How has the largely American war in Afghanistan--the terrorist attacks of 11 September, the counterattack that began on 7 October, and the retreat of Taliban forces since 13 November--affected the foreign policy environment now facing Northeast and Southeast Asian states? Is this the beginning of Cold War II? Has terrorism replaced communism as the enemy of a new and enduring global alliance led by the United States? How do East Asian governments see themselves in relation to this anti-terrorist coalition? As enthusiasts eager to defend or promote democracy in politics and moderation in religion? As joiners hoping to elicit American support for the repression of "terrorism" inside their own countries, e.g., in Tibet, Aceh, and the Sulu archipelago? As bystanders skeptical of American motives and resentful of American influence, but resigned to their inability to curb American hegemony? As balancers eager to organize East Asia into a region able to defend itself against unchecked American power? Matters relevant to the answering of such questions include: disappointing economic trends in much of East Asia; the likely impact of the compromises reaching at the recent World Trade Organization meeting in Qatar; the status and implications of the proposed free trade area between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN); changing affinities and tensions among ASEAN members; military progress or failure in the effort to destroy Al Qaeda; and the possible involvement of East Asian contingents in a UN-brokered arrangement for the stabilization of Afghanistan. Simon SC Tay teaches international law at the National University of Singapore. He was selected for three terms as a Nominated Member of the Singapore Parliament. His many publications include A New ASEAN in a New Millennium (2000); Preventive Diplomacy and the ASEAN Regional Forum (1999); and "Towards a Singaporean Civil Society," in Southeast Asian Affairs 1998. He also writes stories and poems; his 1991 book, Stand Alone, was short-listed for the Commonwealth Prize. In 2000 the World Economic Forum named him a "global leader of tomorrow."

Anand Patwardhan's latest film, a work in progress (180 min.), shot in India, Pakistan, and Japan The director will be present for discussion after the screening. Starting with the outbreak of jingoism that marked the 1998 series of nuclear tests by India and Pakistan, Patwardhan creates a road movie that vivifies the human and historical realities of this new leap in the world's nuclearization. We visit test sites with politicians, watch urban sound-and-light spectacles glorifying the military, hear the stories of suffering villagers near the test site, travel with peace marchers who confront furious pro-bomb crowds, join a conference of Indian and Pakistani peace activists, and go to Japan to hear testimony from survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear attacks. In the style that has distinguished his earlier films, Patwardhan brilliantly captures individual voices, gestures, facial expressions, and public dramas that simultaneously reveal intimate human experience and the sweep of history. India's most controversial and renowned documentary producer, Patwardhan has won numerous Indian and international prizes during his career as a filmmaker, which spans more than a quarter of a century. While his films cover a wide variety of subjects, regions, and social groups, his central interests have been human rights, communalism, and violence. For information, see . Further questions? Contact , , or 650-725-9732.

Press reports of rising anti-Americanism and Muslim militance in several Southeast Asian countries have fueled speculation that the United States may be planning to intervene against terrorist groups in that part of the world. How credible are these reports? In Indonesia, which has more Muslim citizens than any country with the possible exception of India, Islamist activists have demanded the severing of U.S.-Indonesian relations and threatened to expel Americans. There has been speculation that American advisers may soon arrive in the southern Philippines to help Manila root out ostensibly Islamist rebels operating there. While criticizing the bombing of Afghanistan, Malaysian Premier Mahathir Mohamad has accused his Muslim opposition of links to Islamist subversion. Meanwhile, Malaysian jihadist elements are alleged to have been in touch with Osama bin Laden's network. How real are these perceived dangers? What do they imply for stability and democracy in Southeast Asia, and for the future of America's global coalition against terror? Bambang Harymurti has long been associated with Tempo, the leading newsweekly in Indonesia. He served on its editorial board from 1987. When the magazine was banned in 1994, he moved to the daily newspaper Media Indonesia. He returned to Tempo following its reappearance in printed form in 1998. He has held fellowships at Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and the East-West Center, among other institutions. He was also a finalist in Indonesia's astronaut program. Fortunately for journalism, he did not make the cut. Don Emmerson convenes the Southeast Asia Forum in the Asia/Pacific Research Center, a unit of Stanford's Institute for International Studies.

