April 23rd, 2012

An on-the-ground perspective of North Korean society

Life in North Korea today is much more vibrant than the stark slopes and muted grey concrete buildings Katharina Zellweger encountered when she began traveling to North Korea in the mid-1990s. The 2011-12 Pantech Fellow spoke with Shorenstein APARC about the positive change she has watched slowly ripple throughout the country for 17 years. Read more »

March 28th, 2012

Exploring China's formidable cigarette industry

How has the cigarette become so integrated into the fabric of everyday life across the People's Republic of China? To get to the heart of this question, a diverse group of experts met Mar. 26 and 27 in Beijing. In an interview, conference lead Matthew Kohrman spoke about the history of China's cigarette industry, cigarettes and society, and the growing tobacco-control movement. Read more »

January 18th, 2012

Kohrman to speak about cigarette factory mapping and policy

At present, the tobacco industry annually produces some six trillion cigarettes worldwide. A third of all these sticks were produced in China last year. During a Jan. 30 seminar, Matthew Kohrman will introduce the Cigarette Citadels project, an innovative application of participatory GIS, and discuss its implications for public health policy and social theory about the state and the politics of life.

• » Cigarette Citadels, Remapping Theory and Policy, Cigarette Factories in and Outside of China
  
• » Cigarette Citadels Project

January 11th, 2012

Stanford publications contextualize China's development

After 10 years of rapid growth, China will undergo a major leadership transition later this year. Two recent Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center edited volumes -- Going Private in China and Growing Pains -- put China’s development into context as the country prepares for the next decade of its future.

• » Going Private in China: The Politics of Corporate Restructuring and System Reform
• » Growing Pains: Tensions and Opportunity in China's Transformation

January 3rd, 2012

ITRI-SPRIE Forum sheds light on interdisciplinary collaboration for smart green innovation

More than 100 delegates gathered in Taipei on December 14th to attend 2011 ITRI-SPRIE Forum on “Interdisciplinary Collaboration for Smart Green Innovation”, jointly organized by Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) and SPRIE. Focusing on how to establish strategies for commercialization of green technologies, the one-day Forum, attracted a crowd of senior executives of large enterprises and clean-energy startups in Taiwan, local government officials, think-tank experts and academics. Read more »

December 9th, 2011

China's vibrant, changing media landscape

Newsstands dot the street corners of China's major cities, and each day the country's netizens cram into Internet cafes to surf the web and connect with friends online. Last year alone, Chinese readers purchased 50 billion newspapers and the government reported 163 million regular Internet cafe users. According to panelists at the Dec. 7 China's Changing Media Landscape event, now is both an exciting and a challenging time to be a journalist in China. Read more »

December 5th, 2011

Japan Studies Program launches inaugural year

The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center's Japan Studies Program kicked off its inaugural academic year with a lineup of major events and meetings at Stanford and in Japan. Read more »