In Brief: David Hutt and Dr Lucas Knotter, our new associate editors
IN BRIEF WITH DAVID HUTT AND DR LUCAS KNOTTER
28 March 2022
Looking forward to the third year of our operations, 9DL recently welcomed David Hutt and Dr Lucas Knotter to our team as our new associate editors.
Our Editor-in-Chief, Dr Manali Kumar, recently sat down with them to learn more about their work and plans to help take the platform forward.
MK: Lucas, your research focuses on state creation and de facto sovereignty in international relations. Could you tell us a little bit about your work on this topic and what sparked your interest in it?
LK: I became interested in this topic while I studied for an MA in geopolitics in London — randomly, I walked past the office of the ‘Somaliland Mission to the UK’, and decided that it would be a good place to write my thesis about. I was subsequently able to expand on this topic for my PhD research.
What continues to intrigue me about this topic, is that the question of how new states come to be is one of the most basic and important questions in international political scholarship. Yet, at the same time, these political communities seeking independence are often rather ignored or overlooked. So in my research, I try to find out why and how these instances of state creation form the ‘exception that proves the rule’ in IR.
In a sense, this is perhaps a bit of a pessimistic outlook for global politics in general — if the human urge for independence is the ‘rule’ that is unlikely to ever disappear, then neither will the risk of exceptionally violent struggle often associated with such independence-seeking. Here, obviously, there is a big role for international cooperative efforts to diminish this risk.
MK: David, you are a journalist covering Southeast Asia. Could you tell us about how you came to develop an interest in this region and your journey so far?
DH: After working in the NGO sector in Britain and Latin America, and after studying applied history at university, I began as a journalist while living in Nicaragua. From there, I found a job as a reporter at the Southeast Asia Globe, a current affairs magazine based in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh. I had focussed on proxy wars in the “third world” while studying history, and Latin America and Southeast Asia were the two main regions of interest. Although based in Phnom Penh, my position allowed me to report from almost every country in Southeast Asia.
I left the magazine after two years to start freelancing; I became a roaming correspondent for Asia Times and the Southeast Asia columnist for The Diplomat, two positions I still hold today. This also allowed me to write for numerous other publications. In 2019, I was politely ‘informed’ that it would be best for me to leave Cambodia as the government wasn’t fond of my reporting, so I moved back to Europe. I am now based in the Czech Republic, where I mainly cover Europe-Asia relations, chiefly China’s influence on the continent but also Europe’s relations with Southeast Asia.
MK: What are going to be some important trends or issues to watch for in the Indo-Pacific in the coming years?
DH: The obvious threat is a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan. If Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, ever does launch such an attack, it would not only be a defining event in Indo-Pacific relations but also for global politics. Less sensational, and focusing on Southeast Asia, two other long-term events are key.
First, how the region’s economies recover following the COVID-19 pandemic. The outstanding pre-pandemic economic growth witnessed by the ASEAN countries — and the growing importance of Taiwanese semiconductors or Japanese global investment — was an obvious reason why so much global attention was paid to the region. Key will be whether Western and Chinese investment pours into the region again and whether the economic importance of ASEAN begins to replicate pre-pandemic geopolitical overlaps in the region.
Second, how the Russian invasion of Ukraine alters the West’s and China’s interactions with other parts of the world, such as ASEAN. What happens in Eastern Europe will have very real implications for the smaller countries of ASEAN, even if many of them don’t seem to understand that yet.
LK: It may be unsurprising, given my research background, that I think that the primary Indo-Pacific issues to look out for have to do with new states emerging on the scene. The most obvious flashpoint in this regard would be Taiwan, although as far as I can see, it is precisely the unresolved nature of its formal international status that has staved off severe conflict.
Taiwan has succeeded to thrive despite — but also because — its independence remains technically unconfirmed. Still, insofar as China-US relations form the primary question mark hanging over the future of the Indo-Pacific, I believe that Taiwan will have a very big role to play in answering those questions.
But aside from Taiwan, I believe that there are several other cases of potential statehood that warrant Indo-Pacific attention. What happens in Bougainville, New Caledonia, or West Papua, will have quite a bearing on dynamics in the region, and I think that there should be more international attention focused on these cases. Here, I am also thinking of ongoing state-building and conflict-resolution projects in Timor-Leste and Sri Lanka respectively.
MK: You both joined 9DL near the start of the third year of operations as the organisation is growing. What drew you to the platform and is there anything particular you are looking forward to?
LK: I first noticed 9DL when I was asked to contribute a few pieces about New Zealand’s (foreign) politics. I not only enjoyed working with the editorial team, but I also noticed some excellent quality pieces on other interesting topics. I had long recognised that Indo-Pacific geopolitics has a large significance for the wider world, and I liked that 9DL offered a platform where I could find reliable and in-depth information about the region.
I now really look forward to adding to this knowledge, and I am very keen to continue publishing accessible-yet-thorough articles. I think 9DL’s main strength is that it brings genuine local and regional experts into the view of wider audiences, and I am excited to work with the team to build on this strength.
DH: 9DL is certainly an interesting publication, not just for the range of topics it focuses on but also for its output style. Rather than quantity, it focuses on quality. It brings a wider variety of viewpoints to the table, with contributors from all over the world. And it is a growing publication. I look forward to helping develop more content where analysts based in the region explain why a national government thinks a certain way about an international issue, rather than a more customary analysis of what a government should think about that issue.
Oftentimes in foreign policy debates, there is a temptation to overlook how domestic politics interferes in the way a government approaches a foreign policy issue. This is ever more important as the world’s superpowers are increasingly at odds with one another.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
David Hutt and Dr Lucas Knotter are associate editors at 9DASHLINE.