You are here:

UNA Twickenham & Richmond: “Chinese Expansion in the Asia-Pacific region - a challenge to the UN”

event details

Event date
Event location The Adelaide Pub
57 Park Road, Teddington
gb

The current United States-led world order set up with the United Nations after the Second World War is straining at the seams and in urgent need of reform if it is to survive.

 

The most powerful challenge comes from China which now presides over the new global centre of wealth and power in Asia and is also fast advancing into Europe. China’s startling success and authoritarian style has revealed gaping flaws in what was once thought to be the inevitable trajectory of countries toward Western-style democracy.  As China, Russia and other new powers demand a bigger say in how the world is run, the viability of once trusted organizations like the UN Security Council, the European Union and NATO are being questioned.

 

European governments, once united under the EU vision, are unsure whether to look west or east. Britain needs China-influenced Asian partners after its split from the European Union and China, India and Japan are leading an arms race with a view to possible future war. How these complexities are handled will impact all our futures.

 

When we keep hearing about our fast-changing and unpredictable world, this is what it means.

 

In his new book, Asian Waters: The Struggle in The Asia-Pacific and the Strategy of Chinese Expansion, Humphrey Hawksley argues that without an immediate move to reform the world order, there will be a high risk of war. The place to begin is inside that highest authority on international law, the UN Security Council, which already is returning to its paralysis of the Cold War Era and whose lack of transparency in the way it operates is no longer fit for purpose.  

 

A best-selling, BBC Correspondent, Hawksley draws on decades of first-hand experience to create a subtle, nuanced global picture with all its precarious hurdles and how Asia’s advance will impact our lives in Europe.  From undercover investigations in North Korea, travels to Taiwan’s ‘Island of the Dead’, and reports from inside India’s nuclear arms program, he examines the risk of war, economic skirmishes and the potential for new alliances.

Asian Waters has been endorsed by leading figures from Asia, Europe and the United States. In an early review Publishers Weekly described Asian Waters as ‘informative and thought-provoking.

Event contact details

Contact: Mr Rodney Mantle
Tel: 02088924628