August 22nd, 2011

Conference compares wartime experiences in Asia and Europe

While differences exist in the wartime circumstances and reconciliation processes of Europe and Asia, many valuable lessons can be gained through a study of the experiences on both continents. The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center facilitated a comparative dialogue on World War Two, bringing together 15 noted experts for the Colonialism, Collaboration, and Criminality conference, held June 16 to 17 at Stanford.
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August 16th, 2011

Volume takes multidimensional look at South Korean security

Beyond North Korea, co-edited by Byung Kwan Kim, Gi-Wook Shin, and David Straub, is the first in a new series of policy-related studies on contemporary South Korea sponsored by the Koret Foundation of San Francisco. In this volume, top American and Korean academics and officials offer a fresh and timely perspective on traditional and non-traditional threats to South Korea's security and provide authoritative advice for meeting them. The book is based on research findings from the first Koret conference, Enhancing South Korea's Security: The U.S. Alliance and Beyond, held March 2009.

• » Beyond North Korea: Future Challenges to South Korea's Security

Two scholars consider the role of the humanities in Southeast Asia

Former FSI-Stanford Humanities Center International Visitors Thitinan Pongsudhirak (Thailand) and Anies Baswedan (Indonesia), both leading academics in their respective countries, recently considered the role of the humanities and the "hard" sciences in contemporary Southeast Asia. During an interview with SEAF director Donald K. Emmerson, Baswedan described the historically strong humanities foundation in Indonesia and the country's need to develop fields such as engineering.
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August 9th, 2011

Kohrman's ground-breaking study of cigarette warning labels

What influence might graphic warning labels have on cigarette sales? Matthew Kohrman is studying that question with experimental methods in Southwest China. Kohrman’s research is generating much-needed data in support of the expansion of China’s warning label system. Among the countries increasingly adopting graphic labels, the United States will require visual warnings on all cigarette packages by next fall.

Stanford Cancer Center News: Smoking cessation in a land of two trillion cigarettes

Kushida named Takahashi Research Associate

In July, the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center Shorenstein APARC named Stanford alumnus Kenji Kushida as its Takahashi Research Associate in Japanese Studies. Read more »

August 5th, 2011

Energy efficiency, financial crisis response, and Fukushima

Phillip Lipscy, an assistant professor of political science and a center fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies, is currently conducting research on energy efficiency and financial crisis response. Here he discusses his recent research within the context of contemporary Japan, and comments on current social and political conditions in Japan after the March 2011 disaster. Read more »

August 2nd, 2011

Emmerson and Fingar meet with Indonesian president

Donald Emmerson, director of the Southeast Asia Forum, and Thomas Fingar, the Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, spoke at an international futurology conference in Jakarta on July 28. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono met with them and a small number of other noted experts the day before before the event. During his conference address, President Yudhoyono suggested with just a touch of levity that perhaps he might like to become a futurologist himself after his term concludes in 2014.

• » Jakarta Post: Yudhoyono foresees career as a futurologist

July 30th, 2011

Korean literature and culture position at Stanford

The Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Stanford invites applications for a tenure-track position in Korean literature, film and culture at the rank of assistant professor to begin September 1, 2012. The Department seeks a dynamic scholar and experienced teacher who will contribute to the intellectual mission of a research institution. Read more »

July 22nd, 2011

Eggleston considers China's ability to adjust to demographic change

Can social, economic, and policy changes turn a period of growing old-age dependency into one of positive opportunity and growth in China? Qiong Zhang and Asia Health Policy Program director Karen Eggleston explore this challenging question in a recent China Brief article. They look back into several decades of China's history and also consider the current demographic picture of one-child families, gender imbalance, declining fertility rates, and a healthy and prosperous aging population.

• » China Brief: Aging economics: China's population imbalance

July 13th, 2011

Andrew Walder discusses China's political "holding strategy"

China's Soviet-style political system has not kept pace with the dramatic changes taking place within the country's social and economic systems, suggests Andrew Walder in a recent Boston Review op-ed. Keeping the lessons of the former Soviet Union in mind, he says, China's government has instead utilized a "holding strategy" to maintain its political institutions over the past twenty years.

• » Boston Review: Holding strategy

July 8th, 2011

Center responds to Japan's recent challenges, reaffirms ties

It is too soon to know the full domestic and global impact of the March 11 Great Tohoku Earthquake and its ensuing tsunami and nuclear accident. Since news of the earthquake broke, the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, which has deep, longstanding ties to Japan, has closely followed and responded to this ongoing situation. Read more »

July 7th, 2011

Farmers in rural China struggling to survive, Scott Rozelle comments

Two-hundred million farming households in China are struggling to capitalize on their nation's breathtaking economic development. While city dwellers are enjoying fast-rising living standards, much of rural China remains a hardscrabble landscape where average incomes of about $3,200 a year are less than a third of what they are in urban areas. "No one is going to get rich off farming," said Scott Rozelle, an expert on China's rural economy at Stanford University. "It's not going to happen until farm sizes get bigger. That's why millions of people are moving to the cities."

• » Los Angeles Times article - Farming in China: Amid China's economic transformation, many farmers struggle

Emmerson examines strategic importance of Indian Ocean region

Despite the significance of Southeast Asia, India, and Australia, they are often overlooked in economic analyses of Asia. SEAF director Donald Emmerson took part in a Pacific Pension Institute roundtable event, July 13-15, focusing on the economic potential of this "southern rim." He opened the conference by reviewing the historical and social diversity of these countries and assessing the extent to which that diversity is an asset or a liability for economic growth, political stability, and democratic reform.

