The Systemic Impact of the Twin Digital and Green Tech Revolutions in the Indo-Pacific: Toward a New Industrial Policy Race
Two industrial revolutions are concurrently unfolding: the twin digital revolutions, with rapid development in digital and AI technology, and a revolution in green technology. Together, they will drive future growth, transform employment and societies, and reshape the global economy. The impact of these transformations extends beyond policy and economies. They will reshuffle the liberal global order and transform power relations. They are triggering a process of strategic competition for leadership positions and control of future rules of the game in the world order.
Editor & Contact Point: Yves Tiberghien, Director, Centre for Japanese Research and Professor of Political Science, UBC; Sun Ryung Park, PhD Candidate, UBC
Introduction and Key Takeaways
Introduction and Key Takeaways
Sun Ryung Park, Yves Tiberghien
Keynote Speech from Professor Swaran Singh
Papers
- Sun Ryung Park, UBC: "Rejuvenating Old and New Industrial Policy: The Entrepreneurial State in the Green Tech Race"
- Pascale Massot, School of Political Studies University of Ottawa: "De-risking as the Total Solution to the Polycrisis? The case of strategic minerals"
- Yasuko Kameyama, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, the University of Tokyo: "The Systemic Impact of the Twin Digital and Green Tech Revolutions in the Indo-Pacific: Toward a New Industrial Policy Race?"
- Ishana Ratan, UC Berkeley : "Solar Supply Chain Fragmentation and Local Deployment in Southeast Asia"
- Henry Gao, Singapore Management University: "Is Industrial Policy the Secret to Become the Next China?"
- Patrick Leblond, University of Ottawa: "Governing International Digital Trade: Geoeconomics vs. Industrial Policy"
- Kenji Kushida, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: "How Japan’s Extreme Demographics are Shaping Technological Trajectories and a New but Familiar Industrial Policy"
- Stephanie Honey, Centre for International Governance Innovation: "Digital Trade Governance: Competing Imperatives in the Indo Pacific"
- Elina Noor, Asia Society Policy Institute: "Southeast Asia: More to Cashing in on the Chips"
- Wooyeal Paik, Yonsei University: "Short Statement on Three Issues"
- Yingqiu Kuang, UBC: "Creating a ‘Mosaic Effect’: Digital Revolutions, Emerging Powers, and Global Rulemaking for 5G"
- Benjamin Cohen, UC Santa Barbara: "SOME BRIEF THOUGHTS ON THE TWIN “REVOLUTIONS"
- Eric Helleiner, U of Waterloo: "The new industrial policy race and the changing global political economy"
- Kristen Hopewell, UBC: "The Surprise Return of Development Policy Space in the Multilateral Trading System: What the WTO Appellate Body Blockage Means for the Developmental State"
About the Authors
Yves Tiberghien (Ph.D. Stanford University and Harvard Academy Scholar) is a Professor of Political Science, Director Emeritus of the Institute of Asian Research, and Co-Director of the Center for Japanese Research at the University of British Columbia (UBC). He is a Distinguished Fellow at the Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada and the International Steering Committee Member representing Canada at Pacific Trade and Development Conference (PAFTAD). He is one of the Principals of the Vision20. Yves’ research focuses on the ongoing transition in the global economic and environmental order, in the face of new systemic risks, a changing balance of power, and social fragmentation. He is also currently working on articles on Japan’s and China’s roles in global and regional governance (including TPP, G20, AIIB, climate change, Belt and Road Initiative) and a book project titled Up for Grabs: Disruption, Competition, and the Remaking of the Global Economic Order.
Sun is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of British Columbia. She also is a PAFTAD Young Scholar (2023), Liu Scholar (2021-2022) in the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, and a Centre for Korean Research Fellow (2021-2023) at the Institute of Asian Research. Her research topic centers around green industrial policy and innovative strategies in East Asia with a focus on Korea, Japan, and Taiwan in the broader context of the US-China competition in the region. She is interested in analyzing what drives a rapid acceleration of the green tech race and what causes distinct national profiles in rejuvenating old and new tools of industrial policy to claim leadership in a future strategic industry.
Pascale Massot is an assistant professor in the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa.
