University GDP Center and at the Global Solutions Summit (GSS) in Berlin. Research from both events can be found here at Boston University and here at the GSS site All the research notes from experts at the BU workshop can be found here at the Global Summitry Project website at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto.
It was a great pleasure to invite Scott Kennedy into the virtual studio to discuss China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) just recently concluded. There decisions were announced on Hong Kong, with respect to the Chinese economy. These decisions formed the most recent backdrop to the rising tensions between Beijing and the current Trump Administration. In the light of earlier podcast episodes here at Global Summitry (these podcast episodes can be found at iTunes and at Spotify) with Kerry Brown (Ep. 28 and 29) on Xi Jinping’s China, we wanted to get Scott’s take on China and the US-China tensions.
Scott is the Senior Advisor and Trustee Chair in Chinese Business & Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington. Scott focuses on Chinese economic policy including industrial policy, technology innovation, business lobbying, US-China commercial relations and global governance.
Scott has written extensively on China including his CSIS study ‘China’s risky drive into new energy vehicles’, and he has edited among other books, Global governance and China: The dragon’s learning curve. Before coming to Washington, Scott was a professor at Indiana University (IU), where he established the Research Center for Chinese Politics & Business and was the founding academic director of IU’s China Office.
As most international relations specialists would agree, the most consequential relationship now, and for the foreseeable future in the global order, is that between China and the West. There is a growing rivalry between China and the United States, and the rising tensions raises difficult global order questions for all the actors in the international system.
Kerry Brown is one of a number of China and international relations experts that have joined the Vision20 principals to examine the future of global order in the face of a growing tension between the two leading states in the international system, the United States and China.
The Vision20 principals, Colin Bradford, Brookings and Yves Tiberghien, UBC and myself here at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto launched the China and the West Dialogue (CWD) this spring, and with the support of Kevin Gallagher from Boston University, we planned our first workshop. The meeting became virtual, of course, with the pandemic and this initial workshop was joined with experts and former officials from Latin America, the United States, Canada, the UK and Europe.
The results of the meeting including identification of the participants and CWD statements that emerged can be found at the Global Development Policy (GDP) Center at Boston University (http://www.bu.edu/gdp/cwd/). Many of the experts that joined us at the BU virtual meeting also prepared Background Notes. All these Notes can be found at the CWD site at the Global Summitry Project website.
The Vision20 principals also planned to gather experts at the 4th annual Global Solutions Summit in Berlin. That too turned into a virtual gathering. Several CWD participants prepared video presentations. These video presentations can be found at the GSS 2020 theme, the ‘Future of Multilateralism and Global Governance’ where Colin Bradford provided the keynote and the panel included Chen Dongxiao, President of SIIS in Shanghai, Susan Thornton, Senior Fellow and Research Scholar at Yale Law School Paul Tsai Center and Kerry Brown, Lau China Institute, King’s College London spoke on: ‘How is it Possible to avoid the emergence of another bipolar competitive era’.
As noted, Kerry was one of the video panelists. I was keen to bring Kerry back into the virtual studio (You can listen to Kerry Brown’s earlier podcast, Ep 28 ‘Shaking the Global Order’) to discuss his Background Note from the BU meeting and his panel appearance at the GSS. I wanted to dig further into his view that the global governance system was evolving to a ‘dual architecture’ or a ‘dual track world’ with ‘two different operating systems’. What are the implications of all this for US-China relations and indeed global governance relations?
Kerry Brown is currently Professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the Lau China Institute, Kings College London. Before that 2012-2015 Kerry was Professor of Chinese Politics and Director of the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, Australia. Kerry has served in both the public and the academic sectors. From 1998 to 2005, he worked at the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as First Secretary at the British Embassy in Beijing, and then as Head of the Indonesia, Philippine and East Timor Section.
Kerry has written a great deal about Chinese politics and its foreign policy. Probably his most well-known study is China's Dream: The Culture of Chinese Communism and the Secret Sources of Its Power.
It is a pleasure to welcome back Nick Bisley, an international relations expert from La Trobe University in Melbourne. We were keen to sit down with him in the virtual studio to examine Australia’s response to the global pandemic. We were most interested to understand the relative success of the Australian effort to flatten the curve of infections of the virus when it was clear that Australia had suffered a crisis of competence in dealing with the bush fires that had ravaged Australia in its summer. (Please listen to the ‘Now’ Series Ep. 18: an interview with Steven Slaughter ‘Australia Burning’: The politics of Climate Change in Australia”). The answers Nick provides are quite revealing of how Australia is well and badly governed.
Nick is currently Head of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at La Trobe University in Melbourne and Professor of International Relations. Previously Nick served as the Executive Director of La Trobe Asia at La Trobe University. Nick is the author of many works on international relations, including Issues in 21st Century World Politics, 3rd Edition (Palgrave, 2017).
Lim Wonhyuk has long been involved in global governance issues and the role of Korea in in the regional and international system. I first got to know Lim Wonhyuk when we were both involved in Korea’s year of G20 hosting in 2010. It was a great pleasure to invite Lim Wonhyuk into the virtual studio to explore Korea’s seemingly successful effort to control the pandemic there. It is a fascinating story of earlier failure in public health leading to the current success of the government efforts and being able to hold an election on April 15th.
Lim Wonhyuk is currently teaching at SAIS in Washington D.C. as an Adjunct Lecturer. He is a professor at the KDI School of Public Policy and Management in South Korea. In 2010, Lim Wonhyuk helped to formulate the G20 Seoul Development Consensus for Shared Growth. In 2013, he became Vice President and Director of Department of Competition Policy at KDI. Most recently, he served as Associate Dean, Office of Development Research and International Cooperation, at KDI School. His recent publications include Understanding the Drivers of Trust in Government Institutions in Korea (OECD, 2018, co-edited), Improving Regulatory Governance (OECD, 2017, co -authored) and The Korean Economy: From a Miraculous Past to a Sustainable Future (Harvard, 2015, co-authored). He holds a PhD in Economics from Stanford University.
It is a pleasure to welcome back Tom Wright to the ‘Now’ Series to review the United Kingdom and Ireland’s responses to the pandemic. Tom remains the director of the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution and a senior fellow there on the Project on International Order and Strategy. Tom has been very busy on examining Europe’s responses to Covid-19 as well as the Trump Administration’s response. He has also been closely following U.S.-China relations and the Trump efforts to ‘call-out’ China’s pandemic responses.
This podcast is one in a series in the ‘Now’ series on various responses to the pandemic including: Matthew Goodman from CSIS on the G20 response, Torrey Taussig from the Belfer Center at Harvard on Europe, and Oliver Della Costa Stuenkel from FGV on Brazil and Latin America.
Tom has been very active writing on contemporary politics and the impact of Trump on American foreign policy. He continues his writing in The Atlantic magazine on what Democratic Party foreign policy might be for the upcoming Presidential 2020 contest. Tom’s most recent book is on U.S. foreign policy, titled, “All Measures Short of War: The Contest For the 21st Century and the Future of American Power” published by Yale University Press in May 2017.
It was a pleasure to sit down again with Oliver Della Costa Stuenkel to discuss Brazil and indeed the region. This session with Oliver was designed to focus on Brazil’s response to the pandemic. It has become clear that Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has remained highly skeptical over ‘lock down’ measures to safeguard Brazilians. He has fired the Minister of Health and, more recently, the politically influential Justice Minister Sergio Moro has resigned and accused the President of criminal conduct. We were eager to understand how Brazilians viewed the President’s actions and the consequences for his government, especially the economic reforms from these various controversies. We also wanted to survey the effect of the pandemic on the major economies in the region. So, join us.
Oliver is an associate professor of international relations at Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV) in Sao Paulo. There, with several colleagues, he launched a new School of International Relations. Oliver has written extensively on the politics of the rising powers, including The BRICS and the Future of the Global Order and his most recent book from Polity, Post-Western World: How Emerging Powers are Remaking the Global Order. He is a frequent commentator on the Hemisphere in journals and in the media across the region.
The spread of Covid-19 across the globe dominates policy making everywhere. States have responded in a variety of ways; the consequences for these states are varying population spread and death tolls. Though the virus began in China some of the most serious consequences have been felt in Europe particularly in Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom.
It was my pleasure to invite into the virtual studio Torrey Taussig. I was particularly keen to discuss with her the efforts of the EU 27 and the European Commission to adopt collective European efforts to combat the virus. Torrey was with us at our virtual conference at Boston University in March hosted by the Global Development Policy Center (#GDP). There we launched the China-West Dialogue to discuss the future of global governance in the context of Covid-19 and other challenges, such as climate change. The virtual workshop was well attended and featured a keynote introduction by The Right Honourable Paul Martin. The former Canadian Prime Minister called on the #G20 to tackle climate change and the pandemic, noting that now is not the time to forsake multilateralism.
