May 10, 2017
Guest: André Asplund, Japan Foundation’s Center for Global Partnership Postdoctoral Associate
Episode: Wednesday, May 10, 2017
André Asplund specializes in Japanese foreign policy and diplomacy in East and Southeast Asia. He is particularly interested in how Japan’s normative ambitions of spreading human rights and democracy fits within its international relations with non-democratic and strategic partners in ASEAN. He is currently looking at Japanese foreign aid and EU free trade agreements with Vietnam—a nation of growing strategic importance for the two self-proclaimed “civilian powers,” EU, and Japan. He has previously written on the process of institutionalizing human rights in Southeast Asia through the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights and it’s something that he is still closely observing.