Vol. 1, Issue Middle Power Conference Papers, 2020

Between Scylla and Charybdis: Is there a Middle Path for Middle Powers in the Indo Pacific Region?

Co-sponsored by the U. S. Naval War College and the East Asia Security Centre, Bond University

3 - 5 October 2019 Invitational Conference at Bond University Australia

Keynote Speaker Dr Charles Edel, United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney

As the economic and strategic stand-off between China and the United States deepens and as both Superpowers seemingly retreat from the rules-based International Order that framed the post-Cold War era, it may fall to the Middle Powers of the Indo-Pacific region to create a new regional trade and security architecture. In that future the Middle Powers would have to chart their own collective middle path between these global giants.

At the same time, those giants still have tremendous gravitational pull and kinetic capacity in the region and thus the Middle Powers of the Indo-Pacific may succumb to the irresistible pressure to ‘lean to one side.’ America’s long-standing and far-ranging security partnerships throughout the region and the still potent draw of its huge market and technological acumen may sustain American hegemony at least in part, especially if the United States joins the reworked Trans-Pacific Partnership. Meanwhile, the astounding amount of resources, human capital and money that China is pouring into a vast array development projects, especially in Central and South Asia, may rewrite the geo-political map at the same time as it transforms Asia’s infrastructure landscape. The result then may be a region divided into two camps, one hewing to Xi Jinping’s singular Belt and Road Initiative and the other bound to the neo-protectionism espoused by President Trump.

A third possibility is an Indo-Pacific region is chaos, with the region’s Middle Powers charting individual courses satisfying their own national interests and ‘comparison shopping’ between China and the United States for trade deals and security guarantees. Such systemic instability will most likely be both a product of and a contributor to slower global economic growth, regional and domestic political instability, increased transnational crime and declining human security.

This event will focus on the Middle Powers of the Indo-Pacific (countries often identified as Middle Powers comprise Australia, Canada, Chile, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam) and the major trading powers of the Americas – and analyse their responses to the duelling pressures of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative and Washington’s emerging Indo-Pacific Strategy.

The event will bring together United States and Australian national security experts and regional scholars to focus on the intra-regional implications of the Sino-American Competition and the end of the ‘Unipolar Moment’ of un-challenged United States primacy. We seek empirically-driven and policy-relevant research that is contextualized in the Indo Pacific region’s political and economic realities. We are soliciting papers with regional, sub regional—South and Central Asia, the Indian Ocean, Southeast and Northeast Asia, the South Pacific and the Americas—and country-specific foci.

Accommodation will be provided. Travel funding for direct reasonable economy flights and transfers only will be provided upon application and submission of original receipts to a maximum amount of A$2500 (this is at the discretion of the Directors of the conference; please check if you are unsure of the merit of your expected reimbursement claim prior to any purchases).

Please note attendance at all activities 6:00 pm Thursday 3 October – 5:30 pm Saturday 5 October 2019 is essential. Paper presentations must be 20 minutes, unpublished original work and be a multi-disciplinary project or topic. There will be a welcome reception on Thursday night, four presentation sessions over the two days; includes lunches, a dinner on Friday night and other activities during the conference. For enquires please email Dr Jonathan Ping jping@bond.edu.au. To submit a paper proposal please complete the below and then copy and paste in an email to: easc@bond.edu.au

Name: (Include your formal title)
Affiliation: (University or organisation to which publishing credit will be awarded)
Paper Title: (A short title)
Synopsis: (100 words maximum. May include outline of the problem, theoretical
approach, methodology, conclusion and suggestions for further research)
Keywords: (Up to five keywords to facilitate searches and identify content)