The road to the 18th Party Congress was contentious, leading to its delayed convocation. Nevertheless, the processes of generational turnover in China’s leadership at the Chinese Communist Party’s 18th National Congress extended patterns of formal politics that trace their roots to Deng Xiaoping’s political reforms of the 1980s, that advanced in the Jiang Zemin era in the 1990s, and that matured under outgoing General Secretary Hu Jintao in the 2000s.  As such, the transition in the party leadership at the 18th Congress marked another step forward in the institutionalization of Chinese leadership politics.

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Alice Lyman Miller is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and teaches in the Departments of History and Political Science at Stanford. She is also a senior lecturer in the Department of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

Prior to coming to Stanford in 1999, Miller taught at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C. from 1980–2000. From 1974–90, Miller worked in the Central Intelligence Agency as a senior analyst in Chinese foreign policy and domestic politics, and branch and division chief, supervising analysis on China, North Korea, Indochina, and Soviet policy in East Asia. Miller has lived and worked in Taiwan, Japan, and the PRC, and she speaks Mandarin Chinese.

Miller's research focuses on foreign policy and domestic politics issues in China and on the international relations of East Asia. She is editor and contributor to the Hoover Institution’s China Leadership Monitor, which has since 2001 offered online authoritative assessments of trends in Chinese leadership politics to American policymakers and the general public. Miller has published extensively on policy issues dealing with China, including several articles and book chapters, as well as two books: Science and Dissent in Post-Mao China: The Politics of Knowledge (University of Washington Press, 1996), and, with Richard Wich, Becoming Asia: Change and Continuity in Asian International Relations Since World War II (Stanford University Press, 2011). She is currently working on a new book, tentatively entitled The Evolution of Chinese Grand Strategy, 1550–Present, that brings a historical perspective to bear on China's rise in the contemporary international order.

Miller graduated from Princeton University in 1966, receiving a B.A. in Oriental Studies. She earned an M.A. and a Ph.D. in history from George Washington University in 1969 and 1974.  Formerly H. Lyman Miller, she transitioned in 2006.

We offer the first large scale, multiple source analysis of the outcome of what may be the most extensive effort to selectively censor human expression ever implemented. To do this, we have devised a system to locate, download, and analyze the content of millions of social media posts originating from nearly 1,400 different social media services all over China before the Chinese government is able to find, evaluate, and censor (i.e., remove from the Internet) the large subset they deem objectionable. Using modern computer-assisted text analytic methods that we adapt and validate in the Chinese language, we compare the substantive content of posts censored to those not censored over time in each of 95 issue areas. Contrary to previous understandings, posts with negative, even vitriolic, criticism of the state, its leaders, and its policies are not more likely to be censored. Instead, we show that the censorship program is aimed at curtailing collective action by silencing comments that represent, reinforce, or spur social mobilization, regardless of content. Censorship is oriented toward attempting to forestall collective activities that are occurring now or may occur in the future -- and, as such, seem to clearly expose government intent, such as examples we offer where sharp increases in censorship presage government action outside the Internet. This is joint work with Jennifer Pan and Molly Roberts.

Gary King is the Albert J. Weatherhead III University Professor at Harvard University -- one of 24 with the title of University Professor, Harvard's most distinguished faculty position. He is based in the Department of Government (in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences) and serves as director of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science. King develops and applies empirical methods in many areas of social science research, focusing on innovations that span the range from statistical theory to practical application.

King received a B.A. from SUNY New Paltz (1980) and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1984). His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, the National Institute of Aging, the Global Forum for Health Research, and centers, corporations, foundations, and other federal agencies.