Torrey is currently a non-resident fellow in the Foreign Policy Program’s Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings. She is also a research director of the Belfer Center at the Harvard Kennedy School. Torrey focuses her research attention on U.S. foreign policy as well as European and Asian security issues.
Join us in our discussion on the European response to Covid-19.
We were glad to welcome back Matthew Goodman from CSIS in Washington. As you can see from his short bio below, Matt has had both public and private sector roles and has been directly involved with the G20 in past U.S. administrations.
Matt has ben working with colleagues Stephanie Segal and Mark Sobel to evaluate the G20 summits. This analysis can be found at the CSIS website. It prompted Global Summitry to get back in touch with Matt to bring him into the virtual studio to discuss how the Informals and the formal institutions are responding to the pandemic. We also had an opportunity during the podcast to examine the difficult relationship between the two leading states, the U.S. and China, and how that disruptive relationship has had an impact on the global governance response to the crisis.
Matthew is senior vice president, senior adviser for Asian economics, and holds the Simon Chair in Political Economy at CSIS. Matthew has served in both the private sector at Goldman Sachs and Albright Stonebridge Group and has also held several significant roles in the public sector including early in his career as an international economist at the U.S. Treasury Department and at the Tokyo Embassy. Subsequently, he was director of international economics on the National Security Council staff responsible for the G20 and, the then G8, and then former White House Coordinator for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the East Asia Summit (EAS).
As most international relations specialists would agree, the most consequential relationship now, and for the foreseeable future in the global order is that between China and the West. Yes, I do not say the U.S. Instead it is West. That does not mean that many do not see this as primarily a U.S.-China rivalry. But for others this not a retelling of the Cold war.
Among the China experts we are so very pleased to welcome to a new Vision 20 Project, the CWD (China and the West Project, is Professor Kerry Brown. His insights into China policy making and politics are well known. I was therefore pleased to welcome him to this Global Summitry podcast series to talk about China’s leadership and its policies toward the West. Come listen to Episode 28 in the series, ‘Shaking the Global Order: Foreign Policy in the Age of Trump’.
Kerry has served in both the public and the academic sectors. From 1998 to 2005, he worked at the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as First Secretary at the British Embassy in Beijing, and then as Head of the Indonesia, Philippine and East Timor Section. Kerry Brown is currently Professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the Lau China Institute, Kings College London. Before that 2012-2015 Kerry was Professor of Chinese Politics and Director of the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, Australia.
Kerry has written a great deal about Chinese politics and its foreign policy. Recent works include: “China’s World: What does China want?”; “China’s Dream: The culture of Chinese Communism and the secret sources of its power”; and “The world according to Xi: Everything you need to know about the new China”.
The recent horrific Australian bush fires appear be largely out. These bush fires reflect both a sad tale of land burned and enormous loss of unique wildlife. It also appears to reveal a federal government policy resistant to dramatic change to combat the growing threat of climate change.
As Damien Cave’s recent piece (February 15, 2020) in the NYTimes quoted an Australian filmmaker: “I am standing here a traveler from a new reality, a burning Australia,” Lynette Wallworth, an Australian filmmaker, told a crowd of international executives and politicians in Davos, Switzerland, last month. “What was feared and what was warned is no longer in our future, a topic for debate — it is here.” And Cave added: “Politics have been a focal point — one of frustration for most Australians. The conservative government is still playing down the role of climate change, despite polls showing public anger hitting feverish levels. And yet what’s emerging alongside public protest may prove more potent.”
In the face of these tragic bush fires I sat down with my podcast guest, Steven Slaughter to discuss the fires but more the politics of climate change in Australia. Steven is an associate professor of international relations at Deakin University in Melbourne Australia. He has broad research interests that go beyond international relations to include: international political theory, political and democratic theory and global political economy. He is currently actively working on projects relating to the application of republican thought to contemporary global governance, and the role that the G20 plays with respect to questions of authority, legitimacy and accountability in global governance.
Come join us as we discuss ‘Australia burning’.
My guest and I were fortunate enough to attend a recent conference at the University of British Columbia’s Centre for Japanese Research Workshop on “Japan’s Leadership in the Liberal International Order”. Many Japanese scholars joined experts from North America to discuss the role of Japan in the liberal international order, especially under the current Abe Government.
I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to sit down with at least one scholar to discuss Japan’s evolving role. I was fortunate enough in this case to welcome Phillip Lipscy in our studio here at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy. Phillip is an Associate Professor of Political Science here at the University of Toronto and is the Chair in Japanese politics and global affairs and Director of the Centre for the Study of Global Japan at the Munk School. Phillip has published extensively on Japanese politics and foreign policy. So come join us as we discuss the role of Japan in the current Liberal Order.
Both Jennifer and Matthew attended COP 25 in Madrid. So, I wanted to get a first-hand reflection on the meeting and the results achieved. I also wanted to get from them their own assessment of the state of efforts to reduce CO2 emissions. Finally, I wanted to discuss with Jennifer and Matt what is needed for the upcoming COP26 that is meeting in Glasgow five years after the successful conclusion of the Paris Climate Change Agreement. Are we on track, and if not as it appears to be, what can be done at COP26?
Jennifer Allan is a writer/editor at ‘Earth Negotiations Bulletin’ and a lecturer at Cardiff University. Matthew Hoffmann is a colleague at the University of Toronto and a Co-Director of the Environmental Governance Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto.
Come join us for the is podcast.
Thomas Wright and I turned from podcast Episode 27 of ‘Shaking the Global Order: American Foreign Policy in the Age of Trump’ and the U.S.-Iran rivalry, to all the issues surrounding the election of Boris Johnson and his Conservatives in the U.K. in December, and examine the consequences for Brexit, the U.K. and the EU. The future here for all is dramatic. And Tom has a lot to say about England, Scotland, Ireland and the EU.
Tom is the director of the Center on the United States and Europe and a senior fellow in the Project on International Order and Strategy at the Brookings Institution. Tom is the author of All Measures Short of War: The Contest for the 21st Century and the Future of American Power and Tom is also a contributing writer at The Atlantic.
It was opportunistic but very fortunate that I had the opportunity to welcome back to our studio and to sit down with Thomas Wright to explore with him Trump’s logic, strategy and motivation in targeting General Qasem Soleimani of Iran.
I had originally contacted with Tom to discuss the election of the Boris Johnson and his Conservatives in the UK in December, and examine the consequences for the Brexit, the UK and the EU. That podcast can be found at Episode 17 in the ‘Now’ Series. But I could not pass op the opportunity to sit down with Tom to examine the US-Iran crisis and in particular by Donald Trump and his Administration to kill General Soleimani.
Tom has been involved in unpacking Trump’s foreign policy since about the time Trump announced his candidacy. Recently he has been a contributing writer for The Atlantic and has continued to explore Trump foreign policy. A recent article on January 1st does just this with respect to Trump’s Iran policy.
Tom is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of All Measures Short of War: The Contest for the 21st Century and the Future of American Power.
It is a pleasure to welcome Tom back.
Jake Sullivan was the youngest head of Policy Planning in the State Department under the Obama Administration. During the 2016 U.S. Presidential Elections, Jake was Hillary Clinton’s policy advisor. Currently Jake is the Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth College, a senior fellow and Master in Public Policy faculty member at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire and a non-resident senior fellow in Carnegie’s Geoeconomics and Strategy Program. In addition, Jake is the co-chair, along with Ben Rhodes of the National Security Action an organization of former senior officials and policy experts, academics and civil servants dedicated to advancing American global leadership and opposing the reckless policies of the Trump Administration.
It is with pleasure that we welcome Jake back to the Global Summitry podcast (Listen to Jake at Episode 14 of ‘Shaking the Global Order: American Foreign Policy in the Age of Trump’). As listeners will know, GS has been concerned to understand what U.S. foreign policy should be with China in what appears to be a growing U.S.-China rivalry. There is probably no more critical policy issue for United States foreign policy than getting the relationship with China right. Jake has written a number of articles outlining what he sees as the direction of U.S.-China policy. Let’s join Jake in this discussion of U.S.-China foreign policy.
We were fortunate enough to have Sheri Berman join us recently at the annual American Political Science Association meeting in Washington. There she described the crisis of democracy across Europe in the round table's larger discussion of ‘The Strange Death – and Possible Rebirth - of the Liberal Order’. Sheri, following her recent publication of Democracy and Dictatorship: From the Ancien Regime to the Present Day has a great deal to say about the rise of populism and the threats to democratic politics in Europe both in the established democracies of western Europe and new democracies in central Europe. With Sheri we were able to explore EU level politics, the fraught politics in Europe especially in the United Kingdom, Italy, Hungary and elsewhere.
