2024 CAP Professorial Lecture Series

This public lecture is the fourth in a series of seven lectures that aim to celebrate esteemed academics of the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific and showcase their areas of expertise in research and teaching.

Agenda

6:00 pm - 7:15pm - Academic Lecture

7:15 pm - 8:00 pm - Networking drinks and canapés

Weaponised economics and restoring the global economic order

Economic exchange between countries has always involved risks but, since World War II, those risks have been managed under the US-led rules-based multilateral order for those countries that signed up to the system. The globalisation that flourished as a result brought prosperity and peace, with no region benefitting as much as did East Asia. That multilateral trading system is now under threat. Great Power rivalry, or strategic competition, as well as outdated multilateral rules and uncertainty from other global shocks and protectionism have led to an increase in the risks from economic exchange that threaten the benefits.

The weaponisation of economics has caused many to see economic interdependence as a vulnerability instead of a source of prosperity and security. Economics and security can be complements, as they have been in East Asia, or be seen as substitutes, requiring hard trade-offs. The weaponisation of economics is leading to a vicious cycle of high trade shares being seen as a source of vulnerability, leading nations to try to reduce interdependence and intensifying insecurity. How might the economic order be mended to help make countries more secure and better off economically?

About the speaker

Shiro Armstrong is Professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy in the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific.

His research interests include Sino-Japan economic and political relations, East Asian economic integration, international trade and foreign direct investment, and East Asian economics.

Read more about the speaker.