Safeguarding the “Rules-based Order”? Europe Navigates the Shallow Waters of the Indo-Pacific

Five years ago, an arbitration tribunal ruled against Chinese claims in the South China Sea. Since then, the European Union and several of its member states have been reinforcing their diplomatic engagement in East Asia. These include a military presence in the form of naval deployments.

Following France, the Netherlands, and Spain, in August 2021 Germany sent a warship, the frigate Bayern, on a six-month deployment to East Asian waters. The mission has been declared Germany’s contribution to safeguarding the “rules-based” conduct of international politics across the Indo-Pacific.

The experts participating in this GIGA event will take the recent voyage of the Bayern as an opportunity to discuss the mission. They will examine the challenges that German and European policymakers face when implementing their Indo-Pacific visions of a multipolar world governed by the rule of international law.

Speakers: Matthias Naß is Foreign Correspondent at DIE ZEIT in Hamburg, Germany.

Dr. Rebecca Strating is Senior Lecturer and Director of the Asia Centre at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia.

Dr. Aki Sakabe-Mori is Assistant Professor at Tsukuba University, Japan.

Dr. Evan Laksmana is a Visiting Senior Research Fellow with the Centre on Asia and Globalisation at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore.

Moderator: Dr. Christian Wirth is Research Fellow at the GIGA Institute for Asian Studies in Hamburg, Germany.

Wednesday, 17 November 2021 | 9:30–11:00 a.m. (CET) | 3:30–5:00 p.m. (Jakarta) | 5:30–7:00 p.m. (Tokyo) | 7:30–9:00 p.m. (Melbourne)