Sheri is a professor of political science at Barnard College, Columbia University and she currently serves on the boards of the Journal of Democracy, Dissent and Political Science Quarterly. Come join us as we discuss the crisis of democracy in Europe.
If you enjoyed ‘Now’ Ep 13 with Susan Thorton – and I am sure you did - I expect you equally will enjoy this podcast with Michael Swaine. Michael was central to the preparation and publication of ‘China is not an Enemy’, the Open Letter in the Washington Post (WP) by Michael, Susan and their colleagues Taylor Fravel, J. Stapleton Roy and Ezra Vogel. With Michael we not only explore the reasons for this Open Letter but look at the various publications and views out of Washington that this Open Letter takes on. Michael responds to views expressed by WPs John Pomfret, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and Kurt Campbell and Jake Sullivan, former officials of the Obama Administration that declared ‘engagement’ with China ‘dead’.
Michael Swaine is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a prominent American analyst in Chinese security studies. Formerly a senior policy analyst at the RAND Corporation, Swaine is a specialist in Chinese defense and foreign policy, US-China relations, and East Asian international relations. He has authored and edited more than a dozen books and monographs and many journal articles and book chapters on US-China relations.
On July 3rd, 5 principals published a Scholars’ and Experts’ letter (Letter) in the Washington Post (WP) entitled ‘China is not an enemy’. Taylor Fravel, J. Stapleton Roy, Michael D Swaine, Ezra Vogel and Susan Thornton were the five who shepherded the letter to publication in the Opinion section of the WP. The Letter raised a fair degree of notice as it pushed back against those in the Community and in the U.S. Administration, who urged support for the Trump China policy including support for the current U.S.-China Trade War. This podcast with Susan was designed to understand how the principals came to consensus over the content of the Letter, the objectives of the Letter - its 7 propositions and what might be a better U.S. policy toward China.
Susan is currently a Visiting Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School and Senior Fellow at the Paul Tsai China Center. Thornton was a career diplomat who worked at the United States State Department. She served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asian Affairs from 2016 to 2018 and before that she worked as the Deputy Chief of Mission to the United States Embassy in Turkmenistan.
In leadership roles in Washington, Thornton worked on China and Korea policy, including stabilizing relations with Taiwan, the U.S.-China Cyber Agreement, the Paris Climate Accord and led a successful negotiation in Pyongyang for monitoring of the Agreed Framework on denuclearization
To round out our Summit Dialogue series on the Osaka G20, I sat down with Jia Qingguo to examine the results of the Osaka Summit as seen from the Chinese government. I also took the opportunity to review with Jia Qingguo the state of US-China relations in the context of the growing trade war set off by President Trump.
Jia Qingguo was until recently the Dean of the School of International Studies (SIS) at Peking University (Beida). Jia Qingguo received his Ph.D. from Cornell University and taught at a number of schools including in the United States. He is also a member of Standing Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and a member of the Standing Committee of the Central Committee of the China Democratic League.
Jia Qingguo has published extensively on U.S.-China relations, relations between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan, Chinese foreign policy and Chinese politics. He is considered one of the ‘leading lights’ in explaining U.S. – China relations. So, it was a most opportune moment to sit down with Jia Qingguo following the G20 Summit.
I could not forego an opportunity to sit down in the virtual studio at Global Summitry to discuss the G20 Osaka Summit with my colleague Bertrand Badre. Bertrand maintains strong transatlantic ties and so I was eager both to discuss the Summit from a European perspective and to get a closer look at European politics at the EU and at national levels.
In his career, Bertrand has held both private and public roles especially in the national and global financial system. From 2004 and 2007, Bertrand was a managing director of Lazard in Paris and responsible for the Financial Services Group and from 2007 to 2011 he served as group chief financial officer of Crédit Agricole.
On the public service side, he served in the French Ministry of Finance from 1995 to 1999 where he led a number of control audit, and consultancy missions for the French National Audit Office. In 2003, Bertrand was invited to join President Jacques Chirac's diplomatic team and was closely involved in the preparation of the G8 summit in Evian. Importantly, Bertrand was the Managing Director of the World Bank Group and the Chief Financial Officer for it.
Bertrand Badré today is the CEO and Founder of ‘Blue like an Orange Sustainable Capital’ an investment fund with the objectives to finance the Sustainable Development Goals with market level financial returns.
Bertrand has written a number of books most recently, “Can Finance Save the World?” Earlier, Bertrand wrote “From Billions to Trillions: MDBs contributions to financing for development” and in 2004, he wrote “Water” with Michel Camdessus, on finance and access to water.
This podcast with Masahiro Kawai continues our country tour focused on the Osaka G20 Summit. Japan was, of course a key actor for this Summit with its hosting of this year’s annual G20 Summit. With growing competition between powers - China, Russia and the United States – the hosting has placed even greater pressure on those countries that host the annual G20. Japan also had a stressful year as a result of other events – the abdication of the Emperor and elections for the Upper Chamber. These events led Japan to initiate a truncated period before the Leaders’ Summit which took place on June 28-29th.
The Summit witnessed a ‘reality TV series’ of meetings for President Trump – with China’s Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin of Russia, the Saudi Crown Prince and topped off with a meeting with Kim Jong-un of North Korea at the Korean DMZ. Difficult negotiations taxed Prime Minister’s Abe and his officials in finalizing the Leaders’ Declaration.
Masahiro Kawai was an ideal guest as he was ‘well plugged in’ to the official Japanese G20 and T20 processes. Masahiro Kawai today is a Professor of the Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Tokyo and Representative Director and Director General, Economic Research Institute for Northeast Asia (ERINA). He has held many official roles including Dean and CEO of the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI)
Come listen to his valuable insights on Japan’s hosting of the G20 Osaka Summit.
We begin the country tour of the major G20 members with Ep 12. Matthew Goodman is our guest from CSIS in Washington. As his short bio below will tell you, Matt has had both public and private sector roles and has been directly involved with the G20 in past administrations.
If nothing else, as noted in Ep 11 with Yves Tiberghien, the G20 Summit was filled with pageantry – principally Donald Trump’s. There is a series of Trump events – meeting with China’s Xi Jinping over the US-China trade war, and, as it turns out, a rather vague agreement providing a truce in the tariff increases by the United States while negotiations resume, his encounters with Vladimir Putin and the breakfast with the Saudi Crown Prince and finally, but certainly not least, the meeting with Kim Jong-un at the Korean DMZ just after the completion of the Summit. One of the first questions we have for Matt is what is the Trump Administration up to; what was the President hoping to accomplish at the G20 in Japan? We were fortunate to be able to ask Matt to help us better understand the Administration’s stance with both the top-tier and mid-tier issues of this Summit.
Matthew is senior vice president, senior adviser for Asian economics, and holds the Simon Chair in Political Economy at CSIS. Matthew has served in both the private sector at Goldman Sachs and Albright Stonebridge Group and has also held a number of significant roles in the public sector including early in his career as an international economist at the U.S. Treasury Department and at the Tokyo Embassy. Subsequently, he was director of international economics on the National Security Council staff responsible for the G20 and, the then G8, and then former White House Coordinator for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the East Asia Summit (EAS).
With this Ep 11 podcast we begin a series on the Japanese Osaka Summit. First up is Yves Tiberghien from the University of British Columbia. It is a great pleasure to welcome Yves back to the podcast studio.
If nothing else this G20 Summit was filled with pageantry – principally Donald Trump’s. There is a series of Trump events – meeting with China’s Xi Jinping over the US-China trade war, and, as it turns out, an agreement to provide a truce in the tariff increases by the United States while negotiations resume, his encounters with Vladimir Putin and the breakfast with the Saudi Crown Prince and of course the meeting with Kim Jong-un at the Korean DMZ just after the completion of the Summit.
Yves and discuss the implications of these Trump meetings, the progress on what Yves and I refer to as the top-tier issues of international trade and climate change action and then a number of mid-tier issues including: acting to limit marine plastics litter, illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, digital ‘data free flows with trust’, quality infrastructure, IMF reforms with respect to concluding its quota review and governance reforms and possibly on digital taxation and base erosion and profit sharing (BEPS).” It was a busy Summit.
Yves is the Director Emeritus of the Institute of Asian Research at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Executive Director of the UBC China Council, and a full Professor of Political Science at the University of British Columbia. Importantly, Yves spent several years working in Japan and has focused a good deal of his research on globalization examining China in particular. He specializes in comparative political economy and international political economy with an empirical focus on China, Japan, and Korea
Let’s join Yves in a first conversation on the Osaka G20 Summit.
