Imperfect Partners: The United States and Southeast Asia – An In-Person Conversation with Ambassador Scot Marciel
690 million people. 11 countries. A $3 trillion-plus GDP. Southeast Asia is a critical region of growing strategic and economic importance. Yet in the United States it does not receive the attention and study it deserves. Ambassador Scot Marciel, who spent the bulk of his 35-year diplomatic career working in and on the region, has written an essential new book – “Imperfect Partners: The United States and Southeast Asia” – that combines extensive research and his first-hand experience to explore the ups and downs in U.S. relations with key partners in the region over the past 30-40 years. The book offers practical, timely recommendations on how to strengthen U.S.-Southeast Asian ties in this new era of U.S.-China competition.
Please join APARC’s Southeast Asia Program for Ambassador Marciel’s conversation with Program Director Professor Don Emmerson. Ambassador Marciel will discuss how and why U.S.-Southeast Asian relations have brought both benefits and disappointments on both sides of the Pacific. He will argue that the U.S. can best advance its strategic interests by engaging the region on its own substantial merits rather than viewing it through a lens focused on China.
Ambassador Scot Marciel is the Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow at Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. He retired from the U.S. State Department in April 2022 after a 37-year career that included assignments as the first U.S. Ambassador to ASEAN, Ambassador to Indonesia and to Myanmar, and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific. He witnessed the Philippine People Power revolt as a junior foreign service officer in Manila and was the first U.S. diplomat to serve in Hanoi after the Vietnam War.
Lunch will be provided
Scot Marciel
Scot Marciel was the Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, affiliated with the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center from 2022-2024. Previously, he was a 2020-22 Visiting Scholar and Visiting Practitioner Fellow on Southeast Asia at APARC. A retired diplomat, Mr. Marciel served as U.S. Ambassador to Myanmar from March 2016 through May 2020, leading a mission of 500 employees during the difficult Rohingya crisis and a challenging time for both Myanmar’s democratic transition and the United States-Myanmar relationship. Prior to serving in Myanmar, Ambassador Marciel served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asia and the Pacific at the State Department, where he oversaw U.S. relations with Southeast Asia.
From 2010 to 2013, Scot Marciel served as U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country. He led a mission of some 1000 employees, expanding business ties, launching a new U.S.-Indonesia partnership, and rebuilding U.S.-Indonesian military-military relations. Prior to that, he served concurrently as the first U.S. Ambassador for ASEAN Affairs and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Southeast Asia from 2007 to 2010.
Mr. Marciel is a career diplomat with 35 years of experience in Asia and around the world. In addition to the assignments noted above, he has served at U.S. missions in Turkey, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Brazil and the Philippines. At the State Department in Washington, he served as Director of the Office of Maritime Southeast Asia, Director of the Office of Mainland Southeast Asia, and Director of the Office of Southern European Affairs. He also was Deputy Director of the Office of Monetary Affairs in the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs.
Mr. Marciel earned an MA from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and a BA in International Relations from the University of California at Davis. He was born and raised in Fremont, California, and is married with two children.