The Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab (SNAPL) has received two grants to offer guidance for more effective U.S. foreign policy strategies in Asia and propose structural reforms that propel the region toward growth, innovation, and democratic resilience. The first grant, from the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), supports SNAPL's policy engagements with stakeholders in Washington, D.C., forthcoming this September. The second grant, from Stanford Global Studies, funds a series of SNAPL-hosted research workshops throughout the 2024-25 academic year.

Both funded initiatives underscore SNAPL's commitment to generating evidence-based policy recommendations and promoting transnational collaboration with academic and policy institutions to advance the future prosperity of Asia and U.S.-Asia relations.

Housed at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), SNAPL is led by Stanford sociologist Gi-Wook Shin, the William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea, a senior fellow at FSI, and the director of APARC and the Korea Program. The lab’s mission is to address emergent social, cultural, economic, and political challenges facing Asia-Pacific countries and guide effective U.S. Asia policies through interdisciplinary, comparative research and collaboration with academic and policy research institutions in Asia and the United States.  

“We are grateful to FSI and Stanford Global Studies for supporting SNAPL's interdisciplinary, policy-relevant research,” says Shin. “The two grants provide a tremendous boost as we work to contribute evidence-based recommendations to advance a more nuanced understanding of Asia's role in global affairs and informed new directions for U.S. Asia policies.”

Policy Considerations for U.S.-China and U.S.-Asia Relations

With a grant from FSI to support policy engagement, SNAPL team members will share research findings from several of the lab’s flagship projects. The SNAPL team — including Shin, Research Fellow Xinru Ma, and Postdoctoral Fellows Gidong Kim and Junki Nakahara — will travel to Washington, D.C. in September 2024 to present these findings at forums and meetings with academic and policy communities. The trip includes a joint symposium with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a presentation at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, and meetings with think tanks and Congress members.

Three core projects the team will share guide U.S. policies in Asia, particularly toward China. The first project challenges many pundits’ framing of the U.S.-China competition as a “new Cold War.” In contrast to this narrative, a recent SNAPL study reveals that contemporary U.S.-China relations are markedly different from the U.S.-Soviet Cold War dynamics. “Our analysis of over 41,000 Congressional speeches spanning 36 years suggests that current U.S. discourses on China mirror those on the past economic competition with Japan rather than the ideological or military conflicts with the USSR in the Cold War era,” says Ma. “Applying Cold War analogies to today's geopolitical landscape would thus misguide efforts to navigate current U.S.-China tensions.”

The research findings from a second SNAPL study offer a better understanding of how U.S. alliance relationships and U.S.-China tensions shape public attitudes toward China in the Asia-Pacific region. Furthermore, another study challenges the conventional wisdom that democracy promotion gives the U.S. a competitive edge in its foreign policy over China. “Our research indicates that liberal values do not serve as a key lens through which Asia-Pacific citizens view recent geopolitical developments,” notes Kim. “The United States should therefore pivot from focusing on liberal rhetoric to emphasizing its role in promoting shared benefits with Asia-Pacific citizens in economic, trade, and military security areas.”

These studies are part of SNAPL’s U.S.-Asia Relations research track.

Racism in Global Context

At George Washington University, the SNAPL team will discuss findings from a project the lab explores as part of another research track, Nationalism and Racism. Recognizing that racism is a global problem with diverse roots and manifestations, this research track examines how nationalism and racism intertwine to create forms of exclusion and marginalization in Asia and provides policy recommendations to advance more inclusive societies in the region and beyond.

At this discussion, to be hosted by the Elliott School of International Affairs’ Sigur Center for Asian Studies, the team will present findings from a study that analyzes how 16 Northeast, Southeast, and South Asian nations discuss and justify their positions on race and racial discrimination. “Our study reveals various forms of racism ‘denial’ rooted in nationalist and religious ideologies, hindering efforts to address ongoing inequalities,” says Nakahara. “Addressing these forms of denial is crucial for promoting critical dialogue on race and racism in Asia and dismantling systems of oppression in the region and elsewhere.”

A Platform for Interdisciplinary Research on Contemporary Asia

SNAPL’s second grant, awarded by Stanford Global Studies, will enable the lab to host throughout the 2024-25 academic year a research workshop series focused on projects from the two research tracks above. Involving scholars and students from Stanford and Asia, the six-part series will foster cross-disciplinary dialogue and share policy-relevant findings grounded in the lab’s research.

