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How can the U.S. best manage its relationship with China? The country is at once a major and increasingly hostile competitor to the U.S., a formidable challenger to U.S.’ regional and global leadership, and an important partner on a range of transnational challenges. Will it be possible for both sides to coexist amidst intensifying competition? How great is the risk of US-China conflict, including over Taiwan? Ryan Hass, author of Stronger: Adapting America’s China Strategy in an Age of Competitive Interdependence, will address these questions and more in opening comments before engaging in an open Q&A on the future of the world’s most consequential bilateral relationship.


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Portrait of Ryan Hass
Ryan Hass is a senior fellow and the Michael H. Armacost Chair in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings, where he holds a joint appointment to the John L. Thornton China Center and the Center for East Asia Policy Studies. He is also the Interim Chen-Fu and Cecilia Yen Koo Chair in Taiwan Studies. Hass focuses his research and analysis on enhancing policy development on the pressing political, economic, and security challenges facing the United States in East Asia. He is the author of Stronger: Adapting America’s China Strategy in an Age of Competitive Interdependence, published by Yale University Press.

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"Stronger" Book Cover
From 2013 to 2017, Hass served as the director for China, Taiwan and Mongolia at the National Security Council (NSC) staff. In that role, he advised President Obama and senior White House officials on all aspects of U.S. policy toward China, Taiwan, and Mongolia, and coordinated the implementation of U.S. policy toward this region among U.S. government departments and agencies. He joined President Obama’s state visit delegations in Beijing and Washington respectively in 2014 and 2015, and the president’s delegation to Hangzhou, China, for the G-20 in 2016, and to Lima, Peru, for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders Meetings in 2016. Prior to joining NSC, Hass served as a Foreign Service Officer in U.S. Embassy Beijing, where he earned the State Department Director General’s award for impact and originality in reporting. Hass also served in Embassy Seoul and Embassy Ulaanbaatar, and domestically in the State Department Offices of Taiwan Coordination and Korean Affairs. 

 


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This event is part of the 2021 Winter/Spring Colloquia series, Biden’s America, Xi’s China: What’s Now & What’s Next?, sponsored by APARC's China Program.

 

Via Zoom Webinar. Register at: https://bit.ly/3c3v10W

Ryan Hass Senior Fellow, Michael H. Armacost Chair in Foreign Policy Studies, Brookings Institution
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This event is co-sponsored by the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.

How does autocratic lobbying affect political outcomes and media coverage in democracies? This talk focuses on a dataset drawn from the public records of the US Foreign Agents Registration Act. It includes over 10,000 lobbying activities undertaken by the Chinese government between 2005 and 2019. The evidence suggests that Chinese government lobbying makes legislators at least twice as likely to sponsor legislation that is favorable to Chinese interests. Moreover, US media outlets that participated in Chinese-government sponsored trips subsequently covered China as less threatening. Coverage pivoted away from US-China military rivalry and the CCP’s persecution of religious minorities and toward US-China economic cooperation. These results suggest that autocratic lobbying poses an important challenge to democratic integrity.


Portrait of Erin Baggott CarterErin Baggott Carter is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Southern California. There, she is also a Co-PI at the Lab on Non-Democratic Politics. She received a Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University, is currently a visiting scholar at the Stanford Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, and was previously a Fellow at the Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation.

Dr. Carter's research focuses on Chinese politics and propaganda. She recently completed a book on autocratic propaganda based on an original dataset of eight million articles in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish drawn from state-run newspapers in nearly 70 countries. She is currently working on a book on how domestic politics influence US-China relations. Her other work has appeared or is forthcoming in the British Journal of Political ScienceJournal of Conflict Resolution, and International Interactions. Her work has been featured by the New York Times, the Brookings Institution, and the Washington Post Monkeycage Blog.

 


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This event is part of the 2021 Winter/Spring Colloquia series, Biden’s America, Xi’s China: What’s Now & What’s Next?, sponsored by APARC's China Program.

 

Via Zoom Webinar. Register at: https://bit.ly/3beG7Qz

Erin Baggott Carter Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of Southern California; Visiting Scholar, Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, Stanford University
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Callista Wells
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On January 27, 2021, the China Program at Shorenstein APARC hosted Professor Hau L. Lee, The Thoma Professor of Operations, Information & Technology at the Stanford Graduate School of Business for the virtual program “The Pandemic, U.S-China Tensions and Redesigning the Global Supply Chain.” Professor Jean Oi, William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics and director of the APARC China Program, moderated the event.

