About the Conference

At a time of geopolitical uncertainty and with multilateralism under pressure, this conference brought together diverse actors to explore the evolving role of international law on critical security and economic issues in the Asia-Pacific. From trade agreements to deep-sea mining, cyberwarfare to territorial disputes, the breadth of the discussion illustrated the growing reach of international law in the region.

Hosted by the International Law Programme and the Asia-Pacific Programme at Chatham House on 27 March 2019, the conference focused on three themes: trade and investment, maritime security and governance, and emerging security challenges. What trends are emerging in terms of engagement with international law in the region, and how can international standards play a greater role in encouraging collaboration and reducing tensions? And, with the eastward shift in geopolitical power, how will Asia-Pacific states shape the future of international law?

Almost four years since it was established, the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has approved 49 projects and proposed 28. The AIIB claims to be more efficient and less bureaucratic than traditional multilateral development banks (MDB’s) which has threatened the existing model of multilateral development finance. At the same time, China’s increased role in previously Western-led economic institutions, such as the WTO and IMF, has raised questions over the future of the international trade order. How will a rising China shape the international institutional order? Where are there opportunities for potential collaboration and what areas pose challenges? And how should other states and international organizations respond?

Attendance at this event is by invitation only. 

The study of secrecy and spies remain subjects dominated by Anglo-American experiences. In recent years there has been some effort to refocus the lens of research upon ‘intelligence elsewhere’, including the global South. This is partly because of intense interest in the Arab Spring and ‘managed democracy’, placing a wider range of secret services under the spotlight. However, the approach to research is still dominated by concepts and methods derived from studying the English-speaking states of the ‘Five Eyes’ alliance and their European outriders. This article calls for a re-examination of research strategies for Intelligence Studies and for those theorizing surveillance, suggesting that both fields have much to learn from area studies and development studies, especially in the realm of research practice and ethics. If the growing number of academics specializing in intelligence genuinely wish to move forward and examine the global South they will need to rethink their tool-kit and learn from other disciplines. We suggest there is a rich tradition to draw upon.

Julia Gillard, you became the first female prime minister in Australian history in 2010, what have been the challenges and opportunities for you as a woman working in politics? Have the obstacles women face in positions of power changed over the years, and if so, how? 

I want to start positive and say I’m a huge advocate for people going into politics – particularly women. I believe there’s no better way of putting your values into action than going into politics but I’m not going to pretend that there’s no gender bit.

There still is a gender bit and I experienced that personally. A disproportionate focus on appearance, a disproportionate focus on family structures – for example the fact that I didn’t have kids – and the gendered insults becoming the go-to weapon when politics got turbulent, which inevitably happens, as governments make decisions that not everybody agrees with.

In terms of politics past and politics present, I think a lot has changed for the positive. There are more women in politics now which means more role models for other women. There’s been more of an attempt to have the system offer flexibilities for work and family life too. In Australian politics, famously, the non-members bar was replaced by a childcare centre, so that’s giving you a sense that there has been progress. We’ve also just hit the stage where our Senate is now 50 per cent men and 50 per cent women.

But I do think that there’s a new toxicity for women that’s been introduced through social media – through the fact that it’s anonymous and people can say anything and the kinds of revolting material many women politicians receive. I think that there’s a new coarseness in our traditional media too which means things will be said about people in politics today, especially women, which would not have been put in the pages of respectable newspapers 10 or 20 years ago.

So, it’s a mixed picture, where there has been major steps forward but there are still some huge issues to resolve.

Following this year’s elections, there are now a record number of female members of parliament in Australia, yet some argue that women are still underrepresented across the major political parties, and over the past 20 years, the country has fallen from 15th in the world to 50th for gender diversity in its parliament.

Given some of the recent experiences of women in Australian politics, do you think the major political parties are doing enough to address gender diversity in their ranks? 

I certainly think on the Labor side of politics important changes have happened in our political party and the benefit of those changes has showed. I’m of that generation of Labor women that fought for an affirmative action target and we had that adopted as a Labor party rule in the early 1990s. It started at 30 per cent, and it’s gone up over time, and the benefit of that now is that the Labor Party is almost at 50-50 per cent men and women, coming off a very low base in the early 1990s where we were at 14 per cent men and women. 

The Conservative side for politics hasn’t embraced a target or quota as of yet. They have done some things, through mentoring and networking and training, but that hasn’t seen as significant a shift in the gender diversity in their ranks. They’ve moved slowly from when they were 13 per cent women to now where they’re in the mid-20 per cent. 