She was recently a member of the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs’ Indo-Pacific Advisory Committee. From February 2020 to February 2021, she was on public service leave from the University to serve as Senior Advisor, Asia-Pacific, to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada. From December 2015 to July 2017 she was also on public service leave from the university, serving as Policy Advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada and Senior Policy Advisor to the Minister of International Trade of Canada.
Her research interests include the global political economy of China’s rise, China’s impact on global markets, including extractive commodity markets, open markets as the third pillar of the Global Liberal Order, the political economy of the Asia-Pacific region, Canada-China and Canada-Asia relations and Canadian public opinion on Asia.
She has conducted field research in China, including as a visiting scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing and a visiting PhD Candidate at Peking University's Center for International Political Economy. Pascale Massot was the 2014-2015 Cadieux-Léger Fellow at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada.
Yasuko Kameyama is Professor, and Center Director at the Sustainable Society Design Center, University of Tokyo. Before joining the University of Tokyo, she held multiple roles at the National Institute for Environmental Science (NIES) since 1992, most recently as the Director of Social Systems Division of NIES. Her expertise is international relations, particularly concerning international cooperation on climate change, as well as sustainability indicators, especially in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Among other honors, she is a Board member of Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies Japan, a Board member of Society of Environmental Science Japan, and a Member of the Science Council of Japan.
Ishana Ratan is a PhD candidate in the Political Science Department at UC Berkeley, and a Project Director at the Berkeley APEC Study Center. Her research centers upon the international political economy of renewable energy, with a focus on solar deployment in the Global South. She is also a member of the Energy and Environment Policy Lab, and is a fellow at the Boston University Global Development Policy Center (2022-2023). Prior to pursuing graduate studies, she worked as an international trade paralegal, which inspired her interest in trade, technology, and strategic competition in the global marketplace.
Henry Gao is Professor of law at Singapore Management University and Dongfang Scholar Chair Professor at Shanghai Institute of Foreign Trade. With law degrees from three continents, he started his career as the first Chinese lawyer at the WTO Secretariat. Before moving to Singapore in late 2007, he taught law at University of Hong Kong, where he was also the Deputy Director of the East Asian International Economic Law and Policy Program. He has taught at the IELPO program in Barcelona and the Academy of International Trade Law in Macau, and was the Academic Coordinator to the first Asia-Pacific Regional Trade Policy Course officially sponsored by the WTO. Widely published on issues relating to China and WTO, Professor Gao’s research has been featured in CNN, BBC, The Economist, Wall Street Journal and Financial Times. He has advised many national governments as well as the WTO, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, APEC and ASEAN on trade issues. He sits on the Advisory Board of the WTO Chairs Program, which was established by the WTO Secretariat in 2009 to promote research and teaching on WTO issues in leading universities around the world. He is also a member of editorial board of Journal of Financial Regulation, which was launched by Oxford University Press in 2014. He’s currently working on issues relating to digital trade, WTO reform, and the Belt and Road Initiative.
Patrick Leblond is CN – Paul M. Tellier Chair on Business and Public Policy and Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa. He is also Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), Research Associate at CIRANO and Affiliated Professor of International Business at HEC Montréal. Dr. Leblond is an expert on economic governance and policy with a particular focus on Canada, North America, Europe and, increasingly, China. He has published extensively on financial and monetary integration, banking regulation, international trade and business-government relations. Before embarking on his academic career, he worked in accounting and auditing for Ernst & Young as well as in corporate finance and strategy consulting for Arthur Andersen & Co. and SECOR Consulting.
Kenji E. Kushida is a senior fellow for Japan studies in Carnegie’s Asia Program, directing research on Japan, including a new Japan-Silicon Valley Innovation Initiative at Carnegie. He was formerly a research scholar with the Japan Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University.
Kushida’s research and projects are focused in five streams: (1) Japan's transforming political economy; (2) how politics and regulations shape the development and diffusion of information technology such as artificial intelligence; (3) institutional underpinnings of the Silicon Valley ecosystem, (4) Japan's startup ecosystem, and (5) the role of foreign multinational firms in Japan. He has published several books and numerous articles in each of these streams and is the author of books and monographs in Japanese and English.
Kushida holds a PhD in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. He received his MA in East Asian studies and his BA in economics and East Asian studies with honors, all from Stanford University.
