The Asia Institute Seminar Series 2016 is a collection of recent Asia Institute seminars on critical topics with some of the most important figures of our age. Please feel free to download a version from this page.
Professor Henry Rosovsky
Former Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University
Professor Daniel A. Bell
Chair Professor
Schwarzman Scholar Program
Tsinghua University
Benjamin Elman
Professor of Chinese History
Princeton University
Col. (ret.) Lawrence Wilkerson
Former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell
Alexis Dudden
Professor of Japanese history
University of Connecticut
Michael Puett
Walter C. Klein Professor of Chinese History
East Asian Languages and Civilizations
Harvard University
Professor Joseph Nye
Former Dean
Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
Dr. Richard Bush
Director of the Center for East Asia Policy Studies
Brookings Institution
Professor Francis Fukuyama
Senior Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Stanford University.
Professor Ezra Vogel
Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences Emeritus
Harvard University
The Asia Institute Seminar Series 2016
Asia Institute’s Daniel Garrett spoke out about the need to address the needs of the poor in our global policies and to show respect for the Earth itself in a talk at the international conference “The Role of the G20 in Global Energy Governance” at The Shanghai Institute for International Studies. The paper is attached.
The Impact of Low Oil Prices
and
The Role of the G20 in Global Energy Governance
International Conference
The Shanghai Institute for International Studies,
Shanghai, China
July 27-28, 2015
Some Recommendation for Global Energy Governance and the G20
“Listen to the Voices of the Uninvited:
The Poor of the Earth and the Earth Itself”
Daniel H. Garrett
Senior Researcher
The Asia Institute
Jingyu GAO (China)
LeoYao LU (China)
Myeongsu Ryu TODA (ROK)
Sunny Chan Yiu LAM (HK)
Shi Pong LEE (HK)
Yumiko SHIMOGAKI (Japan)
Moderator:
Emanuel Pastreich (United States)
(Director, The Asia Institute)
(Based on a series of discussions held on October 5, November 15, November 22, and December 6, 2014)
Opening Remarks by Emanuel Pastreich (United States)
This seminar presented us with a valuable opportunity to learn about each other, and also to learn about our own perspectives and our own biases. We came to the question of democracy, and specifically the case of Hong Kong, with a general impression the issue based on how we saw it presented in the media. But in fact that are many aspects of politics in Hong Kong and of democracy today that we do not understand all that well. The very term “democracy” is not a given like “tomato” or “oxygen” but rather a vague term subject to an infinite number of interpretations. The value of this effort by youth from many different countries to create a platform for an honest and non-political discussion about the important issues of our age is critical to our future and it is an honor to be here today for this event.
I was struck by the sincerity of the questions raised and the care of the responses given in the course of this discussion. There was a sincerity that was striking about the discussion and I was touched by the clear desire of the students to understand the problems in Hong Kong in a larger context. By extending their discussion to all of Asia, and avoiding a narrow definition of democracy, they have opened the way to a constructive dialog that will extend to the rest of Asia, and to the world.
Youth in Hong Kong are facing incredible pressures. They face economic pressures related to the breakdown of the economic system that supported their parents; political pressures related to the immense influence that other nations have on Hong Kong because of its links to global capital; social pressures related to an aging society and the profound alienation among young people today. Continue Reading