Of course that doesn’t mean the work within Labor is done: we’ve got to keep delivering to the affirmative action target, having women come through for all of the ministries, the Cabinet and for all of the portfolios and to make sure that we’re embracing the full diversity of women too. Australia is a very multicultural society and there is more to do to make sure that women – and men – in the Australian parliament represents that diversity. 

During your premiership, you delivered a famous speech on misogyny and sexism and described there being 'gender wars' in Australian politics. How far has Australia addressed its problems regarding everything from unconscious bias to gender stereotypes? Do you think social attitudes in Australia to women in leadership are changing?

I don’t think these issues are particularly an Australian problem. When I left politics, people kept asking me about my experiences and it became convenient for them to say ‘That’s Australia and its macho culture and Crocodile Dundee and all of that.’ I was always quick to point out, actually, a number of the insults hurled at me were first hurled at Hillary Clinton when she originally put her name forward to be considered as a candidate for US president. So this is not an Australian problem – it’s a global problem. 

I can see progress in Australia though. When I was prime minister, the sort of fashionable analysis by the press was that nothing, in my experience, had anything to do with gender – I was just being treated like every prime minister had always been treated.

Today, there is a very lively debate about sexism in Australian politics and about how women can feel excluded from these structures with various conservative women making complaints about bullying within their political party. So the preparedness to report issues due to the understanding of gender is now much higher and I’m a big believer that you never solve a problem unless you start talking about it so I’m glad we’re talking about it now.

From the implementation of ‘womenomics’ in Japan, to gender-responsive budgeting in Indonesia, countries around the world are making progress towards addressing gender issues, yet, structural and cultural barriers that prevent women’s economic, political and social participation remain.

What are the biggest barriers that women face around the world and do you think enough is being done to address these barriers?

I think so much is context-specific that it’s hard to say, but I would say, in some parts of the world, unequal access to education is the fundamental barrier.

Now that’s not true in the UK or in Australia, where the statistics tell you that disproportionately graduates today are women and not men, but if we look at many of the poorer parts of the world, like in sub-Saharan Africa and other places, there are 260 million children out of school – and the face of a child most likely to miss out is a female face. So there still needs to be a lot more progress on things such as equal access to education around the world. 

In many parts of the developed world, there is actually an assault now on long-held rights around women’s reproduction so I think that is another foundation stone – and then really it comes to a set of issues and barriers around the world of work and full access to every level of work.

Much of this is what we research at the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership because we continue to see workplaces and organizations that have a very traditional view of what merit looks like. It’s a sort of male-defined view of the world and it is one that is not inclusive of women. We are still seeing the unequal sharing of domestic labour which has ramifications for women’s engagement in the world of work and their ability to achieve leadership within it too. 

With a broad brush, I would point to all of this, but the most pressing problems that women continue to face varies from place to place.

Globally, increasing numbers of women are being elected to political office, from the first female president of Slovakia to the first female mayor of Tunis. This comes at a time of record numbers of female ministers in Egypt and Jordan as well as gender-balanced cabinets in 10 countries worldwide – six of which were achieved in 2018 alone.

Do you think women’s rights and gender equality are benefitting from more female representation in politics and how are female voters responding, if at all, to this increase in the number of women holding political office?

I think, even if women didn’t bring new policy perspectives to the world of politics, I would still be an advocate of gender equality in politics because I believe merit is equally distributed between the sexes.

If you see women being represented at less than 50 per cent then that’s got to mean that there are women of merit who didn’t get there – who should’ve gotten there. I think it’s important to make that point otherwise we’re saying ‘Women should only be there if, when they are there, they do this, this and this’. We don’t tend to put that ‘if’ in sentences about men.

But I do think the evidence shows that more women, being involved in politics, does diversify the public policy agenda. That doesn’t mean that a male politician couldn’t focus his career and advocacy on childcare or domestic violence or combating sexual assault or furthering women’s reproductive rights. But I think the evidence shows that there is a lived experience that women bring to politics that enables them to mobilize around a set of issues that are of particular concern to women.

On the role model effect, I think the evidence shows that, if women and girls do see role models, they are more likely to think that that is a pathway open to them. One of the things that does slightly concern me is whether that evidence is now retrospective evidence and whether the prospective evidence is going to be – because of the toxicity of social media – more women thinking about the real-world threats that being in politics presents for them. And so the role modelling effect will work in reverse because it will show how women are treated in politics is more of a negative than a positive.

I certainly hope this doesn’t happen and young women are encouraged to go into politics. That’s where we still have to shine a light on the positive aspects of what working in politics has to offer.

