If the United States helped lay the postwar foundations for modern Asia, now the anchor of the global economy, Richard McGregor will speak how that structure is now crumbling, something he has chronicled in his new book, Asia's Reckoning.

For more than half a century, American power in the Pacific has successfully kept the peace. But it has also cemented the tensions in the toxic rivalry between China and Japan, consumed with endless history wars and entrenched political dynasties. Today, the combination of these forces, together with Donald Trump's unpredictable impulses and disdain for America's old alliances, threatens to upend the region and accelerate the unravelling of the postwar order. 

Richard McGregor (@mcgregorrichard) is an award-winning journalist and author with unrivalled experience in reporting on the top-level politics and economies of east Asia, primarily China and Japan, and also in Washington on national security issues. He was the Financial Times bureau chief in Beijing and Shanghai between 2000 and 2009, and headed the Washington office for four years from 2011. He was a fellow at the Wilson Center in 2015 and a visiting scholar at the Sigur Center at George Washington University in 2016. McGregor has lectured widely, in the US and elsewhere, on Chinese politics and Asia.

Erik Berglof (@ErikBerglof ) is the inaugural Director of the Institute of Global Affairs (IGA) at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

The Institute of Global Affairs (@LSEIGA ), its Global Policy Lab and eight constituent centres bring together LSE faculty and students from across departments to design research-based and locally rooted solutions to global challenges.

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