The four workshop installments in fall and winter quarters 2024 will be dedicated to the projects discussed above. The spring quarter 2025 workshops will focus on two additional projects: one that examines the discursive construction of U.S. rivals and the respective roles of the media, executive, and legislative branches in this process, and the second that investigates elite articulation of “multiculturalism” in four Asia-Pacific nations.

“These workshops will be invaluable to advancing exchange and partnerships with academics and experts from Stanford and across Asia,” says Shin. “They directly promote SNAPL’s mission to serve as a platform that facilitates trans-Pacific, network-based collaboration."

Visit SNAPL's website for information about the workshops’ schedule and discussion topics.

Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) is delighted to share that Chris Buckley, the chief China correspondent for the New York Times, has won the 2024 Shorenstein Journalism Award for Excellence in Asia-Pacific Coverage. The award recognizes Buckley’s expertly crafted narratives unraveling the intricate tapestry of politics, social dynamics, and security issues in China and Taiwan. He will receive the award at a public ceremony at Stanford in October 2024.

Buckley’s reporting journey spans over two decades, covering Chinese politics, foreign policy, social change, and environmental issues. In recent years, he has focused on detailing the complex dynamics of the Chinese Communist Party’s governance, the transformative impact of Xi Jinping's leadership on China’s’ domestic and international affairs, and the varied responses to these developments from the Chinese populace. Since relocating to Taipei in late 2022, he has expanded his coverage to include Taiwanese society, politics, and culture, providing a comprehensive view of the region’s evolving landscape. His perceptive coverage navigates the challenges of tightened restrictions on foreign press reporting on China.

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Buckley was with colleagues a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in international reporting for gripping accounts that revealed China's covert efforts to repress millions of Uyghurs and other ethnic groups in the Xinjiang region through a system of labor camps, harsh treatment, and extensive surveillance. He was also part of the Times team that won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Public Service for coverage of the Covid pandemic. One of several Times correspondents to race into Wuhan in the earliest days of the Covid outbreak, he spent 76 days in the city during the lockdown there, reporting on the Chinese government’s opacity as the Coronavirus spread and covering the public outcry following the death of whistleblower Dr. Li Wenliang.

In May 2020, Buckley was forced to leave mainland China, where he had lived and worked for more than two decades, and was then barred from working in Hong Kong. Based in Taipei since 2022, he has continued to report on China and now also covers Taiwan.

“With his journalistic prowess, profound insights into China’s political system, and finely honed accounts, Chris Buckley has shined a critical light on the shifts in Chinese society and politics and broke numerous stories despite facing government backlash and personal sacrifices,” said APARC Director Gi-Wook Shin. “We are honored to recognize him with the Shorenstein Journalism Award.”

Before rejoining the New York Times in 2012, Buckley was a senior correspondent in Beijing for Reuters News Agency for 7 years, and before that worked as a researcher and reporter for the Times and International Herald Tribune in Beijing. He grew up in Sydney, Australia, earned a bachelor's degree in history from the University of Sydney, studied Chinese Communist Party history at Renmin University in Beijing, and received a doctorate in Chinese studies from Australian National University.

Presented annually by APARC, the Shorenstein Award carries a $10,000 cash prize and commemorates the legacy of APARC’s benefactor, Mr. Walter H. Shorenstein, and his twin passions for promoting excellence in journalism and understanding of Asia. The selection committee for the award praised Buckley’s exemplary work as embodying the award’s purpose, commenting that he is “truly unparalleled in his knowledge and understanding of China.”

The committee members are William Dobson, co-editor of the Journal of Democracy; Anna Fifield, the Washington Post's Asia-Pacific editor and recipient of the 2018 Shorenstein Journalism Award; James Hamilton, the Hearst Professor of Communication, chair of the Department of Communication, and director of the Journalism Program at Stanford University; Louisa Lim, associate professor, Audio-Visual Journalism Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne; and Raju Narisetti, publisher of McKinsey Global Publishing at McKinsey and Company.

Twenty-two winners previously received the Shorenstein Award. Recent honorees include The Caravan, India's premier magazine of long-form journalism; Emily Feng, international correspondent for NPR covering China, Taiwan, and beyond; Swe Win, editor-in-chief of Myanmar Now; and Nobel Laureate Maria Ressa, CEO and president of the Philippines-based news organization Rappler.

Information about the 2024 Shorenstein Journalism Award ceremony and panel discussion celebrating Buckely will be forthcoming in the fall quarter.

