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The Shorenstein Journalism Award honors Buckley for his many years of exemplary reporting on China, and now also Taiwan. The Award Judging Committee notes that his body of work reflects “truly unparalleled knowledge and understanding of China” and vividly unveils the country’s political and social transformations under Xi Jinping’s rule.

Following Buckley’s keynote remarks, the award ceremony featured a conversation about key issues that put China in the news. Buckley was joined by two China scholars: Oriana Skylar Mastro, a center fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) whose work focuses on Chinese military and security policy, and Xuegunag Zhou, the Kwoh-Ting Li Professor in Economic Development, a professor of sociology, and a senior fellow at FSI. William Dobson, the coeditor of the Journal of Democracy, chaired the discussion. Dobson, who also serves on the judging committee for the Shorenstein Award, is an award-winning journalist in his own right with a long career in international reporting.

The Power of History in China Under Xi

Buckley’s reporting has shed light on China's rise through deeply nuanced stories, capturing complexities and key developments across a wide range of issues. These include the country’s extraordinary economic growth and contradictions, such as the emergence of a bold consumer culture under a Communist Party that upholds Marxist ideology; the struggles of rural migrants moving into towns and cities; the Chinese government’s use of high-tech surveillance to suppress and control Uyghurs, Tibetans, and other ethnic groups; the modernization of China’s military; Beijing’s pressure on Taiwan and in the South China Sea; and, notably, the unfolding of COVID-19. Buckley spent 76 days in Wuhan during the lockdown there, covering the early onset and coverup of the pandemic — a story for which he and his team won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Public Service.

“Chris has been one of the most perceptive and sensitive chroniclers of modern China,” Dobson noted as he introduced Buckley at the award ceremony.

Above all, Buckley’s stories have illuminated the rise and thinking of Xi Jinping. In contrast to expectations that Xi would be a pragmatist focused on economic growth, “what we’ve seen instead is a leader who has made priorities of political security and ideological revival,” said Buckley. “A leader who sees himself as presiding over a historic transformation.”

Under Xi, the Chinese Communist Party has reinforced control over Chinese society, the economy, and China’s claimed territories. Even more so, Buckley underscored, Xi and the Party have also been reasserting control over history, extending and exercising power by shaping collective memories. In China under Xi, he said, memories of war, revolution, famine, massacre, and extraordinary change are erased, rewritten, and fought over.

He described how, under this drive, publications that question the official version of past events have been shut down, religious sites in Xinjiang demolished, access to sensitive sites like a cemetery for Red Guards restricted, and the Party’s accounts of its past retold through television shows, newly built museums, and other public displays.

Buckley recalled a 2019 reporting trip to Xinyang — a rural part of Henan province, a base of the Communist revolution, and one of the worst hit areas during the Great Leap Forward famine of the late 1950s. Speaking to elderly farmers carrying the memories of their family members who died in the famine, he kept witnessing a reverence for Mao that extended to the Party and Xi.

“I was struck that even in this part of the Chinese countryside where peasants endured the greatest suffering, so many embraced the Party’s version of the past. And I think that means they also tend to embrace the Party’s story of China’s present and the future.”

According to Buckley, Xi and his generation harbor concerns about the Communist Party’s drifting away from its roots as it moves further from the founding generation. To counter this process, the Party reinforces its founding myths and narratives as vital sources of authority and legitimacy, ensuring continuity with the past.

From Master Narratives to Geopolitics

Buckley also pointed out a deeper layer of China's efforts to shape history and memory under Xi’s leadership. He noted how the Politburo and Xi have shown a keen interest in studying and retelling China’s ancient history, with official efforts to shape the discussion of history reaching back thousands of years. These actions, he said, demonstrate efforts to construct “a narrative of unbroken Chinese nationhood and values,” creating continuity from China's distant past to the present.

Furthermore, at a time when neither the master narrative of Maoist Marxism nor the image of China as a modernized, respected member of the family of great powers seems to resonate fully, Xi and the Party are “reviving narratives of civilizational greatness and destiny,” he argued.

He emphasized that the Party’s aggressive efforts to shape historical memory do not mean Chinese people accept these accounts without question, and there are individuals and groups who, often at great personal risk, continue to challenge and push back against the official version of history. Yet overall, Xi and the Chinese Communist Party have successfully embedded history in political and social structures, creating a framework that defines China’s policies and foreign policy behavior.

The looming power of and contestation over history is one reason why Buckley hopes others will feel encouraged to study China even in an age of shrinking access. Otherwise, he cautioned, at a time when China matters so much to the world, “the accumulated cost could be a loss of our pooled understanding, and the fresh voices that we need for healthy debate, decision-making, and reporting.”