It is a pleasure to welcome back Tom Wright to the ‘Now’ Series the podcast series that focuses on the contemporary issues in international affairs and global governance. Tom remains the director of the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution and a senior fellow there on the Project on International Order and Strategy. His research at Brookings on European politics and the impact that politics has on Europe, the European Union as well as that politics of the Trans-Atlantic community is exactly why we invited Tom to return to the Global Summitry studio.
Tom has been very active writing on contemporary politics and the impact of Trump on American foreign policy. He has recently begun a series in The Atlantic magazine on what Democratic Party foreign policy might be for the upcoming Presidential 2020 contest. Tom also recently wrote a book on U.S. foreign policy, titled, “All Measures Short of War: The Contest For the 21st Century and the Future of American Power” published by Yale University Press in May 2017.
It was with great pleasure that I welcomed into the virtual studio John J. Mearsheimer. John is one of the leading exponents of the School of Realism in international relations. With his book The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, published in 2001, John described and elaborated the foreign policy theory and practice of “Offensive Realism”.
John has been a persistent critic of U.S. foreign policy critics and their creation and elaboration of the liberal international order. His critique has been fully argued in his two most recent works: the book The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities, published in 2018 and his recent extended article in International Security, “Bound to Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Liberal International Order”.
John has taught international relations for many years at the University of Chicago. He has made quite a name for himself in his works on Realism in international relations. I was very excited to get John into the studio so we could get John to discuss the Liberal Order and get his views on American foreign policy in the ‘Age of Trump’.
Defining American foreign policy and the Global Order has become increasingly complicated. This next podcast gives us yet another opportunity to tackle this difficult issue.
Rebecca Friedman Lissner has written a number of articles, some with her colleague Mira Rapp-Hooper, on just this topic. In late 2017, Rebecca wrote an article in Foreign Affairs reviewing the Trump Administration’s just released National Security Policy – “The National Security Strategy is Not a Strategy”. Then in the Washington Quarterly in 2018 with her colleague Mira Rapp-Hooper they wrote: “The Day after Trump: American Strategy for a New International Order”. And most recently with Mira the two have published, again in Foreign Affairs, “Why the Liberal Order is More than a Myth”.
In this latest article Rebecca and Mira argue that the United States will not be able to reclaim its former hegemonic role and instead they call for an “Openess-based strategy”. As the two wrote, “rather than wasting its still considerable power on quixotic bids to restore the liberal order or remake the world in its own image, the United States should focus on what it can realistically achieve: … Openess, not dominance should be the goal.”
Rebecca is currently an Assistant Professor in the Strategic and Operational Research Department at the U.S. Naval War College. Come listen to this new voice on American foreign policy in the Trump era and beyond.
It was an opportunity I could not pass up. So, I sat down to interview Julia Pomares. Julia is the Executive Director of CIPPEC, - the Center for the Implementation of Public Policies Promoting Equity and Growth, a major think tank from Argentina. CIPPEC, along with a sister think tank, CARI - the Argentine Council for International Relations, coordinated the think tank efforts for the Argentinian Government’s G20 hosting year. I spent some time with Julia during Argentina’s hosting year and have had the opportunity to work with Julia in the current Japanese G20 hosting. I was very interested in exploring with Julia her experiences as the co-coordinator for the Argentinian G20. What did she see as her mission and goal?
It was a hugely eventful year with Julia and her colleagues holding many meetings with the large number of think tanks through the G20 and at the formal meetings of the T20 and G20. Julia and colleagues organized 10 Task Forces that produced over 80 policy briefs and 20 proposals for the G20. The T20 Communique was in the end 47 pages long. And yet the Leaders’ Declaration was a mere 7 pages. So, I wanted to ask her - from her experience what did she see as the relationship of the T20 and other engagement groups and the Leaders Summit.
Many researchers see a growing disconnect between the G20 Leaders’ Summit and the T20 process. What was the view of Julia from her experience at the Argentinian T20 and G20 Leaders’ Summit and now the T20 and the Japanese G20 Summit.
Recently, the City of Toronto was ‘ground zero’ for the 60th anniversary meeting of the International Studies Association (ISA). Thousands of colleagues gathered in Toronto to attend, roundtables, panels, and participate in presenting papers and receiving honors for their work on international relations. The occasion was far too ‘juicy’ to just let it pass. So, I gathered up some of my good friends to talk about the Liberal Order.
This podcast includes some of my colleagues from abroad. The gathering at our ‘studio’ - actually the lounge on the second floor of the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy – included: Bruce Jentleson from Duke University, Kori Schake from the IISS in London, Arthur Stein from UCLA and Yves Tiberghien from the University of British Columbia or UBC.
Briefly, Bruce is a professor of public policy and political science at Duke University. His most recent work is ‘The Peacemakers: Leadership Lessons from Twentieth Century Statesmanship’. Kori is currently the Deputy-Director General of the International Institute of Strategic Studies. Before her move to London, Kori was a research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. She wrote ‘Warriors and Citizens’ with now former Secretary of Defense, James Mattis and her most recent publication is ‘America vs the West: Can the Liberal World Order be Preserved’. Arthur is a professor of political science at the University of California at Los Angeles and his most well-known publication is, ‘Why Nations Cooperate’. Yves Tiberghien is a professor of political science at UBC, director emeritus of the Institute of Asian Research and currently executive director of the UBC China Council. He has written extensively on global governance especially as it pertains to the G20 and Asia.
All my colleagues have thought deeply on the questions of the Liberal Order and the consequences to American foreign policy in the Age of Trump.
The decision by the Trump Administration to impose tariffs on China and demand changes to the bilateral trade and investment policies has had serious consequences for U.S.-China relations. But the fallout has not been limited to U.S. China relations. This podcast with Jeremy Paltiel explores the rising tensions in the bilateral relationship, or more broadly the relationship of ‘China and the West’. With Jeremy I explore the rising tensions in the Canada-China relationship arising from the U.S. request to Canadian authorities to extradite Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies and the daughter of its founder Ren Zhengfei. The detention has met with a strong Chinese reaction including Beijing charging two Canadians arrested in China on December 10th of stealing sensitive state secrets in tandem. The Canadian pair is Michael Kovrigand Michael Spavor. Additionally, Canada’s ambassador to China, and a former politician, John McCallum, was forced to resign for what were perceived to be inappropriate statements.
Jeremy is Professor of political science at Carleton University in Ottawa and was visiting professor at the department of international relations at Tsinghua University in Beijing in 2009. He has published widely on subjects relating to China and its foreign relations, including on the political economy of transition to market economies, management training in the People’s Republic of China, and comparison of business culture in China and Canada.
This podcast explores the consequences of the rising tensions in China-U.S. relations and the spillover to the relations between China and other states in the ‘West’.
‘Now’ Episode 10 is a wide-ranging discussion with Yves Tiberghien first: on the leadership of Xi Jinping and where Xi is attempting to take China’s modernization and; second an examination of the course, and reasons for, the rising tensions between China and the United States. This interview examines in depth the rising role of the Chinese Communist Party in China’s economic development. Why has the Chinese President seemingly rolled back the economic reforms identified in the Third Plenum of the 18th Party Conference? Then, we explore the direction of China-U.S. policy – trade, investment, technology innovation and geopolitical relations in Asia and globally.
Yves is the Director Emeritus of the Institute of Asian Research at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Executive Director of the UBC China Council, and a full Professor of Political Science at the University of British Columbia. Importantly, Yves spent several years working in Japan and has focused a good deal of his research on globalization examining China in particular. He specializes in comparative political economy and international political economy with an empirical focus on China, Japan, and Korea.
In 2007, Yves published Entrepreneurial States: Reforming Corporate Governance in France, Japan, and Korea (Cornell University Press). He has also published many articles and book chapters on the Japan’s bubble economy, on global governance, global climate change politics, and on the governance of agricultural biotechnology. He has focused more recently on the role of China, Japan, and Korea in the G20 and in global economic and environmental issues. He has published two new books on the topic (L’ Asie et le future du monde, Paris: Science Po Press, August 2012; and Leadership in Global Institution-Building: Minerva’s Rule, edited volume, Palgrave McMillan, February 2013).
With the election of a new populist president in Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, I thought it was a great moment to sit down with our Brazilian colleague, Oliver Della Costa Stuenkel from Sao Paulo, Brazil. In this podcast we explore why Brazil was so interested in electing this rather controversial politician as president. We also wanted to explore the economic policies that the new finance minister, Paulo Guedes is promoting to bring strong economic growth back to Brazil. Guedes supports a strong Chicago School economic program much in contrast to previous governments there.
