📅 Date: 14 May 2026
🕛 Time: 12:00–1:30 PM (Vietnam time)
💻 Format: Online via Zoom

🔗 Registration: https://bit.ly/4u3bIM1

👤 Speaker: Tommy Chai, PhD Candidate, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University

How has geography shaped the political and strategic realities of mainland Southeast Asia across history? How do river systems, frontier zones, trade corridors, and older forms of political authority continue to influence regional order today?

In this seminar, Tommy Chai (PhD Candidate, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University) explores continental Southeast Asia not simply as a collection of nation-states, but as a historically interconnected strategic space centred around the Irrawaddy, Chao Phraya, Mekong, and Red River basins, extending into surrounding upland and frontier regions such as Yunnan.

The talk examines how geography and historically embedded modes of political legitimation create enduring constraints that shape both regional actors and external powers seeking influence in the region. Rather than viewing political outcomes through the lens of “successful” or “failed” state-building, the seminar asks how the strategic environment itself defines what becomes politically and operationally possible over time.