Public Policy (January 2023)
PUBLIC POLICY SEMINAR CURRICULUM
Southeast Asia’s economic integration amid global turbulence
January 9 – 13, 2023
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Key timeline
- Info-session webinar: November 4, 2022, 20:00 – 21:00 Hanoi time (tentative)
- Application deadline: November 14, 2022.
- Announcement of results: December 12, 2022
- Pre-seminar online sessions:January 4 – 5, 2023 Seminar dates: January 9 – 13, 2023 (Monday– Friday, in person)
In-person seminar from January 9 – 13, 2023: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
About 35 YSEALI fellows who are young professionals between the ages of 25-40, highly qualified and motivated, from all 10 ASEAN member states and Timor-Leste.
Participants are required to commit at least 4 online hours for pre-seminar tasks (group assignments) from January 4 – 5, 2022, and at least 42 hours to in-person seminar activities in Vietnam from January 9 –13, 2022.
Therefore, participants are highly recommended to arrange their work to be fully committed during the period to participate productively in and achieve the most from the seminar.
Objectives
Upon graduation, fellows are expected to have a comprehensive picture of the Southeast Asian landscape of economic integration, including emerging trends, opportunities, challenges, and solutions. Fellows would also understand and apply basic economic frameworks and policy tools to analyzing cross-border economic issues.
The seminar provides an overview of Southeast Asia’s economic integration, its trends, opportunities, and challenges in the context of current global turbulence, with a focus and perspective on policymaking. It will concentrate on selected issues facing Southeast Asia economic linkages and initiatives, including ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), Free Trade Agreements (FTA), Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CP-TPP), Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) as well as the dynamics of FDI and other capital flows. It will also discuss the impacts on the Southeast Asian economy of global challenges such as COVID and other pandemics, supply chain disruption, rising inflation and tightening policies in large economies, energy tension, China’s economic slowdown, US and other central banks’ tightening policy, US-China confrontation, and the war in Ukraine.
Topic 1 – Overview of Southeast Asian economic integration and basic economic frameworks (Dapice)
As the background for the whole seminar, this section first introduces frameworks as well as policy tools to understand and examine basic relevant issues. It then provides an overview of Southeast Asian economic integration.
e.g., the economic growth of Southeast Asia, the establishment, evolution, and outcomes of the ASEAN FTAs, BRI, RCEP, CP-TPP, and IPEF.
Topic 2 – Global impacts on Southeast Asia’s extra-economic integration (Thayer, Cunningham)
After the fundamentals in the previous section, this part will investigate the external economic integration of Southeast Asia. First, it addresses the bilateral connections between Southeast Asian economies and the world’s leading economic powers: the US, China, EU, Japan. It also analyzes the impacts of multilateral linkage such as FTAs between ASEAN and other partners, RCEP, BRI, CP-TPP, IPEF. Second, it probes into the influence on Southeast Asian economic integration of global issues such as COVID, supply chain disruption, the Ukraine war, inflation, energy tension, and climate change. Finally, it will study the geopolitical impacts on the region, including the US-China confrontation, the Taiwan crisis, and maritime disputes.
Topic 3 – ASEAN’s intra-economic integration: opportunities and challenges (VMK, Dapice)
This section dives deep into an important but under-discussed theme: the economic connections among ASEAN members. It will address critical issues of intra-integration, including the trends, opportunities, and challenges.
e.g., FDI and trade among Southeast Asian nations, the impacts of AEC, and how to intensify and leverage internal linkages as a buffer against external turbulence.
Topic 4 – The role of national policy-making and political economy (LTH, VTTA)
Economic integration is substantially affected by both internal and external contexts. The national factors (such as political economy, domestic reforms, and policymaking) are often under-studied in literature. As the seminar places priority on public policy perspectives, this section examines the impacts of national factors on economic integration.
The seminar is conducted in diverse formats to maximize the engagement of participants, including lectures, field trips, panel discussions, team projects (discussed below), and class discussions.
Team project: fellows from at least three nations will work in a team and work on a project related to the seminar theme. They are assigned in groups and start working on the project the week before the seminar. At the end of the seminar, they will deliver a presentation on various issues relevant to the seminar theme e.g., economic growth, digital economy, FDI, infrastructure, supply chain, policymaking, impacts of global challenges...of one or several Southeast Asian nations or major cities or major industries. Comparative and cross-nation analysis and views are appreciated in these team projects which are expected to add practical, diverse, bottom-up, and updated examples and perspectives of Southeast Asia to the seminar.
There are about 30 sessions in total over two weeks (Monday – Friday), 6 sessions/day, witheach session lasts for 90 minutes. There will be 10 lectures, 2 panel discussions, 2 field trips, 3 workshops for leadership and soft skills, 10 sessions for teamwork and team presentations, 1 welcoming session, 1 seminar review session and 1 closing session.
Week1: Online and pre-seminar sessions
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Wednesday, Jan 4 2023 |
Thursday, Jan 5 2023 |
Saturday, Jan 7 2023 |
Sunday, Jan 8 2023 |
Evening 7 pm–9 pm |
Introduction (online) |
Teamwork (online) |
All day: Arrival in Ho Chi Minh City |
Morning (9AM-12PM): orientation and teambuilding Afternoon: city tour |
10:00 – 10:15, 15:00 – 15:15, 16:45 – 17:00: Break
Time |
Day 1 |
Day 2 |
Day 3 |
Day 4 |
Day 5 |
Day 6 |
8:30-10:00 |
9:00 – 10:00: Opening ceremony |
Lecture 3: Overview of SEA economies and integration |
Lecture 7: US-China Decoupling? Not Yet: Analysis and Implications |
Lecture 9: Intra-regional integration (trade, investment) |
Team presentation 1 |
Departure |
10:15-11:45 |
10:00 -11:15: Networking and cultural session 11:15 – 12:00: travel back to hotel |
Lecture 4: The Geopolitics of SEA |
Lecture 8: Global Energy Outlook and Risks: Implications for SE Asia |
Lecture 10: The role of policymaking in economic integration |
Team presentation 2 |
|
12:00-13:30 |
Lunch break |
Lunch break |
Lunch break |
Lunch break |
Lunch break |
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13:30-15:00
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Lecture 1 (Dapice) Fundamentals of economic integration |
Lecture 5 (Thayer) Global impacts on SEA
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Field trip (VSIP – Binh Duong province)
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Panel discussion 1: SEA economic integration – FDI and manufacturing sectors |
Seminar review and evaluation |
Departure |
15:15-16:45 |
Lecture 2 (VMK) Drivers of economic growth and strategic priorities for building sustainable prosperity in ASEAN |
Lecture 6 (VTTA, online) The political economy of economic integration: the case of Vietnam |
Field trip (continued)
|
Panel discussion 2 SEA economic integration – Services and start-ups |
16:00 – 17:00: Closing ceremony |
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17:00-18:30 |
Leadership 1 (Suzanne) |
Leadership 2 (Mauri) |
Field trip (continued) |
Teamwork |
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Departure |
18:30-19:30 |
Dinner |
Dinner |
Dinner |
Dinner |
18:00 Gala dinner and cultural events |
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19:30-21:00 |
Teamwork
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Teamwork
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Teamwork |
Teamwork |
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Panel 1 – Economic Integration: FDI and Manufacturing Sector
Panel 2 – Economic Integration: Start-ups and Services Sectors