果冻传媒

Yee Kuang HENG is Professor at the Graduate School of Public Policy, The University of Tokyo. Yee Kuang is on sabbatical at Cambridge University鈥檚 Centre for the 果冻传媒 of Existential Risks as a Senior Academic Visitor. His recent publications include 鈥淯K-Japan military exercises and mutual strategic reassurance鈥�, Defence Studies, Vol. 21 Issue 3 (2021); 鈥淛apan鈥檚 significance for the United Kingdom鈥檚 shaping ambitions in the Indo-Pacific鈥�, East Asian Policy (forthcoming 2022), 鈥淓nhancing Europe鈥檚 Global Power in Asia 2030鈥�, Global Policy, Vol. 11 Issue 1 (2020); 鈥淪haping the Indo-Pacific? Japan and Europeanisation鈥�, LSE IDEAS Strategic Update (2021); 鈥淢ilitary Evolution and Japan鈥檚 Self-Defense Forces鈥� in Nicole Jenne and Alan Chong (eds) Asian Military Evolutions (Bristol University Press, forthcoming 2023).

Although the constitutional status of its Self-Defence Forces (SDF) remains a subject of intense political debate, Japan鈥檚 participation in military exercises has in fact grown quite rapidly over the years. Drawing from interviews with SDF officers and civilian policymakers, his paper explores what strategic cost-benefit calculations help explain Japan鈥檚 choice of specific partners or exercise formats (bilateral/multilateral) in the region. Were exercises valued or developed according to some political, strategic, capacity-building, military/operational, or other benchmark? To what extent do those exercises help Japan maintain or achieve its desired vision of regional order?

Time: 16:15-17:30
Date: 11/11/2022
Venue: S0.13, Social Sciences Building

Victor Agboga, a third year PhD student at PAIS recently published an article "Selective forgiveness and the politics of amnesties in Nigeria", in The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs. Through the lens of political settlement, he argues that domestic peace processes could mimic existing power inequalities, thereby including some groups and excluding others from state forgiveness.

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Saori N. Katada is Professor of International Relations at University of Southern California, and she is currently a Banque de France/Fondation France-Japon Fellow at L鈥櫭塩ole de Haute Etudes en Sciences Sociales (FFJ/EHESS) in Paris France. Her book Japan鈥檚 New Regional Reality: Geoeconomic Strategy in the Asia-Pacific was published from Columbia University Press in 2020, and its Japanese version in 2022. She has co-authored two recent books: The BRICS and Collective Financial Statecraft (Oxford University Press, 2017), and Taming Japan鈥檚 Deflation: The Debate over Unconventional Monetary Policy (Cornell University Press, 2018). She was the vice president of International Studies Association (ISA) from 2021 to 2022. She has her Ph.D. is from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Political Science), and her B.A. from Hitotsubashi University (Tokyo). Before joining USC, she served as a researcher at the World Bank in Washington D.C., and as International Program officer at the UNDP in Mexico City.

This project examines the infrastructure investment 鈥榗ompetition鈥� between Japan and China in the context of privatization of development finance in the post-global financial crisis world. As geoeconomic challenge to China鈥檚 infrastructure 鈥榖ig push鈥� through its Belt-and-Road Imitative, Japan and the Quad powers responded by establishing Blue Dot Network to certify bankable infrastructure projects with the hope that such certification will invite institutional investors to infrastructure financing in the Indo-Pacific region. By examining contrasting financing features and risk consideration of infrastructure financing between China and Japan, the project illustrates the foundation of quantity versus quality competition among the financial suppliers of infrastructure investment.

Date: Friday, 4th November

Time: 17:15-18:30

Venue: S0.13, Social Sciences

For additional information, please contact the EASG at easg@warwick.ac.uk

Dr Patrick Meehan works in Global Sustainable Development in the School of Cross-Faculty Studies at the 果冻传媒, and he is also a post-doctorate research fellow in the Department of Development Studies at SOAS. In this seminar, Dr Meehan provides insights into the political economy of the illegal drug trade in Myanmar based on extensive fieldwork conducted as Co-Investigator of a five-year research programme (2017-2022) led by SOAS University of London entitled 'Drugs and (dis)order: Building sustainable peacetime economies in the aftermath of war鈥�. This seminar explores how Myanmar鈥檚 flourishing drug economy is not only rooted in the country鈥檚 longstanding armed conflict, but is also central to processes of rapid political, economic, and social change that have re-shaped Myanmar鈥檚 borderlands since the 1990s. Through exploring issues of cultivation, trafficking, and rising local drug use, Dr Meehan reveals how drugs have become embedded in the DNA of the Myanmar state and the development processes through which Myanmar鈥檚 resource-rich borderlands have been integrated into the global economy. 

Date: 27th October 2022 

Time: 16:15-17:30 

Venue: MS.05, Zeeman Building 

This seminar is part of the East Asia 果冻传媒 Group (EASG) Seminar Series. For further information please contact the EASG at easg@warwick.ac.uk.

, Vicki Squire discusses how research from the Data and Displacement project points to a disconnect between international humanitarian standards and practices on the ground, highlights the need to revisit existing ethical guidelines such informed consent, and signals the importance of investing in data literacies.