Asia Unscripted

This week, Vivien and Isabelle are joined by Sibarani Sofian, who is the founder and director of URBAN+, a design studio based in Jakarta that won the design competition for Indonesia’s new capital in 2019. Mr. Sofian is an urban designer, planner, and business leader with extensive experience in various urban projects in Asia, especially South East Asia and Indonesia. His work focuses on executin...

This week's episode of Asia Unscripted features two guests: Tim Ryan and Atley Chock of the Solidarity Center, the largest U.S.-based international worker rights organization partnering directly with workers and their unions. Tim Ryan is the Asia Regional Program Director for Solidarity Center, and previously served in Asia as the Solidarity Center’s Country Program Director for Sri Lanka and...

This week, Isabelle and Vivien are honored to be joined by Chief Economist Yasuyuki Sawada of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Chief Economist Sawada serves as the chief spokesperson for ADB on economic and development trends, and leads the Economic Research and Regional Cooperation Department (ERCD), which produces the flagship knowledge products of the ADB. He is a Professor in the Faculty of E...

On this episode of Asia Unscripted, we highlight clips from the “Hong Kong Protests and COVID-19” Webinar hosted by the US-Asia Institute on July 29th. The speakers featured in the webinar were Professor Albert Chen, Madam Emily Lau, and the Honorable Bernard Chan. Professor Chen is the Cheng Chan Lan Yue Professor in Constitutional Law at the University of Hong Kong, Madam Lau is a former member...

This episode of Asia Unscripted is a compilation of highlights from the seventh session of the China 101 webinar series, hosted by the US-Asia Institute. This China 101 session, entitled “US-China Relations: Rebuilding Trust” was held on July 20th. The speakers featured in the webinar were Susan Thornton and Dr. Shao Yuqun. Susan Thornton is a Visiting Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School, Senior Fe...

This week, Isabelle and Vivien are joined by Professor Tsung-Mei Cheng, who is a Health Policy Research Analyst at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. She is cofounder of the Princeton Conference, an annual national conference on health policy that brings together the U.S. Congress, government, and the research community on issues affecting health care and health policy in th...

The guest on this episode of Asia Unscripted is Jisoo Kim, the Director of the Institute for Korean Studies and the Korea Foundation Associate Professor of History, International Affairs, and East Asian Languages and Literatures at George Washington University. Professor Kim is a specialist in gender and legal history of early modern Korea. Her first book, The Emotions of Justice: Gender, Status,...

This episode of Asia Unscripted is a compilation of highlights from the ASEAN Cooperation in the Face of COVID-19 webinar hosted by the US-Asia Institute on June 25. This event was the fourth session of the ASEAN 101 Congressional Briefing Series and focused on the response to COVID-19 by the countries of ASEAN. The two speakers featured in the webinar were His Excellency Ashok Kumar Mirpuri, Amba...

In this episode, Isabelle and Vivien speak with China Expert, Media Executive, & US-Asia Institute Trustee, Chris Fenton, who discusses his upcoming book and shares thoughts from his China-focused speaking tour. Mr. Fenton is the CEO of Media Capital Technologies and has previously served as the President of DMG Entertainment and GM of DMG North America for 17 years, where he produced or super...

This episode features Alfred Nakatsuma, former Director with the United States Agency for International Development. Mr. Nakatsuma has served USAID missions in Bolivia, Guatemala, Indonesia, Philippines, the Regional Asia mission in Bangkok, and in Washington DC. He was the former Director of the USAID’s Asia Regional Environment Office, overseeing foreign assistance for environmental activities i...

In this episode, Isabelle and Vivien speak with Professor Justin Stern, Assistant Professor of Urban Studies at Yale-NUS College, about the socio-spatial implications of the Business Process Outsourcing industry in the Philippines. Prior to joining Yale-NUS College, Professor Stern was a Harold A. Pollman Postdoctoral Fellow in Real Estate and Urban Development at Harvard University Graduate Schoo...

This episode of Asia Unscripted is a compilation of highlights from the COVID-19 Lessons Learned Webinar hosted by the US-Asia Institute. The event, held on May 13, focused on the approaches of three countries -- Singapore, South Korea, and Vietnam -- in their fight against the coronavirus. The three health experts featured in the webinar were Professor Teo Yik Ying, Dean of the Saw Swee Hock Scho...

