Navigating the “Foreign” in 21st Century Foreign Policy

The Role of Area Studies in Understanding the Future of US-China Relations

Abstract

An Address on the 20th Anniversary of the Foundation of the Department of Area Studies at the University of Oxford. My mission tonight is a simple one: First, how best to define the role of “area studies” and its growing importance in understanding the internal complexity of individual nation states in 21st century international diplomacy. Second, what role must this discipline play in the unfolding contours of US-China relations, the single-most important geo-political and geo-economic relationship in the world, in what I have long-called the present “decade of living dangerously.”