Project aims and objectives:

(1) Investigating the intersection of ‘state-centric’ security threats with regional security diplomacy, alignments and enmities via the MacArthur East Asia Initiative;

(2) Cross-comparing new with familiar forms of coordination of international responses as a means for managing both traditional and non-traditional security (human security) challenges, with funding from the Japan Foundation; and

(3) Identifying how middle power diplomacy and security ties work to strengthen ‘spoke-to-spoke relations’ in Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia (CEPS workshops in Singapore and Tokyo).

This project is innovative in that it deliberately seeks paradigmatic reconciliation between traditional and non-traditional approaches to regional and international security politics. It also actively involves policy-makers and policy analysts in ways that encourages their input into research designs without relinquishing the analytical independence normally expected of academic-based research.

Major progress was made on Project objectives during 2011. The Project was awarded a $45,876 grant from the Japan Foundation in October and the last of three workshops for this project was convened at Fudan University in Shanghai in the same month. It received $20,000 from ANU’s College of Asia and the Pacific (in June) to manage a ‘Virtual Security’ teaching component designed for this specific project, and an additional $10,000 from the College’s Research School to host Professor David Shambaugh to join our ongoing research on Chinese security issues in mid-2012. It received the last of three $223,280 instalments from the MacArthur Foundation in February 2011 to continue its “Policy Alternatives for Integrating Bilateral and Multilateral Regional Security Approaches in the Asia Pacific” program. It also received supplemental funding from CEPS to coordinate and co-host two workshops on alliance ‘spoke-to-spoke relations’ in Singapore and Seoul during September 2011. Outputs included articles on China and middle power diplomacy in Asia (The China Journal, Winter 2011); Australia-Korea security relations (a special issue of Korea Observer, Spring 2011); articles in refereed journals such as the Australian Journal of International Affairs, and Journal of East Asian Politics (NUS/Singapore); completing a volume (edited by Kersten and Tow) on Bilateral Perspectives on Regional Security: Australia, Japan and the Asia-Pacific Region (to be published in 2012); and several book chapters.

Key 2011 project activities and research outcomes:

• The Project successfully conducted the ‘Virtual Security’ class in the teaching of Asian security politics for Semester 1, 2011.

• Papers from the workshop on Emerging Geopolitics in Australian-Korean Relations: Bilateral and Regional Implications conducted in March 2010 were published in a special issue of the highly regarded Yonsei University academic journal, Korean Observer, Volume 42, No 1 (Spring 2011 issue).

• The MacArthur project hosted two major roundtables in Canberra in 2011. The first of these was held in February to assess Australian policy dimensions of ASEAN/ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and Southeast Asian security issues and attended by Southeast Asia specialists from S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), the Australian National University (ANU), the Australian government and independent research institutes based in Canberra.

• The second workshop was convened on the 50th Anniversary of ROK-Australia involving Australian and Korean scholars, diplomats and government officials.

• The Project convened four MacArthur funded overseas workshops in Beijing (May), Singapore (September), Tokyo (September) and Seoul (October) 2011. These workshops involved distinguished security specialists and policy makers from the region and beyond, interacting on bilateral and multilateral security issues. The event captured international attention. See Global Times article at http://opinion.globaltimes.cn/commentary/2011-05/658142.html.

• A workshop on ‘New Approaches to Human Security in Asia’ funded by the Japan Foundation convened in Shanghai in late September. The workshop’s papers are now in final stages of development and will be published as an edited volume (co-edited by Tow).

• Project research on bilateral security relations between Japan and Australia proceeded during 2011 and led to the publication of four articles (including the lead article by CEPS Associate Investigator Professor Kersten) in a special issue of the Australian Journal of International Affairs (March 2011 issue). An edited volume (with the Chief Investigator Professor Tow and Professor Kersten as coeditors) will appear as a Palgrave Macmillan book in 2012.

• ANU Internal Relations Department and Griffith University CEPS/Griffith Asia Institute shared several distinguished Visiting Scholars and guest speakers during 2011.

Plans for 2012:

• The second year of ARC Linkage Grant on Transnational Environmental Crime ($244,000 for 3- years) with the Compliance Support Unit in the Commonwealth Government’s Department of the Environment will be continued by Associate Investigator Professor Lorraine Elliot.

• A follow-on project on Asia-Pacific middle power/US alliance spokes policies will be launched in 2012. This is a collaborative project with Professor Yoshihide Soeya (Keio University) and Professor Geun Lee (Seoul National University). It is funded by the Korean Foundation and projected CEPS funding (assuming 2013 bridging funding is obtained). The initial workshop for the tripartite project will convene in March 2012 in Seoul.

• CEPS-ANU will be co-sponsoring The Joint Meeting of the 36th AUS-CSCAP Meeting focusing on Maritime Security, which will convene in Canberra on 22-23 March 2012.

• We are currently negotiating future collaboration with the Australian Department of Defence on an ARC Linkage project dealing with Australia and Japan security ties and this will be submitted in May 2012.