Professor Lee focused on an important question that has only become more pressing due to the COVID-19 pandemic: How, if at all, should businesses redesign their supply chains? Since the beginning of the pandemic, explains Lee, there has been an increase in calls for “redundancy” in supply chains in order to protect them from the problems they faced early in the pandemic, when China was first hit by shut downs and slowed productivity. Advice has been varied, ranging from the “China Plus One” strategy in which businesses simply add a secondary production location, to completely domesticating supply chains.

Lee warns, however, of the perils of overreaction. There are numerous risks that come along with a fully domestic supply chain, not least the danger of “having all of your eggs in one basket.” Instead, says Lee, businesses should move cautiously and, instead of fully divesting from China, should use the country intelligently. 

Professor Lee’s “In and Out Design” encourages businesses to work from the inside out, securing and strengthening their supply chains by starting at home. Companies must first build “internal supply chain excellence,” after which they can move on to making sure their strategic partners are equally strong and can work to their advantage. Eventually, companies can move on to strengthening the extended value chain and, ultimately, their entire ecosystem. Using strategies like dual response, leveraging “lubricants,” and bolstering capacity-building capabilities, businesses can create a more stable future. 

The session concluded with a fruitful Q&A between Professor Lee and the audience, moderated by Professor Oi.

A video recording of this program is available upon request. Please contact Callista Wells, China Program Coordinator at cvwells@stanford.edu with any inquiries.

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Rebuilding International Institutions Will be Tough but Necessary, Say Stanford Experts Thomas Fingar and Stephen Stedman

Fingar and Stedman spoke as part of the APARC program “Rebuilding International Institutions,” which examined the future of international institutions such as the United Nations (UN), World Trade Organization (WTO), and World Health Organization (WHO) in our evolving global political landscape.
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The past decade has witnessed a great digital transformation in China. In 2006, China’s online retail sales were merely 3% of U.S. sales. China now hosts the world’s largest e-commerce retail market with a 40% share of global sales. Mobile pay has taken the country by storm so that even beggars are accepting alms through QR codes. What accounts for the leapfrog development in China’s e-commerce market? What are the larger implications of the rise of this 700-million-user online market? This talk will discuss the institutional foundation of China's giant e-commerce market, as well as its political and economic effects.

This event is part of Shorenstein APARC's winter webinar series "Asian Politics and Policy in a Time of Uncertainty."



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Portrait of Lizhi Liu
Lizhi Liu is an Assistant Professor in the McDonough School of Business and a faculty affiliate of the Department of Government. Her research specializes in the politics of trade, technology and innovation, and the political economy of China. Her work has been published by American Economic Review: Insights and Minnesota Law Review, and has been funded by numerous institutions, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Weiss Family Program Fund, and the Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies. She received the 2020 Ronald H. Coase Best Dissertation Award from the Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics (SIOE), and the 2019 Best Dissertation Award in the area of Information Technology and Politics by American Political Science Association (APSA). 

Via Zoom Webinar. Register at: https://bit.ly/38yUFdn

Lizhi Liu Assistant Professor, McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University
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The disruption of the 2020 pandemic, coupled with significant economic tensions between China and the US, have resulted in global companies rethinking their supply chains.  Many have called for drastic changes - reshoring, near-shoring, regionalization of vertical supply chains, increasing redundancies, or diversification of Chinese manufacturing to Southeast Asia, South Asia, Africa or Latin America, etc.  Empirical data, however, reveal that many are taking a more cautious approach.  Leading companies are continuing to develop innovative ways to redesign their supply chains that still preserve China as their key supply source.  This talk will share some of these innovative ways that, in the end, may provide better long term values.


Portrait of Hau L. LeeHau L. Lee is the Thoma Professor of Operations, Information and Technology at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University.  He was the founding faculty director of the Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies (SEED), and is the current Co-Director of the Stanford Value Chain Innovations Initiative.  Professor Lee’s expertise is on global supply chain management and value chain innovations.  He has published widely in top journals on supply chain management.  He was inducted to the US National Academy of Engineering, and elected a Fellow of MSOM, POMS; and INFORMS.   He was the previous Editor-in-Chief of Management Science.  In 2006-7, he was the President of the Production and Operations Management Society.  His article, “The Triple-A Supply Chain,” was the Second Place Winner of the McKinsey Award for the Best Paper in 2004 in the Harvard Business Review.  In 2004, his co-authored paper in 1997, “Information Distortion in a Supply Chain: The Bullwhip Effect,” was voted as one of the ten most influential papers in the history of Management Science.  His co-authored paper, “The Impact of Logistics Performance on Trade,” won the Wickham Skinner Best Paper Award by the Production and Operations Management Society in 2014. In 2003, he received the Harold Lardner Prize for International Distinction in Operations Research, Canadian Operations Research Society.  Professor Lee obtained his B.Soc.Sc. degree in Economics and Statistics from the University of Hong Kong, his M.Sc. degree in Operational Research from the London School of Economics, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Operations Research from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.  He was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Engineering degree by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and an Honorary Doctorate from the Erasmus University of Rotterdam.

