How do you effectively advise senior-level policymakers when a political crisis emerges? Stanford students taking the course U.S. Policy Towards Northeast Asia (IPS 244), sponsored by the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC), are learning and putting into practice these very skills. Over the ten weeks of the 2011 winter quarter, students will learn about contemporary U.S. policy towards Japan, China, and Korea, and about how to write and present policy-style memoranda to top-level government decision makers. They will also take part in an in-class simulation of a Six-Party meeting to negotiate North Korea's nuclear program.

Students cover a great deal of content in a short amount of time. "Ten weeks goes by pretty quickly," says course leader Michael H. Armacost, the Shorenstein Fellow at FSI and a former U.S. Ambassador to Japan and the Philippines. The real-world approach to the course is similar to what you would find in a professional international relations school, he explains. In previous years, Armacost has taught the course both alone and as part of a team with other former U.S. senior-level policy officials. The current course has been offered in the Ford Dorsey Program in International Policy Studies (IPS) for the last three years. It is co-taught with Daniel C. Sneider, the associate director for research at Shorenstein APARC and a former long-time foreign correspondent in Asia; David Straub, the associate director of the Stanford Korean Studies Program and a former U.S. senior foreign service officer; and Thomas Fingar, the Oksenberg/Rohlen Distinguished Fellow at FSI and a former Chairman of the National Intelligence Council.

In addition to providing a strong understanding of the U.S. foreign policymaking process, each week of the course is dedicated to a different aspect of the relationship of the United States with the countries of Northeast Asia, including Taiwan and the Russian Federation. Students will closely examine the history and dynamics between the great powers of the region; U.S. security relations with Japan and China; East Asian regionalism; democratization in South Korea; the North Korean nuclear crisis; and economics and human rights in China.

Although the case studies that the policy-writing exercises are based upon are hypothetical, they are closely tied to real-world issues and events. A previous year's case study dealt with tensions between China and Japan over rival claims to the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, anticipating the September 2010 conflict between Japan and China in the waters around these islands. The simulation exercise, another highlight of the course when students have the opportunity to collaborate with one another, is also closely tied to current regional events.

In addition to the rich content of the course and the expertise of its instructors, the diverse background of the students lends itself to the overall learning experience. Some of the students are pursuing a master's degree through IPS or the Center for East Asian Studies, while others come from the Graduate School of Business and various other Stanford units. Each year, there are always a few undergraduate students, who Armacost describes as "very strong," as well as early-career foreign affairs and military officials from Northeast Asia.

Interest in the course remains strong each year, and Shorenstein APARC will continue to offer it in order to provide solid, real-world policy training for the next generation of scholars and government officials.

East Asia's demographic landscape is rapidly changing and comparative academic research is crucial to help guide well-informed decisions in the many policy areas that are affected, such as security, economics, and immigration. From January 20 to 21, the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) gathered subject experts from numerous fields for two days of lively and productive presentations and dialogue to help identify key research issues and questions for its new, three-year research initiative on this significant subject.

Shorenstein APARC held a public panel discussion on January 20, featuring eight scholars from across the United States and Asia. The issue of aging featured prominently in their presentations, as did fertility rates and immigration. A full audio recording of the panel discussion is available on the Shorenstein APARC website and summaries of the presentations follow below. A closed-session workshop took place the next day, the discussions from which will serve as the foundation for future programs and publications related to the research initiative.

January 20 Panel Discussion Presentations

The link between demography and security is more tenuous in East Asia than in other parts of the world, suggested Brian Nichiporuk, a political scientist with the RAND Corporation. Nichiporuk discussed possible policy responses to demographic change in Japan, North and South Korea, the Russian Federation, and China. He suggested, for example, that Japan's new maritime security focus is related to perceived economic and political competition from China, which is magnified by its domestic demographic concerns.

Michael Sutton, a visiting fellow with the East-West Center in Washington, DC, stated that Japan's aging population would remain a major policy issue for the next 20–30 years. He emphasized that the policy challenges posed by this phenomena are complicated by the role that the United States plays in the regional security structure, and also by the growing dominance of China and the history that it shares with Japan. Nonetheless, maintained Sutton, despite the obvious challenges, it is possible for Japan and the other countries facing this demographic issue to successfully adapt.

Social attitudes and policy in East Asia do not favor immigration, as they do in European countries such as Spain and Italy, suggested John Skrentny, director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California, San Diego. Skrentny focused his talk on low-skill immigrant workers in South Korea and Japan, noting that these two countries, which began receiving workers in the 1970s and 1980s, commonly associate immigrants with social disruption. According to Skrentny, immigration policy is often tied to economics and tends to favor co-ethnic workers.

Chong-En Bai, chair of the Department of Economics at Tsinghua University, discussed numerous economic policy implications and responses related to demographic change in China. He noted areas where successful policies have been adopted but challenges still remain, including savings and investment, labor and urbanization, pension, healthcare, and long-term care. Bai described, for example, how the children of rural migrants now have access to urban schools, but that they still face the logistical challenge of having to travel back to their home provinces to take college entrance examinations.

Examining demographic change and health improvements is essential to understanding the significant economic growth in East Asia over the past several decades, emphasized David Bloom, chair of the Department of Global Health and Population at Harvard University. He noted the success of East Asian countries in lowering their infant mortality rates through investment in public health improvements, such as sanitation and vaccination. Bloom suggested that these and other past successful policy mechanisms have run their course, and that it is now imperative to find ways to address the region's key demographic issue of aging.

Naohiro Ogawa, director of the Population Research Institute at Nihon University, described findings from the National Transfer Accounts (NTA) project, an international effort to gauge economic flows across age groups. He discussed the pressure placed on Japan's working-age population by the increasing cost of caring for children and the elderly, as well as the challenges and possibilities related to having a large, healthy, aging population. Ogawa noted that institutional responses to demographic change, such as increasing the retirement age and adopting more open immigration policy, have moved slowly in Japan.

Andrew Mason, a professor of economics at the University of Hawai'i, Manoa, also utilized NTA data to make predictions about East Asia's economic future. He proposed that the amount of human capital, such as the money that parents spend on the education of their children, is likely to grow quite rapidly. He also suggested that financial wealth in East Asia is likely to increase significantly as the populations of its countries age. Finally, he suggested that the current trend of regional economic growth would continue, although at a somewhat steadier rate. Mason qualified his predictions with questions, such as whether the return on investment in education would be commensurate with what is spent.

James Raymo, a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, described a wide array of findings about changes in fertility and family structure in Japan and their connections, as well as possible policy implications. Raymo discussed trends in marriage, childbearing, divorce, non-marital cohabitation, and the participation of women in the labor force. He pointed to gaps in current research, and suggested possible linkages to research on other demographic trends, such as Japan's aging population.