The Asia-Pacific Security Innovation Summit 2020

Dr Anita Abbott, chief of APSI Forum Committee, introduces the second Asia Pacific Security Innovation Summit scheduled for April 2020, an event that aims to promote a region more resilient to external and internal shocks.

Economic globalisation, having dramatically accelerated in the three decades since the end of the Cold War, brought with it an impression that most major threats to national and international security would gradually disappear due to an international environment characterised by quantum leaps in international cooperation.

Yet, as the economic influence of some emergent countries grows, so do their political ambitions with regard to the international arena. Other, more established countries with geographically overlapping yet competing interests are in turn likely to view such developments with deep apprehension.

This uncertainty manifests itself perhaps most poignantly through the rapidly shifting security dynamics of the region, raising a set of problems both for individual states and for the international community as a whole.

It lays bare some fundamental aspects of the foreign, defence and economic policies of littoral states with regard to the region. While one might assume that such policies between states might complement each other in some ways, many observers point to the dynamic that over the past decade or so international relations in the Asia-Pacific have turned increasingly conflictive.

It is indeed difficult to ignore the increasing frequency of incidents involving the military and maritime economic assets of several states with substantial interests in the region.

It is this state of affairs that forms the background to and impetus for the New Zealand-based Asia-Pacific Security Innovation Forum (APSI) and its series of annual, eponymous summits. The summits will provide a platform for international experts to discuss issues of critical importance to regional security.

Driven by the aspiration to provide a forum for discussion on the abovementioned issues, as well as a platform for the development of innovative problem-solving approaches, the APSI summits strive to make a tangible contribution to the development of a system of international relationships in the Asia-Pacific region that is more resilient to both external and internal shocks, and thus more safe and secure.

The first APSI summit took place in Rotorua between 17 and 18 April 2019, and saw the participation of a host of highly qualified speakers on a wide range of issues affecting the security environment in the Asia Pacific region and beyond. With the forthcoming second Summit to be held in Queenstown between 15 and 17 April 2020, APSI intends to build upon the success of the previous edition.

The missions of APSI are to facilitate security cooperation for peace, not war; and to facilitate cooperation on issues of common interest, including the human and social aspects of security; and to enhance awareness of security developments, including through early warning, with a view to preventing crises.

Among next year’s group of summit speakers and participants are prominent subject experts, such as:

• Lt Gen Olivier Rittimann, the current Vice Chief of Staff at NATO’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Mons, Belgium.

• Lt Gen Vinod Bhatia, PVSM, AVSM, SM (ret.), the current Director of the Centre for Joint Warfare Studies in New Delhi, India.

• Maj Gen Gert-Johannes Hagemann, the current Deputy Commander of the NATO Rapid Deployable Corps headquartered in Lille, France.

In the area of human and social aspects of security, speakers will include Hon Alfred Ngaro MP, HE Dr Jesus S. Domingo, Ambassador of the Philippines to New Zealand; Professor Dwi Andreas Santosa of IPB University; Don Lord from Hagar New Zealand; and HE Dr Itzhak Gerberg, Ambassador of Israel to New Zealand.