“Win support from the people,” Yuhua Wang, Assistant Professor of Government at Harvard University, repeated the words from one of Xi Jinping’s speeches that was given to justify China’s massive anti-corruption campaign. The exact scope and motivations for President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign is, as yet, unknowable, Wang stated; but clearly, a major public aim of CCP Chairman Xi Jinping was to build regime support by cracking down on bad actors in the government.

Prof. Yuhua Wang gave a talk titled “Why Xi Jinping’s Anti-Corruption Campaign has Undermined Chinese Citizens’ Regime Support?” at the Stanford China Program on November 12^th, 2018, based on a national-level survey analysis that he had conducted with his co-author, Prof. Bruce Dickson at George Washington University. Rather than focusing on Xi’s motivations for undertaking his crackdown, however, Wang and Dickson tried to measure the impact of Xi’s anti-corruption campaign on public perception of the central government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Did the campaign, in other words, shore up public support for China’s central government and Party, as Xi hoped it would – or did it, in fact, undermine regime support?

Professor Wang first offered some background on how this anti-corruption campaign got started around 2012-2013, shortly after Xi Jinping became Chairman of the CCP. A staggering 261 vice-ministerial officials and 350,000 officials had been investigated to date; and, even those at the highest levels of China’s leadership – former Politburo and Politburo Standing Committee members, for instance –were not immune from scrutiny. And, equally unprecedented, media coverage of these corruption cases – from Bo Xilai to Zhou Yongkang and Xu Caihou – were extensive, exposing their lavish lifestyles and illicit dalliances on social and traditional media. Wang speculated that such lurid publicity most likely shocked the public, potentially turning citizens against even the central government, which consistently enjoys significantly higher levels of public trust than local governments in China. He decided, therefore, to explore with his co-author what the effects of such exposés might be on public perception of the central regime.

Replicating the same questionnaire and sampling design, Wang and his co-author took a national random sample in two waves – one before the anti-corruption campaign in 2010 and a second one during the campaign in 2014. They interviewed approximately 4,000 people across 25 provinces in China in order to measure potential shifts in people’s attitudes towards the regime over those four years. The findings were, indeed, illuminating:

First, Wang stated, increasing frequency of corruption investigations in a locality was correlated with a greater drop in popular regime support (defined as trust in central government or support for the CCP) in that locality. Higher volume of corruption investigations in a locality was also negatively correlated with people’s perception that government officials were generally honest and clean. The corrosive effects of the campaign, furthermore, proved strongest on those who had initially believed in the integrity of government officials; but for those who were already cynical about official corruption, the campaign had a smaller effect. Lastly, higher the survey respondent’s use of social media like WeChat, stronger the negative effects on his/her support for the regime. The authors also took into account how the chilling effects of the campaign may be negatively impacting local economies and how that slowing economy may actually be the primary cause behind decreasing public regime support. To account for this potentially confounding effect, Wang looked for evidence as to whether the campaign had contributed to a slowdown in China’s economy by 2014. Perhaps because 2014 was still early on in the campaign, he stated that they found no evidence of slower GDP growth rate, growth rate per capita GDP, etc., in the regions where they had undertaken their surveys.

Overall, Wang’s research calls into question whether Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign is, in fact, advancing one of his main goals– i.e., to increase people’s faith in the central regime – or whether it is actually proving counterproductive to his aim. In fact, Wang’s research seems to indicate that the more Chinese citizens are exposed to evidence of government corruption, the more the central regime appears to suffer a loss in credibility. Wang was careful to point out, however, that they were barred, due to political sensitivity, from asking any questions regarding respondents’ attitudes towards Xi Jinping himself. Thus, it is still an open question whether popular support for Xi Jinping himself is increasing even though public trust in the regime might be decreasing.

The recording and transcript are available below.  

The world is “graying” at an unprecedented rate. According to the UN’s World Population Prospects 2019, the number of persons over the age of 65 is growing the fastest and expected to more than double by 2050, then triple in another 50 years’ time.

