Asia & the Pacific

On April 6, 2022,  the Belfer Center's Future of Diplomacy Project and Indo-Pacific Security Project as well as the Center for Public Leadership hosted a hybrid seminar with Ambassador Shivshankar Menon, former National Security Advisor of India and former Foreign Secretary in India’s Ministry of External Affairs, and Ambassador Richard Verma, former U.S. Ambassador to India and Belfer Center Senior Fellow, on India’s foreign policy and U.S.-India relations in a changing world order. The discussion explored why India abstained from recent U.N. votes deploring Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, what that means for U.S.-India relations, both bilateral and through the Quad, and how the war in Ukraine will affect geopolitics in Eurasia and the Indo-Pacific. Gopal Nadadur, MPA/ID candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School moderated this conversation.

A presentation by Hui Zhang, Senior Research Associate with the Project on Managing the Atom, to the Online International Symposium "Growing Plutonium Stockpiles and the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant—Reality of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Security in East Asia."

On December 6, 2021, Managing the Atom Senior Research Associate Hui Zhang presented to a virtual meeting of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Committee on Merits and Viability of Different Nuclear Fuel Cycles and Technology Options and the Waste Aspects of Advanced Nuclear Reactors. 

The Future of Diplomacy Project hosted a conversation with Julie Bishop, Fisher Family Fellow and former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Australia, about China and Australia’s relationship, the increasing geopolitical role of the Quad, and how U.S. foreign policy should respond to China's rise on May 19, 2021. Research Director, Torrey Taussig moderated this discussion.

In a conversation with Ambassador Caroline Kennedy, we will explore how she employed cultural diplomacy while serving as U.S. Ambassador to Japan (2013-2017), our key ally in Asia. Ambassador (ret.) Nicholas Burns, Harvard Kennedy School professor and Faculty Chair of the Future of Diplomacy Project, welcomed and introduced Ambassador Kennedy. He and Carla Dirlikov Canales, 2021 Advanced Leadership Initiative Fellow, co-moderated the discussion. Dr. Joe Nye, University Distinguished Service Professor, Emeritus at Harvard and who introduced the world to the concept of "soft power" in the late 1980s, was also be part of the discussion.

Former President Bill Clinton gave the inaugural Stephen W. Bosworth Memorial Lecture in Diplomacy in honor of the late, much admired U.S. ambassador on Wednesday. He recalled some of his major foreign policy triumphs and challenges with Russia, China, and North Korea in a conversation with Professor Nicholas Burns. 

Ten years after the Fukushima Daiichi accident and 35 years after the tragedy at Chernobyl, the lessons learned from the two most severe nuclear disasters in history remain contested. New challenges continue to emerge even as significant progress has been made in many areas to reduce the chances of another major nuclear incident. From March 3-5, the Project on Managing the Atom (MTA) brought together three dozen experts for a conference exploring the lingering effects of Fukushima and Chernobyl and the evolution of the nuclear safety, security, and governance regimes in their aftermath.

On October 8, 2020 the Future of Diplomacy Project hosted Rahul Gandhi, Member of Parliament of India and former President of the Indian National Congress Party, who spoke about about Indian domestic politics and the U.S.-India partnership. This seminar was moderated by Faculty Chair, Nicholas Burns.

The panel considers how the US, UK and EU can contribute to a global response. It also asks what a global response to the health and economic crisis in the developing world would look like.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns giving a speech on "Restoring the Transatlantic Relationship" to the Senat Der Wirtschaft in Munich, Germany on November 30, 2019.