News Story: Roundtable discusses challenges facing Asia – Pacific

Kuala Lumpur (VNA) - The Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) Malaysia convened its 31st Asia-Pacific Roundtable (APR) in Kuala Lumpur on May 22.

Themed “The Future of the Asia-Pacific: Issues and Institutions in Flux”, the three-day event is gathering regional experts to discuss and suggest policies to address challenges arising from the US’s Trump administration and the Brexit.

Subjects tabled were set to include Asian views on the US’s role in the region, tensions in cyber security, the East Sea issue, and Mekong cooperation.

In his opening speech at the function, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak stressed the role of ASEAN and its people.

Read the full story at VietnamPlus

USA: Work - Institute to Help U.S. Meet China Aerospace Challenge

Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work
(Image: Wiki Commons)

By Cheryl Pellerin

DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, June 23, 2015 – Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work delivered the keynote speech yesterday in Arlington, Virginia, at an inaugural conference of the China Aerospace Studies Institute, or CASI, newly established by the Air Force and RAND Corp.

The institute’s focus is on China, which Work called a rising power that’s experiencing a growing economy and increased military technical capabilities.

“I hope that CASI, along with many organizations like it, are going to help us maintain an unfair competitive aerospace advantage far into the future,” Work said, “because that is the surest means to underwrite conventional deterrence, contribute to crisis stability and safeguard our nation's interests.”

The conference focused on a move by China to do more realistic training across the board under what they call actual combat or wartime conditions, the deputy secretary said, and improve their readiness.

Editorial: The Future of Net Assessment at the Pentagon

US SecDef: Ashton Carter

By Franz-Stefan Gady

Yoda has left the building: What does the U.S. Secretary of Defense want the Pentagon’s internal think tank to focus on?

Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon’s enigmatic internal think tank, the Office of Net Assessment, has received its directives on the future focus of its research and analysis efforts in the service of the U.S. Secretary of Defense.

In a June 4 memo titled “Guidance,” Defense Secretary Ashton Carter outlined that he expects the institution, which has a $10 million annual budget and is headed by ret. Air Force Col. James H. Baker, to focus its expertise more on current defense policy issues rather than hypothetical future threats.

“The Office of Net Assessment has long been my predecessors’ source of independent, long term, deep thinking about our future. That is the legacy I expect you to maintain and upon which I expect you to build,” the memo reads. However, Carter emphasizes that analyzing the future of warfare should not come at the expense of up-to-date informed advice on current pressing policy issues for the secretary of defense:

[H]elp me think about the long-term consequences of near-term policy decisions. Your work remains future focused, but you must ensure the team’s work has present relevance to me.

Additionally, he wants the office’s work to emphasize “finding opportunities, rather than just challenges” and have stronger ties to the American intelligence agencies.

Read the full story at The Diplomat

Editorial: The Rise of China’s New Soft Power

By Dingding Chen

This time it is not the Confucius Institute; it is China’s new type of think tanks.

It is widely believed that although China’s hard power has increased tremendously in the last three decades, China’s soft power is still very limited. To some degree this is true. Very few big ideas come from Chinese thinkers; even the term ‘soft power’ itself is an American invention. Chinese leaders are well aware of this situation, and this is partly why the Chinese government in recent years has tried to promote China’s soft power through institutions like the Confucius Institutes and so on. The results, so far, have been mixed, as foreigners in general are still skeptical about China’s own values and ideas. Part of the problem is that foreigners tend to view governmental efforts as pure propaganda.

Realizing this situation, the Chinese government has, since the third plenum of the 18th Party’s Congress in 2013, called for a new approach to soft power, one that emphasizes the unique role of independent think tanks in generating new ideas and enhancing China’s soft power. Thus, the Dean of Institute for National Condition Studies at Tsinghua University, Professor Hu Angang, argued that China’s think tanks could help showcase Chinese thought, Chinese positions, and Chinese voices at the international stage. Ultimately, China’s think tanks can make big contributions to the realization of the ‘Chinese Dream.’ It is safe to say that now it is springtime for China’s think tanks to influence government policies and enhance China’s soft power.

Read the full story at The Diplomat