 


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This event is part of the 2021 Winter/Spring Colloquia series, Biden’s America, Xi’s China: What’s Now & What’s Next?, sponsored by APARC's China Program.

 

Via Zoom Webinar. Register at: https://bit.ly/35bMWQx

Hau L. Lee Thoma Professor of Operations, Information and Technology, Stanford Graduate School of Business
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Callista Wells
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The China Program at Shorenstein APARC had the pleasure of hosting Professor Min Ye of Boston University’s Pardee School of Global Studies on October 14, 2020. Her program, moderated by China Program Director Jean Oi, focused on the much-discussed but poorly-understood Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), announced in 2013 by President Xi Jinping. While it is not widely known exactly what the BRI is or what Beijing hopes it will accomplish, it has been described as something of a modern silk road, connecting China to dozens of other countries through trade and extensive infrastructure projects. Based on research conducted for her recently published book, The Belt Road and Beyond: State-Mobilized Globalization in China: 1998-2018, Professor Ye enlightened the audience on a surprisingly critical element of this global program: the domestic component.

While Ye began her research with the assumption that many hold about the BRI—that it is primarily a global, internationally-focused initiative—as she continued her research, she found that many, if not most, BRI projects are either entirely domestic or have strong ties to domestic programs. To this end, she posed three questions during her program: Why did Chinese leadership launch the BRI in 2013? How did the Chinese state and businesses implement the BRI? and, What are the internal and external outcomes of the BRI?

To answer these questions, Ye explained the theoretical frameworks she used to understand both the BRI and China's "state-mobilized globalization." Firstly, Ye's "Chinese-State Framework" breaks the Chinese governmental system into three parts: Party Leadership, State Bureaucracy, and Subnational Actors. Each of these elements affect the others, as well as policy surrounding the BRI. However, this division also creates fragmentation in authority and ideology. Secondly, her “State-Mobilized Globalization” framework explains the process surrounding Chinese national strategy. Ye posits that national strategies are generally prompted by crises faced at lower levels of government, particularly when a lack of efficiency or communication is causing “state paralysis.” Once the strategy is announced in order to coordinate efforts and solve the crisis, it enters a feedback loop in which plans are adjusted and changed according to ground-level conditions. These frameworks informed the empirical studies used to answer Ye’s research questions.

The drivers of the BRI, argues Ye, were threefold: strategic, diplomatic, and economic. It was believed by interested parties within China that such an international initiative could ease tensions related to the United States and maritime Asia, as well as generally improve diplomatic relations for the country. China’s industries were also facing problems related to overcapacity, and economic and financial groups wished to use their excess capital to invest abroad. Actors from several different levels in China, including national agencies, local governments, and private entrepreneurs, were involved in executing BRI projects intended to alleviate these tensions. Different cities saw different sides of this implementation: Chongqing, one of China’s largest cities, is heavily dominated by state capital, with its main BRI actors being State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs). Wenzhou, a port city in Zhejiang province, is by contrast dominated by private entrepreneurs.

With diverse implementation comes diverse outcomes. Ye argues that some BRI projects have been helpful in reforming cities’ structural economy, while others have helped upgrade industry. The BRI has managed to alleviate some of the tensions listed above, but at the same time, it has created its own problems. While there has been a massive internal mobilization effort for BRI projects, there exists a disconnect between the domestic situation and demands for transparency from outside actors.

Ye concluded her talk by tying her research to current developments related to COVID-19. While one might imagine that a global pandemic would be a significant inhibitor to an international trade and infrastructure project, Ye finds just the opposite. Because the BRI is, in fact, quite domestically focused, many BRI projects are continuing at a rapid pace, albeit with digital adjustments. Some projects, such as the New Infrastructure Plan, were actually fast-tracked in the wake of the pandemic outbreak. Ye predicts that as COVID-19 restrictions ease and the world returns to “normal,” these domestic and digital elements will be combined with the BRI’s original projects.

An audio recording of this program is available at the link below, and a video recording is available upon request. Please contact Callista Wells, China Program Coordinator at cvwells@stanford.edu with any inquiries.

