India and China are arguably two of the most important actors in Asia for the European Union (EU). Starting in the late 1990s, EU-China trade and investment have surged, especially following Beijing’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001. Today, China remains the EU’s largest trading partner, with substantial European investments across the mainland.

Meanwhile, India has become an increasingly important player, with some in the EU seeing it as a counterpoint to Beijing. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen recently expressed a desire to establish “a new strategic agenda” for India and “upgrade its strategic partnership with the largest country and democracy in the world.”

What is the current state of EU-China and EU-India relations? As India’s influence and economic appeal grow, can New Delhi become a viable alternative to China for European business leaders and policymakers? And how is Brussels incorporating India into its strategies to address a potential crisis in Asia or the broader Indo-Pacific?

Join us for a webinar discussion with top experts from India, China, and the EU, featuring Philippe Le Corre, Senior Fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis (CCA) and Akshay Mathur, Senior Director of the Asia Society Policy Institute New Delhi. Lyle Morris, Senior Fellow on Foreign Policy and National Security at CCA, will moderate the discussion.

Speakers

Philippe Le Corre is Senior Fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis and a Senior Advisor on Geopolitics to Asia Society France. He is also a Professor of Geopolitics affiliated at ESSEC Business School (with campuses in Paris and Singapore), as well as the French Military Academy of Saint-Cyr Coëtquidan. In addition, he is an Associate in Research at the John K. Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University and an Associate Fellow with Fondation pour la Recherche stratégique in Paris, focusing on China-Europe relations, Chinese overseas investment and transatlantic relations. Philippe Le Corre is a former Senior Research Fellow with The Brookings Institution, The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and The Harvard Kennedy School. He previously served as Special Advisor to the French Defense Minister and as a Northeast Asia Analyst with the French MoD. He started his career as a Foreign correspondent in East Asia for over a decade, focusing on China's international affairs. Philippe is the author of several books including China’s Offensive in Europe (Brookings Press, 2016), Quand la Chine va au marché and Après Hong Kong. He is a contributor to The China Questions 2 (Harvard University Press, 2022), to U.S.-China Foreign Relations (Routledge, 2021) and to various other edited volumes. He is a regular columnist for Etudes, Nikkei Asia, Ouest France and Les Echos.

Akshay Mathur is Senior Director of the Asia Society Policy Institute based in New Delhi and is responsible for the institute's policy mandate in India. His area of expertise is Geoeconomics, specifically international financial architecture, global trading system, global economic governance, and global digital governance. He is also a Non-Resident Senior Fellow with the Digital Economy Program at the Centre for International Governance Innovation based in Canada. Previously, Akshay has led Mumbai-based, business-supported, independent foreign policy think tanks - Gateway House and Observer Research Foundation Mumbai. He has written columns for Indian and foreign news publications, led Indian government-supported Track Two dialogues with other countries, published research for various Indian and global think tanks, and convened and spoken at several Indian and global forums on international, domestic, and local policymaking.

Akshay represented India at the inaugural cohort of the Asia Global Fellows Program for mid-career leaders in the field of global policymaking hosted by the Asia Global Institute in Hong Kong in 2017 and the Georgetown University’s Young Leaders Forum in Qatar in 2012. He has advanced degrees in policy, business and technology, specifically an MPA from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University as the Edward Mason Fellow, an MBA from Boston University’s Questrom School of Business with concentration in Finance and Business Analysis, and a BS in Computer Science from the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.  

Lyle Morris (moderator) is Senior Fellow on Foreign Policy and National Security at Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis. Prior to joining ASPI, Lyle was a senior policy analyst at the RAND Corporation leading projects on Chinese military modernization and Asia-Pacific security from 2011-2022. From 2019 to 2021, Morris served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) as the Country Director for China, advising OSD on defense relations between the Department of Defense and the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and on Indo-Pacific maritime security. He received the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service for his service. Before joining RAND, Lyle was the 2010–11 Next Generation Fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR) and a research intern with the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Lyle has lived and studied in Beijing, China for four years, where he studied Mandarin at the Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies (IUP) at Tsinghua University and later worked at Dentsu Advertising and the China Economist Journal.

Morris holds an MA in international affairs from the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), earning a Certificate in East Asian Studies from Columbia's Weatherhead East Asian Institute; and BA in international business from Western Washington University.