Some Asian countries in particular, plagued by population aging, declining fertility, and gender imbalance, are facing a grim outlook for a demographic crisis. In Japan, one in five people is now 70 or older, birthrate has dropped to a historic level, and the population declined by more than a quarter of a million last year. Meanwhile, South Korea is aging more quickly than any other developed country: with seniors on the verge of making up 14% of the population, the country is on the cusp of becoming an “aged society.” The potential impact of population aging on the labor market and the fiscal pressures on the public systems of healthcare, pensions, and social protection schemes for older adults are some of the many problems that these and other countries must tackle.

Against this background, Shorenstein APARC recently held the third annual gathering of the Stanford Asia-Pacific Innovation project, a Center-led initiative that produces academic and policy-relevant research to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in East Asia. Held in Chuncheon, South Korea and organized jointly with Hallym University’s Institute for Communication Arts and Technology, this year’s conference focused on the intersection of aging, technological development, and innovation in the region.

(Gi-Wook Shin)

APARC Director Gi-Wook Shin opened the two-day session, introducing the conference’s themes. “What policies can promote innovation and entrepreneurship in aging populations?” Shin asked. “What opportunities do new technologies offer for addressing challenges posed by East Asia’s demographic shifts, and what are the threats involved in the adoption of these new technologies?”

Joon-Shik Park, vice president of the Office of Vision and Cooperation at Hallym University,  the conference host, noted that “East Asian countries are the most important testbeds on issues related to aging and innovation,” and that sharing meaningful research and implications from the region “will provide invaluable insights for all the societies around us.”

(From left to right, Yong Suk Lee , Junichi Yamanoi , Young-Bum Kim, and Jiyoung Liu)

Family Business Succession

Demographic forces and population aging at the macro level are altering family structures and assumptions at the micro level. For example, Junichi Yamanoi of Waseda University presented a study that examined how expectations around managerial succession at family firms had a significant impact on a firm’s long-term investments.

The study surveyed over 15,000 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the Tokyo metropolitan area. The participants were initially asked about their firm’s attributes, CEO demographics, and succession expectations. More than a year later (a time lag that eliminated reverse causality), a sampling of respondents was then asked about their current long-term investments (e.g., R&D, new product development, and internationalization activities).

Yamanoi and his coauthors found that, when a family business’ CEO was confident that a successor would follow, their firm was more likely to engage in long-term investment. Additionally, a CEO’s expectations that the successor would be someone other than their child resulted in an even greater likelihood of long-term investment.

As part of its policy propositions, the study recommends that government agencies and SME officers eager to increase investments by SMEs introduce external candidates to such firms. Moreover, family CEOs should be cautioned against investment decisions that are too short-term in orientation, as, due to inherent aversion to losses of socioemotional wealth for the family, they may unconsciously avoid long-term investments.

(Javier Miranda)

Rethinking Age and Entrepreneurship

At a luncheon keynote address, Javier Miranda, principal economist at the U.S. Census Bureau,  shared insights into the correlations between age and high-growth entrepreneurship, considering when in life people start firms and when they start the most successful firms.

Miranda acknowledged that youth is often perceived as being crucial to entrepreneurial success, referring to Mark Zuckerberg’s dictum, “Young people are just smarter.” Venture capitalist (VC) activity seems to support this notion, said Miranda, citing a sample of 35 VC-backed “unicorns” that resulted in a mean founder age of 31. He explained that VCs' high regard of young entrepreneurs may be attributed to a belief in young people's greater deductive reasoning, transformative thinking, and higher energy, optimism, and confidence.

But does the statistical evidence support such a view? It would seem not. Miranda’s data showed that the mean age for founders of any type of firm is 41.9. Furthermore, the mean age for founders of the most successful firms (those ready for Initial Public Offering market) was 45, and a founder at age 50 was approximately twice as likely to experience successful exit or high growth compared to a founder 20 years their junior.

In fact, dependent on the starting of a firm, the probability of a founder’s success peaked in the age range of 45-59. Pointing directly to entrepreneurs like Jobs and Bezos, Miranda conceded that even extremely talented people, who may be talented enough to succeed when young, peaked in middle age.

The results of Miranda’s study seem at odds with VC attraction to younger entrepreneurs. Experience, Miranda concluded, appeared to overwhelm any potential age advantage, but more research was needed to unpack the underlying predictors of entrepreneurial success over one’s life cycle.

