December 14, 2020

Indonesia was one of our destinations for Study Trips in 2020, however, due to the pandemic it had to be postponed and we could not visit the southeast Asian country. Thanks to our newly established format “We zoom there”, we were at least able to travel to Indonesia virtually. It was a pleasure for us to welcome the German Ambassador to Indonesia, Dr. Peter Schoof, and Monica Tanuhandaru, Executive Director at the Environmental Bamboo Foundation and expert on the field of Indonesian development politics, to our video conference on Indonesia. The event was moderated by our member of the advisory board, Dr. Peter Strüven.

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November 11, 2020

In the aftermath of the US elections of 2020, Global Bridges hosted a video conference on the consequences of the elections for America and the world. Close attention was paid to the foreign relations between the US and the EU as well as the US and China, which had both deteriorated significantly during Donald Trump’s four-year presidency. Domestic affairs were also discussed, in particular the direction the Republican Party is going and how the country will change in the next four years.

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September 17, 2020

Central to the First Chinese-German Video Symposium between Global Bridges and the China Institute for International Strategic Studies (CIISS) were the security challenges in the Indo-Pacific region, exemplified by such issues as the South China Sea territorial dispute, arms control, and great power rivalry. As was mentioned in the “Policy Guidelines on the Indo-Pacific Region” by the German Foreign Office, the key to shaping international order is the Indo-Pacific, and so the conference was regarded by all sides to be one of great importance for present and future.

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August 25, 2020

In preparation for our video conference “Russia – quo Vadis?” on August 25, 2020 we had followed the news about Russia with excitement in the last weeks. In the light of the current events, our guest speaker, retired Ambassador Rüdiger von Fritsch, German Ambassador to Russia from 2014 to 2019, had numerous questions to discuss. Dr. Angela E. Stent, Professor at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. and Director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian and Eastern European Studies, moderated and completed the discussion. Both have recently written a book on Russia. Von Fritsch’s “Russlands Weg. Als Botschafter in Moskau” will be published in autumn 2020. Dr. Stents “Putin’s World” was published in early 2019.

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June 22, 2020

The focus of our video conference on June 22 was China and the West. It was an exciting discussion between two experts in this field: Wolfgang Niedermark, representative of the German industry and Chairman of the German Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, and Dr. Hubert Lienhard, former Chairman of the Asia-Pacific Committee of German Industry and CEO of Voith GmbH & Co. KGaA. Quickly, it became clear that Europe will play a major role in this discussion. According to the panelists, Europe has to find its own independent role in the decoupling process between the two world powers USA and China, and Germany would have to play a central role in this process. In these difficult times, Germany had the responsibility to strengthen rather than weaken transatlantic relations. The informative and lively discussion ended with a committed plea for a strong Europe. Dr. Beate Lindemann introduced and moderated the discussion.

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