Phar Kim Beng, Ph.D., is the Founder CEO of Strategic Pan Indo-Pacific Arena; and Echo Strategic Insight. He is a former Head Teaching Fellow (Fall 2018- Summer 2021)who has received numerous teaching and writing awards at Harvard University, while concurrently serving as the Senior Writer for The Straits Times, Singapore, while also awarded the Earhart Foundation Fellowship.
Prior to that, he was the Visiting Fellow of the Japan International Institute of International Affairs, which is affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. Although his advanced research had always focused on Track 1; Track 1.75; Track 2 and Track 3 Dialogue. His Ph.D. at Meiji University Japan was on “Origins of the ASEAN Regional Forum 1993/1994 and the Dawn of the Indo–Pacific Age in 2017. He is able to distinguish the difference between Freedom of Indo-Pacific Ocean and Indo–Pacific Strategy, with the latter having more martial elements under the sea and in space.
Phar Kim Beng, Ph.D., is an Associate Fellow of Edx.org; United Nations University’s International Leadership Academy in Jordan; Salzburg Fellow in Austria and advises the chairwoman on the Reform of Resilience.
PHAR (pronounced FAR as in the Far East) Kim Beng, a Malaysian, has the greatest love of his late mother Madam Lim Phoe Toe, to which he credits all his academic, business, and professional achievements.
While Madam Lim Phoe Toe recovered in less than ten days after a milk stroke on March 6 in 2011, a second one impaired her sensorimotor movement to her right in July 2015. While Madam Lim Phoe Toe, a pure Teo Chew born in colonial Malaya in 1933, the final decade of her earthly existence had Phar Kim Beng single-handedly taking her of her until her peaceful demise on March 6 2021 just minutes before it was 6 AM.
The irony of the time could not have been more striking granted that Phar Kim Beng was Madam Lim Phoe and Phuah Saw Gin’s (1924-1984) sixth child born in the Penang Adventist Hospital. The Hokkien or Fujian word of 6 was “Luck,” and Phar Kim Beng is humbly thoughtful of how fortunate he has been to escape life’s many challenges and calamities, foremost of which are the deprivations of good health, energy, Confucian manners, a kind demeanor, and perennial ethics that unite all the Heavenly Forces in the world, albeit in the form of global religions and philosophy.
Phar Kim Beng, however, also grew up loving football, and to this day he rejoiced in being once known as “Pharadona,” a nickname given to him by classmates in 5 Science 3 in school, parallel to the namesake of the Argentinian football legend Diego Armando Maradona Junior. Phar Kim Beng learned two most memorable skills from him by watching reruns of his “bicycle kicks,” and “diving header,” though Phar Kim Beng’s “in-swinger,” (with his left leg) was trained to perfection by watching the way former English Captain Bryan Robson used to take all the corner kicks, first for West Bromwich Champion, then Manchester United. Although equally dexterous with his natural right leg, the time and effort, put into learning all the most difficult skills, many of which required Phar Kim Beng to train hard, literally bleed for the skills which he badly wanted to master, helped him to become a stellar gentleman who believes in sportsmanship that does not lead to any dangerous tackles that could hurt anyone, making Phar Kim Beng ever conscious of the importance of harnessing the mind, spirit, and body to do “no harm,” indeed, not to be a schoolboy lout.
Based on these unique combos of skills, inner resilience, and mental focus, Phar Kim Beng led his classmates/friends into various football finals, often playing in an unselfish manner, that eventually led him to be selected by his teammates to be the Captain of the Under-18 team, while he was still 17.
Currently, Phar Kim Beng is the Founder CEO of two boutique research and education entities:
His goal is to combine the two, and everything he learned from online and on-campus leading universities into a school based on three-dimensional lessons guided by algorithm, artificial intelligence, automation, analysis of big data, all of which must leave zero carbon footprint.
Phar Kim Beng was educated at the International Islamic University (1990-1994) with a Bachelors in Human Science, with a double major in International Relations and Psychology.
While he was on several occasions on the Dean’s list during this period, Phar Kim Beng, who is an autodidact, gained his most inner awareness to his mother Madam Lim Phoe Toe from Professor Dr Ahmet Davatoglu; and Professor Dr Eric Winkel.
Although Phar Kim Beng’s name is occasionally anglized as Kim Beng Phar, his family name is Phar or Pua in Penang Hokkien, an island getaway he was born in, which retains its old idyllic charm in the north of Malaysia, roughly 55 minutes by flight from Kuala Lumpur Sepang International Airport, to which he continues to cherish; as this is where his heart and mind belongs, much as he enjoys Kuala Lumpur, Selangor and Sabah.
It was in Penang that Phar Kim Beng first studied in the Union Chinese Primary School with his late brother Phar Kwan Meng who was born a Singaporean (1962-2015). Due to trying economic circumstances faced by his father, one of the main contractors of Island and Peninsula Group that built up Island Glades in Penang, Phar Kim Beng moved his mother to Selangor, while enrolled at the Kuen Cheng (II) Primary School in Kuala Lumpur, where he began to flourish in his Chinese, English and Malay studies, and soon his second love, table-tennis.
When Phar Kim Beng’s mother migrated to Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, a state that he continues to love as much as his birth place, Penang, Phar Kim Beng was enrolled in Chung Hwa Chinese Primary School. It was in Chung Wang Chinese Primary School that his teachers and school principal acknowledged his talents in world affairs when he was suddenly given a test on international affairs and history on the spot, invariably, without any prior any notification where he received 97/100 points. This test was a turning point as Phar Kim Beng, who had developed the habit of reading Mandarin news papers in complex Chinese characters at the age of nine, soon realized, that while his single mom and second elder sister had raised him well without imposing any discipline on Phar Kim Beng, through a process of intellectual osmosis, he was able to connect key points in world events that preceded his time, such as the Vietnam War; the role of United Stations; the nationhood of Malaya then Malaysia, all the while still engrossed with football, basketball, table tennis, volleyball, hockey, swimming, eloqution, and choir too
Phar Kim Beng is often refered as Kim by all his friends and professors, or, “Kimo,” by the late Professor Alfred Rubin, the former international legal expert at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
Phar Kim Beng is a frills free person, and believes deeply in “Service Above Self,” the creed of the Interact Club at Sekolah Menengah Taman SEA (Southeast Asia); a school once notorious for its boisterous gangsterism in Petaling Jaya, feared by many for the students’ unruly behavior in the 1980-1990, before becoming the top control school in the state of Selangor that has produced top scholars.
Academically, Phar Kim Beng has written one book so far on “Maqasid Al Shariah: The Quest of Islamic States—-A Zero Game ? (Nordic Institute of Asian Studies in Denmark, Copenhagen); four books would be published an eminent university press on “Sino-US Conflict Based On The Rivalry of 7Ts,” and “The Strategic Vacuity of ASEAN Centrality: The Fatal Historical Path Dependency”; “Neither Can Anyone Win In The Age of Pandemic That Has Become Endemic,” and “When Can China Become A Maritime Power When Japan Is Always There ?”
As a former Senior Writer of The Straits Times Singapore; regular contributor of South China Morning Post; and columnist of The Edge, Malaysiakini and The Jakarta Post.