Despite all of the progress we are seeing, women are still faced with gender-based discrimination and gender-based violence, virtually and physically, with 40 per cent of women and girls living in countries which fail to guarantee basic standards of gender equality. What do you think needs to happen to ultimately realize women’s rights and gender equality globally? Are you hopeful this will be achieved in the future?

Yes I’m an optimist overall. People like to quote the great Martin Luther King quote ‘The moral arc of the universe bends towards justice.’ I believe that but I think sometimes the imagery of the arc as if it’s always in a forward movement hides the nitty-gritty struggle that is there beneath. 

Inevitably, at some points, it feels like there’s more of a backlash against women than a forward movement. But, over time, I’m an optimist that the forward movement wins through. 

I do believe we can reach a stage where societies are generating societies where women can live their lives free from the threat of sexual violence or discriminatory treatment based on gender.

Video: Marianne Schneider-Petsinger and Dr Yu Jie discuss key themes from the research paper

Summary

• The underlying driver of the ongoing US–China trade war is a race for global technological dominance. President Trump has raised a number of issues regarding trade with China – including the US’s trade deficit with China and the naming of China as a currency manipulator. But at the heart of the ongoing tariff escalation are China’s policies and practices regarding forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft and non-market distortions.
• As China’s international influence has expanded it has always been unlikely that Beijing would continue to accept existing global standards and institutions established and widely practised by developed countries based on ‘the Washington Consensus’.
• China’s desire to be an alternative champion of technology standard-setting remains unfulfilled. Its ample innovation talent is a solid foundation in its quest for global technology supremacy but tightening controls over personal freedoms could undermine it and deter potential global partners.
• It is unclear if Chinese government interventions will achieve the technological self-sufficiency Beijing has long desired. China’s approach to macroeconomic management diverges significantly from that of the US and other real market economies, particularly in its policy towards nurturing innovation.
• Chinese actors are engaged in the globalization of technological innovation through exports and imports of high-tech goods and services; cross-border investments in technology companies and research and development (R&D) activities; cross-border R&D collaboration; and international techno-scientific research collaboration.
• While the Chinese state pushes domestic companies and research institutes to engage in the globalization of technological innovation, its interventions in the high-tech sector have caused uneasiness in the West.
• The current US response to its competition with China for technological supremacy, which leans towards decoupling, is unlikely to prove successful. The US has better chances of success if it focuses on America’s own competitiveness, works on common approaches to technology policy with like-minded partners around the globe and strengthens the international trading system.
• A technically sound screening mechanism of foreign investment can prevent normal cross-border collaboration in technological innovation from being misused by geopolitical rival superpowers.

At face value, recent years have seen a deepening in Sino-Russian cooperation, from energy agreements, to the recent Huawei-MTS deal developing a 5G network in Russia. Ever larger-in-scale joint military exercises add to fears by some that the 'axis of convenience' is now a more genuine – and threatening – partnership.

This workshop will offer a sober assessment of the latest developments in Sino-Russian relations, shedding light on the underpinnings and practical realities of the relationship as well as on the long-term challenges of upholding cooperation.

The panel will discuss the different and potentially diverging interpretations of contemporary Sino-Russian relations as well as the implications for the rules-based international order.

This event is co-organized by the Chatham House Russia and Eurasia Programme and the University of Exeter and is supported by the British International Studies Association.

Attendance at this event is by invitation only. 

2019 saw a number of political developments in India that brought into question Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) commitment to one of India’s founding principles: secularism. The fallout from Modi and his party’s revocation of Articles 370 and 35A, updates to the National Register of Citizens and the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Bill have arguably demonstrated that power-sharing arrangements based on group divisions and representations fail to accord adequate protection to minorities in India in line with the country’s constitution.

This panel assesses the capacity of India’s republican framework to withstand the BJP and Prime Minister Modi’s brand of nationalism. What do recent developments tell us about Modi and the BJP’s vision for India and how do we explain this paradox where, despite a strong political centre, the BJP is faced with regional insecurity?

How might India reconcile its behaviour in the domestic sphere with its ambition as an emerging power that supports the rules-based order? And in the year of its 70th anniversary, how compatible has India’s constitution proved with the country’s ongoing religious and cultural divides?

Afghanistan has suffered decades of armed conflict resulting in a heavily armed and militarized society involving multiple armed actors and with children being disproportionately affected by the conflict. In March 2019, the Afghanistan government criminalized the harmful practice of bacha bazi, or ‘boy play’, which triggers a range of human rights violations against boys and young men. However, recent research conducted by the All Survivors Project and Youth Health and Development Organisation demonstrates that the practice is widely prevalent due to poverty, prevailing gender norms and widespread impunity. This event will look at research that was conducted in the four provinces of Balkh, Herat, Kandahar and Kabul following interviews with over 100 key informants, 24 survivors and with 13 focus group discussions. 