Stanford University's Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) proudly announces the launch of the Taiwan Program, which will serve as an interdisciplinary research and education hub on contemporary Taiwan. The program will investigate Taiwan’s strides as a modernization exemplar and the challenges its economy and society face in seeking to drive dynamism and growth in an era marked by shifting global relations. On May 2, 2024, APARC will host the program’s inaugural conference, Innovate Taiwan: Shaping the Future of a Postindustrial Society. Registration for the conference is now open.

Mirroring the dilemmas of other postindustrial societies, Taiwan today finds itself pressed by multiple imperatives. These include the need to generate novel economic competitiveness models amid rapid technological advancement and declining multilateral cooperation, address changing demographic realities, foster cultural diversity and tolerance, fulfill the action pathway to achieve net-zero emissions, and create the institutional and policy conditions to enable these adaptations. The Taiwan Program will explore how Taiwan can effectively address these challenges and seize the opportunities they afford for it to remain at the forefront of vibrancy and progress in the 21st century. 

Housed within APARC, part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), the Taiwan Program will pursue a mission encompassing research endeavors, education and learning initiatives, and exchange opportunities. By investing in these three core areas, the program will produce interdisciplinary, policy-relevant research to understand and address Taiwan’s challenges of economic, social, technological, environmental, and institutional adaptation in the coming decades; prepare the next generation of students to become experts on Taiwan; and facilitate meaningful interactions between Stanford faculty, researchers, and students with their Taiwanese counterparts and with policy experts, industry leaders, and civil society stakeholders in Taiwan. In all these areas, the program will leverage APARC’s expertise and networks and build upon the center’s strong track record of academic research and policy engagement with East Asia. This includes leveraging the proven model and rich experience of APARC’s esteemed programs on contemporary China, Japan, and Korea.

"The Taiwan Program underscores our commitment to deepening understanding of and engagement with Taiwan,” said Gi-Wook Shin, the William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea and director of APARC. “We aim to foster research-practice partnerships between the United States and Taiwan while contributing to Taiwan's long-term development," added Shin, who is also a professor of sociology, a senior fellow at FSI, and director of the Korea Program at APARC.

The program will be led by a distinguished scholar of contemporary Taiwan to be recruited by the university in an international search. APARC will soon announce its inaugural postdoctoral fellow on contemporary Taiwan, who will help organize the program’s activities in the next academic year. The new program is made possible thanks to tremendous support from several Stanford donors who care deeply about Taiwan’s role on the global stage and U.S.-Taiwan relations. 

"We are profoundly grateful to our supporters for their partnership and commitment to advancing understanding of Taiwan and the U.S.-Taiwan relationship in this pivotal Asia-Pacific region," noted Shin. “This new investment will help us establish a world-leading program on Taiwan at Stanford.”

To inaugurate the new program, APARC will host the conference "Innovate Taiwan: Shaping the Future of a Postindustrial Society." Held on May 2 at the Bechtel Conference Center in Encina Hall, this full-day event will convene esteemed academic and industry leaders to engage in panel discussions covering topics such as migration, culture, and societal trends; health policy and biotechnology; economic growth and innovation; and the dynamics of domestic and international Taiwanese industries. Visit the conference webpage to learn more and register to attend in person.

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. Here, we provide an English translation of the first three pieces in this series. Additional articles in the series will be published sequentially.

PART I

How Question Framing Changes the Results of Public Opinion Polls: Japan Barometer's Attempt to Get at the "True Feelings” of Survey Respondents

View the original article at Asahi Shimbun GLOBE+ >

Asahi Shimbun GLOBE+ sat down with Tsutsui to learn more about the findings of SJB, its goals, and how it differs from other public opinion polls.

Asahi Shimbun GLOBE+: Why did you come up with the idea to start the Stanford Japan Barometer?

Area studies have been in decline within the social sciences. Although China research is developing, there has been a significant shift away from Japan studies. In 2019, the Asia Society of North America held a session titled “The Death of Japanese Studies.” It made me think that conducting large-scale research experiments with Japan as the theme could spark new developments in the field. The idea was that this effort would draw attention to Japanese studies and foster young researchers interested in Japan.

Asahi Shimbun GLOBE+: What makes SJB different from other public opinion polls?

