Asia Events Monday April 25, 2022

FRANCE HAS VOTED: WHAT’S NEXT FOR EUROPEAN SECURITY AND TRANSATLANTIC COOPERATION? 4/25, 9:00-10:00am (EDT), ONLINE. Sponsor: German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF). Speakers: Sylvie Kauffmann, Editorial Director & Columnist, Le Monde; Pierre Morcos, Visiting Fellow, Center for Strategic and International Studies; Edgar Tam, Visiting Senior Fellow, GMF; Martin Quencez, Deputy Director, Research Fellow, Security & Defense program, GMF (Paris Office). 

WAR LEGACIES AND THE ENVIRONMENT. 4/25, 9:00-10:15am (EDT), ZOOM WEBINAR. Sponsor: Stimson Center. Speakers: Sera Koulabdara, Legacies of War; Erin Lin, Department of Political Science, Ohio State University; Doug Weir, Research and Policy Director, Conflict and Environment Observatory; Claire Yunker, Executive Director of PeaceTrees Vietnam; Moderator: Charles Bailey, War Legacies Working Group. 

SUMMIT FOR DEMOCRACY’S YEAR OF ACTION: AN UPDATE FROM THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION. 4/25, 10:00-11:00am (EDT), WEBINAR. Sponsor: Society for International Development. Speakers: Rosarie Tucci, Director, Democracy, Rights and Governance Center, USAID; Patrick Quirk, Senior Director for Strategy, Research, and Center for Global Impact, International Republican Institute (IRI); Barbara Smith, Vice President, Peace Programs, Carter Center. 

ENSURING ACCOUNTABILITY FOR SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN CONFLICT. 4/25, 10:00-11:30am (EDT), ONLINE. Sponsor: Peace and Security, Georgetown Institute For Women. Speakers: The Honorable Pramila Patten, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, United Nations; Wai Wai Nu, Founder, Director, Women’s Peace Network, Myanmar; Oleksandra Matviychuk, Human Rights Activist, Chair, Center for Civil Liberties, Ukraine; Arsalan Suleman, Former Acting U.S. Special Envoy, Organization of Islamic Cooperation; Dr. Robert Nagel, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security; Amb. Melanne Verveer, Executive Director, Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security. 

THE COLLAPSE OF THE SOVIET EMPIRE AND THE SEEDS OF THE NEW EUROPEAN WAR. 4/25, Noon-1:00pm (EDT), ZOOM WEBINAR. Sponsor: Starr Forum, MIT. Speaker: Vladislav Zubok, Professor of International History, LSE; Moderators: Carol Saivetz, Senior Advisor, Security Studies Program, MIT; Elizabeth Wood, Professor of history, MIT. 

THE VORTEX: A TRUE STORY OF HISTORY'S DEADLIEST STORM, AN UNSPEAKABLE WAR, AND LIBERATION. 4/25, Noon-1:30pm (EDT), IN-PERSON & ZOOM WEBINAR, Washington, DC. Sponsor: George Washington University (GW). Speakers: Marcus D. King, John O. Rankin Associate Professor of International Affairs, Director, Master of Arts in International Affairs Program, ESIA, GW; Deepa Ollapally, Research Professor of International Affairs, Associate Director, Sigur Center, GW. 

PROSPECTS FOR THE POST-COVID ASIAN ECONOMY WITH ADB CHIEF ECONOMIST. 4/25, 12:30-1:30pm (EDT), IN-PERSON, Washington, DC. Sponsor: Reischauer Center. Speaker: Dr. Albert Park, Chief Economist, Asian Development Bank (ADB); Moderator: Kent E. Calder, Director, Edwin O. Reischauer Center, East Asian Studies. 

INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM 2022 ANNUAL REPORT: KEY FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS. 4/25, 2:00-3:00pm (EDT), IN-PERSON, Washington, DC. Sponsor: U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). Speakers: Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida), Nadine Maenza, Chair, USCIRF; Nury Turkel, Vice Chair, USCIRF. 

GREAT WALL OF STEEL: CHINA'S GLOBAL CAMPAIGN TO SUPPRESS THE UYGHURS. 4/25, 2:00-3:30pm (EDT), WEBCAST. Sponsor: Kissinger Institute on China and the United States (KICUS). Speakers: Bradley Jardine, Schwarzman Scholar, Schwarzman Scholar, Tsinghua University (Beijing, China), Research Consultant, Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs; Moderator: Robert Daly, Director, KICUS. 

