About This Event

On January 24, three scholars of US Indo-Pacific policy discussed President Joe Biden’s successes and failures in foreign policy, particularly in the crucial Indo-Pacific region, and what a new era of divided and possibly dysfunctional government in Washington means for the Biden administration and its Indo-Pacific partners.

Speakers

Rob York is Program Director for Regional Affairs at Pacific Forum. He is responsible for editing Pacific Forum publications, including the weekly PacNet series, the triannual Comparative Connections journal, and the in-depth Issue & Insights series. Prior to joining Pacific Forum, Rob worked as a production editor at The South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. A PhD candidate in Korean history at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Rob has established himself as a commentator on inter-Korean and Hong Kong affairs, as a regular contributor to NK News and The Daily NK and having been published at The South China Morning Post, War on the Rocks, the Foundation for Economic Education, Korean Studies, and The Journal of American-East Asian Relations, as well as conducting numerous interviews in various media outlets. His research agenda at Pacific Forum includes trade and its relationship with security, media analysis, countering disinformation, and human rights.

Dr. Mason Richey is assistant professor of international politics at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (Seoul, South Korea), Senior Contributor at the Asia Society (Korea), and co-author of the tri-annual US-Korea relations analysis chapter in Pacific Forum’s Comparative Connections. His research articles on US, Korean, and European foreign/security/defense policy have appeared (inter alia) in Pacific Review, Global Governance, and Foreign Policy Analysis. Most recently he is co-editor of the volume The Future of the Korean Peninsula: 2032 and Beyond (Routledge, 2021).

Dr. Catharin Dalpino is Professor Emeritus at Georgetown University, where she taught Southeast Asian Studies and launched the university’s Thai Studies Program. She has also taught at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies; George Washington University; Simmons College; Seton Hall University; and the State University of New York at Albany. From 1993 to 1997 Professor Dalpino was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy in the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. She has also held positions at the United Nations in Geneva (1980) the World Bank (1981-2). Professor Dalpino has been a Fellow at the Brookings Institution; a Resident Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; an Associate at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy; a Visiting Scholar in Southeast Asian Studies at SAIS; and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council. From 1983 to 1993 she was a career officer with The Asia Foundation, and was the Foundation’s Representative for Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. She was the founding director of the Aspen Institute Program on Agent Orange in Vietnam (2007-2009).