SEAI Geopolitical Update

Dr Vũ Lê Thái Hoàng is the Director General of the Institute for Foreign Policy and Strategic Studies, and Dean of the Faculty of International Politics and Diplomacy at the Diplomatic Academy of Viet Nam. Dr Vu held several roles at the Viet Nam Ministry of Foreign Affairs; including the Deputy Director General of the Policy Planning Department. From 2014-2018, he was Minister Counselor and Chief Political Officer at the Viet Nam Embassy to the United States. He was named an Eisenhower Fellow in 2014 and participated in the American Jewish Committee's seminar for US-based diplomats in Israel in 2016. Dr Vu also served as the Deputy Director General at the National Secretariat for ASEAN 2020 (ASEAN Department) in 2018.  He holds a doctorate in Asian Studies from the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom. He received a Master of Science of Strategic Studies from the Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. 

Dr Darren J Lim is a Senior Lecturer at the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific at The Australian National University, where he researches and teaches in the field of international relations, at the intersection of international political economy, international security and global governance. Dr Lim’s major research interests focus on geoeconomics (including economic coercion and technology competition), grand strategy in the context of power transitions and international order, and the Indo-Pacific region. The issues covered by his published research include patterns and methods of economic coercion; Sino-US technology competition; how East and South Asian states navigate relations between the US and China through hedging strategies; tourism as an instrument of Chinese economic statecraft; conceptualising and measuring power in Australian foreign policy; and ‘doxing democracy’. He is currently working on a variety of topics including a book project on geoeconomics, and paper projects on the logic of a China-led international order, informal economic sanctions, and Australia’s management of bilateral relations with China.  

Dr Katrin Travouillon is a Lecturer at the Department of Political and Social Change at the Coral Bell School, Australian National University. Her research focuses on the transnational sphere as a public arena that shapes the identities, ideas, and interests of Cambodia’s political actors. Drawing on archival materials and interviews, Dr Travouillon’s work explores the sources of legitimacy that Cambodian actors mobilize to shape their policies and build authority vis-à-vis their international and local audiences. Her past research projects include the DFG (German Research Foundation) funded project ‘The Institutionalization of Interpretative Authority in Post-Conflict Societies. An Analysis of the Transitional Authority in Kosovo and Cambodia’ (2010-2014). From 2016 to 2018, Dr Travouillon was a Tobis Fellow at the University of California Irvine, where the focus of her research gradually moved to contemporary democratization and nation-building practices. Her current work centres on the ways in which politicians and political activists engage with the practice and rhetoric of the ‘international community’ in Cambodia, emphasising the discursive and affective dimensions of political change. 

Dr Mely Caballero-Anthony is a Professor of International Relations and holds the President’s Chair for International Relations and Security Studies. She is also Head of the Centre for Non-Traditional Security (NTS) Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Professor Caballero-Anthony’s research interests include regionalism and multilateralism in Asia-Pacific, human security and non-traditional security, nuclear security, conflict prevention and global governance. She has published extensively on a broad range of security issues in Asia-Pacific in peer-reviewed journals and international academic press. Her latest books, both single-authored and co-edited, include: Negotiating Governance on Non-Traditional Security in Southeast Asia and Beyond (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018), An Introduction to Non-Traditional Security Studies (London: SAGE Publications Ltd, 2016), Asia on the Move (Japan: JCIE, 2015), and Human Security and Climate Change (London: Routledge, 2014). Professor Cabellero-Anthony has also served as the Secretary-General of the Consortium on Non-Traditional Security Studies in Asia since 2008. She is currently a member of the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network on Nuclear Non-Proliferation (APLN). 

His Excellency Dr Chanborey Cheunboran is the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Kingdom of Cambodia to Australia (concurrently New Zealand). His areas of interest include Cambodia’s foreign policy, small state foreign policy, security studies and international relations in the Asia-Pacific. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Phnom Penh-based think tank, the Asian Vision Institute (AVI). Dr Cheunboran was formally the Director-General of the Information, Research and Analysis Group at the Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MFAIC). He received his PhD in International Political and Strategic Studies from The Australian National University. Dr Cheunboran earned a Master in Public Management from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in conjunction with the Harvard Kennedy School; MA in Diplomacy and International Studies from Rangsit University, Thailand; and BA in International Relations from the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam.

Dr Nicholas Chan is a postdoctoral fellow (Asian Security) at the Strategic Defence and Studies Centre, Australian National University. He holds a PhD from the Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Cambridge. His PhD project examines the position of Islam in Malaysia’s counter-terrorism on two levels: the first from the perspective of Muslim status-seeking at the global level, and the second revolves around daily knowledge practices of 'terrorist' construction across different sites of governance. Nicholas’s research interest lies in the intersection of religion and politics, with a specific focus on areas such as the politics of status-seeking, religion and social media, as well as the role of millenarian thinking in politics. Nicholas is also the co-investigator of a Meta research award in misinformation and polarisation, focusing specifically on the viral politics of right-wing populism in Malaysia. Nicholas has published in journals such as Foreign Policy Analysis, Critical Studies in Terrorism, and Critical Security Studies. 

Prof Joseph Chin Yong Liow is the Tan Kah Kee Chair in Comparative and International Politics at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. He was the former Dean at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and currently Dean of College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at NTU. Dr Liow’s research interests encompass Muslim politics and social movements in Southeast Asia and the geopolitics and geoeconomics of the Asia Pacific region. Dr Liow’s most recent single-authored books are Ambivalent Engagement: The United States and Regional Security in Southeast Asia after the Cold War (Brookings 2017), Religion and Nationalism in Southeast Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2016) and Dictionary of the Modern Politics of Southeast Asia, fourth edition (Routledge, 2014). A regular columnist for The Straits Times, his commentaries on international affairs have also appeared in New York Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, National Interest, Nikkei Asian Review, and the Wall Street Journal. He also serves as Singapore’s representative on the advisory board of the ASEAN Institute of Peace and Reconciliation formed under the auspices of the ASEAN Charter. 

Vice Admiral Dr. Amarulla Octavian is the Rector of the Indonesian Defence University. Previously he was the Commander of the Indonesian Naval Command and Staff College (Sekolah Staf Dan Komando Angkatan Laut – Seskoal)(2018—2020). He graduated from the Indonesian Naval Academy in 1988 and gained a doctorate from the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, University of Indonesia, in 2013. His dissertation was titled ‘Globalization and Transformation of Indonesian Navy Educational Institutions: A Sociological Study of Indonesian Navy Command and Staff Schools’. His previous positions include Dean of the Defence Management Faculty of the Indonesian Defence University (2016—2018), Chief of Staff of the Indonesian Western Fleet Command (2014—2016), Commander of Naval Combat Task Force of West Fleet Command (Gugus Tempur Laut Komando Armada RI Kawasan Barat – Guspurlabar) (2013—2014), and Adjutant to the President of the Republic of Indonesia Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (2009—2012). 

Dr Eve Warburton is a research fellow at the Department of Political and Social Change in the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs. She is also the Director of ANU Indonesia Institute at the College of Asia and the Pacific. Her research is concerned broadly with problems of representation and governance in young and developing democracies, with a focus on Southeast Asia and Indonesia in particular. She has published in leading disciplinary and area studies journals on topics of democratic representation, state-business relations, and the political economy of policymaking in Indonesia. Her first book manuscript, Resource Nationalism in Indonesia: Booms, Big Business and the State, is in-press with Cornell University Press.