The rise of China and India is unparalleled in human history because never before has the world witnessed the simultaneous and consistent takeoffs of two nations, accounting for more one third of the planet’s population, which have been consistently registering high growth rates for two decades. Their rise has profound implications for the world economy and world politics. Both China and India – the two new big kids on the block – have no difficulty with a rule-based world order, what they want is “a different set of rules”.

European political elites seem to be indulging in a degree of scapegoating about the danger from “ChinIndia”, since the roots of European angst really lie, among others, in European difficulties in managing globalization, declining competitiveness, fear of change, and an unsustainable health, pension and social welfare system. The Europeans tends to perceive the Chinese juggernaut as a direct immediate threat to European jobs in some manufacturing sectors whereas India is seen as a latent and potential threat taking away service-sector jobs, though pressures would increase as both move up the value chain.

The European Union’s strategic partnership with China and India is essentially driven by trade and commerce. India has too much of catching up to do with China. India is clearly in the Commonwealth Games league whereas China is in the Olympic Games league.

The rise of China and India represents both challenges and opportunities for Europe. Rising powers like China and India are challenging the European Union. They will be in a position to shape and influence global agendas and decisions to a greater extent than at present. For both, Europe will remain an indispensable partner since it is a vital source of trade, advanced technology and foreign direct investment. China and India do pose challenges for Europe, but they also provide opportunities since their growth contributes to greater growth worldwide, which means more exports, especially to a swelling consumerist middle class, which will make more demands of European goods, technology, and services.

Rajendra K Jain is Professor of European Studies and Chairperson, Centre for European Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is Secretary-General, Indian Association for European Union Studies. He has been Visiting Professor at Leipzig and Tuebingen university and at the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, Paris. He is the author/editor of over two dozen books and has published 70 articles/chapters in books. He has most recently published India and the European Union: Building a Strategic Partnership (2007) (editor).

John Morrison will give an overview of Sino-US cooperation on social insurance regulation
with a focus on health policy, as one window into Sino-US relations on the verge of the
Olympics.

Mr. Morrison is Montana Insurance Commissioner and Vice Chair of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) International Committee, in charge of cooperation with Asia. His talk will draw from his April visit to China with the NAIC President for bilateral meetings with the Chinese counterpart, the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC), as well as participation in the the US-China Insurance Dialogues with the US Trade Representative on May 15-16, 2008, in Hangzhou, PRC.

Major economic reforms are often politically difficult.  They may cause pain to voters and provoke unrest.  They may be opposed by politicians whose time horizons are shortened by electoral cycles.  They may collide with the established ideology and long-standing practices of an entrenched ruling party.  They may be resisted by bureaucrats who fear change, and by vested interests with stakes in the status quo.  Obstacles to major economic reform can be daunting in democratic and autocratic polities alike. 

And yet, somehow, past leaders of today's Asian dragons did manage to get away with critical and creative economic reforms.  Sly political foxes nudged their countries onto high-growth paths toward global renown as economic dragons.  What lessons can be learned from their experiences?  Are tactics that worked in authoritarian systems applicable to democratic ones, and vice versa?  Can one identify a set of stratagems that would amount to an equivalent, for economic reformers, of the advice Machiavelli gave political princes? 

Arroyo will recount the crafty political maneuvers used by leaders of economic reform in Asia during these pivotal eras:  China under Deng Xiaoping; India in the 1990s; Thailand under General Prem Tinsulanonda; Vietnam's Doi Moi; South Korea under Park Chung Hee; Malaysia under Mahathir Mohamad; and Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew.  Arroyo's remarks will be drawn from the paper he has been writing at Stanford on "The Political Economy of Successful Reform: Asian Stratagems," which he describes as "a playbook of useful maneuvers for economic reformers."

Dennis Arroyo is presently on leave from his government post as a director of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) of the Philippines.  He has held consultancies with the World Bank, the United Nations, and the survey research firm Social Weather Stations, and has written widely on socioeconomic topics.  His critique of the Philippine development plan won a mass media award for "best analysis."  He has degrees in economics from the University of the Philippines.  

In the midst of leadership changes and rethinking of the Six-Party Talks, the time is ripe for reassessing how multilateralism can be advanced in Northeast Asia. The earlier stress on economic integration as the engine of regionalism has lost credibility, although the forces of interdependence continue to grow. The tendency to treat security in isolation also may be receding, as the Six-Party Talks and Sino-U.S. relations both reveal the multi-sided nature of building trust. At the same time, the pessimism associated with overemphasis on the history issue between Japan and its neighbors has receded in the face of renewed Sino-Japanese and South Korean-Japanese diplomacy. Yet, finding common ground in strategic thinking about the future of multilateralism demands a new approach that takes into account lessons from recent years.

As the building blocks of a new approach, this presentation will focus on four themes: 1) re-examination of ways to accelerate regionalism, with attention to leadership, energy cooperation, and the role of Russia; 2) development of a more comprehensive outlook on values, with attention to shared modernity, gradualism, and the role of Japan; 3) discussion of the next phase in managing North Korea, attentive to Sino-U.S. accord and the role of South Korea; and 4) evaluation of U.S. priorities and how a new president may view Northeast Asia within an overall agenda.   The objective of this talk will be to stimulate thinking on a region at a crossroads in order to capitalize on recent currents of change.

Gil Rozman attended Princeton's Critical Languages Program, returning to Carleton College as an independent major in Chinese and Russian studies. He received his PhD in sociology at Princeton with a field on Chinese, Japanese, and Russian societies and a plan to concentrate on historical comparisons first and on the domestic roots of international relations later. His books have appeared in clusters, including: four on comparative pre-modern urban development and stages of modernization; three on debates in the Soviet Union, China, and Japan over bilateral relations and changes in socialism; two on regionalism; and four on strategic thinking in Northeast Asia. Although he is still learning about Korea, many recent writings have looked at Korea within a regional context.

During the Cold War, China was regarded in many corners of Southeast Asia as a sponsor of subversion and communist insurgency. Until the “four modernizations,” its anemic economy and limited ability to project power offered little incentive for Southeast Asian governments to cozy up to Beijing. Relations were often frosty or worse. Clearly, times have changed. Essentially all of the states in Southeast Asia have robust diplomatic and economic engagements with the PRC. Yet security concerns have not evaporated. Most Southeast Asian governments now embrace China, but “hedge” by setting up fall-back security options with the United States and other partners in case the PRC becomes more menacing.

This seminar will explore some of the nuances in Southeast Asian “hedging” strategies. How do various governments view China’s intentions and capabilities? How have they variously sought to engage the United States and others to gain and retain security without antagonizing Beijing? How do these strategies relate to multilateral diplomacy in ASEAN and related forums, and how do they affect the overall “balance of power” in the Asia-Pacific region? Lastly, what pitfalls might hedging entail? These questions are critical, because the reaction of Southeast Asian states to China’s rise will have a major effect on the shape and stability of regional security for years to come.

John D. Ciorciari is a 2007-08 Shorenstein Fellow and is currently completing a manuscript entitled Hedging: Southeast Asian Alignments with the Great Powers since the Fall of Saigon.  He has extensive work experience in Southeast Asia, both as an academic and as a U.S. government official.  He also served as a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies in Singapore in 2003-04.  He holds a JD from Harvard Law School and DPhil from the University of Oxford.