Conference Location
Kay Spiritual Life Center, American University
4400 Massachusetts Ave NW
Washington, DC 20016
See the map here.
Conference Contact
Joseph Gerson
(617) 661-6130
jgerson@afsc.org
Register today! Conference registration is open and can be accessed online.
Please visit the conference registration website.
Conference Organizers
Conference initiated by American Friends Service Committee and Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament. Participating organizations include: Nodutdol for Korean Community Development, American University’s Nuclear Studies Institute, Historians against the war, Korea Policy Institute, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, Peace Acton, United for Peace and Justice, Survival Education fund, Veterans for Peace – Korea Peace Campaign.
About the Conference
Our movements to prevent war and to address the impacts of the militarization of the federal budget are not prepared to the long term designs of the Pentagon, right-wing and the Military-Industrial-Complex to reinforce and deepen U.S. militarism across the Asia-Pacific.
As former U.S. Ambassador to China R. Stapleton Roy put it, “we poked China in the eye” by sending the nuclear powered and nuclear capable aircraft carrier the U.S.S. George Washington into the East China Sea “because we could.”
The U.S. still has more than 100 military bases and installations across Japan. In Korea, activists have engaged in hunger strikes and been jailed for opposing the decimation of their communities with new U.S. military bases. The U.S. now has tacit military alliances with Vietnam and India and is exploring the return of military bases to the Philippines. The National Military Strategy issued in 2010 also calls for expanded military cooperation with Thailand, Malaysia, Pakistan, Indonesia and Singapore.
While the US economy stagnates under the tremendous burden of its military expenditures, China has poured resources into becoming the world’s workshop and building 21st century infrastructures and technologies. As the world’s financial centers tilt towards Beijing, new military spending in the region has increased the complexities of its territorial disputes with Japan and ASEAN nations with competing claims to South China Sea islands. A growing number of militarized “incidents” and violent conflict have also occurred on the Korean Peninsula.
Conference Goals
– Build our movements’ capacities to understand and respond to these developments
– Identify and promote campaigns that challenge Asia-Pacific militarism and that advocate meaningful alternatives
– Facilitate solidarity between U.S. and Asia-Pacific peace movements, advocates and campaigns
Keynote Speakers
Madame Yan Junqi, Vice President of the Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament and the Vice Chairperson of the Standing Committee of the Chinese National People’s Congress
Professor Bruce Cumings, Gustavus F. and Ann M. Swift Distinguished Service Professor in History Chairperson of the Department, University of Chicago* Panels on Northeast and Southeast Security Issues, Peace Movement Campaigns and Workshops (see below).
Workshops to include
Asia-Pacific Peace Movements
Southeast Asia
Central/South Asia
Economic Realities & Dynamics of the Asia-Pacific
Global Costs of Militarism
History 101: U.S. in Asia-Pacific
Human Rights
Korea
Nuclear Weapons Abolition
U.S.-China relations
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