As China is gradually integrated into the international economic, security, and politics system, the tension between technological self-reliance and the need to build its technological enhancement on what is available in international market, will inevitably increase. Reflecting this tension, China's encryption policy was thrust into the international limelight in late 1999 and the first half of 2000. The early encryption regulations were announced and later were clarified. A wide range of international media has covered controversies related to the encryption policy. For every nation in the world, encryption's multifaceted nature requires a painstaking effort balancing potentially competing interests. It is even more so for China, the country which will officially join the WTO at the end of 2001. The concerns of multiple stakeholders about the future of encryption technology and its impact have raised policy questions about the management and control of encryption technology. Among the questions Chinese decision makers face are the following: --How to evaluate China's current encryption policy from an international perspective? --How to justify the toughness of the original encryption regulations and the relaxation afterwards in China's complex and rapidly changing domestic and international context? The purpose of Dr. Yuan's study is to assist Chinese policymakers in analyzing the status quo of the policy, objectives, and factors affecting encryption policymaking and to offer suggestions for the future. It provides an integrated assessment of how encryption policy decisions can and might affect diverse military, commercial, and political interests in China and suggests how those interests might be balanced most effectively.

Fidel Ramos' term as President of the Philippines was marked, among other things, by the highest economic growth since the Republic's independence, massive investments in infrastructure, and a peace agreement with the Southern Muslim secessionist movement. In 1998 he was awarded the UNESCO Peace Award for his role in promoting stability in the Southeast Asian region. Following his term of office, Mr. Ramos has continued to exercise a significant influence on Filipino politics. In January 2000 he led a pivotal march demanding the resignation of his successor, Joseph Estrada, which occurred two days later. A graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, he now serves as Special Roving Ambassador for the current president, Gloria Arroyo.

After a brief description of historical legacies, Dr. Katahara looks at changes and continuities in the patterns and contents of civil-military relations through an exploration of the jurisdictional boundaries in the two areas: the structure of political domination; and national security policy making. This study is part of East-West Center's project on the State and the Soldier in Asia, directed by Muthiah Alagappa. Dr. Eiichi Katahara teaches Japan's diplomatic history and international relations in Asia and the Pacific in the Faculty of Law at Kobe Gakuin University, Japan (1992~). He held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California's Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (1991-1992) and at the Australian National University (1989-1991), lectured in Japanese Politics in the Department of Political Science and was a research fellow in the Australia-Japan Research Center. He has published articles on topics related to Japan's security policy, and security affairs in the Asia-Pacific region. His recent publications include "Japan's Plutonium Policy: Consequences for Nonproliferation" (The Nonproliferation Review, Vol.5, No.1, 1997); "Japan's Concept of Comprehensive Security in the Post-Cold War World" (in S. Shirk & C. Twomey eds. Power and Prosperity: Economic and Security Linkages in Asia-Pacific, 1996). He has also written background chapters on Japan for Asia Pacific Security Outlook 1998 and Asia Pacific Security Outlook 1999 (forthcoming) (edited by Charles Morrison).

The talk will highlight the economic and social development of India and Pakistan and how this has been affected by the high level of military expenditures. It will trace the likely consequences of the emergence of a nuclear race on the two economies arising both from the short-run impact of economic sanctions and the costs in the long-run of increased sophistication of military technology. Before becoming the managing director of the SPDC in Pakistan, Dr. Hafiz Pasha was Advisor to the Prime Minister on Finance and Economic Affairs and Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, with status of federal minister. Earlier, he was Vice Chancellor of the University of Karachi, Dean and Director of the Institute of Business Administration, Karachi, and Professor and Director of the Applied Economics Research Centre, University of Karachi. Dr. Pasha's publications cover the fields of public finance, urban and regional economics and economics of social sectors. He has been involved with high-level policy making in Pakistan and has taken on numerous research assignments for international bilateral and multilateral agencies.