Oliver is an associate professor of international relations at Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV) in Sao Paulo. There, with a number of his colleagues, he has launched a new School of International Relations. Oliver has written extensively on the politics of the rising powers, including The BRICS and the Future of the Global Order and his most recent book from Polity, Post-Western World: How Emerging Powers are Remaking the Global Order. He is a frequent commentator on the Hemisphere in journals and in the media across the region.
There has been a ‘raft’ of environmental reports and climate change summits in the very recent past. I’ve called on Joshua Busby to discuss these summits and the reports and to give us some sense of the success in the global efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Josh is an Associate Professor of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin and a Distinguished Scholar at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law. Josh has been deeply involved in the efforts to mitigate climate change. Busby is the author of several studies on climate change, national security, and energy policy from the Council on Foreign Relations, the Brookings Institution, the German Marshall Fund, and CNAS. Busby is one of the lead researchers in the Strauss Center project on Climate Change and African Political Stability (CCAPS), a $7.6 million grant funded by the U.S. Department of Defense. He is also the principal investigator of a Complex Emergencies and Political Stability in Asia (CEPSA), a 3-year $1.9 million project, also funded by the Department of Defense. He has also written on U.S.-China relations on climate change for CNAS, Resources for the Future, and the Paulson Institute.
His most recent publications include: “As the Stakes Rise, Climate Action Loses Momentum”, Current History, January, 2019, “Warming World: Why Climate Change Matters More Than Anything Else”, Foreign Affairs, July/August 2018, and with Nigel Purvis, “Climate Leadership in Uncertain Times”, The Atlantic Council, September 11, 2018.
You will find that the global efforts are rather sobering, but Josh provide a full review of, and insight into, the current climate change efforts.
International Relations’ experts have come to recognize that there are many more actors in global governance today than in international relations in the past. There are states and intergovernmental institutions, of course, but today there are a variety of sub-state and non-state actors (NSAs) that are involved in meeting the growing challenges of global governance.
It is our good fortune to have Miles Kahler, the Distinguished Professor of the School of International Service at American University, Washington D.C. with us here in the studio and in fact Miles has been with us at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy for the semester. Miles and I range widely over a number of global governance areas including climate change and the flows of illicit finance that has become a serious topic of concern for the G20 and other global governance institutions. Miles, in fact, has recently concluded a study with colleagues for the Council on Foreign Relations, where he is a Senior Fellow in Washington, titled, “Global Governance to Combat Illicit Financial Flows: Measurement, Evaluation, Innovation”.
Before taking up his position at American University, Miles was the Rohr Professor of Pacific and International Relations and Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at UCSD. Miles has published widely in the fields of international politics and international political economy. Among other volumes he has co-edited with David Lake, Politics in the New Hard Times, and edited, Networked Politics: Agency, Power and Governance.
Stephen Walt has just published, The Hell of Good Intentions: America’s Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of U.S. Primacy (see NYTimes Review). It seemed like the appropriate moment to interview Stephen. This new book by Stephen ranges broadly across American foreign policy. Stephen provides a strong critique of U.S. foreign policy and the effort by what Stephen refers to as the ‘foreign policy community’ to maintain a policy of ‘liberal hegemony’. Stephen heavily criticizes the foreign policy elite for maintaining this policy in the face of very serious failures including in Afghanistan and in Iraq. The interview also explores the Realist approach favored by Stephen in his views of ‘Offshore Balancing’.
Stephen holds the Robert and Renee Belfer Professorship in International Affairs in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Stephen was previously the Academic Dean at the Kennedy School. Stephen has written a number of notable books on U.S. foreign policy including: The Origins of Alliances, Revolution and War and Taming American Power. More controversially, Stephen wrote with John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, the article, “The Israel Lobby”.
The turbulence in the liberal international order continues. And we are pleased to bring a new episode, Ep. 22 of the series, ‘Shaking the Global Order: American Foreign Policy in the Age of Trump’. We were pleased to sit down with James Goldgeier to examine in this latest podcast American foreign policy and the impact of President Trump.
James is a Professor of International relations at the School of International Service at American University. James served as Dean there from 2011 to 2017. James is currently a Visiting Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and at the Library of Congress he is currently the Chair in U.S.-Russia Relations.
James has written a number of studies including: America Between the Wars: from 111/9 to 9/11 co-authored with Derek Chollet; Power and Purpose: U.S. Policy toward Russia after the Cold War co-authored with Michael McFaul; and also And not Whether but When: The U.S. Decision to Enlarge NATO.
Come join us in this next podcast in the series.
I took the opportunity when sitting down with Oliver Della Costa Stuenkel to discuss the BRICS (Summit Dialogue: Episode 6) to raise with Oliver the serious refugee crisis that engulfs a number of Latin American states arising from the Venezuelan political crisis. This refugee crisis is unmatched in recent Latin American history and has hit a number of frontline states including Columbia, Peru, Brazil, Ecuador and Argentina. For a hemisphere that has advanced a number of regional organizations, it is startling to see the lack of regional effort, if only with respect to the humanitarian aspects of this crisis. Why has there been so little regional effort to deal with this human crisis?
Oliver is an associate professor of international relations at Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV) in Sao Paulo. There, with a number of his colleagues, he is launching a new School of International Relations. Oliver has written extensively on the politics of the rising powers, including The BRICS and the Future of the Global Order and his most recent book from Polity, Post-Western World: How Emerging Powers are Remaking the Global Order. He is a frequent commentator on the Hemisphere in journals and in the media across the region.
This is an exceptional podcast in this ‘Summit Dialogue’ series. First, it is our pleasure to interview Yale’s Angel Hsu, the founder and director of Data-Driven Yale. We have corralled Angel to discuss the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS) that was held in San Francisco from September 12-14, 2018. This summit is a notable event called by California’s Governor Jerry Brown and Michael Bloomberg. The attendees included many sub-state actors from provinces and states, municipalities and regions (some 6,000) and many, many non-state actors including foundations, activists and private corporations (some 2,000). These actors were intent in promoting efforts and commitments on carbon emission reductions at something other than at the national government level. We were also keen to question Angel on recently released report for the Summit titled, “Global Climate Action From Cities, Regions and Businesses”. This Report, led by Angel, was a three-year effort to aggregate the climate commitments by these many sub-states and non-state actors. It was also my pleasure to include in the questioning of Angel our first ‘Munk-V20-Brookings Fellow’, Claire Floody. Claire from Centennial College’s journalism program had joined us in Buenos Aires for the final T20 Argentina meeting. There we had, among other things, worked on this podcast.
Angel is an Assistant Professor of Social Science at Yale-NUS College and is also an Adjunct Professor at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. She has written extensively on the subject of carbon emissions reduction and on climate change policy.
I sat recently to discuss the most recent BRICS Summit – the 10th anniversary summit in Johannesburg, South Africa with my colleague and friend Oliver Della Costa Stuenkel. Notwithstanding much criticism of the BRICS, especially from observers from the West, the annual BRICS summit meetings have remained a serous gathering of these emerging market country leaders. There is a growing list of meetings among BRICS officials and the BRICS have created a variety of international institutions, most notably the New Development Bank. I therefore was keen to explore with Oliver the evolution and impact of the BRICS summit on international governance.
Oliver is an associate professor of international relations at Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV) in Sao Paulo. There, with a number of his colleagues, he is launching a new School of International Relations. Oliver has written extensively on the politics of the rising powers, including The BRICS and the Future of the Global Order and his most recent book from Polity, Post-Western World: How Emerging Powers are Remaking the Global Order. He is a frequent commentator on the Hemisphere in journals and in the media across the region.
The rising tide of President Trump’s trade warfare is not more central than in the U.S.-China relationship. With Harry G. Broadman we target the rising friction between these two economic giants. Is the Trump trade strategy – so focused on bilateral trade balances - likely to improve economic relations between the U.S. and China? Will it help prod China in fulfilling and adhering to its obligations under the World Trade Organization, to which it acceded in 2001?
To dissect such questions and other matters coloring U.S.-China trade, we examine with Harry the evolution of China’s ‘socialist market economy’ and the growing power of China’s President Xi Jinping. Harry has long and deep connections with China and the economic ‘Rise of China’. Harry began working extensively throughout China in the early 1990s overseeing the World Bank’s state-owned-enterprise restructuring loan operations and its policy dialogue with the government’s leadership on trade, foreign investment, antitrust and corporate governance reform. Harry has worked on global finance, trade and investment for decades in more than 75 emerging markets spanning 5 continents. Among other posts, he worked in the White House, first as Chief of Staff of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors and, subsequently, as United States Assistant Trade Representative. In this latter position, he led the U.S. negotiations on international trade and investment across all services industries as part of the establishment of both NAFTA and the WTO. He also managed all negotiations of U.S. Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) with other sovereigns. He served on the Board of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) and was a member of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS). Harry has been Managing Director and a Member of the Investment Committee at Albright Capital Management, an emerging markets-focused private equity firm, and founded and led PwC’s Global Growth Strategy Management Consulting Practice.
