Ambassadors Roundtable
The Ambassadors Roundtable of the Geneva Forum on East Asia is specifically designed to provide the audiences a platform to bridge the knowledge gap of European foreign relation practices with East Asian countries. To achieve this broader objective, knowledge sharing by diplomatic practitioners who have devoted their career to positions that led them to stand at the heart of such issues, would enlighten our audience and offer insights to understanding contemporary east asian affairs and its influence in global governance.
The guests to this event hold expertise with regard to EU-East Asia and Southeast Asia foreign relations, foreign relations between Switzerland and East Asia, geopolitics of the Taiwan Strait and the Korean Peninsula etc.
Moderator
Professor
Elena Atanassova-Cornelis
Senior Lecturer in International Relations of East Asia at the University of Antwerp and Catholic University of Louvain, Associate Fellow of the Global Fellowship Initiative at GCSP
Ambassadors
Dr. Jean-Jacques de Dardel
Former Ambassador of Switzerland to the People’s Republic of P.R. China, Mongolia and the DPRK (2014-2019),
Distinguished Alumnus of IHEID
Dr. Hans Dietmar Schweisgut
Secretary General of the Austrian-French Centre for Rapprochement in Europe, Former Ambassador of the European Union to China (2014-2018),
former Ambassador of the European Union to Japan (2010-2014)
H.E. Ambassador Franz Jessen
Senior Policy Advisor at Independent Consultant, former Ambassador of the European Union to the Philippines (2015-2022), former Ambassador of the European Union to Vietnam (2011-2015)
Dr. phil. Volker Stanzel
Former Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Japan
(2009-2013),
Former Ambassador of Germany to the People's Republic of China
(2004-2007)
Diplomatic Perspectives on the Relationship between East Asia and Europe
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Provide an overview of the EU’s foreign relationship with East Asian countries and deepen understanding of Asian-European interstate relationships
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Showcase the potential differences in foreign relation approaches to China between the EU and Switzerland as a non-EU state
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Provide a platform of discussion on the role of EU as an actor amid shifting geopolitical landscape, escalation of tension between China and the U.S., and strategic partnership with ASEAN
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Foreign policy of the EU and Switzerland on East Asian and Southeast Asian states respectively (on the aspects of security, economic, human rights, and technology policies etc.);
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Effects of the US-China relationship on Europe as well as Europe’s role in the US-China relationship;
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Experience in the posts as the Ambassador of the represented state, and how the foreign relations between the two states have shifted since