After a week of Thanksgiving festivities, here are this week’s top events:
1. CHP’s Vision for Turkey: An Address by Chairman Kılıçdaroğlu
Monday, December 2 | 11:30am – 1:00pm
Brookings Institution, Falk Auditorium, 1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
On December 2, the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings will host Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, chairman of Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), for an address on Turkey, its foreign policy and its relations with the United States. In his remarks, Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu will offer CHP’s vision for the future of Turkey with a particular focus on Turkish democracy and economics. He will also reflect on Turkey’s role in its neighborhood and offer thoughts on its transatlantic relations.
Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu has served as the chair of the Republican People’s Party since May 2010. He was first elected in 2002 as a member of the Turkish Parliament for the Istanbul province. He was reelected as an MP in 2007 and served as CHP’s Group Vice President until declaring his candidacy for the leadership of the party. Prior to his political career, Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu served in numerous high-ranking positions in the Turkish Ministry of Finance and the Social Security Organization.
Senior Fellow Ted Piccone, acting vice president and director of Foreign Policy at Brookings, will introduce Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu. At the conclusion of his remarks, Brookings TUSIAD Senior Fellow Kemal Kirişci will moderate the discussion. After the program, Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu will take audience questions.
| Introduction |
| Ted Piccone Acting Vice President and Director, Foreign Policy The Brookings Institution |
| Moderator |
| Kemal Kirişci TUSIAD Senior Fellow and Director, Turkey Project The Brookings Institution |
| Featured Speaker |
| Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu Chairman Republican People’s Party |
2. A Conversation on: US-Phillipines Relations
Monday, December 2 | 6:00pm – 8:00pm
Official Residence of the Phillipines Ambassador, 2253 R Street NW
Rania Abouzeid, an award-winning freelance journalist with 15-years’ experience covering the Middle East, is one of the few reporters who has braved this climate, covering Syria from inside the country since the uprising broke out in March 2011. During this period, Abouzeid delivered critical breaking news on the insurgency, while also poignantly narrating the human side of the conflict. Abouzeid’s work has appeared inTIME Magazine, The New Yorker, Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, and numerous other outlets.
On December 3, please join New America for a conversation with Rania Abouzeid on war reporting in Syria and other conflict areas in the region.
Join the conversation online using #tellingtheirstory and following @MideastChannel.
If you are unable to join us in person, please tune in to our live webcast of the event. No signup is required to view the streaming video.
Featured Speakers:
Rania Abouzeid
Syria reporter and freelance journalist
Leila Hilal
Director, Middle East Task Force
New America Foundation
The TPP is a free-trade agreement currently being negotiated between twelve countries: the United States, Canada, Mexico, Peru, Chile, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam, and Japan. If agreed to, it would be one of the largest “free trade” agreements in US history. After WikiLeaks released the intellectual property chapter of the text on November 14, the TPP has run into serious resistance due to public scrutiny. Indeed, 151 Democrats and twenty-three Republicans in the US House of Representatives signed letters to the US’ chief negotiators expressing opposition to a “Fast Track” procedure for voting on the proposed agreement. Lost in the US domestic battle is what the TPP means for Asian allies, especially Taiwan. Taiwan is not part of the twelve-nation agreement, but wants to be. Recently, former Taiwanese Vice President Vicent Siew said that not only should the US and Taiwan renew bilateral trade negotiations, but Taiwan should be invited to join the TPP. As Taiwan claims, joining the TPP would not only contribute to the US’ initiative to rebalance its Asia policy, but it would also be a positive extension of the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979.
To discuss the TPP and its impact on the region and Taiwan, the Atlantic Council has assembled top thinkers and policymakers on this issue. This event is part of the Asia Security Initiative’s Cross-Straits series, which examines strategic and current affairs surrounding cross-straits relations.
The Honorable Nancy Lindborg
Assistant Administrator
Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance
U.S. Agency for International Development
Mr. Sean Callahan
Chief Operating Officer
Catholic Relief Services
Mr. Chris Palusky
Senior Director
Humanitarian and Emergency Affairs
World Vision
6. Potentials and Limitations of Japan-South Korea Relations
Wednesday, December 4 | 12:00pm – 1:30pm
East-West Center, 1819 L Street NW, Sixth Floor Conference Room
The US-China relationship is under structural transformation, and will remain the most critical common denominator for the national strategies of Japan and South Korea for many years to come. The conclusion of the bilateral negotiations over the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) and the Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA), intelligence and logistics sharing agreements between the militaries of Japan and Korea, were small but essential indicators that the strategic outlooks of Tokyo and Seoul finally began to converge. Domestic political circumstances, however, stalled the completion of the deal at the last moment
Dr. Yoshihide Soeya, argues that, ironically, the usual bilateral walls appear to be getting higher, precisely because of this strategic convergence. In his presentation, Dr. Soeya will discuss this paradox, and its implications for relations between the two key US allies in Northeast Asia.
