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Asia in Review (AiR) Webinar Series
Book Launch & Panel Discussion
Winds of Change:
Geopolitics at the Crossroads of South and Southeast Asia
Hosted by
CPG’s Peace & Security Center (CPSC)
in cooperation with the Asian Governance Foundation (AGF)
Friday, March 27, 2026
15:00-16:00 p.m. ICT (GMT+7)
Online via Zoom video teleconferencing
Concept Note
This webinar centers on the presentation of Winds of Change: Geopolitics at the Crossroads of South and Southeast Asia, the latest book by CPG Senior Research Fellow Asanga Abeyagoonasekera. Focusing especially on Sri Lanka, but extending to a broader set of countries across South and Southeast Asia, the book examines how China’s Belt and Road Initiative, India’s regional diplomacy, and the United States’ Indo-Pacific strategy act as competing external forces shaping domestic realities across the region. Specifically, it shows how these dynamics are translated into domestic political and economic transformations within smaller states, while these domestic shifts in turn feed back into the regional system, reshaping how external powers engage with them.
Building on this, the event takes the book as a point of departure to ask how robust these arguments are under current conditions. In particular, it uses the ongoing war involving the United States, Israel, and Iran—and its emerging economic and geopolitical effects across South and Southeast Asia—to reassess the trajectories described by Abeyagoonasekera. The key question is whether these dynamics—intensifying great-power competition, rising pressure on smaller states, and increasing systemic volatility—remain valid as described, or whether they are now being accelerated and amplified. What the book captures as an evolving pattern may, under current conditions, be unfolding at a significantly faster pace, compressing timelines, intensifying pressures, and further increasing volatility across the region.
The seminar will begin with a conversation with the author, followed by a moderated panel discussion that takes these questions as a starting point for a broader exchange.
Speakers
Asanga Abeyagoonasekera
Executive Director, South Asia Foresight Network (SAFN), Millennium Project; Senior Fellow and Board Member, Millennium Project; Senior Research Fellow, CPG
is an international security and geopolitics analyst, author, and strategic advisor with nearly two decades of experience in government and policy research. He currently serves as Executive Director of the South Asia Foresight Network (SAFN), an initiative under the Millennium Project in Washington, D.C., where he is also a Senior Fellow and Board member. He is also a Technical Advisor to the International Monetary Fund.
He previously held senior leadership roles in Sri Lanka’s national security and foreign policy institutions, including Founding Director General of the Institute of National Security Studies and Executive Director of the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute.
He also serves as a senior advisor to China’s OSS (Overseas Safety and Security) International Collaboration Center at Zhejiang University and holds positions as a Senior Research Fellow at NIICE in Nepal and the German-Southeast Asian Centre of Excellence for Public Policy & Good Governance (CPG).
Henning Glaser
Director, German-Southeast Asian Center of Excellence for Public Policy and Good Governance (CPG); Executive Director & Chairman of the Board of Directors, Asian Governance Foundation (AGF)
is a scholar, attorney, mediator, and policy advisor who has been based in Thailand since 2007. He teaches at the Faculty of Law at Thammasat University, including in the field of constitutional law, and is the founding director of the German–Southeast Asian Center of Excellence for Public Policy and Good Governance (CPG).
Over nearly two decades, he has written and spoken extensively on Thai constitutional developments, electoral politics, and institutional power dynamics, including in publications linked to Oxford and Cambridge, and is frequently invited by public authorities and international organizations to provide analysis on constitutional and broader political developments.
Henning is also Editor-in-Chief of Asia in Review and serves as Executive Director and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Asian Governance Foundation (AGF). He is a registered attorney in Germany and a qualified mediator under German law and the standards of the International Mediation Institute (IMI).
Lucas Meier
Program Manager, CPG; Deputy Editor-in-Chief, Asia in Review
is a researcher, analyst, and mediator, currently serving as Program Manager at the German–Southeast Asian Center of Excellence for Public Policy and Good Governance (CPG). In this capacity, he also acts as Deputy Head of CPG’s Mediation Center (CMC) and CPG’s Governance and Compliance Hub (CGCH).
Lucas also serves as Deputy Editor-in-Chief and Regional Editor for South Asia of CPG’s Asia in Review newsletter and is a Fellow at the Nepal Institute for International Cooperation and Engagement (NIICE).
Agenda
| 3 – 3:05 p.m. | Welcome & Opening Remarks Henning Glaser, Director, German-Southeast Asian Center of Excellence for Public Policy and Good Governance (CPG); Executive Director & Chairman of the Board of Directors, Asian Governance Foundation (AGF) |
| 3:05 – 3:20 p.m. | Conversation with the Author Asanga Abeyagoonasekera, Executive Director, South Asia Foresight Network (SAFN), Millennium Project; Senior Fellow and Board Member, Millennium Project; Senior Research Fellow, CPG Moderated by Lucas Meier, Program Manager, CPG; Deputy Editor-in-Chief & Regional Editor for South Asia, Asia in Review |
| 3:20 – 3:55 p.m. | Moderated Panel Discussion Asanga Abeyagoonasekera, SAFN/ CPG Henning Glaser, CPG Lucas Meier, CPG |
| 3:55 – 4 p.m. | Closing Remarks Henning Glaser, CPG |
Registration
Registration is required to attend the event. Please scan the QR code below or click the link to complete your registration: >> Click here <<
Inquiries
For program content, please contact Mr. Morten Strantzen at morten.strantzen@cpg-online.de
For administrative matters, please contact Ms. Venus Phuangkom at events@cpg-online.de