Today, Harry is CEO and Managing Partner of Proa Global Partners LLC, a cross-border transaction advisory firm. He is also a member of the Johns Hopkins faculty, an expert witness on trade and investment disputes, and writes monthly columns on global business for Forbes and Gulf News. His most recent book is: Africa’s Silk Road: China and India’s New Economic Frontier.
Let’s join Harry and me in this podcast on the U.S.-China trade relationship.
The leader-led BRICS forum has received much attention in the international relations. Initiated as an acronym in 2001 by Jim O’Neill at Goldman Sachs to capture a set of large emerging market economies with high growth potential – Brazil, Russia, India and China – Russian officials organized this group first as informal gatherings of the Foreign Ministers and then in 2009 the first leaders’ summit in Yekaterinburg, Russia. Leaders’ summits have continued from that point forward. Notably in 2011 at the China Sanya Summit, South Africa was invited to join the BRICS which went from the BRICs to the BRICS. Notwithstanding much skepticism by observers over the many divergent views of this leaders forum the BRICS have continued to meet, to enhance their intra-BRICS activities from security to education and to build institutions including the New Development Bank and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA). With the able assistance of Andrew Cooper, we explore the evolution of the BRICS in global governance. We also explore where this BRICS summit may be going.
Andrew is a Professor of Political Science at Waterloo University. He has written a great deal around the ‘Rise of the Informals’ including a volume on the G20 with Ramesh Thakur (The Group of Twenty (G20), 2012), Rising States, Rising Institutions with Alan Alexandroff, eds. (2010), and more recently: BRICS: A Very Short Introduction (2016). He also has a written a great deal on modern diplomacy including The Oxford Handbook of Modern Diplomacy with Jorge Heine and Ramesh Thakur, eds. (2013), Celebrity Diplomacy (2007), and Diplomatic Alternatives (2014).
It is a pleasure to welcome back Thomas Wright from the Brookings Institution. Tom is the director of the Center on the United States and Europe and a senior fellow in the Project on International Order and Strategy at the Brookings Institution. His research at Brookings on European politics and the Trump foreign policy are exactly what suggested our callback to Tom. In this podcast we explore with Tom the growing frictions between President Trump and his European allies. We also seek to understand the growing populist politics in Europe - in Italy, in Germany and in the politics of Brexit in the United Kingdom. Tom and I had a chance to sit down after a number of turbulent weeks. President Trump joined the summit at NATO and roundly criticized his allies. He also visited with UK PM Teresa May after an interview with the Sun newspaper that likely thoroughly embarrassed her, especially after Trump praised Boris Johnson soon after his departure from May’s cabinet. And Trump thoroughly praised Vladimir Putin at the U.S. - Russia Summit calling into question his willingness to accept U.S. intelligence agency assessments that Russia had interfered in the U.S. 2016 elections.
The turbulence in international relations is apparent and Tom and I try to thoroughly explore the various ‘crises in Europe’. Tom has undertaken much research in Trump foreign policy and European politics. He has recently written a book titled “All Measures Short of War: The Contest For the 21st Century and the Future of American Power” published by Yale University Press in May 2017.
The strains on the Liberal International Order continue apace. The antagonism between President Trump and allied leaders were on full display at the recent G7 Charlevoix meeting. Though the leaders had reached consensus on the Communique, Trump subsequently withdrew the U.S. endorsement and tweeted that Prime Minister Trudeau, the host of this year’s G7 was “Very dishonest & weak.” Now the allies are meeting at the NATO Summit on July 11-12, 2018 where President Trump is likely to press his view that the allies are failing to live up to the spending commitments. Meanwhile, President Trump continues his summit dialogues with rivals. First there was the recent ‘sunny’ Singapore Summit with Chairman Kim Jung Un of the DPRK. And, President Trump is scheduled to meet with President Vladimir Putin of Russia on July 16th.
With all these summits as background, I sat down with Bruce Jentleson to explore Trump’s foreign policy and its consequences for the Liberal Order. Bruce is a very well-known Professor of Public Policy at Duke University where he served as Director of the now Sanford School at Duke (2000-2005). He also served as the Henry Kissinger Chair on Foreign Policy and International Relations (2015-2016) at the Library of Congress. And he has advised officials in Washington including senior foreign policy advisor to Vice President Al Gore.
I was particularly interested in sitting down with Bruce for this podcast to review with him a recent article he had written for the journal Democracy called ‘The Liberal Order is Not Coming Back: What Next?’ and for the conclusions he had reached in his examination of key international relations’ actors in his recently released book The Peace Makers: Leadership Lessons from 20th Century Statesmen’.
The liberal international order is showing increased strain as President Trump continues to conduct U.S. foreign policy. So, much has been happening recently: the chaos of the G7 Charlevoix gathering with President Trump withdrawing the U.S. signature from the summit communiqué. The on-again off-again summit between North Korea’s Kim Jung Un and President Trump took place on June 12th leaving most grasping to understand what the two leaders had in fact agreed to at the Singapore summit. These and other actions formed the core of the podcast discussion with Bruce Jones.
Bruce is the Vice President and Director – Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution as well as being a Senior Fellow in the Project on International Order and Strategy at Brookings. Bruce wrote an insightful book on the changing liberal order – “Ours to Lead: America, Rising Powers, and the Tension between Rivalry and Restraint” in 2014 and with Carlos Pascual and Steve Stedman in 2009 he co-authored “Power and Responsibility: Building Order in an Era of Transnational Threats”.
Jones has had extensive experience and expertise on intervention and crisis management. He served in the United Nations' operation in Kosovo and was special assistant to the U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process. Jones also has significant experience on multilateral institutions. He was a senior advisor to Kofi Annan on U.N. reform and served as deputy research director to the U.N.'s High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, as well as lead scholar for the International Task Force on Global Public Goods.
Come join Bruce and I in our discussion on ‘Shaking the Global Order'.
The geopolitics of the Asia-Pacific, or the Indo-Pacific, as the Trump Administration has referred to the Asia-Pacific is a critical aspect of international politics and today’s global order. This podcast very fortunately tackles the politics of the region with one of the true experts there, Professor Mark Beeson of the University of Western Australia (UWA) in Perth Australia. In the podcast we have the opportunity to review the history of the ASEAN which today includes ten countries in Southeast Asia. This summit has been ongoing since 1967 and most recently ASEAN leaders gathered in Singapore for the 32nd Summit. What has the ASEAN accomplished over this summit’s existence? What are its relations with the two great powers in the region – China and the United States? Can ASEAN be an actor in the continuing tensions of the South China Sea? Beyond just the two great powers what are, and should be, ASEAN’s relations with other major players in the region, Japan, India and Australia? And what is ASEAN’s relationship with the geopolitics and geo-economics of the Trump presidency? Mark is a Professor of International Politics at UWA and his expertise covers international relations, international political economy, Australian foreign policy, the regional politics of Asia, security interests and the economics of this vital region. Come learn more about ASEAN with Mark Beeson.
This Series undertakes interviews with academics, policymakers and in particular former officials exploring the current and past architecture of summits and the state of global order policy-making.
This podcast with Oliver Stuenkel is a full conversation exploring the hemispheric summit – the ‘Summit of the Americas’ and the regional politics of Latin America. Recently, leaders in the Western Hemisphere met for the 8th Summit of the Americas in Lima Peru. President Trump decided to avoid the Summit, the first American President to do so since this triennial meeting of leaders was inaugurated by President Bill Clinton. In fact, less than half the leaders showed. What does this poor attendance suggest about the state of regional relations? Equally, what does the crisis in Venezuela tell us about the state of relations and hemispheric concerns about democracy? The spotlight is on Latin America. The G20 is being hosted by the Argentinian Government. And there are important elections in the region, most notably in Brazil. The crisis in Venezuela is unlikely to end any time soon.
Oliver is an associate professor of international relations at Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV) in Sao Paulo. There, with a number of his colleagues, he is launching a new School of International Relations. Oliver has written extensively on the politics of the rising powers, including his most recent for Polity, Post-Western World: How Emerging Powers are Remaking the Global Order. He is a frequent commentator on the Hemisphere in journals and in the media across the region.
In this ‘Now’ podcast we explore the state of politics in South Africa and the continuing role of South Africa in international relations.