First, we routinely administer the SJB to an extensive national sample comprising 8,000 Japanese residents. Another unique point is our focus on the type of questions asked to “sway” people's opinions. That is why we call it an experiment. Thus, one of the characteristics of SJB is that we create questions with different preconditions for a given problem and then compare the answers and see how these preconditions affect respondents’ attitudes.

For example, in the first wave of the survey, the theme was gender and sexuality in Japanese politics, and we asked respondents about the pros and cons of same-sex marriage, looking into what kind of influence the preconditions of the survey questions would have on the responses. We created eight types of such preconditions and randomly assigned them to respondents.

We presented some respondents with prompts about tradition and history, such as “In Japanese society, it is a tradition that marriage is between people of the opposite sex” and “Japanese society has tolerated romantic relationships between people of the same sex since the Middle Ages and the Warring States period.” We presented other respondents with preconditions about the fairness of same-sex marriages from the point of view of constitutional rights and human rights principles. We found that respondents tend to become more supportive of same-sex marriage when presented with an argument that not allowing same-sex marriage is unfair from the point of view of human rights and gender equality.

Asahi Shimbun GLOBE+: Generally, in public opinion polls, we take care to ask neutral questions, but you are intentionally doing the opposite.

That's right. By doing so, we can understand what kind of efforts are effective in moving people’s attitudes. As a sociologist, my research focuses on social movements, and I am very interested in the slow pace of change in Japanese society. Therefore, I want to understand why it hasn't changed much and how we can affect change.

In addition to opinions about same-sex marriage, we asked about respondents’ views of desirable attributes of a candidate for the House of Representatives in categories such as gender, age, and occupation. We also examined how the responses changed depending on a candidate’s political party and other factors.

By asking about desirable attributes of a candidate from multiple perspectives, you can elicit answers closer to the respondents’ true feelings. In the future, we plan to continue conducting experiments to see how the results change depending on these preconditions and the characteristics of the respondents.

Asahi Shimbun GLOBE+: What research themes do you have in mind for the future?

I want to research various fields and have already completed research on Japan’s defense spending tax increase and the Taiwan contingency situation. I also want to investigate topics like AI and immigration. In the future, I would like to open a public call for research themes to investigate with SJB.

Part 2
Do Japanese People Envision the Ideal Political Leaders as Females in Their 30s or 40s? Stanford Japan Barometer Finds Out

A recurring issue in Japanese public discussions on gender equality pertains to the underrepresentation of women in leadership roles, particularly in politics and business. To better understand the Japanese public attitudes toward this gender gap, SJB conducted conjoint experiments exploring the preferences of the Japanese public regarding candidates for a Diet seat. In this article, Tsutsui explains the method and results of this survey.

View the original article at Asahi Shimbun GLOBE+ >

This survey asked respondents about the following six attributes regarding candidates they would like to see in the next Diet:

• Age (from 32 years old to 82 years old in 10-year increments)
• Sex
• Marriage
• Number of children
• Academic background
• Occupation (11 options, including finance, business, foreign affairs bureaucrats, corporate managers and officers, governors, local legislators, homemakers, and others)

When asking the question, we created two “candidate images'' by randomly combining six attributes and asked respondents to choose them in a multiple-choice format. We then aggregated and analyzed the respondents’ answers. This complex method statistically allows us to get closer to the respondents’ “true feelings.”

As a result of the analysis, the combinations of attributes that received the most responses, or in other words, the “ideal candidate image'' that respondents thought of, were as follows:

Gender: Female
Age: 32 and 42 years old
Occupation: Governor and corporate manager/officer

These findings indicate that Japanese people wish to see more female leaders in their 30s and 40s become politicians. Additionally, 75% of respondents agreed that “there should be more efforts to increase the number of female members in Japan's Diet.'' Nearly all respondents, regardless of gender, age group, party support, or the strength of their support for the Kishida administration, favored having a female politician over a male one, and even among those who rated Japan as already diverse, many said they would prefer female candidates.

Based on these findings, we assert that a notable portion of the Japanese population sincerely backs women leaders. Furthermore, if a female candidate is nominated, she will likely get elected.

Conversely, the combinations of attributes with weak public support were as follows:
Gender: Male
Age: 72 and 82
Occupation: TV commentator, parliamentary secretary, financial bureaucrat

These results indicate that Japanese public opinion neither favors older male politicians nor desires people in occupations close to national politics.

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has, in fact, actively supported women in elections in urban areas, including the Tokyo 8th Ward of the House of Representatives, which includes Suginami Ward. The reason is that "experience has shown that women are in demand," according to LDP officials. Interestingly, this sentiment coincides with the image of politicians desired by public opinion (women in their 30s and 40s, not older men), as highlighted by the Stanford Japan Barometer.