Now living and working in Taiwan, Buckley observes the importance of history and memory from the lens of the complexity of Taiwanese domestic currents.

“The divisions between Beijing and Taiwan are a territorial dispute, but they are founded in vastly different understandings of Taiwan’s history and identity,” he noted.

The themes of cross-strait tensions and the centralization of power under Xi were the focus of the discussion with Buckley, Mastro, and Zhou.

The Shorenstein Journalism Award, which carries a cash prize of $10,000, recognizes accomplished journalists who have significantly contributed to a greater understanding of Asia throughout their careers based on their knowledge of Asian societies and the ability to draw upon it to communicate insights to audiences worldwide. To learn more, visit the Award page.

What policy options does the Japanese public prefer, and what might shift its attitudes? These are some questions the Stanford Japan Barometer (SJB) sets out to answer. SJB is a large-scale public opinion survey on political, economic, and social issues in Japan. Co-developed and led by Stanford sociologist Kiyoteru Tsutsui, the deputy director of APARC and director of the Center’s Japan Program, and Dartmouth College political scientist Charles Crabtree, a former visiting assistant professor with the Japan Program, SJB has so far published the results from its first two waves.

Wave 1 focused on issues related to gender and sexuality in Japanese politics, while Wave 2 focused on issues related to foreign policy and national defense. SJB findings fielded in these two waves indicate that most Japanese support recognizing same-sex unions, legalizing a dual-surname option for married couples, promoting women’s leadership in society, and that, in a Taiwan contingency, ​​Japanese people would be hesitant to fight China but would respond to a request from the U.S. military for logistical support.

Jointly with the Japan Program, GLOBE+, an international news outlet operated by the esteemed Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun, is publishing a series highlighting SJB findings. You can read an English translation of the first three pieces in this series. Here, we provide an English translation of the latest installment in the series, published on September 19, 2024. The translation was initially generated via DeepL. The text below was edited for accuracy and style.

Japanese Public Opinion on Legalizing Same-Sex Unions

Japan remains the only G7 country that has not legalized same-sex marriage or introduced a partnership system that offers marriage-equivalent rights at the national level. It is also the only country worldwide that mandates married couples to adopt the same surname.

Yet, according to the SJB survey, 47.2% of respondents were either "very much in favor" (18.6%) or "somewhat in favor" (28.6%) of legalizing same-sex marriage in Japan. In contrast, 15.8% were either "very much against" (6.8%) or "somewhat against" (9.0%), while 36.9% held a neutral stance, being “neither in favor nor against.” Support for same-sex marriage outpaced neutral responses by nearly three times.

The survey also explored public support for same-sex couples in leadership roles by asking respondents what kind of individuals they would like to see as members of the Diet or as outside directors of companies.

Participants were asked to consider six key attributes when identifying the types of candidates they would prefer to see in the next House of Representatives elections:

• Age (from 32 years old to 82 years old, in 10-year increments)　
• Gender　
• Marriage (married, never married, divorced, same-sex couple)　
• Number of children　
• Educational background　
• Work experience (11 types, including finance, economy, industry, and foreign affairs bureaucrats, business owners and executives, governors, local legislators, and homemakers)

Respondents were asked to create two “candidate images” by randomly combining six attributes and selecting one in a two-choice format. The same question was repeated a total of 10 times with different choices. The responses obtained from all survey participants were tabulated and analyzed.

The reason for the complexity of the method is that, from a statistical point of view, it allows the researchers to get closer to the “true feelings” (public opinion) of the respondents.

For each of the attributes, the percentage would be 50% if the respondents were indifferent to sexual orientation, but 45% of the respondents were in favor of electing a person from a same-sex couple to the National Assembly and 43.5% were in favor of electing a person from a same-sex couple to be a non-executive director, showing a downward trend in support. Although many people are in favor of same-sex marriage, it is evident that there is still a sense of discrimination against sexual minorities holding important public positions.

Of note, male respondents were less supportive of electing a person from a same-sex couple to the National Assembly, at 37.6%, compared to 50.6% of women. Support for electing a person from a same-sex couple to the National Assembly was also lower among respondents aged 70 and older at 31.1%, and higher among younger respondents: 58.9% of those aged 18 and 19, 60.5% of those aged 20 to 24, and 56.5% of those aged 25 to 29.