At present, the tobacco industry produces some six trillion cigarettes worldwide every year. Six trillion cigarettes per annum, each ready to release smoke filled with highly addictive nicotine and powerful carcinogens. A third of all these sticks were produced in China last year. In 2011, the world’s largest cigarette maker by volume, the China National Tobacco Corporation, contributed an all-time high of U.S. $214 billion in profits and taxes to the Chinese government, up 22 percent year-on-year. Currently the greatest cause of preventable death in the world, the cigarette is likely to kill ten times as many people in the 21st century as it did in the 20th century, epidemiologists tell us, with China bearing the largest burden. Until now, much global health research and intervention has focused with limited success on the cigarette consumer—addressing how one or another variable prompts people to take up or quit smoking, whether the cue for the consumer is biological, psychological, spatial, financial or symbolic. What though of the industrial sources of tobacco-related diseases? Where are the six trillion cigarettes that are released into circulation each year manufactured? Where are they rolled, wrapped, and boxed for shipment? This presentation will introduce the Cigarette Citadels Project, an innovative application of participatory GIS. With special attention given to China’s network of cigarette factories, Matthew Kohrman will explain how the Cigarette Citadels Project not only reveals conceptual roadblocks in public health policy but also lacuna in social theory pertaining to the state and the politics of life.

Matthew Kohrman joined Stanford’s faculty in 1999. His research and writing bring multiple methods to bear on the ways health, culture, and politics are interrelated. Focusing on the People's Republic of China, he engages various intellectual terrains such as governmentality, gender theory, political economy, critical science studies, and embodiment. His first monograph, Bodies of Difference: Experiences of Disability and Institutional Advocacy in the Making of Modern China, examines links between the emergence of a state-sponsored disability-advocacy organization and the lives of Chinese men who have trouble walking. In recent years, Kohrman has been conducting research projects aimed at analyzing and intervening in the biopolitics of cigarette smoking and production. These projects expand upon analytical themes of Kohrman’s disability research and engage in novel ways techniques of public health.

This event is part of the China's Looming Challenges series. 

China and the World: The Stanford China Program, in cooperation with the Center for East Asian Studies, will host a special series of seminars to examine China as a major political and economic actor on the world stage. Over the course of the autumn and winter terms, leading scholars will examine China's actions and policies in the new global political economy. What is China's role in global governance? What is the state of China's relations with its Asian neighbors? Is China being more assertive both diplomatically as well as militarily? Are economic interests shaping its foreign policies? What role does China play amidst international conflicts?

M. Taylor Fravel is the Cecil and Ida Green Career Development Associate Professor of Political Science and member of the Security Studies Program at MIT. He studies international relations, with a focus on international security, China, and East Asia.  His current projects examine the evolution of China's military strategy since 1949 and the relationship between material capabilities and political influence in China's rise as a great power.

This event is part of the China and the World series.

The Stanford China Program, in cooperation with the Center for East Asian Studies, will host a special series of seminars to examine China as a major political and economic actor on the world stage.  Over the course of the autumn and winter terms, leading scholars will examine China actions and policies in the new global political economy.  What is China's role in global governance?  What is the state of China's relations with its Asian neighbors?  Is China being more assertive both diplomatically as well as militarily?  Are economic interests shaping its foreign policies?  What role does China play amidst international conflicts? 

Seiichiro Takagi is a professor at the School of International Politics, Economics and Communication at the Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo, Japan and a Senior Visiting Fellow of the Japan Institute of International Affairs. He specializes in Chinese foreign relations and security issues in the Asia-Pacific region. Previously, he was the director of the Second Research Department, which was responsible for area studies, at the National Institute for Defense Studies in Tokyo. He also served on the Graduate School of Policy Science of Saitama University (which became the National Graduate Institute of Policy Studies) for over 20 years, and has been a guest scholar at The Brookings Institution and Beijing University. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Japan Association for International Security, and is a member of several other organizations, including the Japanese Committee, Council for Security Cooperation in Asia-Pacific (CSCAP); the Japan Association for International Relations; and the Japan Political Science Association. His recent publications in English include China Watching: Perspectives from Europe, Japan and the United States, 2007 and in Japanese The U.S.-China Relations: Structure and Dynamics in the Post-Cold War Era, 2007.. He earned a B.A. in international relations from the University of Tokyo, Japan, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford University, California.