There may be an election for the Lower House of Representatives in 2024, and it will be interesting to see how many women will get elected after the supplementary and unified elections.

Part 3
The Liberal Democratic Party's Bold Strategy of Fielding Female Candidates: A "Survival Instinct" Consistent with Voters’ Desires

View the original article at Asahi Shimbun GLOBE+ >

The results of the first wave of the Stanford Japan Barometer match the LDP's policy of supporting women. The LDP, which has approved a string of candidates for the upcoming general election to dissolve the House of Representatives, has been fielding women mainly in urban areas. A typical example is Tokyo's 8th Ward (a large part of Suginami Ward). For a long time, the LDP's Nobuaki Ishihara dominated this seat. Yet he lost the 2021 Lower House election to Harumi Yoshida, a female newcomer to the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan. Ishihara was also unable to regain his seat proportionally.

In 2022, female newcomer Satoko Kishimoto won the Suginami Ward mayor election against the incumbent male candidate. Kishimoto supported mainly women in the 2023 Ward Assembly election, resulting in a female majority. The LDP responded by supporting a 42-year-old woman from the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry in Tokyo's 8th Ward.

In Tokyo's 18th Ward (Musashino, Fuchu, and Koganei), the home district of former Prime Minister Naoto Kan (Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan), who recently announced his retirement, the Tokyo Metropolitan Federation of Trade Unions also held an open recruitment campaign for women only. In addition, there has been a string of female candidates in Tokyo, including Tamayo Marukawa, who switched from the House of Councillors to the upper house of the Diet. That is because LDP officials have learned from experience that "women and young people, especially in urban areas, are the most likely to win now,” according to a senior LDP official.

In the supplementary elections for the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors, women won in the Chiba 5th district of the House of Representatives, the Wakayama 1st District of the House of Representatives, and the Oita Constituency of the House of Councillors. Men previously held all these positions, and the races were considered hotly contested.

Does the LDP have a philosophy that "diversity is important in politics, so let's increase the number of women"? No, not necessarily. When the LDP debated the Candidate Gender Equality Act (enacted in 2018), which calls for political parties to have an equal number of male and female candidates as much as possible, some LDP members protested, saying that forcing an increase in the number of women would lower the quality of politicians, that it was reverse discrimination against men, and that it would also not be a fair assessment of women.

LDP lawmakers were quick to say they were not against increasing the number of women, but it also seemed as if men were afraid of having their status threatened. The LDP's recent nomination of a string of women likely indicates a “survival strategy.”

If the voters prefer women, they will support women. Of course, the LDP is not basing its decision to field women on the results of the Stanford Japan Barometer. Still, the fact that the LDP is fielding candidates who closely match the preferred candidate image yielded in the SJB survey shows how strong the LDP's survival instinct is.

The LDP once even formed a coalition with the Socialist Party, which it continued to oppose as an opposition party. The LDP is tenacious and determined.

Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) invites applications for a postdoctoral fellowship and a visiting scholar position on contemporary Taiwan to begin in Autumn Quarter 2024. These new positions are part of APARC’s expansion of its work on Taiwan, focusing particularly on its economy, society, and culture in a new era of global relations and “postindustrial” development.

About the Postdoctoral Fellowship on Contemporary Taiwan

The postdoctoral fellow participates in APARC’s research and engagement activities while undertaking original research on contemporary Taiwan. We welcome fellowship applications from candidates studying issues related to how Taiwan can meet the challenges and opportunities of economic, social, technological, environmental, and institutional adaptation in the coming decades, using a variety of disciplines including the social sciences, public policy, and business.

The postdoctoral fellowship appointment begins in Autumn Quarter 2024 and is for one academic year, with a possibility of extension contingent on satisfactory performance and funding.

The fellowship is limited to recent PhDs: applicants cannot be more than three years past the awarding of their doctoral degree when the fellowship starts. They must have degree conferral and official approval/certification no later than June 30 prior to the fellowship start date (that is, no later than June 30, 2024, for 2024-25 fellowships starting in autumn 2024).

Postdoctoral fellows are required to be in residence for the duration of the appointment and to take part in APARC activities throughout the academic year. Fellows are also expected to support programmatic needs such as colloquiums and participate in research collaboration through the Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab (SNAPL). The postdoctoral fellowship is a 10-month appointment with a salary of approximately $65,000 (annual rate of $78,000), or commensurate with Stanford policy and set minimums, plus up to $3,000 for research expenses.

