ASEAN and the Obama Administration: Views from the Region
SPFUSA Asian Voices Seminar Series

Monday, March 30th, 2009
12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. (lunch will be served)

The Cosmos Club
Powell Room
2121 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, D.C.
(business attire required)

Speakers

Bambang Harymurti, Corporate Editor-in-Chief, Tempo (Indonesia)

Mr. Bambang Harymurti is Corporate Editor-in-Chief of the news magazine Tempo Weekly and the newspaper Tempo Daily. He is also CEO of PT Tempo Inti Media and member of the Press Council in Indonesia. He has also worked as a Deputy Chief Editor of Tempo Weekly, Executive Editor of Media Indonesia Daily, and Editor of the Sunday Edition of Media Indonesia. He graduated from Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia, majoring Electrical Engineering (1984) and from the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University (1991). In addition to receiving the Knight International Press Fellowship Award, he is a winner of the Mason Program’s Vernon Award at Harvard and the Excellence in Journalism Award given by the daily Indonesian Observer. His publications include, “Indonesia, Challenges of Change” in Journal of Democracy.

Kavi Chongkittavorn, Executive Editor, The Nation (Thailand)

Mr. Kavi Chongkittavorn is Assistant Group Editor of Nation Multimedia Group, responsible for The Nation, Krungthep Turakit, and Kom Chat Luek, Nation TV Channel. He has been a journalist for more than two decades, covering Thailand and regional affairs. He was bureau chief in Phnom Penh (1986-88) and Hanoi (1989-91). From 1993-94, he served as a special assistant to the ASEAN Secretary General. In 1993, he was a Reuters Fellow at Oxford University and a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 2001. He was named the Human Rights Journalist of 1998 to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of UNDHR by Amnesty International, Thailand. From 1999-2003, he was the president of the Thai Journalists Association. He has also chaired the Bangkok-based regional free media advocacy group, Southeast Asian Press Alliance.

Yuli Ismartono, Executive Editor, Tempo

Ms. Yuli Ismartono is Executive Editor of the English edition of Tempo, Indonesia’s largest circulating weekly news magazine, and concurrently the Managing Editor of AsiaViews, a regional online publication, a collaboration between Tempo and four other Southeast Asian news publications funded by the Tokyo-based Sasakawa Peace Foundation. She is also a senior advisor at APCO Jakarta, a media relations consulting agency. Ms. Ismartono has been in media and communications since 1970, following her undergraduate studies at the University of India where she studied political science and where she met and befriended Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. She did her graduate studies at the Newhouse School of Journalism at Syracuse University. As Tempo’s Bangkok-based Asia bureau chief from 1983 to 1993, Ms Ismartono reported on issues and events ranging from Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam to the Sri Lankan civil war and the first Gulf War. She returned to Jakarta in 1993, only to have Suharto close down Tempo in June 1994. Ms. Ismartono rejoined Tempo when it re-launched in 2002, after a stint in public affairs and corporate communications.

Moderator

David Steinberg, Distinguished Professor of Asian Studies, Georgetown University

Professor David Steinberg is Distinguished Professor of Asian Studies, Georgetown University. He was previously a Representative of the Asia Foundation in Korea; Distinguished Professor of Korea Studies, Georgetown University; and President of the Mansfield Center for Pacific Affairs. Earlier, as a member of the Senior Foreign Service, U.S. Agency for International Development, Department of State, he was Director for Technical Assistance in Asia and the Middle East, and Director for Philippines, Thailand, and Burma Affairs. He spent three years in Thailand with the USAID Regional Development Office. Professor Steinberg was educated at Dartmouth College, Lingnan University (Canton, China), Harvard University, and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He is the author of thirteen books and monographs, including: Turmoil in Burma: Contested Legitimacies in Myanmar; Burma: The State of Myanmar; Stone Mirror: Reflections on Contemporary Korea; and The Republic of Korea: Economic Transformation and Social Change. He has authored numerous articles, book chapters, and op-eds.

Summary

To state the obvious, Barack Obama is the first President of the United States with deep ties to Southeast Asia. But what might that mean for U.S. relations with ASEAN and its member states? This panel will discuss three general topics: the potential for American cooperation with Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority state, and how that can serve to address America’s problems in the Islamic world; how the U.S. and ASEAN can address issues in the region relating to Burma, China, and India; and the changed perceptions and expectations of the U.S. under the Obama administration.

Invitation (PDF Format)