In March 2022, the East-West Center in Washington (EWCW), in collaboration with the Royal Thai Embassy, Washington, DC, convened a two-day seminar in which experts from Thailand and the United States discussed issues and opportunities for the US-Thailand alliance. The workshop included a diverse array of discussants hailing from government, military, academic, think tank, and private sector backgrounds. This report, which adheres to the “Chatham House Rule” under which observations referred to in the report are not attributed to any individual participant, is a summary of the group discussions and the key themes from the seminar.

In collaboration with International Affairs Forum (IAFOR) and the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Relations, this briefing analyzes governmental, corporate, and international policies and decision-making toward pandemic response aboard cruise ships and at ports. Focusing primarily on two case studies that took place in February 2020—the Diamond Princess and the MS Westerdam—this briefing document highlights relevant policies that were and were not employed, assesses the effectiveness of these policies, and considerations for policymaking in the future.

The Indo-Pacific Conference on Strengthening Governance of Transboundary Rivers was a half-day, virtual conference organized by the East-West Center and hosted by the U.S. Department of State on October 15-16. The virtual conference convened partners and stakeholders from across the Indo-Pacific region to share best practices and lessons learned related to the cooperative development and management of transboundary rivers. The engaging and constructive discussion with leading experts, institutions, and opinion leaders drew lessons from experiences of other partners beyond the Indo-Pacific, including from the European Union, to address rising environmental, economic, development, and political challenges in the Mekong River Basin.

The US presidential election campaign debates focused by mid-2020 on the enormous and immediate domestic consequences of the worldwide novel coronavirus pandemic COVID-19 and economic crisis impacting the United States and concurrent widespread protests and counterarguments on police brutality and racial prejudice. President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joseph Biden, were deeply divided on how the US government should respond to these domestic challenges. Against this background, foreign policy was a secondary consideration with one notable exception—relations with China. The report was authored by Dr. Satu Limaye, Director of the East-West Center in Washington and Dr. Robert Sutter, Professor of Practice of International Affairs at the Elliott School of The George Washington University. 

The 2015-2016 presidential election campaign has had major effects on recent debates regarding U.S. Asia policy. Going into the campaign, the debates focused heavily on the efficacy of the Obama Administration's signature "Asia Rebalance" and as a corollary the perceived U.S. weaknesses in the face of growing challenges from China. As the campaign has progressed, the broad concern with the rebalance and China remains active but secondary. Two sets of issues now overshadow the earlier focus: international trade and the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) accord, and candidate Donald Trump's controversial proposals on allied burden-sharing, nuclear weapons proliferation and North Korea. The report was authored by Dr. Satu Limaye, Director of the East-West Center in Washington and Dr. Robert Sutter, Professor of Practice of International Affairs at the Elliott School of The George Washington University. 

In partnership with the US Consulate General Kolkata, the US Indo-Pacific Statecraft Matters for South and Southeast Asia (UMSS) is a program that will impart college and university students in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Nepal, and the United States with knowledge of the principles of US Indo-Pacific policy through an online virtual training toolkit created by the East-West Center in Washington (EWCW) will serve as part of an extracurricular, prestige Indo-Pacific policy program.

For queries regarding this program, please contact Ms. Abbigail Hull at [email protected].

Until recently, Southeast Asia had not been a region of sustained focus for the US-Japan relationship. But the situation is changing. The international relations of the Asia-Pacific is becoming more "multipolarized." In light of these changes, the East-West Center in Washington (EWCW), in collaboration with the Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA), and through the support of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation (SPF), initiated a dialogue with Southeast Asians about their perspectives on how the US-Japan relationship and alliance could or should approach cooperation with the region. 

A collaborative research project between the East-West Center (EWC) and the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) has resulted in a special issue of Contemporary Southeast Asia, ISEAS’ internationally refereed journal on the politics, international relations, and security-related issues of Southeast Asia and its wider geostrategic environment. The collection of articles by American and Southeast Asian specialists featured in the journal’s December 2010 issue focus on the topic of America Re-engages Southeast Asia.

The Fall 2009 edition of Global Asia, the East Asia Foundation’s journal on international affairs, is a collection of articles as the culmination of a collaborative research project between the East-West Center in Washington and Global Asia contributors that explores the relationship between economics, security, and multilateralism in respect to the conduct of foreign policy in five key Southeast Asian nations: Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.