To identify what conditions could move public opinion, the researchers designed seven prompts regarding same-sex marriage, assigned them randomly to respondents, and compared their answers. The prompts included assumptions such as “In Japanese society, marriage is traditionally between two people of the opposite sex;” “If same-sex marriage is recognized, it will make it easier for same-sex couples to raise children, which may lead to an improvement in the declining birth rate and have beneficial effects for Japanese society;” and “From the perspective of human rights and gender equality, it would be unfair not to recognize same-sex marriage.”

The results show that support for same-sex marriage increases the most when respondents are presented with an argument that not allowing same-sex marriage is unfair from the point of view of human rights and gender equality.
 

Public Opinion on Legalizing Dual-Surname Option for Married Couples

The SJB survey also examined the public opinion of the selective surname system, which would allow married Japanese people to keep their premarital surnames if they wished. In surveying this issue, the researchers used two different question formats to shed light on a debate surrounding the Japanese government’s modification of its public opinion survey on this issue between 2017 and 2021. After the government revised the question asked on this matter, support for the selective surname system dropped from a record high of 42.5% in 2017 to a record low of only 28.9% in 2021. Therefore, the SJB randomly assigned respondents to answer two versions of the government survey under scrutiny, from 2017 and 2021.

In the 2021 government survey, respondents had to read certain materials before saying whether they approve or disapprove of the selective surname system. The materials included two tables. One, titled “Reference Material on Married Couples’ Surnames and Family Names,” explains the current system of married couples' surnames, the selective system of married couples' surnames, and the legal system for the use of the common name of the maiden name, respectively.

The other table explains the options, with the horizontal axis divided into “maintain the system of married couples with the same surname” and “introduce a selective system of married couples with separate surnames,” and the vertical axis divided into “no” and “yes” for “need to establish a legal system for using the maiden name as the common name.”

In 2021, the respondents were asked to choose from the following three options: “It is preferable to maintain the current system of married couples having the same family name;” “It is preferable to maintain the current system of married couples having the same family name and establish a legal system for the use of the maiden name;” and “It is preferable to introduce a selective system of married couples having separate family names.”

On the other hand, the question until 2017 was “Currently, married couples must always take the same surname.” After explaining the current system and the system of selective married couples' surnames, the question was “As long as a couple is married, they should always take the same surname.. If a couple wishes to take their premarital surname, they may change the law to allow each person to take their pre-marital surname. The couple should take the same surname, but it is acceptable to change the law so that a person who has changed his/her surname by marriage can use his/her pre-marital surname as a common name anywhere.”

As a result, under the 2021 method, 30% of the respondents chose “it is better to maintain the current system of the same family name for married couples,” 39% chose “it is better to maintain the current system of the same family name for married couples and establish a legal system for the use of the maiden name as a common name,” and 30% chose “it is better to introduce an optional system of separate family names for married couples.

On the other hand, in the 2017 method, 23% of respondents said “As long as a couple is married, they should always take the same surname (family name), and there is no need to change the current law,” while 57% said “If a couple wishes to take their pre-marital surname (family name), it is fine to change the law to allow each couple to take their pre-marital surname (family name). 57% said they “do not mind” and 19% said they “do not mind” if the law is changed to allow married couples to use their maiden name as a common name even if they wish to keep their maiden name. In other words, 57% of the respondents chose to selectively separate their surnames.

The 2021 method was criticized for how the question was asked, which was different from how it had been asked until 2017 and allegedly induced more support for using common names. The results of the SJB survey show that even if respondents were randomly assigned to the 2017 and 2021 methods at the same time, the results of the 2021 method would show more support for using common names. In other words, one should be wary of citing the results of the 2021 method to argue that support for the use of common names is higher than support for a legal change to selective married couples.

To find out under what conditions public opinion would move toward selective surnames for married couples, the SJB also conducted an experiment on different arguments that might influence support for a legal change to allow married couples to keep different surnames.

The arguments included different prompts: “In Japanese society, there is a tradition that married couples take the same surname once they get married;” “In Japanese society, there is a tradition that married couples take separate surnames once they get married;” “Among those who had surnames in pre-modern Japan, and even in early Meiji Era Japan, it was normal for married couples to have separate surnames after marriage;” “It is largely women who change their surnames after marriage;” “If married couples take different surnames after marriage, it will weaken family ties and have negative impact on children, which will lead to a loss for Japanese society.” The respondents were asked whether they agreed or disagreed with the prompts.

The results show that the argument about social costs — how allowing married couples to maintain different surnames would weaken family ties with harmful effects on children — seems to substantially change public attitudes, reducing support for a legal change.

The SJB survey results suggest that responses to polls vary depending on how the questions are asked and on the assumptions made. When looking at poll results, it is therefore important to note the framing of the questions and prompts.