In this episode, Vivien and Isabelle have the pleasure of speaking to Dr. Meredith Weiss, Professor and chair of Political Science at State University of New York – Albany. Professor Weiss's research is in the field of comparative politics, focusing on Southeast Asia, and her current projects include research on democratic representation and political elites in Southeast Asia, and a monograph...

In the first episode of the second season of Asia Unscripted, Vivien and Isabelle speak to Dr. Ramon Pacheco Pardo, Associate Professor in International Relations at King’s College London and the KF-VUB Korea Chair at the Institute for European Studies of Vrije Universiteit Brussel (IES-VUB). Dr. Pacheco Pardo has held visiting positions at Korea University, the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Polic...

Welcome to Season 2 of Asia Unscripted ! In this introductory episode, Isabelle and Vivien chat with each other about their experiences hosting the podcast last season, as well as their goals and perspectives on the upcoming season.  Support the show

This week's episode of Asia Unscripted features Alejandro T. Reyes, Director of Knowledge Dissemination and a visiting associate professor at Asia Global Institute. Prior to joining the institute, he was for two years senior policy adviser to the Assistant Deputy Minister for Asia Pacific and Convenor of the Asia Pacific Policy Hub at Global Affairs Canada, the Canadian foreign ministry. He h...

In this week's episode, Isabelle and Vivien are honored to have with them Kishore Mahbubani, a Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore, or NUS. Professor Mahbubani was with the Singapore Foreign Service for 33 years, with postings in Cambodia, Malaysia, Washington DC, and New York, where he twice was Singapore’s Ambassador to the UN and serv...

This episode of  Asia Unscripted  features Mr. Don Lam, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of VinaCapital, which is one of the leading fund managers in Vietnam. Before founding VinaCapital, Mr. Lam was a Partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers Vietnam, where he led the Corporate Finance and Management Consulting practices throughout the Indochina region, which includes Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. W...

In this episode, Isabelle and Vivien speak to Ernie Bower, one of the world’s leading experts on the Asia-Pacific. Ernie is the founder and CEO of BowerGroupAsia, and founder and chairman of AkarAsia, Inc. In addition to founding BowerGroupAsia, Ernie created the Southeast Asia Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and helped to create the US-ASEAN Business Council, serving a...

This episode of Asia Unscripted features Dr. Michael Green, Senior Vice President for the Asia and Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and host of the CSIS podcast Asia Chessboard. Dr. Green is also the director of Asian Studies at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. From 2001 through 2005, Dr. Green served on the National Security...

We are honored to have with us in the episode Ambassador Aung Lynn, the current Ambassador from Myanmar to the United States. Prior to his appointment as Ambassador in 2016, Ambassador Aung Lynn held leadership positions in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Myanmar’s ASEAN Affairs Department, the Myanmar consul in Hong Kong, the Department of Protocol, the Permanent Mission of Myanmar to the United...

In this week's episode of Asia Unscripted, Vivien and Isabelle speak with Craig Allen, President of the US-China Business Council and the former Ambassador of the US to Brunei Darussalam. Prior to his time in Brunei, Craig had a long, distinguished career in US public service, notably working for the US Department of Commerce in Taiwan, Beijing, Tokyo, and Johannesburg. Craig was sworn in as...

In this week’s episode of Asia Unscripted , Isabelle and Vivien hear from Courtney Weatherby, research analyst with the Stimson Center’s Southeast Asia and Energy, Water, & Sustainability programs. Her research focuses on sustainable infrastructure and energy development challenges in Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific, particularly food-water-energy nexus issues in the Greater Mekong Subregi...

In this week’s episode of Asia Unscripted , Isabelle and Vivien hear from by Dr. Alicia Campi, current Vice President and President Emeritus of The Mongolia Society. Dr. Campi is a China and Mongolian specialist and was a US State Department Foreign Service Officer for 14 years, serving in Asian posts in Singapore, Taiwan, Japan and Mongolia. Since 2013, she has also been a Research Fellow at John...

In this episode of Asia Unscripted, Vivien and Isabelle hear from David Dollar, senior fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution and host of the Brookings trade podcast, Dollar&Sense. David is a leading expert on China's economy and U.S.-China economic relations. From 2009 to 2013, he was the US Treasury’s economic and financial emissary to China, based in B...