Stephanie is a trade policy consultant, associate director of the New Zealand International Business Forum and a policy adviser to the New Zealand members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Business Advisory Council. She is also co-founder of a business offering executive education in trade policy.
Stephanie’s interests include regional economic integration, especially in the Asia-Pacific region, the World Trade Organization (WTO), agriculture and food trade, services trade, the digital economy, small and medium-sized enterprises, and women in trade. Prior to becoming a consultant, Stephanie worked for many years as a New Zealand trade negotiator for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, including serving as the New Zealand agriculture negotiator in the WTO Doha Round during the New Zealand Mission to the European Union in Brussels and a variety of other roles.
Elina Noor is Director, Political-Security Affairs and Deputy Director, Washington, D.C. Office at the Asia Society Policy Institute. A native of Malaysia, Elina’s work focuses on security developments in Southeast Asia, global governance and technology, and preventing/countering violent extremism.
Previously, Elina was Associate Professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies. Prior to that, she was Director, Foreign Policy and Security Studies at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies Malaysia. She was also formerly with the Brookings Institution’s Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World. Between 2017 and 2019, Elina was a member of the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace. She currently serves on the ICRC’s Global Advisory Board on digital threats during conflict.
Elina read law at Oxford University. She obtained an LL.M (Public International Law) from The London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London, graduating with distinction at the top of her class. A recipient of the Perdana (Malaysian Prime Minister’s) Fellowship, she also holds an MA in Security Studies from Georgetown University where she was a Women in International Security Scholar.
Wooyeal Paik is an associate professor at the Department of Political Science and International Studies; deputy director, at Yonsei Institute of North Korean Studies; and Director, the Center for International Relations, Aerospace Strategy & Technology Institute at Yonsei University, Seoul. He is also a visiting fellow at Institut de recherche stratégique de l’École militaire (IRSEM), Paris and adjunct professor at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels.
Yingqiu Kuang is a PhD Candidate in political science at the University of B.C. She is also a Mitacs Research Fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. Her research interests include international political economy in multinational corporations and technology standardization, with a focus on China.
Professor Cohen, a specialist in international political economy, joined the department in 1991. He previously taught at Princeton University from 1964-1971 and at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University from 1971-1991. He retired from UCSB in 2021.
His publications have addressed issues of international monetary relations, U.S. foreign economic policy, currency integration, sovereign debt, theories of economic imperialism, and the history of the discipline of international political economy. He is the author of eighteen books. His newest book, Rethinking International Political Economy, was published by Edward Elgar Publishing in 2022.
Eric Helleiner is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Waterloo. He received his B.A. in Economics and Political Science from the University of Toronto, and his M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the Department of International Relations of the London School of Economics.
His single authored books include The Neomercantilists: A Global Intellectual History (Cornell, 2021), States and the Reemergence of Global Finance (Cornell, 1994), The Making of National Money: Territorial Currencies in Historical Perspective (Cornell, 2003), Towards North American Monetary Union? The Politics and History of Canada’s Exchange Rate Regime (McGill-Queen’s, 2006), The Forgotten Foundations of Bretton Woods: International Development and the Making of the Postwar Order (Cornell, 2014), and The Status Quo Crisis: Global Financial Governance After the 2008 Meltdown (Oxford, 2014).
Kristen Hopewell is Canada Research Chair in Global Policy in the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia. Her research specializes in international trade, global governance, industrial policy, environment and development, with a focus on emerging powers. She is a Wilson China Fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC.
Dr. Hopewell is the author of Clash of Powers: US-China Rivalry in Global Trade Governance (Cambridge University Press, 2020) and Breaking the WTO: How Emerging Powers Disrupted the Neoliberal Project (Stanford University Press, 2016).
Her academic research has appeared in journals such as Review of International Political Economy, Regulation & Governance, International Affairs, Global Environmental Politics and New Political Economy.Her policy writings have appeared in Foreign Affairs, The Washington Post, South China Morning Post, The Globe and Mail and Global Policy, and her analysis has featured in venues such as the BBC, CNN, CGTN, Bloomberg, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, The Chicago Tribune, East Asia Forum, The Indian Express, Latin America Advisor and Foreign Policy.
Editorial Team
- Jasmine Ashley-Dy (copy-editing), Research Assistant, UBC
- Mei Terasawa (web-design), Research Assistant, UBC