About the Speakers
Bonnie S. Glaser is director of the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. She was previously senior adviser for Asia and the director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Ms. Glaser is concurrently a nonresident fellow with the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia, and a senior associate with the Pacific Forum. For more than three decades, Ms. Glaser has worked at the intersection of Asia-Pacific geopolitics and U.S. policy. Ms. Glaser received her B.A. in political science from Boston University and her M.A. with concentrations in international economics and Chinese studies from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Da Wei is currently Professor in the Department of International Relations, Tsinghua University. He is also the Deputy Director of the Centre for International Strategy and Security (CISS) at Tsinghua. His research expertise covers China-US relations and US security & foreign policy. Prior to current positions, he used to be Assistant President of University of International Relations (2017-2020), director of the Institute of American Studies, China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (2013-2017). He has written hundreds of policy papers for the Chinese government, and published dozens of academic papers in journals in China, the US and other countries.

Hemant Adlakha is Associate Professor at the Centre for Chinese & South East Asian Studies, School of Language, Literature & Culture Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. He is Vice Chairperson and Honorary Fellow at the Institute of Chinese Studies.

 

About the Chair
Raviprasad Narayanan is associate professor in the Centre for East Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. He is also an associate research fellow with the Institute of International Relations (IIR) at National Chengchi University, Taipei. He has a master's degree in Political Science from Jawaharlal Nehru University and he earned his M.Phil/Ph.D from the Centre of East Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. His research interests include Sino-Indian relations, South Asian security, Asia-Pacific security issues and IR Theory & Research Methods. His publications have appeared in the Asian Perspective, China Report, Harvard Asia Quarterly and the Strategic Analysis among other journals.

Abstract

In the context of the tense US-China relations continuing in the Biden era, and the Ukraine war, some China-watchers are encouraged in their belief that China resorting to military action in Taiwan has become more likely. Notwithstanding its previous policy of “strategic ambiguity,” President Biden has reiterated that the US would “defend Taiwan” if Beijing resorted to the military to enforce Taiwan reunification On its part, Beijing has been consistently responding to provocations coming from US officials with strident remarks of their own and by sending dozens of warplanes over Taiwan’s air defense zone. Additionally, China’s increasing diplomatic and military assertiveness in the South China Sea and South Pacific is a matter of concern. The policy of strategic competition between the US and China is embedded in the structural factors. It is in this backdrop this seminar will look at the evolving narrative over the Taiwan issue in the China-US relations and implications for the region.