South Africa has just gone through dramatic political change. First, Cyril Ramaphosa, long a member of the African National Congress (ANC), and a close colleague to Nelson Mandela, gained the presidency of the ANC. And then Ramaphosa and his colleagues were able to ‘ease out’ Jacob Zuma from the post of President of South Africa that Zuma has held for the last 9 years. The ANC will face national elections in 2019 with Cyril Ramaphosa likely as the President.
In the face of these changes I invited two colleagues and friends from South Africa to explore the impact of these changes and assess the prospects for Ramaphosa and his Party. Chris Alden is a professor of international relations at the Department of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. My other colleague is Maxi Schoeman. She was a professor and head of the political sciences department at the University of Pretoria and is currently the deputy director of postgraduate studies and ethics at the faculty of humanities at the University of Pretoria. Both have been deeply involved in researching and writing on the domestic and foreign policy of South Africa over the years.
South Africa remains a critical actor on the African continent and is a member of the BRICS and the G20. Come listen to this ‘Now’ podcast.
This podcast with Stewart Patrick was done while Stewart was visiting us here at the Munk School of Global Affairs to talk to about his new book, Sovereignty Wars: Reconciling America with the World. In the ‘plush’ podcast studio, Stewart and I sat down to explore what the book tells us about American foreign policy and the impact of Donald Trump on American international behavior. In addition, we explore with Stewart the consequences of a Trump ‘America First’ foreign policy for America’s role in the eight summits that are scheduled for this coming year. Are we likely to see the kind of hectoring that Donald Trump exhibited in the NATO Summit last year? Or, will President Trump exhibit more collaborative behavior? We explore whether the United States is likely to remain the ‘odd man out’ in the two major Informal summits - the G7 taking place in Canada, hosted by Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau in the spring, and the G20 that will gather in Buenos Aires in the late fall hosted by Mauricio Macri, President of Argentina. What impact is President Trump likely to have on global governance and the liberal international order that the United States has led through the decades since World War II.
Stewart is the James H Binger Senior Fellow in Global Governance at the Council of Foreign Relations in Washington. Stewart is also the director of the International Institutions and Global Governance Program at CFR and Stewart writes the blog “The Internationalist” at the CFR website.
In this podcast Peter Feaver examines closely the Trump Administration’s first National Security Strategy or NSS. What does the NSS tell us, and not tell us about the Trump Administration’s foreign and security policy. Additionally, we have the opportunity to question Peter on Trump trade policy, his policy toward the Korean Peninsula and Iran and more generally Trump’s policies towards allies and adversaries. Peter is a professor of political science and public policy at Duke University. He is the Director there of the Triangle Institute for Security Studies and also Director of the Duke Program in American Grand Strategy. In 2005 to 2007 served as Special Advisor for Strategic Planning and Institutional Reform at the NSC. Peter has written extensively on civil-military relations, nuclear weapons and nuclear strategy. It is a close examination of Trump foreign policy.
In this podcast, Matthew Goodman, gives us a tour de force of Trump policy in Asia and the ‘big question’ what will be the consequences for the liberal international order of a Trump administration. Matthew is currently the William E Simon Chair in Political Economy and the Senior Adviser for Economics at CSIS, the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Matthew has served in both the private sector at Goldman Sachs and Albright Stonebridge Group and has also held a number of significant roles in the public sector including early in his career as an international economist at the U.S. Treasury Department and at the Tokyo Embassy. Subsequently, he was director of international economics on the National Security Council staff responsible for the G20 and, the then G8, and then former White House Coordinator for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the East Asia Summit (EAS). Matthew and I explore the consequences of Trump’s policy actions especially in Asia focusing on Trump’s meetings with key leaders in Japan, Korea and China and at the multilateral meetings, APEC and ASEAN. Listen to Matthew’s views of the ‘America First’ policy in Asia.
In this podcast Kori Schake tackles the main elements of the Trump Administration foreign and security policy. With Kori at the helm, we explore Trump’s policies in trade, the Korean peninsula, Iran and generally America’s leadership role – with allies and adversaries – in the liberal international order. Kori has operated close-in to U.S. military and security affairs with stints at the Defense Department, the National Security Council and the State Department during the first term of George W. Bush. She was as well a senior policy advisor to the McCain-Palin campaign in the 2008 Presidential election. Kori has also written insightfully on the US military, in fact with the current Secretary of Defense, Jim Mattis. The book: Warriors and Citizens: American Views of Our Militaryand she is just releasing her latest, Safe Passage; The Transition from British to American Hegemony.
In this podcast, we engage Harvard’s Joseph Nye Jr. in a wide-ranging conversation about cyber security. Joe has been at the forefront of the examination of critical issues in international relations. Recently, he has turned his attention to the impact of cyber security, cyber espionage and cyber warfare on international relations. Cyber has emerged as a critical feature of conflict in today’s international relations and the relationship of great powers including the United States, China and Russia. For further analysis of the cyber world see Trey Herr’s article here at Global Summitry called, “Governing Proliferation in Cybersecurity”. [Caroline can you add a url] Professor Nye is a Harvard University Service Professor, Emeritus and the former Dean of the Kennedy School. He has also served in various security positions in the American government. International relations scholars are well aware of his significant work in international relations including his examination of complex interdependence with Robert Keohane and Joe’s illumination of the concept of ‘soft power’ in international relations.
Jake Sullivan was the youngest head of Policy Planning in the State Department under the Obama Administration. During the 2016 U.S. Presidential Elections, Jake was Hillary Clinton’s policy advisor. In this podcast, Jake discusses Democratic alternatives to the Trump Administration’s policy in critical foreign policy areas such as trade and globalization. Jake also assesses the Trump Administration’s policy with respect to the crisis in the Korean Peninsula, Russia, alliance politics, and the institutions of liberal internationalism that the United States help construct over the last seventy years.
In this ‘Now’ podcast we get a chance to extend the examination of summits with two very eminent peace and conflict academics. Daniel Druckman and Peter Wallensteen prepared an article for Global Summitry that we published in Volume 2, Issue 2, entitled “Summit Meetings: Good or Bad for Peace?” The article sought to understand whether summit meetings between contending states have an impact on their relations that relate to war or conflict outcomes. The analysis and conclusions were drawn from a new data set that these scholars had created on summits between the Soviet Union, now Russia, and the United States. The data set covered summits between these two great powers that covered the period from 1943 to 2014. We collectively decided that with the recent G20 Leaders’ Summit in Hamburg it was a most opportune moment to examine the summit relationship historically and ‘in the moment’.
We do hope you enjoy this wide-ranging examination of Russian and American summits from Roosevelt and Stalin to Trump and Putin.
In our latest interview with Professor Janice Stein, we examine the impact of President Trump and his policies on the most recent G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany. We also discuss US foreign policy in a number of critical areas including the Middle East, North Korea, and Trump’s relationship with Vladimir Putin.
Professor Stein is one of Canada’s leading authorities on global affairs. She is the Belzberg Professor of Conflict Management at the University of Toronto and served as the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University. For more on Professor Stein’s views, tune in to her podcast “Disrupting the Global Order” by Antica Productions.
This interview with David Victor examines the complicated requirements for the transition to a low carbon economy. David discusses questions of fossil fuel pricing, the role of coal and carbon capture and storage (CCS), the impact of innovation on the road to deep decarbonization, the adequacy of today’s electric grids and the consequences of the Trump Administration’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Accord. David is a professor of international relations at UCSD and the director of the School’s Laboratory on International Law and Regulation. He has been a contributor to the UNFCCC’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
This interview with Thomas Hale is the first in a new podcast series titled “Climate Change Policy in the Aftermath of the Paris Accord.” Thomas Hale is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University. Professor Hale has written a great deal on managing transnational problems and climate change specifically. In this podcast, we explore the origin of the Paris Accord and the consequences of the Trump Administration’s decision to withdraw from the agreement. For a previous discussion on the Paris Accord featuring Sir David King, check out Episode 5 of Global Summitry Podcasts.
We hope you have had a chance to listen to the first of this two-part podcast, which features Daniel Deudney’s examination of Trump’s trade and climate change policy. In the second half of our interview, we explore the possible impact of Trump administration policy in: Syria, relations with Russia and the overall ‘big question’– Trump’s impact on US leadership in the Liberal Order.
This podcast interview with Daniel Deudney of Johns Hopkins University is presented in two parts. In the first of this two-part podcast, Daniel focuses on Trump trade policy and Trump climate change policy. Daniel is critical of both and explores what the consequences of Trump policy in the areas of trade and climate change may have on the Liberal Order.
