Asia's Reckoning

For more than half a century, American power in the Pacific has successfully kept the peace. But it has also cemented the tensions in the toxic rivalry between China and Japan, consumed with endless history wars and entrenched political dynasties. Now, the combination of these forces with Donald Trump's unpredictable impulses and disdain for America's old alliances threatens to upend the region, and accelerate the unravelling of the postwar order. If the United States helped lay the postwar foundations for modern Asia, now the anchor of the global economy, that structure is now crumbling. This seminar examines the tectonic shifts in diplomacy, domestic political trends, and the personalities driving them. Richard McGregor is a journalist and an author with extensive experience in reporting from East Asia and Washington. He worked for The Australian in Tokyo and Hong Kong and established the paper's first China bureau in Beijing in 1997. He later headed the Financial Times bureaux in Shanghai, Beijing and Washington. He is the author of The Party, looking at political leadership in China, and a forthcoming book, Asia's Reckoning: China, Japan, the US and the Struggle for Global Power will be published in September 2017. A La Trobe Asia seminar recorded on 1st August, 2017.