Please note: Due to an overwhelmingly positive response, this program is now at capacity. Registration is now closed.
Join us for a LIVE webcast beginning at Noon EST on December 4. Click HERE to tune in!
A light luncheon will be served.
Dr. Yoshihide Soeya is professor of political science and international relations at the Faculty of Law of Keio University, and serves as the Director of the Center for Contemporary Korean Studies of the Institute of East Asian Studies, also at Keio. He is presently in residence as a Japan scholar in the Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC. Dr. Soeya currently serves on the councils of the Japan Association of International Studies and Japan Association for Asian Studies, and is a member of the International Council of the Asia Society in New York.
His areas of research interest are politics and security in East Asia, and Japanese diplomacy and external relations in the region and the world. Dr. Soyea’s major publications in English include “A ‘Normal’ Middle Power: Interpreting Changes in Japanese Security Policy in the 1990s and After,” in Yoshihide Soeya, Masayuki Tadokoro, and David A. Welch, eds., Japan as a ‘Normal Country’?: A Country in Search of its Place in the World (University of Toronto Press, 2011); and Japan’s Economic Diplomacy with China, 1945-1978(Clarendon Press, 1998). He received a Ph.D. Political Science from the University of Michigan, majoring in World Politics, and an MA in International Relations from Sophia University, Tokyo.
7. Subcommittee Hearing: Oversight of US Policy Towards Burma
Wednesday, December 4 | 2:00pm
Rayburn House Office Building, Room 2172, 45 Independence Avenue SW
Chairman Chabot on the hearing: “America’s policy in Burma has long been guided by policymakers on both sides of the aisle. Over the last year, however, the Obama Administration abandoned its “action-for-action” strategy for a forward leaning engagement policy that sacrifices broad support. This new strategy includes direct military engagement with the Burmese military despite lingering concerns that this act is hasty, ignores a long list of human rights abuses, and lacks conditions to ensure future reforms continue. It is time the Administration justifies this significant policy development and explains how its new approach will help foster reforms in an increasingly volatile on-the-ground situation. With a FY2014 budget request of $75 million for Burma, Congress must ensure proper measures are in place to assess the effectiveness of this growing U.S. assistance program.”
Ms. Judith Cefkin
Senior Advisor for Burma
Bureau of East Asia and the Pacific
U.S. Department of State
Mr. Vikram J. Singh
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia
Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs
U.S. Department of Defense
Mr. Gregory Beck
Deputy Assistant Administrator
Bureau for Asia
U.S. Agency for International Development
8. The United States, Russia, and the Middle East
Thursday, December 5 | 7:45am – 8:00pm
John’s Hopkins SAIS Kenney Auditorium, Nitze Building, 1740 Massachusetts Avenue NW
MORNING SESSIONS:
On December 4 and 5, the Kissinger Institute and the China Institute for International Studies will hold a groundbreaking dialog on U.S.-China relations. In an effort to build relationships between, and gain the insights of, promising young leaders from both countries, the Kissinger Institute and the China Institute for International Studies are bringing together 16 fully bilingual experts from a variety of fields for an unconstrained and uninterpreted dialog on major issues in Sino-U.S. relations. The U.S.-China Young Leaders Dialogue is developing a platform for new voices and constituencies in U.S.-China relations, with an eye toward finding new approaches to joint challenges. At this public session of the off-the-record Dialogue, four conference participants will offer their views on prospects for a new model of major power relations.
Akiva Eldar is a senior political columnist for Al-Monitor news service’s Israel Pulse. He was formerly a senior columnist and editorial writer for Haaretz and served as Haaretz’s US bureau chief and diplomatic correspondent in the 1980’s. His most recent book (with Idith Zertal), Lords of the Land, on the Jewish settlements, was a best-seller in Israel and has been translated into English, French, German and Arabic. In 2006, the Financial Times named him among the world’s most influential commentators. He received the annual “Search for Common Ground” award for Middle East journalism and the Peace through Media Award of the International Council for Press and Broadcasting. Eldar was born in Haifa, Israel, in 1945 and graduated from Hebrew University, where he majored in economics, political science and psychology.
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