In this interview with Nick Bisley an international relations expert from La Trobe University in Melbourne, we examine the reactions from ‘down under’ to Trump foreign policy. Australia is one of America’s key allies in the Liberal Order in Asia. The early ‘rocky start’ to Australia - Trump foreign policy’ relations raises many of the key issues in US foreign policy in the Age of Trump. Where does Trump’s ‘America First’ approach stand today and how do Australia’s leaders react to it? If the US in the Age of Trump is no longer willing automatically to step up to global leadership, what stance will Australia take in the future. In particular, how does Australia balance its relations with China and the United Sates in global and regional trade and security matters?
Nick is the Executive Director of La Trobe Asia at La Trobe University and is also Editor-in-Chief of the venerable Journal, the Australian Journal of International Affairs as well as the director of the Australian Institute of International Affairs.
In this interview with Thomas Wright of Brookings, we begin a discussion of US foreign policy in the Age of Trump with a look back at citizen Trump’s views of US global economic and political policies. Wright has argued for some time that Trump has held a remarkably coherent and critical view of American foreign policy since the 1980s. We then delve into the elements of Trump’s ‘America First’ policies and examine how, or if, those foreign policy elements have changed since Trump became president. Where does his ‘America First’ approach stand today, whether looking at trade policy, US alliance commitments, or policy initiatives in Syria or in North Korea?
Tom is fellow and director of the Project on International Order and Strategy as well as a fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution.
This is another interview on the critical subject of American foreign policy in the Age of Trump. Like other podcasts in this series, this podcast explores the changes under President Trump and his officials to American foreign policy and its consequences for the Global Order that America constructed over the last 70 years.
Miles Kahler is currently a Distinguished Professor at School of International Service American University and a Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He has had a distinguishes career at various universities including Princeton and the University of California at San Diego. He is today one of the Academy’s experts in international relations and international political economy. Take a listen.
This is the first of several interviews on American foreign policy under Donald Trump. President Trump as a candidate rejected many of the foundations of the Global Order that the United States helped establish. Whether initiatives on free trade, relations with allies or rivals, the construction of numerous multilateral institutions, candidate Trump, now President Trump, urged radically different American foreign policy approaches. These interviews will explore the changes to American foreign policy and its consequences for the Global Order that America constructed over the last 70 years.
We begin with an interview with Rory MacFarquhar. Rory is currently a visiting fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics but from 2010 to 2016 he held various positions in the Obama Administration. Rory served on both the National Security Council and the National Economic Council and he led various policy teams on international economic and trade issues, including US-China economic relations; economic support for Ukraine, Tunisia and Iraq.
This podcast interview with the Right Honorable Paul Martin, interviewer Alan Alexandroff, a Senior Editor here at Global Summitry, is the embedded podcast accompanying Mr. Martin’s video text. This video was delivered at the opening of the Vision 20 meeting in China (March 29th to April 1st) at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China. As the Editor’s Note in the text points out, the V20 brought together scholars from various international policy fields, think tank leaders, civil society and private sector representatives and various government leaders, all to generate ideas and actionable items for the long and medium term in global governance.
Paul Martin was the Prime Minister of Canada from 2003 to 2006 and the Minister of Finance from 1993 to 2002. Mr. Martin was the inaugural chair of the Finance Ministers’ G20. Mr. Martin not only was central in setting up this first version of the G20 but was one of the earliest advocates of a leaders’ level summit – what eventually became the G20. As Mr. Martin wrote in 2005 in the venerable journal Foreign Affairs, “The main justification for an L-20 can be expressed very simply: the boundaries between countries are growing fainter. Globalization is not a process that can be turned on and off at will.” In this interview with Mr. Martin, our Senior Editor explores with the former Prime Minister his assessment of the Leaders’ G20. Where has the G20 been a success; where has it failed to meet the expectations of Mr. Martin? What recommendations does Mr. Martin have for this most critical of leaders’ summits in the hopes of making the Summit more effective?
In the 'Flashpoints' article by MIT's M. Taylor Fravel, "Explaining China's Escalation over the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands", Taylor examines the conflict between China and Japan in the East China Sea. In this Now podcast, senior editor Alan Alexandroff discusses with Taylor the issue that have raised tensions there but then goes on to explores in some depth with Taylor the many issues in the South China Sea. The tensions in the South China Sea have been in the headlines recently with the award by the Law of the Sea arbitration tribunal (a claim was filed by the Philippines in 2013 against China) that undermined, among other things, the Chinese historical claims identified by the now famous nine-dash line. Though the United States has taken no position over the claims to sovereignty by any of the claimants - China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei - the United States has expressed the continuing importance of the freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and the need to peacefully resolve the contending claims. All this is explored in the interview with Taylor.
In this 'Now' podcast, senior editor Alan Alexandroff introduces Mike Jobbins. Mike is the director of Global Affairs at Search for Common Ground (SFCG) a leading conflict transformation organization. SFCG has been in Burundi for the last 20 years working on peacebuilding in a deeply conflicted nation. Mike and his colleagues have prepared an article for Global Summitry entitled "Peacebuilding and Crisis Prevention in Burundi's 2015 Election Crisis". This article should be available shortly here at Global Summitry but with the rising tensions in the country, the senior editor explores with Mike the current reasons for the crisis in this troubled African country and the immediate threat to peace.
In this first podcast for the Now podcast series for Global Summitry, senior editor Alan Alexandroff introduces Sara Mojtehedzadeh. Sara is currently working with the Toronto Star but has done stints at Sky News in Europe and the BBC World Service. While at the BBC, as you will hear, Sara examined the early migration flood from the Middle East and Africa. In this latest podcast she examines the growing crisis of immigration. Thousands of asylum seekers, refugees and economic immigrants are flooding into Europe with the hope of reaching the key European Union countries, especially Germany. Like the Greek debt crisis, the immigration crisis raises serious questions of the ability of the 28-member country union to act in unison and respond collectively to a policy crisis.
This podcast with Sir David King marks the Journal’s first foray into climate change and global governance issues, actors and arrangements. Sir David has been centrally involved in the creation of two potentially very important entities in the efforts to reduce CO2 emissions and move to low carbon emission strategies for states. Sir David, appointed by the Foreign Secretary as the new permanent Special Representative for Climate Change, along with a number of other notables including Sir David Attenborough, Lord Stern, Lord O’Donnell and Lord Layard launched the Global Apollo Programme in June 2015 designed to advance research on renewables and in particular new storage technologies. Through a series contacts, and some good fortune, two entities were launched just prior to the formal COP21 – Mission Innovation (MI) an alliance of states (currently 21) to advance the pace of innovation in clean energy and the Breakthrough Energy Coalition (BEC), a coalition of some 20 venture capitalists brought together by Bill Gates to accelerate commercialization and investment in cost-effective clean energy innovations. It is a compelling story from one of the principals involved in climate change governance. Please enjoy.
This podcast with Jonathan Kirshner and GS ‘caps off’ a close examination by GS of global financial governance and an evaluation of the state of the global economy. Jonathan Kirshner is a professor of International Political Economy in the Department of Government at Cornell University. His most recent book in the area is American Power after the Financial Crisis. Jonathan’s interview accompanies two articles in Volume 2, Issue 1 – Eric Helleiner’s “Legacies of the 2008 Crisis for Global Financial Governance” and Henry Farrell’s “Globalized Green Lanternism". Together the podcast and articles provide deep insights into the current state of the global economic order from some of the best political economist minds in the United States and Canada. Enjoy.
This podcast interview with Danny Bradlow is the accompanying podcast to Danny's article, "Lessons from the Frontlines: What I Learned from My Participation in the G20". This article is the first in a series of examinations of former officials and others who have been directly involved in the workings of global summitry. The 'Summit Dialogue' series is intended to give us insights into how current global summitry actually makes, or fails to make, policy at the global governance level. Danny was the first head of the South African Reserve Bank’s (SARB) International Economic Relations and Policy Department. In this capacity, Danny represented the SARB in G20 and BRICS meetings during approximately two years ending in October 2014. Enjoy both the article and the podcast.
In this second podcast in the Global Summitry podcast series, Stewart Patrick of the Council of Foreign Relations examines the evolution of multilateralism in the global order.This podcast is part of Stewart's 'Feature Article' "The New “New Multilateralism”: Minilateral Cooperation, but at What Cost?" As the title suggests multilateralism as a global order tool has gone through a succession of iterations. The most recent iteration is the development of informal minilateral arrangements. As Stewart points out, these new collaborative arrangements are not unalloyed improvements for global order collaboration.
In this first podcast senior editor Alan Alexandroff interviews Henry Farrell, Associate Professor of Political Science at George Washington University and occasional blogger at the 'Monkey Cage' at The Washington Post. Alan raises questions around what he and Henry refer to as global 'green lanternism' - the exercise, or not, of US power in the global order and its consequences. What emerges out of this interview is a complex picture of actors and their arrangements in the global order - what Henry describes as the 'New Interdependence'.