CITIES FORTIFYING DEMOCRACY: A CONVERSATION WITH THE MAYOR OF WARSAW. 4/25, 2:30-3:15pm (EDT), ONLINE. Sponsor: German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF). Speakers: Heather A. Conley, President, GMF; Rafał Trzaskowski, Mayor, City of Warsaw, Poland; Moderator: Laura Thornton, Director, Alliance for Securing Democracy, GMF. 

ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE (AMR) AS A GLOBAL SECURITY THREAT: DESTABILIZING FOOD SYSTEMS AND HEALTHY COMMUNITIES. 4/25, 3:00-4:00pm (EDT), LIVESTREAM & IN-PERSON, Washington, DC. Sponsor: CSIS. Speakers: Rasmus Prehn, Minister, Danish Food, Agriculture, and Fisheries; Rod Schoonover, Head, Ecological Security Group, Council On Strategic Risks; Junxia Song, AMR Focal Point and Senior Animal Health Officer, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization; Moderator: Caitlin Welsh, Director, Global Food Security Program. 

UKRAINIAN NATIONAL IDENTITY AND RUSSIAN INTELLIGENCE FAILURE. 4/25, 5:00-6:00pm (EDT), ZOOM WEBINAR. Sponsor: Institute of World Politics. Speaker: Ethan S. Burger, IWP Cyber Intelligence Instructor, International Attorney. 

Monday Asia Events April 11, 2022

THE WAR IN UKRAINE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR OUR NUCLEAR FUTURE. 4/11, 1:00pm (EDT), ZOOM WEBINAR. Sponsor: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Speakers: Francesca Giovannini, Executive Director, Project on Managing the Atom, Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School; Pavel Podvig, Nuclear Expert, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists; Manpreet Sethi, Senior Fellow, Indian Council of Social Science Research; Lauren Sukin, MacArthur Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University. 

WHO INNOVATES IN KOREA? 4/11, 5:00pm (PDT), ZOOM WEBINAR. Sponsor: School of Global Policy and Strategy, UC San Diego. Speaker: Jihong Lee, Professor of Economics, Seoul National University; Moderator: Munseob Lee, Assistant Professor of Economics, School of Global Policy and Strategy, UC San Diego. 

DECODING COMMON PROSPERITY: CAN XI END CHINA’S GILDED AGE? 4/11, 1:00-2:30pm (EDT), WEBINAR. Sponsor: Asian Studies Program, School of Foreign Service, GU. Speakers: Yuen Yuen Ang, Author, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Michigan, Can Xi End China’s Gilded Age; Moderator: Evan Medeiros, Penner Family Chair in Asian Studies, School of Foreign Service, GU. 

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE NEOLIBERAL ORDER: AMERICA AND THE WORLD IN THE FREE MARKET ERA. 4/11, 4:00-5:30pm (EDT), WEBINAR. Sponsor: National History Center; Wilson Center (WWC). Speaker: author, Gary Gerstle, Author, Mellon Professor of American History, University of Cambridge; Lizabeth Cohen, Howard Mumford Jones professor of American Studies, Harvard University; Kristina Spohr, Professor of International History, London School of Economic and Political Science. 

CHINA, SEMICONDUCTORS AND GLOBAL COMPETITION. 4/11, 7:00-8:00pm (EDT), ZOOM WEBINAR. Sponsor: Asian/Pacific Studies Institute, Duke University. Speaker: Jimmy Goodrich, Vice President for Global Policy, Semiconductor Industry Association; Moderator: Denis Simon, Senior Adviser to the President, China Affairs and Professor of China Business and Technology, Fuqua School of Business, Duke. 

AMERICA: A SINGAPORE PERSPECTIVE. 4/11, 9:00-10:00pm (EDT), ZOOM WEBINAR. Sponsor: East-West Center in Washington. Speakers: H.E. Tommy Koh, Ambassador-At-Large, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Singapore & Professor of Law, National University of Singapore; Mr. Daljit Singh, Visiting Senior Fellow, ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute; and Dr. Satu P. Limaye, Vice President, East-West Center & Director, East-West Center in Washington. 

MINAMATA & FUKUSHIMA: STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE IN ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER. 4/12, Noon (JST) / 4/11, 11:00pm (EDT), ZOOM WEBINAR. Sponsor: Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies (ICAS), Temple University Japan. Speakers: Aileen Mioko Smith, Executive Director, Green Action; Yuki Miyamoto, Professor of ethics, Department of Religious Studies, DePaul University; Moderator: Kyle Cleveland, Temple University Japan. 