Role of Technology in an Aging Populace

Day two of the conference focused on the promising role technology may play as populations age. APARC Research Scholar Kenji Kushida detailed both the current and impending problems Japan faces as its population both ages and shrinks in size, and the solutions possible through technological advancement like robotics, AI, and wearable devices.

For example, Japan’s demographic shift has had a double knock-on effect on agriculture, with the percentage of farm workers age 65 or older steadily rising over the last five years and the total cultivated agricultural land decreasing each passing year. Kushida described how ICT-enabled bulldozers allow farm owners to more precisely flatten the ground in rice paddies, resulting in both greater yields and cost savings as much as 40%.

Healthcare is another significant area of concern in Japan, as healthcare costs for people over 65 are four times that of younger people and medical costs as a proportion of GDP have been increasing sharply, especially in rural areas. Shortage of physicians and diagnostic technicians is another challenge. Kushida gave an example of a technology healthcare resource that enables clinics and hospitals to upload patient medical images which are then diagnosed by medical doctors affiliated with the tool's startup developer. This low-cost solution allows smaller, rural hospitals to tap into a larger network of physicians and specialists online.

While Japan’s technological trajectory has been driven primarily by the private sector, Kushida pointed out the important role played by government actors. Specifically, within the “Abenomics” reforms of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, several key performance indicators include support for digitizing medical records, adoption of robotics in nursing care, and extending “healthy” life expectancy.

Edited volumes collecting the papers from the annual Stanford Asia-Pacific Innovation conferences are forthcoming. These will serve as valuable references for scholars and policymakers. The first conference was held at Stanford in 2017, and examined the industrial organization of businesses and innovation clusters and how such environments affect entrepreneurship. The second conference, held in September of 2018 in Beijing, analyzed the impact of public education and financial policies pursued by East Asian countries to promote entrepreneurship.

From political power in Britain, China, and New York City to robots and morality, APARC faculty draw inspiration for their work from a wide range of sources. Several of them share here what’s on their nightstand or e-book device this summer.

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Thomas Fingar, Shorenstein APARC Fellow

I've decided to devote a portion of my summer reading to books on landmark developments in China being celebrated (or not), because 2019 is a major anniversary year. It marks the 100th anniversaries of the May Fourth Movement and of the establishment of the Kuomintang; the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China; the 40th anniversary of Reform and Opening plus normalization of U.S.-China relations; and the 30th anniversary of Tiananmen Square.

To mark the centennial of the May Fourth Movement, I will reread the pioneering book by Chow Tse-tung, The May Fourth Movement: Intellectual Revolution in Modern China.

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David M. Lampton, Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow

My recommendation is Working, by Robert Caro. A gem on the art of political interviewing and the study of political power. It is also substantively interesting on Robert Moses who literally built New York City. Short and good on many levels.

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Yong Suk Lee, SK Center Fellow at FSI and Deputy Director of the Korea Program at APARC

Here are a few books on my Kindle/nightstand for the summer:

I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov. 
Some of the futuristic novels of the early twentieth century are surprising relevant today. As robots and artificial intelligence have resurfaced in popular media and are the main subject of my current research, I wanted to read this iconic science fiction on robots.

Churchill: The Power of Words, by Winston Churchill and Martin Gilbert 
Churchill’s own account on the power of words. I wanted to revisit Churchill as words have become potentially more powerful and dangerous in today's social media-infused, polarized world.

Loving Frank, by Nancy Horan, and The Vision of Frank Lloyd Wright, by Thomas Heinz 
My more entertaining summer reads: a novel about Frank Lloyd Wright that takes the reader through his personal life, accompanied by one of the most thorough volumes on Wright's architecture.

Happy Summer from APARC!

STANFORD, CA, May 21, 2019 — Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) announced today that the esteemed journalist Maria Ressa is the recipient of the 2019 Shorenstein Journalism Award. Ressa, the cofounder, CEO, and executive editor of the Philippine news platform Rappler, has been a highly-regarded journalist in Asia for more than thirty years and commended worldwide for her courageous work in fighting disinformation and attempts to silence the free press. Presented annually by APARC, the Shorenstein award is conferred upon a journalist who has contributed significantly to greater understanding of Asia through outstanding reporting on critical issues affecting the region. Ressa will receive the award at a ceremony at Stanford in fall quarter 2019.