This event is part of the China and the World series.

In an emerging economy like China's, institutions are not yet institutions. They are often the playthings of politics and bureaucratic rivalries. China's banking system is a case in point.  Since 1949, banks have bounced around China's institutional landscape as the government tried out first one then another banking model.  This mattered little to the outside world until the last decade when reform brought banks to the international capital markets in search of massive amounts of new capital.  This did not, however, stop institutional in-fighting.  It spread so that today the domestic struggle over bank roles, responsibilities and ownership has expanded to involve international markets, investors, regulators and the reputations of market professionals at a growing cost to the Chinese government and to the banks themselves.

Carl Walter brings to JPMorgan over 20 years of professional experience in a number of senior banking positions across Asia and primarily in China.  Currently Mr. Walter is Managing Director, JPMorgan China.

Prior to joining JPMorgan, Mr. Walter was a Managing Director and a member of the Management Committee at China International Capital Corporation ("CICC"), a joint venture of Morgan Stanley and China Construction Bank. He played a key role in the execution of CICC's international and domestic equity and fixed income transactions. 

While at Credit Suisse First Boston Mr. Walter was responsible for organizing the firm's China investment banking team and established its Beijing Representative Office in 1993 serving as Chief Representative. During this time, he was involved in a number of significant equity and debt offerings. 

A fluent Mandarin speaker, Mr. Walter received an MA in economics at Beijing University in 1979-80 supported by a grant from National Academy of Science. He received his PhD in Political Science from Stanford University in 1981 and earned his BA from Princeton University. He is also the author of "Privatizing China: Inside China's Stock Markets" which has been published in a Chinese edition "Minyinghua zai Zhongguo".

This event is part of the China and the World series.

This audacious and illuminating memoir by Richard Baum, a senior China scholar and sometime policy advisor, reflects on forty years of learning about and interacting with the People's Republic of China, from the height of Maoism during the author's UC Berkeley student days in the volatile 1960s through globalization. Anecdotes from Baum's professional life illustrate the alternately peculiar, frustrating, fascinating, and risky activity of China watching - the process by which outsiders gather and decipher official and unofficial information to figure out what's really going on behind China's veil of political secrecy and propaganda. Baum writes entertainingly, telling his narrative with witty stories about people, places, and eras.

Richard Baum is distinguished professor of political science at UCLA and director emeritus of the UCLA Center for Chinese Studies. He is the author of Burying Mao: Chinese Politics in the Age of Deng Xiaoping (Princeton U. Press) and the founder and list manager of Chinapol, an
electronic forum serving the international China-watching community. His 48-lecture video course, "The Fall and Rise of China," produced for The Teaching Company's Great Courses series, was released last month.

The Stanford China Program in cooperation with the Center for East Asian Studies will host a special series of seminars to mark 60 Years of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Over the course of the winter and spring terms, we will have six leading scholars, each examining one of the six decades of the PRC's history. Our premise is that history matters. The speaker on each decade will characterize their decade, note shifts within that time, identify the pivotal events, and discuss how the decade shaped what happened afterwards.

Jospeh Fewsmith is the author of four books: China Since Tiananmen: The Politics of Transition (2001), Elite Politics in Contemporary China (2001), The Dilemmas of Reform in China: Political Conflict and Economic Debate (1994), and Party, State, and Local Elites in Republican China: Merchant Organizations and Politics in Shanghai, 1980-1930 (1985). He is very active in the China field, traveling to China frequently and presenting papers at professional conferences such as the Association for Asian Studies and the American Political Science Association. His articles have appeared in such journals as Asian Survey, Comparative Studies in Society and History, The China Journal, The China Quarterly, Current History, The Journal of Contemporary China, Problems of Communism, and Modern China. He is also a research associate of the John King Fairbank Center for East Asian Studies at Harvard University.