Presentation

The Institute of the Americas, loyal to its mission of openness and sharing, organizes every year a major scientific colloquium with the support of its institutional and scientific partners. In June 2016, this interdisciplinary colloquium will be focused on the commercial, cultural, geopolitical and scientific ties between Asia and the Americas.

After World War II, the United States privileged the transatlantic partnership with Europe and at the same time, developed tutelary relations with Latin America and the Caribbean.  Since the 80s, the breakthrough of the industrial Japanese power introduced a new dimension in the international relations of the successive US governments: geopolitical alliance in terms of defense but competition on industrial, economic and financial matters. Since the 90s, it is the turn of China to polarize the attention of American diplomacy and even more of the industrial and financial circles. Far from curbing its economic dynamism, the adhesion of China to the World Trade Organization revealed a mutual and contradictory interdependence. On the one hand, the delocalization of large American companies contributes to transform China into the workshop of the world, hence the increase of trade conflicts between both countries. On the other hand, the Chinese commercial surplus help the purchase of US Treasury bills, but also the takeover attempts of US companies at the technological frontier or thought to be strategic for US national sovereignty. 

While attention is now focusing on China, other Asian actors are present in the region, historically - South Korea, Taiwan (present in Central America) and especially Japan- or more recently –India-, while other countries have historic ties –Philippines – or potentially important economic ties with the Americas – Vietnam-. American States lead as well joint actions to strengthen their economic relationship with Asia, as evidenced by the ongoing negotiations of the Pacific Alliance (Colombia, Chile, Peru, and Mexico) to establish a free trade agreement with the ASEAN or the TPP.

Since the mid-2000s, China developed an active policy towards Latin America, in order to achieve stability and predictability in the supply of raw materials and commodities to its industrial sector. US officials also show less interest for Latin America as they redirect their efforts towards Asia because they feel that the Pacific will replace the Atlantic as the center of the global system. With this shift of the world economy, formerly distant actors for the Americas fall within the scope of not only commercial but also cultural and political relations transforming the former co-dependent relationship between the United States and Europe and Latin America and the Caribbean who accepted the international opening of an Asia in search of opportunities and investments.

Beyond the ability of the European leadership to overcome the euro crisis and that of the Chinese authorities to pilot and reorient their growth towards the satisfaction of their domestic demands and needs, it is highly likely that the world economy is about to experience an historic shift: it is not limited to international relations, since productive organization, lifestyles, the role of finance, the codification of intellectual property rights and several other fields are transformed in almost all the countries which accepted the international opening. The purpose of this colloquium is to review those transformations from an approach which should not be limited to economics, since political science, sociology, history, law, geopolitics, philosophy and research about cultural evolution must be enlisted for understanding such a complex process.

Thematic axes

The colloquium will be organized around three large thematic axes, grouping the indicative topics below:

1. 1.      International relations and geopolitics

-         Contemporary history of Asia and the Americas relations

-         Geopolitical and geostrategic Asia/Americas/Europe issues

-         Issues related to defense and security

-         Multilateral negotiations between large regional areas (Asia, North America, Asia, Latin America) and possibility of a new international system.

-         Chinas in the political discourses and concerns of Americas governments

-         Links between the politic discourse on China in a country and the state of economic relations between that country and China

-         Presence and perception of the Americas in the Asian politic discourses

-         The “Beijing consensus” and the Latin American “new theory of development”

-         Reconfiguration of Latin America / North America relations in the context of the new relations with Asia

-         Relationship between North America and Asia

-         Cartography of political leaders cross-visits and its evolution over time

1. 2.      Circulations, flows and exchanges

-         Evolution of regulation and national development patterns under the impact of the rise of China, consequences on the new labor division, the direction of international capital flows and the conception of intellectual property rights

-         Exchange and migration flows with Asia

-         Worldwide Positioning of Asian universities and in the studies choice of American elites, impact of the Shanghai ranking

-         Density and nature of relations between Asian and Latin-American universities and research centers

-         Reception of research and social sciences about Asia by politic and private decision makers

-         The fate of long-established Asian communities in the Americas (for example Japanese emigrants to Brazil, the overseas Chinese communities and their relations with the mainland, Latin-American political leaders of Asian descent…)

-         Asia/Latin-America cross-references in literature, music and other artistic activities

1. 3.      Viewpoints, lifestyles and cultural influences

-         Impact of the intensification of trade with Asia on the lifestyles in American countries (larger access to certain supplies, effects of the contact with expatriate Chinese workers)

-         Diffusion of Chinese culture in different American countries (philosophy, cultural products, Chinese language learning, Confucius Centers)

-         Comparative evolution of the social security system between countries of old industrialization and emergent Asian countries

-         Dealing with cultural diversity and plurality issues

-         Place of the Human Rights discourse