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Rebuilding International Institutions Will be Tough but Necessary, Say Stanford Experts Thomas Fingar and Stephen Stedman

Fingar and Stedman spoke as part of the APARC program “Rebuilding International Institutions,” which examined the future of international institutions such as the United Nations (UN), World Trade Organization (WTO), and World Health Organization (WHO) in our evolving global political landscape.
Rebuilding International Institutions Will be Tough but Necessary, Say Stanford Experts Thomas Fingar and Stephen Stedman
Cover of the book Fateful Decisions: Choices That Will Shape China's Future
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Thomas Fingar and Jean Oi Analyze the Choices and Challenges Facing China’s Leaders

Fingar and Oi joined the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations to discuss their edited volume, ‘Fateful Decisions: Choices that Will Shape China’s Future.’
Thomas Fingar and Jean Oi Analyze the Choices and Challenges Facing China’s Leaders
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This event is held virtually via Zoom. Please register for the webinar via the below link.

Registration Link: https://bit.ly/2SS6DpY

 

This event is co-sponsored by the Shorenstein APARC Japan Program and China Program.

Japan's economic challenge to the United States in the 1980s aroused more concern in the United States than people now realize. Japan took some very effective steps to stop it. China's challenge plays out across the economic, military, technological, and global influence spheres. China has not yet taken steps to stop it and the tensions are increasingly serious and show no signs of diminishing. Japan has also found better ways to reduce tensions with China than has the United States. While the circumstances are different between the 1980s and today, Japan’s dealings with the United States in the 1980s might offer some lessons for China today. Dr. Ezra Vogel, Professor Emeritus at Harvard University, will discuss these topics and more during this webinar. The event will conclude with an audience Q&A moderated by Japan Program Director Kiyoteru Tsutsui and China Program Director Jean Oi.

SPEAKER

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Portrait of Dr. Ezra Vogel, Professor Emeritus at Harvard University

Professor Ezra F. Vogel is Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. Vogel received his PhD at Harvard in 1958 in Sociology in the Department of Social Relations and was a professor at Harvard from 1967-2000. In 1973, he succeeded John Fairbank to become the second Director of Harvard's East Asian Research Center. At Harvard, he served as director of the US-Japan Program, director of the Fairbank Center, and as the founding director of the Asia Center. From fall 1993 to fall 1995, Vogel was the National Intelligence Officer for East Asia at the National Intelligence Council in Washington. His book Japan As Number One (1979), in Japanese translation, became a best seller in Japan, and his book Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (2011), in Chinese translation, became a best seller in China. He lectures frequently in Asia, in both Chinese and Japanese. He has received numerous honors, including eleven honorary degrees.

Via Zoom Webinar.

Registration Link: https://bit.ly/2SS6DpY

Ezra Vogel, Professor Emeritus <br>Harvard University</br>
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Most people attribute the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to Beijing’s imperialist ambitions. In her talk, Professor Min Ye will go beyond top-level rhetoric, however, and investigate BRI’s origins, its implementation, and its on-the-ground effects inside China. She will unpack different local governments' approaches to the BRI by discussing how subnational entities have leveraged Beijing’s grand strategy and how the implementation of projects and programs related to the BRI facilitate local economic agendas. China’s local developmentalism, which has undergirded not only the BRI but also other national-level strategies (like the Western Development Program and China Goes Global policy), has propelled the Chinese economy from a middle power in 1998 to a superpower in 2018. The talk will conclude with a discussion of COVID-19’s impact on China’s BRI as well as preliminary findings from Professor Ye’s current research into other state-mobilized development initiatives in China.
 

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Portrait of Professor Min Ye
Min Ye is an Associate Professor at the Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University. Her research lies in the nexus between domestic and global politics and economics and security, focusing on China, India, and regional relations. Her publications include The Belt, Road, and Beyond: State-Mobilized Globalization in China 1998 -- 2018 (Cambridge University Press, 2020), Diasporas and Foreign Direct Investment in China and India (Cambridge University Press, 2014), and The Making of Northeast Asia (with Kent Calder, Stanford University Press, 2010). She has received a Smith Richardson Foundation grant (2016-2018), the East Asia Peace, Prosperity, and Governance Fellowship (2013), Princeton-Harvard China and the World Program post-doctoral fellowship (2009-2010), and Millennium Education Scholarship in Japan (2006). In 2014-2016, Min Ye was an NCUSCR Public Intellectual Program fellow. Ye is currently the 2020 Rosenberg Scholar of East Asian Studies at Suffolk University.

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Min Ye Associate Professor, Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University
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To explore how business leaders and entrepreneurs in China responded to the COVID-19 lockdown and how they’re planning for the future, the China Program conducted a survey in coordination with the Stanford Center at Peking University and Stanford Business School alumni Christopher Thomas and Xue (Xander) Wu. Though taken from a small sample, the results are one of the best samples to date of how businesses in China are responding to the uncertain geopolitical environment the pandemic and current U.S.-China relations are creating.

The survey reveals mixed progress in reopening different sectors of China's economy, but also shows that many business leaders in China are planning for some level of decoupling as access to global technology and supply chains remains uncertain.

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