International Conference: Shifting Orders, Mounting Challenges – Peace and Security in Asia 2023

International Conference: 

Shifting Orders, Mounting Challenges – Peace and Security in Asia 2023

25-26 March 2023, 9.00 – 5.20 pm.

Pushkara Ballroom, Lebua at State Tower Hotel, Silom, Bangkok

jointly organized by

German-Southeast Asian Center of Excellence for Public Policy and Good Governance (CPG), Hanns Seidel Foundation (HSS), Bangkok/Laos Office, and Asian Governance Foundation (AGF)

With heightening strategic competition between China and the United States and against the backdrop of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, international security ranks top among the issues to watch for the outlook of domestic and international affairs in Asia Pacific in 2023.

Like other parts of the world, all countries in Asia are and will remain exposed to the consequences of a fraying global order, a disrupted and reconfiguring globalization, a rise of geopolitics, tightening great power rivalry, and a rise of global risks for humanity including climate change.

At the same time, Asia is home to key actors of an increasingly coordinated global South that is about to change its posture in a global environment that displays unprecedented shifts, challenges, and threats.

Meanwhile, Asia as a region experiences some increasingly pressuring threats for international peace and security itself ranging from Afghanistan to North Korea, border tensions between Pakistan and India, and India and China, water conflicts over fresh water supply and contested waters such as the South China Sea, to a de-facto civil war in Myanmar that also affects neighboring states such as Bangladesh and serious threats to national sovereignty in the East and South China Sea. Adding to these challenges are rising societal polarization in many of the region’s states with Sri Lanka leading the way and elections looming in divided polities’ such as Thailand. Another crucial dimension of rising security challenges is represented by the catastrophic manifestation of environmental and climate-related risks, in particular, as evidenced in 2022 especially in Pakistan.

With challenges and threats abound, solutions and promising avenues to meet the demands of the hour are way rarer. Part of the process indicated above with reference to a fraying global order is also an increasing challenge to operationalize regional and cross-regional governance mechanisms for the sake of international peace and security, with regard for instance of ASEAN and the G 20 respectively.

These and other questions will be addressed with leading scholars, senior practitioners, and seasoned experts as a continuation of the longstanding CPG-HSS series on peace and security issues with national and regional impact in Thailand and the region respectively.