I’ve been contacted by a number of readers asking for news on the panel discussion we held with Harvard University on Friday night.
Speaking at the event were U.S. Congressman J. Randy Forbes, who is chairman of the House Armed Services Readiness subcommittee, regular Flashpoints writer James Holmes, his colleagues at the U.S. Naval War College Toshi Yoshihara and Andrew Erickson, Prof. Peter Dutton, who heads the China Maritime Studies Institute, and William Martel, a professor of international security at Tufts University.
It was a high class line-up of leading thinkers in the field of maritime security issues in East Asia, and the event certainly didn’t disappoint. There’s plenty of hyperbole surrounding the U.S. pivot to the Pacific and China’s military rise, and it was great to have a set of panelists who could break it all down and explain what it all means for the audience.
For those that couldn’t make it, we’ll be doing a number of things to share some of the key ideas this week. James Holmes has written a piece that we’ll be running this week, based on his presentation, that calls for a realistic and more transparent attitude on the part of the U.S. over China’s rise, and later this week the video of the panel should be available on our site. We’ll also be running a slide show with some of the key points made by the panelists, who also engaged in a Q&A session with some of the audience.
In the meantime, thanks again to our speakers, particularly Congressman Forbes, who travelled up from Virginia just for the panel and who had a very early flight to catch back home the next morning.