As US and EU supply chains have grown more intertwined with China, China has grown bolder in challenging international norms and governance—including the principle of open seas. How can the US and the EU adapt to preserve international trade as a pillar of a secure and stable global order?

Join FPI Fellow Niklas Swanström and co-author Mrittika Guha Sarkar for a discussion of the challenges and recommendations from their latest book.

About the Speakers

Dr. Niklas Swanström is a fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He is Director and Co-Founder of the Institute for Security and Development Policy. In addition, he is non-resident Professor at Sichuan University and a guest professor at LeShan Normal University in China. His main areas of expertise are conflict prevention, conflict management and regional cooperation, Chinese foreign policy and security in Northeast Asia, the Belt and Road Initiative, traditional and non-traditional security threats and effects on regional and national security as well as negotiations. He focused on Northeast Asia, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia.

Swanström has authored, co-authored or edited a number of books, including Eurasia’s Ascent in Energy and Geopolitics, Sino-Japanese Relations: The Need for Conflict Prevention and Management, Transnationell brottslighet: ett säkerhetshot? (Trans-national Crime: A Security Threat?), Regional Cooperation and Conflict Management: Lessons from the Pacific Rim, and Foreign Devils, Dictatorship or Institutional Control: China's foreign policy towards Southeast Asia.

He holds a Ph.D. in Peace and Conflict Studies from Uppsala University in Sweden. His dissertation dealt with regional cooperation and conflict management in the Pacific Rim. He also holds a Licentiate degree from the Department of Peace and Conflict research, where he examined Chinese foreign policy towards Southeast Asia. He holds M.A. degrees from Uppsala University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He has also been a student at Beijing Languages Institute, Beijing University, and Dalian Languages University.

Mrittika Guha Sarkar is SIS Dean’s Awardee and Graduate Assistant at the School of International Studies (SIS), The American University, Washington DC, USA. She is further Research Fellow working with the Changing Aid Signature Research Initiative (SRI), at the American University. She has previously been associated with the Chinese Language Center, National Chengchi University (NCCU), Taipei, Taiwan, as a Language Scholar, and the Centre for East Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi as a Research Scholar in Chinese studies. In addition, she has worked at the Centre for Strategic Studies and Simulation, The United Service Institution of India as a Research Associate, and the East Asia Centre at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA) as a Project Assistant. Her area of focus mainly encompasses China’s foreign policy and strategic affairs. She has also researched on India-China relations, as well as the geostrategic affairs of the Indo-Pacific region, and East Asia’s geopolitics and security affairs, focusing on the regional developments of Japan and the Korean Peninsula.

The US and EU, and the Emerging Supply Chain Network