The application deadline is January 1, 2024. Read on for the application guidelines.

Apply for the Postdoctoral Fellowship on Contemporary Taiwan

Interested candidates must follow these requirements:

I. Fill out the online application form;

II. Upload the following materials to the online form (in English, PDF format):

• Curriculum vitae;
• A short research statement (not to exceed five typed pages, double-spaced) that describes the research and writing to be undertaken during the fellowship period, as well as the proposed publishable product.

III. Submit the completed application form along with the required materials;

IV. Submit Letters of Recommendation: 
Email THREE (3) letters of recommendation (in PDF format) to taiwanprogramfellowship@stanford.edu. We will accept official letters of recommendation from the applicant, a dossier service, or directly from references.

All applications must be received by 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time on Monday, January 1, 2024.

Once we have received all components of your application, including three recommendations, we will send you an email confirming the completion of your application. If you have not received this email, you may send an email checking your application status. 

Note: Please be advised that Stanford University will close for winter break from December 21, 2023, through January 3, 2024, and response time to inquiries during this period may be delayed.

About the Visiting Scholarship on Contemporary Taiwan

The visiting scholar on contemporary Taiwan will work collaboratively with APARC faculty and researchers, Stanford faculty, and students to conduct research related to how Taiwan can meet the challenges and opportunities of economic, social, technological, environmental, and institutional adaptation in the coming decades, using a variety of disciplines including the social sciences, public policy, and business.

The visiting scholar position is available to researchers and professionals with PhD degrees or substantial records of professional achievement related to contemporary Taiwan. Applicants must be visiting from and affiliated with an outside institution or organization and must be proficient in the English language. There is a preference for mid-career professionals with a strong research and publication record. Visiting fellows are selected on the basis of prior professional achievements and the quality of research and publication proposals.

The appointment begins in Autumn Quarter 2024 and is for one academic year. The visiting scholar will be offered $30,000 as a supplementary stipend.

Visiting scholars are required to be in residence for the duration of the appointment, take part in APARC activities throughout the academic year, and meet with collaborators and stakeholders as needed. They are also expected to support programmatic needs such as colloquiums and participate in research collaboration through the Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab (SNAPL). Additional privileges include access to Stanford research facilities, the opportunity to audit relevant University lecture courses without a fee (subject to permission of the instructor), and the opportunity to participate in events at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and elsewhere on campus.

The center is still accepting applications for the 2024-2025 visiting fellowship. Read on for the application guidelines.

Apply for the Visiting Scholar Position on Contemporary Taiwan

I. Fill out the online application form;

II. Upload the following materials to the online form (in English, PDF format):

• A formal letter of request containing a detailed proposal of the work to be carried out while in residency at APARC;
• A formal and complete academic curriculum vitae, including a list of publications.

III. Submit the completed application form along with the required materials;

IV. Submit two (2) letters of reference. The letters of reference should be emailed to taiwanprogramfellowship@stanford.edu. The candidate’s legal name and email address must be included on top of each required document.

Contact

For questions about the application process for the postdoctoral fellowship and visiting scholar position, please contact Kristen Lee at taiwanprogramfellowship@stanford.edu. 

About APARC

The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) addresses critical issues affecting the countries of Asia, their regional and global affairs, and U.S.-Asia relations. As Stanford University’s hub for the interdisciplinary study of contemporary Asia, we produce policy-relevant research, provide education and training to students, scholars, and practitioners, and strengthen dialogue and cooperation between counterparts in the Asia-Pacific and the United States. For more information, visit aparc.stanford.edu.

Stanford University is an equal opportunity employer, and we welcome applications from diverse backgrounds that would bring additional dimensions to the university's research and teaching missions. Diversity includes, but is not limited to, culture, socioeconomic background, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, physical capabilities, and life experience.

More Fellowship Opportunities at APARC

APARC offers additional Fall 2024 Asia Studies Fellowships that are now open for applications. We have opportunities for both emerging scholars and established professionals:

• Asia Health Policy Postdoctoral Fellowship
• Postdoctoral Fellowship on Contemporary Japan
• Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellowship on Contemporary Asia
• Stanford Next Asia Policy Postdoctoral and Visiting Fellowships
• Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Fellowship on Southeast Asia