DEMOCRACY UNDER SIEGE: WHAT DOES THE UKRAINE CRISIS MEAN FOR TAIWAN? 4/11, 10:00am-11:30pm (EDT), LIVESTREAM. Sponsor: Atlantic Council. Speakers: James L. Jones, Jr., Executive Chairman Emeritus, Former National Security Advisor to the President of the United States, Founder, Jones Group International; Michelle Flournoy, Chair, Board of Directors, Center for a New American Security, Co-founder and Managing Partner, WestExec Advisors. 

Remembering the Bataan Death March

Eighty Years Ago the horrors of today's war in Ukraine recall the atrocities committed by the Japanese empire during World War II.

by Mindy Kotler, director, Asia Policy Point

Published April 9, 2022 in the National Interest

Pvt. Lester Tenney of Illinois’ 192nd Tank Battalion felt lucky. The Japanese officer’s sword missed his head and neck. Although he was left with a large gash on his shoulder, medics could quickly sew it up and he was soon back on the dusty road up the Bataan Peninsula. To fall behind or to falter guaranteed death. Like the civilians of Ukraine’s besieged cities, the surrendered soldiers and civilians on the Bataan Death March were defenseless and at the barbarous mercy of the invaders. It began eighty years ago today, on April 9, 1942.

The Bataan Death March is remembered as one of the greatest war crimes of World War II. The Japanese commanders involved were prosecuted for crimes against humanity or for violating the international laws of war and executed. So seminal in American history were these events that Bataan is part of the American lexicon as a metaphor for a tortuous undertaking. It is why National Former Prisoner of War (POW) Recognition Day is held every April 9th. 

It is also one of the few Japanese war crimes for which the Japanese government has made a specific effort to atone. In 2009, the Japanese ambassador to the United States Ichiro Fujisaki, prompted by Tenney, traveled to the last convention of the American POWs of Japan and offered his country’s apology.  The ambassador also arranged a visitation program to Japan for surviving POWs.

“We extend a heartfelt apology for our country having caused tremendous damage and suffering to many people, including prisoners of war, those who have undergone tragic experiences in the Bataan Peninsula, Corregidor Island, in the Philippines, and other places,” he told the men and their families.

This apology, which never appeared on the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs website, was repeated to four visiting delegations of American POWs by three Japanese Foreign Ministers. Japan’s current prime minister, Fumio Kishida, when serving as foreign minister, met with the 2013 POW group. Among them were two Bataan Death March survivors, including a Native American survivor, as well as two widows of Death March survivors. To his credit, he participated in the first principle of reconciliation, which is to hear their story.

The full story is that the Death March came after four months of combat starting when Japan attacked the Philippines within hours of bombing Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. A three-month siege of the Bataan Peninsula accompanied by a starvation diet, air and artillery bombardment, and disease had taken their toll. The Allies’ Europe-first policy combined with Japan’s control of the sea and air ensured that neither resupply nor reinforcement of the Philippines would come.

In the early morning hours of April 9, 1942, the newly appointed commanding general of Am-Fil forces on the Bataan Peninsula, Maj. Gen. Edward P. King Jr., realized that his troops faced slaughter if they continued to fight. He decided the rational course was to order the men and women under his command—against Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s orders—to surrender. Thus, 78,000 troops (66,000 Filipinos and 12,000 Americans) were taken captive by Imperial Japan.  Among them there were dozens of European civilians—Czechs, Estonians, Latvians, Norwegians, Germans, Finns, Dutch, and British—who had volunteered to join the fight. In addition, there were at least 10,000 in two field hospitals in Bataan. It is the largest contingent of U.S. soldiers ever to surrender.

Focused on saving his exhausted and ailing troops, King could not imagine the horrors that surrender would hold. On the same day as the surrender, the Japanese put the survivors on what has become known as the Bataan Death March. It is estimated that perhaps 2,000 either swam the three shark-infested, mined miles to the fortress island of Corregidor (No one on Corregidor was on the Death March) or disappeared into the jungle. Those who made it to Corregidor became immediately members of the 4th Marines fighting shore defense. Corregidor and the associated three island fortresses surrendered on May 6th. 

The Bataan Death March was a poorly commanded effort to move the surrendered troops and civilians on the peninsula to a POW camp one hundred miles north. The result was that the Japanese neglected the sick and killed the wounded; denied the POWs food, water, and medical care; and abused, robbed, and tortured them. Many men stamped into the road by tanks or shot trying to drink from a stream remain missing. 

For most, the first leg of the Death March was sixty-five miles from the port of Mariveles at the southern tip of the Bataan Peninsula up the East Road to a train terminal at San Fernando. Others arrived at the East Road at the village of Pilar after a sixteen-mile trek from Bagac on the west side of Bataan. It took an average of five days in the tropical heat for the terrorized, sick, and starving men to reach the station. There they were stuffed standing one hundred at a time into small, unventilated boxcars for a twenty-four-mile ride north to the town of Capas. Many died in these rolling ovens.