Like a double-edged sword, the recent conflict in East Timor challenged Indonesia and the international community alike. For Indonesia, the crisis and its resolution offered a chance for military reform, yet threatened national unity. For international donors, the chance to defend human rights and implement self-determination carried a risk of provoking nationalist resentment against foreign intervention for democratic change.This talk will focus on the international community and its donor countries and agencies. How did they react to the conflict in East Timor? What were their strategies? How did their actions affect Indonesia -- not only its East Timor policies but also the course of its own democratic transition? Looking back on them now, do the crisis and its outcome lessons for the feasibility of foreign intervention to achieve domestic political reform? If so, what are they? If not, why not? And what do the answers to these questions imply for the democratic prospect in developing countries more generally?

In 1975Ð76 the fall of Saigon was followed by national reunification and the establishment of the Socialist Republic. Access to the Mekong Delta was widely expected to facilitate rapid neo-Stalinist industrialization and the appearance of a powerful military threat to capitalist SEA. But this did not happen. By 1981 partial reforms had permitted all state enterprises to operate in markets and some degree of agricultural decollectivisation. In the second half of the 1980s there was a clear de-Stalinization of everyday life. And by 1989Ð90 a recognizable market economy had emerged. Since then the Vietnamese Communist Party has, with some success, negotiated a major opening-up of the country to foreign contacts. Vietnam has joined ASEAN, and has seen the emergence of land, labor, and capital markets, and the confused processes by which classes form. Fundamental economic and political change has therefore occurred. Growth has been rather fast and the use of state violence minimal. Politically, for the still-Leninist VCP, the shift from Plan to Market has been a great success. What is the political economy basis for this? Despite emergent capitalist classes and a market economy, the political economy of "post-transition" Vietnam is heavily marked by its recent history, and remains very different from other ASEAN members. Notwithstanding revolutionary change, dualities common to both the traditional and modern political economies have offered great potential for political restructuring. In this sense "development doctrines" are perhaps less exotic and more indigenous than elsewhere in SEA. This facilitates relatively harmonious political adaptation and is the key to understanding change. For example, wide rural land access, with a collective tinge in the most densely populated areas, has a strong and pervasive effect upon the macro political economy. "Voice and exit" are enhanced. Thus we see rather high levels of migration, and risk bearing be farmers. Rural GDP has grown fast through the 1990s. Also, real wages in urban areas tend to be higher and the labor regime less brittle. What are the political implications of such a land regime? At the end of the day, one reason for the lack of extensive state violence against the population seems to be that the party/state has sufficient sources of support and power for tense economic issues in the rural areas to be fought out without property rights needing violence to enforce them. These issues are fought out locally (within cooperatives and communes) and in macro contexts (access to world markets). But in the rural areas the state does not, apparently, need to support particular economic interests for its survival. One reason for this is that the "land issue" has been addressed through the adaptation of socialist models, so that large-scale land property is not (yet?) a major issue. Dominant groups in the rural areas do not depend upon land access for their incomes. Adam Fforde is a development economist. He holds an Oxford MA (Engineering Science and Economics), a London MSc (Economics) and a Cambridge PhD (Economics). He studied Vietnamese in Hanoi during 1978/79 and was a visiting scholar at the National Economics University (Hanoi) in 1985Ð86. He lived in Vietnam from 1987 to 1992 while working as an advisor to the Swedish aid program, and in Australia from 1992 to 1999, where he was a visiting fellow at the ANU and Chairman of Aduki Pty Ltd (Consultants). He is now senior fellow at the SEA Studies Programme, National University of Singapore. He has published on topics including the economic development of north Vietnam prior to 1975, agricultural cooperatives, and the transition from plan to market. He is currently working on class formation and the emergence of factor markets in the 1990s, industrial reform since the early 1960s, and Vietnamese development doctrine.