• » Pacific Pension Institute: From Asia's Southern Rim

June 30th, 2011

Top security experts explore Korean Peninsula situation and policies

The sixth Korea-U.S. West Coast Strategic Forum, held June 2011 at the Walter. H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, provided an arena for informed, policy-oriented discussion of major peninsular and regional issues impacting South Korea and the United States. The executive summary from this event is now available. Read more »

June 24th, 2011

Assessing U.S.-DPRK educational exchanges

Although there are no formal diplomatic relations between the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, nonetheless there have been constant attempts by U.S. academia, friendship organizations, and NGOs to develop and promote educational interaction and exchanges between the citizens of these two countries. Drawing from a conference that took place at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center in November 2010, a newly published downloadable book and a related article by Karin J. Lee and Gi-Wook Shin in 38 North provide an insightful analysis of past educational exchanges and offer suggestions for the future.

• » U.S.-DPRK Educational Exchanges: Assessment and Future Strategy
• » 38 North: U.S.-DPRK educational exchanges: Status and future prospects

June 23rd, 2011

Joon-woo Park, 2011-2012 Koret Fellow, to explore South Korean foreign policy

In September, Joon-woo Park, a former senior diplomat from Korea, will join the Korean Studies Program at Stanford University's Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center as the program's 2011-2012 Koret Fellow. Read more »

Incoming Pantech Fellow Katharina Zellweger brings a humanitarian perspective on North Korea

The Korean Studies Program at Stanford University's Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center announces that Katharina Zellweger, currently the North Korea country director for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, will be the program's 2011-2012 Pantech Fellow. Read more »

Incoming Koret and Pantech Fellows bring extensive bilateral and North Korea experience

Stanford University's Korean Studies Program (KSP) looks forward to welcoming its Koret and Pantech Fellows for the 2011-2012 academic year. Joon-woo Park, a former senior diplomat from Korea with over thirty years of foreign policy experience, will arrive in September to serve as the program's Koret Fellow. While at Stanford, he will conduct research on South Korean foreign policy, including increased U.S.-Korean collaboration on China and prospects for East Asian regional integration based on the European Union model. Katharina Zellweger, currently residing in Pyongyang as the North Korea country director for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, will join KSP in November as the Pantech Fellow. She is a Swiss national who has spent over fifteen years conducting humanitarian work in North Korea. Her research will explore how aid intervention can stimulate positive sustainable change in that country. The Koret Foundation of San Francisco and the Pantech Company and Curitel Communications (known as the Pantech Group) of Korea generously fund these fellowships.

• » Joon-woo Park, 2011-2012 Koret Fellow, to explore South Korean foreign policy
• » Incoming Pantech Fellow Katharina Zellweger brings a humanitarian perspective on North Korea

June 15th, 2011

The ongoing South China Sea dispute

China eyes natural resource deposits in the South China Sea to meet its significant energy needs, creating friction between itself, the countries in the region, and the United States, which could be called upon to mediate. Southeast Asia Forum director Donald Emmerson and former Shorenstein Fellow John Ciorciari consider the economic and diplomatic aspects of China’s sovereignty claims in a recent flare-up of this ongoing dispute.

• » International Business Times: China-Vietnam: Weighing the cost-benefit of war in South China Sea face-off
• » CNN: Chinese dilemmas in the South China Sea

June 8th, 2011

Emmerson discusses Indonesia's domestic economic drivers

Indonesia's economy exceeded earlier expectations and could grow as high as 6.5 percent in 2011. What drives this growth and can the foreign investors tempted by it compete with domestic investors? Donald K. Emmerson spoke June 6 with Channel NewsAsia about Indonesia's demographic conditions and government policies favoring -- and potentially endangering -- its strong domestic economy. Read more »

June 3rd, 2011

University IP management and the weakness of science-based entrepreneurship in Japan

Dr. Robert Kneller's recent talk examined how national systems of industry-university cooperation impact innovation by comparing the Japanese system with that of the United States. Dr. Kneller has spent 13 years with a major science and engineering research center at the University of Tokyo. Read more »

June 1st, 2011

Entrepreneurship and Japan's transformation

Over thirty-five scholars from sixteen different universities in the United States, Japan, and Europe gathered in Bechtel Hall for a two-day academic conference entitled, Entrepreneurship and Japan's Transformation. At the conference, twelve new papers exploring aspects of Japan's entrepreneurial environment were presented from academic fields such as political science, economics, strategy, and organization theory. Read more »

May 31st, 2011

Experts gather to define a framework for SMP research

Despite the growing adoption of social media platforms as a business tool, this is still a relatively new and under-studied area of technology—even in Silicon Valley where many SMP innovations originate, says Rafiq Dossani, a senior research scholar at Stanford University's Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. He and other academic and industry experts convened at Stanford on May 25 for a discussion of SMP business trends, especially in the areas of recruitment and business development in Silicon Valley. Read more »

The movement of people and skills in an era of economic globalization

Dan Wang, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at Stanford, delivered an engaging talk on the economic impact of skilled return migrants on their home countries. Audio transcript available presentation available
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May 27th, 2011

Thomas Fingar: What does Beijing think of U.S. nuclear policy?

"Improved dialogue between the US and China on security issues can help reduce the potential for misperception and mistrust," writes Thomas Fingar in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Read more »