By Fiona Hinrichsen
Intensifying strategic competition across the Indo-Pacific region presents serious challenges for nation-states and their ability to cooperate and coexist within contested maritime spaces. While governments remain divided over sovereignty claims in the South China Sea, some scholars and practitioners argue that science diplomacy offers a pathway toward dialogue, trust-building and practical collaboration on shared challenges across the 21st century. Few voices have championed that approach more consistently than Professor Paul Arthur Berkman, an internationally recognized leader in science diplomacy whose work has helped bridge scientific cooperation and international policymaking from the Arctic to the global commons.
In this South China Sea NewsWire interview, Managing Editor Fiona Hinrichsen speaks with Professor Berkman about the power of science diplomacy in contested regions and the prospects for building cooperative frameworks in the South China Sea despite enduring sovereignty disputes.
“The essence of science diplomacy is one of balancing national interest and common interests; common interests exist in regions that are explicitly beyond sovereign jurisdiction,” says Berkman.
In 2010 at the University of Cambridge, Berkman convened the first formal dialogue between NATO and Russia on environmental security in the Arctic Ocean, an initiative driven by science diplomacy and a security issue of common interest. Science diplomacy continues to be used as a tool among allies and adversaries alike to address ongoing challenges, such as in the South China Sea.
Discussing the history of science diplomacy, Berkman notes that U.S.-Soviet cooperation on Antarctica was similarly driven by “matters of common interests”, which ultimately is the survival of all on Earth in this world with Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) capacities. He argues that the core challenge, whether facilitating dialogue between NATO and Russia, the U.S. and the Soviet Union, or the regional actors in the South China Sea, is identifying the “umbrella”— the necessities all nations share. However, finding that “umbrella” requires thinking expansively across time, when the questions are more important than the answers.
Berkman views China as a country strategically focused on the future. “China has long-term demonstrated interest with the Belt and Road initiative…and that means that China has a leadership role in the world already, because they’re looking across the 21st century in terms of built infrastructure on a planetary scale,” he observes. “All other nations on Earth are at a disadvantage to China because they are not thinking far enough into the future,” he warns.
He believes the scientific community can be a source of future continuity, but stresses that for this continuity to generate change, brave individuals must assume leadership positions despite the risks, introducing options (without advocacy). Berkman warns that the current education systems do not cultivate leadership that understands the need to operate across time. “To operate in the world today”, he says, “transactional thinking that is specific is required, but the challenges are not specific”. Global challenges require transnational, intergenerational thinking, focused on sustained governance to inspire next-generation leaders in view of our globally interconnected civilization. “We have the challenge to operate with climate forever,” Berkman emphasizes.
He illustrates the idea of bravery with a story from when he was 22. In 1981, he spent a year scuba diving in Antarctica, where he set a Guinness world record for the deepest dive through an ice hole. In the sea ice, holes were blown through meters of sea ice with dynamite. During the explosion, if a nearby observer panicked and ran away, there was a greater risk they would get hit by the plummeting ice. However, standing still, watching, and moving to the side only, if necessary, kept you safe. Right now, Berkman warns, people are “running away”, fearful of circumstances, and are “likely to get hit in the back of the head by a piece of ice”.
Nonetheless, Berkman remains hopeful. “We’re just in our infancy as a globally interconnected civilization to operate on a planetary scale,” he says, and “like infants, we’re making mistakes.” He adds that while governments may stoke fear, the “reality is we are making progress; it takes time to understand the progress.”
One act of bravery he identifies is the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Treaty (BBNJ). “BBNJ, today, in a world of fear, is a hopeful outcome,” Berkman states. It is a step towards finding common ground and complements the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and other similar conventions that operate on a planetary scale. However, he stresses that the value of BBNJ depends on how it is interpreted and enforced in view of our common interests, tasks that require the wisdom and skill of present and future generations inclusively.
He sees his role as helping to identify the skills needed to operate with common-interest building and inclusion on a planetary scale across generations. Science diplomacy is a “language of hope” with methods that have evolved over millennia to reveal patterns, trends, and processes for decision-making – independent of nations and cultures as a common framework for cooperation.
Berkman criticizes contemporary schools of international relations for focusing too much on conflict resolution rather than on fostering an understanding that common interests can be a bridge to future cooperation. In any negotiation, he notes, there is a choice to start from a position of conflict or from common interest. Starting from a position of common interest, he argues, sets in motion a journey of cooperation, as illustrated with the 1959 Antarctic Treaty that became the first nuclear arms agreement at the height of the Cold War. Based on “matters of common interest”, the United States and Soviet Union cooperated in Antarctica and outer space throughout the Cold War, despite animosities that isolated these superpowers everywhere else.
Berkman’s message is clear. Addressing the transnational challenges facing the South China Sea requires leaders who are willing to develop questions of common concern that can be addressed across generations to promote cooperation and prevent conflict, transcending differences and harnessing science to facilitate dialogues that are hopeful for humanity.
“The responsibility is to bring into play all of the cultures, all of the insights, all of the history, all of the wisdom, and all of the mistakes, so that we can build a resilient future together as a world,” says Berkman.
Fiona Hinrichsen is the Managing Editor at the South China Sea NewsWire and a summer intern with Worldway New Immigrant Alliance in Boston, MA. She is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in International Relations, concentrating on East and Southeast Asia, at Tufts University and will study Chinese at the University of Oxford this fall. Fiona notably served as Executive Editor of The Tufts Daily and Publicity and External Relations Chair of Sino-US Relations Group Engagement (SURGE). Raised in China and Vietnam, her work focuses on geopolitics between these regions, with an emphasis on human-centered stories and cultural relations.
