East Asia Research Programme

As part of the East Asia Research Programme, ICRIER has initiated the ‘Asian Values and Foreign Policy’ project that aims to examine whether there is validity in the concept of ‘Asian values’ and its implications for human rights agenda as well as for foreign policies. Under this initiative a workshop on “Values, Foreign Policy and Universality” was organised to reflect on the interactions between normative frameworks and external foreign policies of countries and regional organisations. The workshop brought together participants from Germany, Russia, Singapore, China, Japan, Myanmar, Sweden, Portugal, and India among others. Further, a web portal has been initiated to facilitate conversations on the interface between values and foreign policy among researchers of rising powers such as India, China and other countries.

The East Asia Research Programme also continued its role as a forum for scholars to reflect on political and security issues in the East Asian region. The research and discussion themes included the regional balance of power, regional security architecture, multiple frameworks of engagement (bilateral/trilateral/quadrilateral), territorial/maritime disputes and non-traditional security issues. This year, the programme organized a series of panel discussions on traditional and nontraditional security issues with eminent scholars as well as with young scholars in collaboration with the Japan Foundation, New Delhi.