Over the last decade, America’s diplomatic, military, and strategic resources have mainly centered in the Middle East and South Asia. With the U.S. having withdrawn from Iraq and the military campaign in Afghanistan set to wind down by 2014, the Obama Administration has signaled a strategic “pivot” towards the Asia-Pacific in an effort to reassert U.S. influence in the region. What obstacles does the U.S. policy shift face? How are Asian countries responding?  Is the U.S. pivot purely a strategic push to rebalance a rising China? What will U.S. policy in Asia look like during Obama’s second term as U.S. President?

Join ASNC for a panel discussion featuring leading foreign affairs experts on the rise of Asia, America’s pivot to Asia, and what this means for the U.S. and countries in the region. The event features Kishore Mahbubani, Singapore’s former Ambassador to the UN and Foreign Policy magazine’s 2011 "Top Global Thinker," who will also discuss his new book The Great Convergence: Asia, the West, and Logic of One World. The book assesses East and West at a remarkable turning point in world history and reaches an incredible conclusion: China stands poised to become the world’s largest economy as soon as 2016. As rapid economic growth in Asia lifts an unprecedented number of the world’s population out of poverty and into the middle class, his book argues that there is a unique convergence of interests and perceptions, cultures and values: a truly global civilization. What does this mean for the U.S. and the world?

Copies of The Great Convergence will be available for signing and purchase at the event!

Speakers:

Donald Emmerson, Director, Southeast Asia Forum, Stanford University

Kishore Mahbubani, Dean, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore; former Singapore Ambassador to the UN; author of The Great Convergence

Bruce Pickering (moderator), Vice President Global Programs - Executive Director Northern California Center

Steven Vogel, Professor of Political Science, UC Berkeley

Promotional Co-sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, UC Berkeley, Japan Society of Northern California, JPRI, Mechanics Institute, The Asia Foundation, USF Master of Asia Pacific Studies Program, World Affairs Council of Northern California
 

Program Agenda

5:30-6:00: Registration

6:00-7:30: Panel Discussion/Audience Q&A

7:30-8:00: Reception