Episode 33

Biden Post-100 Days: The View from Asia

Released on May 12, 2021

US President Joe Biden has steamed past his first 100 days in office, typically a stage where we can look back and take stock of where a new administration is headed. For those of us outside America there’s a particular focus on Mr Biden’s foreign policy - and for us and our listeners of course, a particular focus on his Asia policy.

In this episode we have partnered with the IAFOR Research Centre’s Korea Foundation project on “Korea and Japan in the evolving China-US relations” and assembled a panel of experts to talk through what they’ve made of this first chunk of the Biden era.

From South Korea, we are joined by Jaewoo Choo, Professor of Foreign Policy in the Department of Chinese Studies at Kyung Hee University; from the US, Dr. Satu Limaye, Vice President & Director of the East West Center where he directs the coincidentally named Asia Matters for America initiative; and Haruko Satoh, co-director of the IRC at Osaka School of International Public Policy at Osaka University, joins us from Japan.

Featured Guests

Jaewoo Choo

Jaewoo Choo is Professor of Chinese foreign policy in the Department of Chinese Studies at Kyung Hee University. His research areas are Chinese foreign policy, multilateral security cooperation, and China-North Korea relations. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Center for East Asian Studies Program, the Brookings Institution and a Visiting Associate Professor at Georgia Institute of Technology. Prior to teaching, Choo worked in a number of think tanks in Korea. He earned a B.A. in government from Wesleyan University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in International Relations from Peking University. He also appeared on Episode 23.

Satu Limaye (@SatuLimaye)

Satu Limaye is Vice President & Director of the East West Center in Washington where he created and now directs the Asia Matters for America initiative. He is the founding editor of the Asia Pacific Bulletin. He is also Senior Advisor, China & Indo-Pacific Division at the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA Corp) and Senior Fellow on Asia History and Policy at the Foreign Policy Institute at Paul H. Nitze School of International Studies. He is a magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Georgetown University and received his doctorate from Oxford University (Magdalen College) where he was a George C. Marshall Scholar.

Haruko Satoh

Haruko Satoh is Specially Appointed Professor at the Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP), where she teaches Japan’s relations with Asia and identity in international relations. She is also co-director of the OSIPP-IAFOR Research Centre and she was previously part of the MEXT Reinventing Japan project on “Peace and Human Security in Asia (PAHSA)” with six Southeast Asian and four Japanese universities. In the past she has worked at the Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA), Chatham House, and Gaiko Forum.