The event will be preceded by the screening of a documentary on the practice of bacha bazi in Afghanistan which includes interviews with survivors, key government officials and NGOs. The speakers will discuss how an increase in the intensity of conflict in recent years has removed protection mechanisms and increased the vulnerability of all children to conflict-related sexual violence.

In response to the changing geopolitical landscape in Asia, both China and the United States attempt to alter the regional order in their own favour, both in the economic and security realms. This article shows how diverging views on future arrangements are leading to strategic shifts and increasing tension between these two Great Powers. As part of its quest for Great-Power status, China has been actively pushing its regional initiatives such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), as well as adopting assertive security policies towards its neighbours. In contrast, in order to counter China's growing influence America's regional strategy is undergoing a subtle shift from ‘rebalancing to Asia’ to focusing on the ‘Indo-Pacific’ region. However, amid an intensifying trade war and other challenges facing the region, China has chosen to moderate its proactive foreign policy-orientation in the past few years. In particular, China has made attempts to downplay its domestic rhetoric, rebuild strategic relationship with India and Japan, and to reassure ASEAN states in the South China Sea. In response to the Indo-Pacific strategy, it would be more effective for China to articulate a more inclusive regional vision and promote an institutional framework that also accommodates a US presence in the region.

The ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’ (FOIP) strategy, actively promoted by the United States with support from its allies and partners, is a significant geopolitical response to China's growing power and expanding influence in Asia and beyond. Beijing has adopted various new strategies to cope with the challenges related to FOIP. One of these strategies is to secure a robust relationship with south-east Asia in order to make these regional states either neutral to or less supportive of the Indo-Pacific vision. In addition to economic statecraft and soft power, Beijing believes that it can also tap into the domain of non-traditional security (NTS) to strengthen relations with this region to position itself better in the intensifying regional geopolitical competition. The article addresses the following question: what is the impact of China's NTS cooperation with south-east Asia on Beijing's geopolitical rivalry with other major powers in the Indo-Pacific region? The article argues that China's NTS cooperation with south-east Asian countries may help China maintain its geopolitical standing in the region, but it is unlikely to lead to any dramatic increase of China's strategic influence in the region. This essentially means that Beijing may be able to prevent ASEAN or most ASEAN member states from lending substantive and strong support to the Indo-Pacific construct, but it will not be able to stop ASEAN states from supporting some elements of the FOIP.

Japan's primary objective of the ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’ (FOIP) strategy is to shape and consolidate regional order in the Indo-Pacific region based on the existing rules-based international order. The concept initially aimed to achieve two different objectives—shaping a regional order in the Indo-Pacific and ensuring the defence of Japan; however, Japan has gradually shifted its strategic focus onto the former, separating national defence from the FOIP concept, which reflects a change in the degree of its commitment to the two objectives. On the one hand, as its overall security strategy, Japan has determined to steadily enhance its national defence by increasing its own defence capabilities and strengthening the US–Japan alliance, while transforming its partnerships with like-minded states, such as Australia and India, into a diplomatic, and potentially military, alignment. This has been brought about by shifts in the regional balance of power, particularly the rise of China and the relative decline of the United States. On the other hand, as part of its FOIP strategy, Japan's attempts to build a new regional order in the Indo-Pacific region aim to defend the existing rules-based order established by the United States from challengers, particularly China. Yet, given the strategic uncertainty over Japan's international coalition-building efforts to create a new regional order, Japan has made its approach flexible; Tokyo is using its ambiguous FOIP concept to gauge other states' responses, understand their perspectives, and change its strategic emphases accordingly—so-called ‘tactical hedging’. Japan has pursued similar means to achieve the two key objectives. Nevertheless, the country's core interest, the defence of Japan, is more imperative than building a regional order in the Indo-Pacific region, and Japan faces different types of challenges in the future.

India has adopted the Indo-Pacific concept with uncharacteristic speed. This article examines India's Indo-Pacific strategy, which evolved out of its earlier ‘Look East’ and ‘Act East’ policies but is much more focused on strategic concerns than on trade or connectivity. As such, the strategy is subset of its China policy, and includes contradictory elements of balancing China by building partnerships with the United States as well as with regional powers, while simultaneously pursuing a reassurance strategy to convince Beijing that India is not really balancing China. The combination of these contradictory elements is characterized as evasive balancing, which is a more useful concept than either pure balancing or hedging for understanding the policies of India and of many other countries in the region that are trying to manage China's rise. However, reassurance strategies rarely work and the combination of balancing and reassurance is even less likely to be viable.