Joseph Liow Chin Yong: CHINA AND THE NEW INTERNATIONAL ORDER

The rules-based international order – that the EU is particularly  keen to  uphold – is under pressure, and not just since February 2022.  Balances of powers are shifting as war continues on European soil,  an  global gas and food prices are rising.  Regional powers and regional  international organisations – such as the Shanghai Cooperation  Organisation – that were long deemed of secondary relevance by the  European political establishment – seem to grow in self-confidence and  international agency. China’s role in all of this is pivotal.

Our conversation will explore what exactly are China’s interests today and what tools and allies Beijing has to advance them.

Joseph Liow Chin Yong is Tan Kah Kee Chair in  Comparative and International Politics at Nanyang Technological  University (NTU), Singapore. He is Professor and former Dean at the S.  Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and currently Dean of  College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at NTU Singapore. His  research interests encompass social movements in Southeast Asia and the  geopolitics and geoeconomics of the Asia Pacific region.
Joseph Liow Chin Yong is the author, co-author, or editor of 14 books.  His most recent single-authored books are Ambivalent Engagement: The  United States and Regional Security in Southeast Asia after the Cold War  (Brookings 2017), Religion and Nationalism in Southeast Asia (Cambridge  University Press, 2016) and Dictionary of the Modern Politics of  Southeast Asia, fourth edition (Routledge, 2014). A regular columnist  for The Straits Times, his commentaries on international affairs have  also appeared in New York Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy,  National Interest, Nikkei Asian Review, and the Wall Street Journal.

Irene Giner-Reichl, Ambassador (ret.)