PUBLIC LECTURE
Speaker: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Alfred Gerstl, Board Member and Senior Advisor, Austrian Institute for European and Security Policy (AIES)
Moderator: Distinguished Professor Dato' Dr. Rajah Rasiah, Executive Director, Asia-Europe Institute (AEI), Universiti Malaya
Date: 14 May 2026 (Thursday)
Time: 10:00 am
Venue: Auditorium, Asia-Europe Institute, Universiti Malaya
Registration: Click here for online registration form
The global order is increasingly characterized by great power competition, and the erosion of international law and multilateral cooperation. Secondary actors, such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the European Union (EU), (which lack significant coercive power projection capabilities), are particularly exposed to uncertainty. This presentation examines how the EU navigates the Sino-US rivalry by de-risking from both powers without decoupling, reducing security dependence on the United States and economic dependence on China. In this context, the Indo-Pacific offers opportunities to broaden partnerships. The EU is generally a welcome partner in this region, because many governments, including in Southeast Asia, pursue hedging strategies to reduce their dependence on China and the US. The EU and ASEAN, as the two most deeply integrated regional organizations, face similar geopolitical challenges. This presentation explores how they can learn from each others strategies to deepen their collaboration to so as to strengthen the regional rules-based order.
| 9:30 AM | Arrival of guests & registration |
| 10:00 AM | Welcoming Remarks by Dr. Kevin Fenandez, Deputy Executive Director (Development, Research, Innovation, and Internationalization,) Asia-Europe Institute (AEI), Universiti Malaya |
| 10:10 AM |
Opening remarks by His Excellency Gerhard Eisl, Ambassador of Austria to Malaysia |
| 10:20 AM |
Public Lecture by Associate Professor Dr. Alfred Gerstl, Board Member and Senior Advisor, Austrian Institute for European and Security Policy (AIES) Moderator: Distinguished Professor Dato' Dr. Rajah Rasiah, Executive Director, Asia-Europe Institute (AEI), Universiti Malaya. |
| 11:20 AM | Q & A Session |
| 11:50 AM | Photography session |
| 12:10 PM | Lunch |
Alfred Gerstl is an international relations specialist, with a geographic focus on the Indo-Pacific and in particular Southeast Asia. He is an Associate Professor at the Department of Asian Studies at Palacký University Olomouc (Czech Republic). There he led the EU-funded project “The EU in the volatile Indo-Pacific” (EUVIP; 2023–2025). Moreover, Alfred is President of the Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS), a transnational think tank with offices in Bratislava (Slovakia) and Prague (Czech Republic). At CEIAS, he leads the EU-funded project “European-Southeast Asian relations: current relations and future prospects” (EUSEAR; 2024–2026). Furthermore, Alfred is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Vienna (Department of East Asian Studies) and a sessional lecturer at the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna. In the past, he was a Visiting Professor in Japan (2025) and an Associate Professor in Russia (2018/19).
Distinguished Professor Dato’ Dr. Rajah Rasiah obtained his doctorate in economics from Cambridge University in 1992 and served as a fellow at Harvard University in 2014. He was also the Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Business at UNIMAS (1999-2000), and at Faculty of Economics and Administration in the University of Malaya in 2009–2010 and 2013–2014. He also holds professorial fellow positions at the Centre for Rising Powers in Cambridge University, UNU-MERIT, and Technology Management and Development Centre in Oxford University. Among his prestigious awards include the Cambridge Journal of Economics Award by the Cambridge Political Economy Trust in 1992, the Robert McNamara Award by the World Bank in 1993, the Celso Furtado Prize for advancing the frontiers of Social Science thought (Economics) from the World Academy of Sciences in 2014, and the Merdeka Prize under the category of scholastic achievement in 2018 from the Merdeka Prize Committee. He was awarded the Distinguished Professor of Economics Position by the Ministry of Higher Education of Malaysia in 2017.
Last Update: 08/05/2026