The survivors were forced to walk another five miles to Camp O'Donnell, an unfinished Philippine Army training camp. With only two spigots of water and no sanitation, the camp was quickly compared with the Confederacy's Andersonville prison camp. Hundreds died of disease, starvation, dehydration, and despair. Most of the deaths from the Death March happened here or at its successor camp, Cabanatuan. 

Survivors of the Bataan Death March endured three-and-a-half years of death camps, brutal labor, and unimaginable indignities and injury. Many were taken to Japan aboard hellships to be slave laborers for Japanese companies in Formosa, Japan, Manchuria, and Korea.  Again they were denied food, medical care, clothes, and adequate housing. 

Tenney ended up in Mitsui’s Omuta coal mine near Nagasaki. The working conditions were so severe that POWs traded their meager meals to have their arm or leg broken so that they would get a short reprieve from going back underground. Today, the mine is a UNESCO World Industrial Heritage site.

More than half the Americans taken prisoner on Bataan died before war’s end. This was greater than the overall death rate for American POWs of Japan, which was 40 percent. It was more deadly to be a POW than a combat Marine in the Pacific. By comparison, the death rate for Americans taken prisoner by the Nazis was less than two percent.

As horrifying as the Bataan Death March was, it was not an exception in Japan’s war. Other death marches were imposed upon American and Allied POWs throughout the Pacific.Torture and executions were commonplace. Death from overwork and malnutrition were the norm. Abuse was systematic.

How a country treats the defenseless and dependent is a measure of their citizens’ values. How the victims endure the neglect and damage inflicted upon them also reflects values. Like the men and women on Bataan, there is much to admire in the Ukrainians. They persist and endure.

As President Franklin D. Roosevelt said in August 1943, when the outcome of World War II was still uncertain, “The story of the fighting on Bataan and Corregidor—and, indeed, everywhere in the Philippines—will be remembered so long as men continue to respect bravery, and devotion, and determination.” This still holds true eighty years later.

Monday Asia Events April 4, 2022

UKRAINE WAR & GLOBAL ENERGY IMPACTS TO 2030 – HOW CLEAN ENERGY WILL OUTPACE FOSSIL FUELS. 4/4, 9:00-10:00am (EDT), ZOOM WEBINAR. Sponsor: Carbon Tracker. Speakers: Mark Fulton, Project Director, Inevitable Policy Response (IPR); Catharina Hillenbrand von der Neyen, Head of Research, Carbon Tracker; Bo Lidegaard, Co-founder & Partner Kaya Group; Sean Kidney , CEO, Climate Bonds Initiative; Moderator: Kavita Srinivasan, Senior Manager, Vivid Economics. 

THE IMPACT OF THE UKRAINE CRISIS ON JAPANESE FOREIGN POLICY. 4/4, 9:00-10:00am (EDT), ZOOM WEBINAR. Sponsor: Stimson Center and Canon Institute for Global Studies. Speakers: Zack Cooper, Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute; Kuni Miyake, Research Director, Canon Institute for Global Studies; Céline Pajon, Research Fellow, Head, Japan Research, Center for Asian Studies, French Institute of International Relations. 

LOOKING NORTH: CONFERENCE ON SECURITY IN THE ARCTIC. 4/4, 9:00-11:30am (EDT), IN-PERSON, Washington DC. Sponsor: Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Atlantic Council. Speakers: Matthew Kroenig, Deputy Director, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Atlantic Council; Torleiv Opland, Deputy Chief of Mission, Embassy of Norway to the United States; The Hon. Melissa Dalton, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Hemispheric Affairs, US Department of Defense; Moderator: Ali Rogin, Foreign Affairs Producer, PBS NewsHour. 

SEISMIC SHIFTS IN KOREAN POLITICS: A CONVERSATION WITH REP. YOUNG KIM. 4/4, 10:00-10:40am (EDT), ZOOM WEBINAR. Sponsors: Former Members of Congress, Korea Society. Speakers: Rep. Young Kim (R-CA), Co-Chair, Congressional Study Group on Korea; Moderator: The Hon. Peter Roskam (R-IL, 2007-2019). 