Ressa spent nearly two decades at CNN, where she was lead investigative reporter focusing on terrorism in Southeast Asia and served as the network’s bureau chief in Manila, then Jakarta. She then became head of news and current affairs at ABS-CBN, the largest media network in the Philippines. Her work aimed to redefine journalism by combining traditional broadcast and new media for social change. In 2012, Ressa launched Rappler, turning it into one of the Philippines’ most influential news organizations and integrating data, content, and new technologies to promote public service journalism and civic engagement. With a commitment to editorial independence, Rappler has often produced critical coverage of Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s controversial policies and actions. In response to these reports, Duterte and his government have repeatedly targeted Rappler and Ressa with threats and lawsuits. Ressa has been arrested twice in recent months.

“Maria Ressa is a champion of digital journalism innovation, and a paragon of protecting democracy and speaking truth to power,” said Gi-Wook Shin, Shorenstein APARC director. “For decades, before she became internationally acclaimed for her brave fight to ‘hold the line,’ Maria’s work had provided deep insights into the complexities of Southeast Asia based on her nuanced knowledge, investigative skills, and the ability to draw upon them to connect with audiences around the world. We are honored to recognize her with the Shorenstein Journalism Award.”

Ressa has taught courses in politics and the press in Southeast Asia for her alma mater, Princeton University, and in broadcast journalism for the University of the Philippines. She is the author of two books: From Bin Laden to Facebook (2012), which traces the spread of terrorism from the training camps of Afghanistan to Southeast Asia and the Philippines, and Seeds of Terror: An Eyewitness Account of Al-Qaeda’s Newest Center of Operations in Southeast Asia (2003), which documented the changing tactics of Al-Qaeda and its next-generation roots in the Muslim strongholds in the Philippines and Indonesia.

The Shorenstein Journalism Award, which carries a $10,000 cash prize, honors the legacy of APARC’s benefactor, Mr. Walter H. Shorenstein, and his twin passions for promoting excellence in journalism and understanding of Asia. APARC recently introduced a new selection committee for the award that presides over the judging of nominees and honoree selection. “We are grateful to the Shorenstein family for its support of our Center and its mission, and to our selection committee members for their expertise and service,” noted Shin. “Our sincere thanks also to the members of the award’s previous jury for their contributions over the years.”

The independent selection committee for the Shorenstein Journalism Award, which unanimously chose Ressa as the 2019 honoree, includes Wendy Cutler, Vice President and Managing Director, Washington, D.C. Office, Asia Society Policy Institute; James Hamilton, Hearst Professor of Communication, Chair of the Department of Communication, and Director of the Stanford Journalism Program, Stanford University; Raju Narisetti, Director of the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship in Economics and Business Journalism and Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia Journalism School; Philip Pan, Asia Editor, The New York Times; and Prashanth Parameswaran, Senior Editor, The Diplomat.  

“Maria Ressa is recognized around the world as a stellar leader in accountability journalism,” said committee member James Hamilton. “As an investigative reporter at CNN, she shed light on terrorism’s threats in Southeast Asia. In cofounding and leading the online news outlet Rappler, she’s brought attention to contentious politics and policies in the Philippines even as she endured politically motivated arrests for her coverage.”

Ressa has earned multiple honors and awards by professional peers and international press freedom organizations, including the Golden Pen of Freedom Award from the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, the Knight International Journalism Award of the International Center for Journalists, the Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award of the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Free Media Pioneer Award from the International Press Institute, the National Democratic Institute’s Democracy Award, and the 2018 Time magazine Person of the Year.

Seventeen journalists have previously received the Shorenstein award, including most recently Anna Fifield, the Washington Post’s Beijing Bureau Chief and long-time North Korea watcher; Siddharth Varadarajan, founding editor of the Wire and former editor of the Hindu; Ian Johnson, a veteran journalist with a focus on Chinese society, religion, and history; and Yoichi Funabashi, former editor-in-chief of the Asahi Shimbun.

