Wherever I am, the world comes after me.
It offers me its busyness. It does not believe that I do not want it.
Now I understand 
why the old poets of China went so far
and high 
into the mountains, then crept into the pale mist.
"The Old Poets of China" by Mary Oliver

The UP Asian Center will be hosting a webinar via Zoom, “ASEAN, the Quad, and AUKUS: A View from Australia” on 23 June 2022, 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm (Philippine Standard Time, GMT+8). The event is free and open to the public, but registration and signing in to a (free) Zoom account is required.

ABSTRACT

Australia has been a partner of ASEAN since 1974 but its actions recently appear to challenge the notion of ASEAN centrality, having entered a quadrilateral partnership (with India, Japan and the United States), as well as the AUKUS agreement with the United States and United Kingdom. With a new government in Australia, how much continuity and how much change can be expected, and what does this mean for the Philippines?

THE SPEAKER

John Blaxland, Ph.D. is a Professor of International Security and Intelligence Studies in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre (SDSC), Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University (ANU). He is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales. He is also a former military intelligence officer, a former Head of SDSC, and Director of the AN Southeast Asia Institute. He also lectures regularly at the AN National Security College (notably on the Geostrategic SWOT Analysis for Australia), and at the Australian Defence College (including the Defence and Strategic Studies Course, the Command and Staff Course, the Australian Defence Force Academy and the Royal Military College, Duntroon).
Prof. Blaxland also writes commentaries for various media outlets such as The Guardian, The Australian, The New York Times, The Straits Times, The Jakarta Post, East Asia Forum, SCMP, and The Diplomat. His published articles and chapters in edited works on drones, leadership, intelligence, Second World War intelligence antecedents, Australian Army infantry, US-Australia security ties, Australia-Canada military relations, Defence Cooperation in Asia, and Southeast Asian security.
Some of his recent works are, The US-Thai Alliance and Asian international Relations (2021); Niche Wars: Australia in Afghanistan and Iraq (ANU Press, 2020); and In From the Cold: Reflections on Australia's Korean War, 1950–1953  (ANU Press, 2020)
For more information about Prof. Blaxland, you may visit his full profile here.

THE REACTORS

Dr. Chester B. Cabalza is the Founder and President of the Manila-based think tank International Development and Security Cooperation (IDSC) and teaches in the graduate school at the University of the Philippines, Diliman. He previously held the position of Vice President for the Center of Research and Strategic Studies and the Executive Fellow at the Development Academy of the Philippines. He was formerly a Consultant of the World Bank and the Japan International and Cooperation Agency. He also lectures for and advises theses of senior military officers at the National Defense College of the Philippines and the Command and General Staff College. A Fellow of the College of Defense Studies at National Defense University in Beijing, and the US State Department under the stewardship of the University of Delaware. He has published in peer-reviewed journals in the purview of security studies and recently co-authored The Rise of Philippinedization: Philippinedization is not Finlandization. Dr. Cabalza won the IFSSO international prize for the Social Science Award and he is regularly interviewed by local and foreign media on the South China Sea, regional terrorism, and related international political economy issues.
Richard Javad Heydarian is an Asia-based academic, author and policy adviser. He has delivered lectures at the world’s leading universities, including Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, and Leiden University, and was previously a Visiting Fellow at National Chengchi University (Taiwan), and an Assistant Professor in political science at De La Salle University. As a columnist, he has written for the world’s leading publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and Foreign Affairs. He is also a regular contributor to leading global think tanks such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Brooking Institution, and Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). His latest books are The Rise of Duterte: A Populist Revolt against Elite Democracy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) and The Indo-Pacific: Trump, China, and the New Global Struggle for Mastery (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). His forthcoming book is China’s New Empire (Melbourne University Press, 2022).

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The Asian Center, University of the Philippines Diliman offers M.A. degrees in Asian Studies with four fields of specialization: Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and West Asia. The UP Asian Center also has an M.A. program in Philippine Studies that allows students to major in Philippine society and culture, Philippine foreign relations, or Philippine development studies. It also offers a Ph.D. program in Philippine Studies in conjunction with the College of Arts and Letters and the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy. For an overview of these graduate programs, click here. As an area studies institution, the Asian Center also publishes Asian Studies: Journal of Critical Perspectives on Asia, the latest issue of which can be downloaded at the journal's website.