ORIENTING EUROPEAN SECURITY: THE EU STRATEGIC COMPASS AND EU-US DEFENSE COOPERATION. 4/4, 10:30-11:30am (EDT), ZOOM WEBINAR. Sponsor: Atlantic Council. Speakers: Amb. Charles Fries, Deputy Secretary-General for Common Security and Defense Policy and Crisis Response, European External Action Service; Molly Montgomery, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of European & Eurasian Affairs, US Department of State; Moderator: Damir Marusic, Senior Fellow, Europe Center, Atlantic Council. 

CONFRONTING TODAY’S REALITY OF TOTALITARIAN STATES, DETERRENTS, AND DEPENDENCY. 4/4, 11:00-11:45am (EDT), VIRTUAL & IN-PERSON, Washington, DC. Sponsor: Heritage Foundation. Speakers: Rt Hon Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP, Former Leader, Conservative Party, Member of Parliament (Chingford and Woodford Green), UK; Nile Gardiner Ph.D., Bernard and Barbara Lomas Fellow, Director, Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom. 

THE TECHNOPOLAR WORLD. 4/4, 12:30-2:00pm (EDT), ZOOM WEBINAR. Sponsor: Johns Hopkins, SAIS. Speaker: Ian Bremmer, President, Founder, Eurasia Group and GZERO Media, US. 

BIOLOGICAL, CHEMICAL, AND NUCLEAR WEAPONS: CAN THE WEST DETER RUSSIA FROM USING THEM? 4/4, 1:00-2:00pm (EDT), ZOOM WEBINAR. Sponsor: National Committee on American Foreign Policy (NCAFP). Speakers: The Honorable Andrew C. 'Andy' Weber, Senior Fellow, Janne E. Nolan Center on Strategic Weapons, Former Assistant Secretary of Defense, Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense Programs; Mr. Ankit Panda, Stanton Senior Fellow, Carnegie Endowment, Editor-at-large, The Diplomat; Moderator: Ambassador (ret.) Susan M. Elliott, President, CEO, NCAFP. 

THE WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE WAR IN UKRAINE. 4/4, 1:00-2:15pm (EDT), ZOOM WEBINAR. Sponsors: Center for International Studies, Security Studies Program, MISTI MIT Russia Program. Speakers: Joel Brenner, Senior Research Fellow, Center for International Studies, MIT, former head of US counterintelligence, Director of National Intelligence; Taylor Fravel, Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science, Director, Security Studies Program, MIT; Roger Petersen, Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science, MIT; Jim Walsh, Senior Research Associate, Security Studies Program, MIT; Moderators: Carol Saivetz, Senior Advisor, Security Studies Program, MIT; Elizabeth Wood, Professor of History, MIT, Co-director, MISTI MIT-Russia Program. 

WHY NATIONS RISE: NARRATIVES AND THE PATH TO GREAT POWER. 4/4, 4:30-6:00pm (EDT), ZOOM WEBINAR. Sponsor: Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University. Speaker: Manjari Chatterjee Miller, Council on Foreign Affairs, University of Oxford, author of Why Nations Rise: Narratives and the Path to Great Power (2021) and Wronged by Empire: Post-Imperial Ideology and Foreign Policy in India and China (2013). 

SANCTIONS ON RUSSIA: THE ENERGY AND FOOD DIMENSIONS. 4/4, 5:00pm (EDT), ZOOM WEBINAR. Sponsor: School of Global Policy and Strategy, UC San Diego. Speakers: Jennifer Burney, School of Global Policy and Strategy, UC San Diego; Stephan Haggard, School of Global Policy and Strategy, UC San Diego; Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran, The Economist; David G. Victor, School of Global Policy and Strategy, UC San Diego; Moderator: Lisa Friedman, The New York Times. 

HUMANITARIAN ACTION IN A TIME OF UNPRECEDENTED NEEDS. 4/4, 5:30-6:30pm (EDT), IN-PERSON, New Haven, CT. Sponsors: Jackson Institute for Global Affairs; Program on Refugees, Forced Displacement and Humanitarian Responses, MacMillan Center, Yale. Speaker: Richard Albright, former Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM), U.S. Department of State. 

WORLDVIEWS AND PLANETARY POLITICS: GARDENS, JUNGLES AND OCEANS: THE 2022 GASTON SIGUR MEMORIAL LECTURE WITH PRASENJIT DUARA. 4/4, 5:00-6:30pm (EDT), IN PERSON, Washington, DC. Sponsor: George Washington University (GWU). Speaker: Prasenjit Duara, Oscar Tang Chair, East Asian Studies, Duke University; Moderator: Gregg Brazinsky, Professor, History, International Affairs, Director, Asian Studies Program, Acting Director, Sigur Center for Asian Studies, Acting Co-Director, East Asia National Resource Center, GWU.