From the trade war between the US and China, to the diplomatic spat between Japan and South Korea over wartime labour, to tensions between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, this past year has been one marked by conflict.
With many of those disputes set to drag into 2020 and beyond, hear from Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Heng Swee Keat, along with our correspondents, as they discuss how to navigate the choppy diplomatic waters ahead.
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Mr Heng Swee Keat
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance
SPECIAL ADDRESS
Mr Luhut Pandjaitan
Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment, Republic of Indonesia
ASIAN INSIDER LIVE
US Bureau Chief Nirmal Ghosh hosts a live version of the Asian Insider video series on the US-China relationship and its impact on the world.
- Professor Danny Quah, Dean and Li Ka Shing Professor in Economics, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, NUS
- Ms Selena Ling, Head of Treasury Research & Strategy, Global Treasury, OCBC Bank
- Mr Vikram Khanna, Associate Editor, The Straits Times
Speaker Profiles
Mr Nirmal Ghosh
US Bureau Chief, The Straits Times
Nirmal Ghosh is The Straits Times’ US Bureau Chief, based in Washington DC. Since 1994 he has been a foreign correspondent for the paper in Manila, New Delhi and Bangkok, covering politics, elections, conflict and coups d’etat, natural disasters, and social and environmental issues across a dozen Asian countries. His journalism has won PANPA, SOPA and WAN-IFRA awards. He was a Jefferson Fellow of the East West Center in the summer of 2015, and a Presidential Election Reporting Fellow in the fall of 2016.
He is also an author, photographer and film-maker and is deeply involved in wildlife conservation. His fourth and most recent book, Unquiet Kingdom : Thailand in Transition was published in April 2017. 
Professor Danny Quah
Dean and Li Ka Shing Professor in Economics, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore
Danny Quah is Dean and Li Ka Shing Professor in Economics at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, NUS. His current research takes an economic approach to world order, studying the supply and demand of world order: on the one hand, what international system the world’s superpowers provide, and on the other, what world order the global community needs. Quah uses this to recast analysis of global power shifts, the rise of the east, regional order, and models of global power relations.
Quah is a member of the Spence-Stiglitz Commission on Global Economic Transformation. He is the author of “The Global Economy’s Shifting Centre of Gravity”. Quah gave the third LSE-NUS lecture in 2013, and TEDx talks in 2016, 2014, and 2012. Quah was previously Assistant Professor of Economics at MIT, and then Professor of Economics and International Development, and Director of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre at LSE. He had also served as LSE’s Head of Department for Economics, and Council Member on Malaysia’s National Economic Advisory Council. Quah studied at Princeton, Minnesota, and Harvard.
Ms Selena Ling
Head, Treasury Research & Strategy, Global Treasury, OCBC Bank
Selena is the Chief Economist for OCBC Bank. As Head of Treasury Research & Strategy, she leads a research team that is responsible for Treasury market research, forecasts and trading recommendations for the bank, covering fixed income, interest rates, corporate credit, foreign exchange and macroeconomic commentary.
She is a member of the OCBC Wealth Panel for Singapore and Malaysia, as well as a council member for the Economic Society of Singapore. She was conferred the IBF Fellow Award in Financial Markets in 2017. The IBF Fellow award recognises industry veterans who have demonstrated mastery of a profession and exemplify thought leadership and commitment to industry development. Her research writings has been extensively quoted and published by prominent media across print, television and radio.
Under her leadership, OCBC’s research capabilities have been greatly valued by customers and highly ranked in surveys for interest rate research, FX research, market coverage and Asian macroeconomic research in various forums including the AsiaMoney Fixed Income and FX polls, Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters polls, amongst others.
Prior to joining OCBC in August 2000, Selena was with the Fiscal Policy Unit under the Ministry of Finance (MOF) and the Economics Department in the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI). She received her Bachelors of Science (Economics) from the London School of Economics and also her Masters in Applied Economics from the National University of Singapore.
Mr Vikram Khanna
Associate Editor, The Straits Times
Vikram Khanna is Associate Editor of The Straits Times as well as a columnist on Economic Affairs. He was previously Associate Editor of The Business Times. Prior to joining SPH in 1993, he was an economist at the IMF in Washington, DC. He has B.A., M.A. and M.Phil. degrees in Economics from the University of Cambridge, UK. He is Vice President of the Economic Society of Singapore.
