Webinar: The Battle for the South China Sea in the Time of Covid-19, with Dr Lynn Kuok

Dr Lynn Kuok, Shangri-La Dialogue Senior Fellow, International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Moderator: Dr Bryce Wakefield, National Executive Director Australian Institute of International Affairs

Organised by AIIA National Office.

As the fight against COVID-19 rages across the world, a different battle is taking place in the South China Sea. Developments there initially went unnoticed beneath the heavy shroud of bad news on the coronavirus. What has become clear, however, is that Chinese activities in the South China Sea have not slowed down and have arguably intensified. Tensions are escalating not just between China and Southeast Asian littoral states, but also between China and the United States. In this event, Dr Lynn Kuok will examine recent developments in the South China Sea with an eye to explaining why they matter, what they say about China’s intentions, and the likely success of any code of conduct for resolving or managing tensions in the South China Sea. She will also examine the likely trajectory of the South China Sea and broader Indo-Pacific in light of US-China competition and a pandemic that is fast changing the geopolitical landscape.

Dr Lynn Kuok is Shangri-La Dialogue Senior Fellow for Asia-Pacific Security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Her research focuses on the international relations, security and law of the Indo-Pacific, with a focus on the South China Sea dispute. Dr Kuok is also Senior Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge. She is a former Brookings expert and has held fellowships at Yale Law School, Harvard Law School, the Harvard Kennedy School, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Centre for International Law at the National University of Singapore. She served as Editor-in-Chief of the Cambridge Review of International Affairs and the Singapore Law Review. Her analysis has featured in a broad range of publications and she speaks regularly at international conferences and leading universities. She testified before the UK House of Commons Defence Committee on the security situation in the "Far East." She sits on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Geopolitics and was also a Council Member of its Global Future Council on International Security.