Information about the 2019 Shorenstein Journalism Award ceremonies featuring Ressa will be forthcoming in the fall quarter.

Find out more at aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/events/shorenstein-journalism-award.

Media Contact:

Noa Ronkin
Associate Director for Communications and External Relations
Shorenstein APARC
noa.ronkin@stanford.edu

On the centennial of the March First Independence Movement of Korea, APARC Director Gi-Wook Shin and Rennie Moon, associate professor at Yonsei University’s Underwood International College and former Koret fellow in Korean studies at APARC, discuss the origins of the movement and its impact and legacy for anti-imperialist movements in Asia and beyond.

The year 2019 is the centennial of several anti-colonialist movements that emerged in Asia, including the March First Movement of Korea. On that day a century ago, protesters shouting “Mansei!” (“Long live Korean independence!”) gathered in Seoul and formed what would become the first nationwide political protest in Korea under Japanese colonial rule. Although the movement failed to achieve national sovereignty, it left important legacies for Korea and other parts of Asia under foreign dominance.

In a new essay for The Journal of Asian Studies, “1919 in Korea: National Resistance and Contending Legacies,” APARC Director Gi-Wook Shin and Rennie Moon, associate professor at Yonsei University’s Underwood International College and former Koret fellow in Korean studies at APARC, discuss the origins of the March First Movement, its impact on colonial Korea and other parts of Asia that fought against imperialist dominance, and its implications for postcolonial and contemporary Korea, North and South. Their essay is part of the journal’s special forum entitled “Anti-colonialism in Asia: The Centenary of 1919,” which explains why 1919 was not only a single year of important events in Asia, but also a center point for the larger movements of anti-colonialism that emerged globally in the early decades of the twentieth century.

Korea became Japan's protectorate in 1905 and was “annexed” to Imperial Japan five years later. Soon after, Koreans experienced a decade of severe suppression and minimal rights under a brutal military colonial regime. In the aftermath of World War I, however, Shin and Moon write, the international geopolitical climate began to shift. Inspired by the Russian revolution of 1917 and by Wilsonian ideals of national self-determination, Korean intellectuals and leaders began secretly collaborating both inside Korea and abroad, with support from religious leaders and their nationwide mobilizing networks.

On March 1, 1919, twenty-nine leaders gathered in downtown Seoul and read aloud a declaration for Korean independence, sparking a movement that spread quickly from Seoul and Pyongyang throughout the country, with more than one million people protesting. The Japanese, who were caught by surprise, responded with brutal crackdown on protestors.

The March First Movement eventually did not achieve national independence from Japanese rule, but it forced Japan to shift from the earlier military rule to a colonial policy known as bunka seiji (cultural rule), which selectively accommodated Korean demands in nonpolitical spheres and gave rise to many cultural, educational, and media organizations and activities.

It also left Korean leaders divided over what to do next, leading to a schism between moderates, who were willing to work with the new cultural policy in preparation for future national independence, and the socialist radicals, who rejected compromise and went on to establish the Korean Communist Party in 1925. This bifurcation, note Shin and Moon, is seen by many scholars “as the primary origin of the postcolonial national division that would incite a civil war in 1950.”

South Korea recognizes the March First Movement as the basis of the founding of the republic, though conservatives and progressives still disagree about its founding date. When the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was established in the North, however, it downgraded and rewrote the movement in various ways to fit it into its own version of history that traces the legitimacy of the regime to an anti-imperialist, democratic revolution spearheaded by Kim Il-Sung, who became the leader of the DPRK after 1945.

Beyond Korea, explain Shin and Moon, the March First Movement influenced the rise of the anti-imperialist May Fourth Movement in China two months later, inspired the 1919 anti-imperialist resistance that took place in the Philippines and Egypt, and was an impetus that can be seen in the Satyagraha, or nonviolent resistance in India. “By considering the March First and other political movements of 1919 in other Asian countries from a comparative, transnational perspective,” Shin and Moon say, “we can recognize interrelationships and diffusion processes traditionally ignored in historical writings prior to the ‘historiographic revolution’ in the 1990s.”

Read the full article in The Journal of Asian Studies >>