North Korea has smuggled monarchy through the front door of its communist system. Korea's millennia-long history of kings and queens means that the people of the DPRK have only known monarchy or dictatorship (Japanese, 1910-45; the Kim family's, 1945--present); ordinary people frequently refer to their leader as "wang," or king. Unlike with Kim Jong Il (who resembled his mother, not his father), the regime has gone out of its way to identify Kim Jong Un with his grandfather--and the grandson, in turn, has adopted the characteristic public style of Kim Il Sung. Many American commentators mistakenly assume that when the leader dies, North Korea will be like the Soviet Union after Stalin, or China after Mao. In fact it has gone through two stable leadership transitions, in 1994 and 2011, and given Kim Jong Un's youth, there may not be another one for many years.

This event is co-sponsored by Center for East Asian Studies, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Department of History and Korean Studies Program

Please register at http://ceas.stanford.edu/events/event_detail.php?id=3147.

For questions and details, please contact Ms. Marna Romanoff at romanoff@stanford.edu

In this talk, Professor Han will examine the implications for the Zainichi (people of Korean ethnicity who have lived in Japan since the colonial period) of choosing between identifying themselves as either Chōsen or Kankoku for Japan's alien registration purposes. Chōsen is a historic name for Korea now also used by North Korea in its official name, while Kankoku, which also means Korea, refers to the Republic of Korea (South Korea). 

Young-Hae Han is a visiting professor at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) for the 2012–13 academic year. She is also a professor at the Graduate School of International Studies at Seoul National University (SNU). Her research and education focuses on contemporary Japanese society. She has conducted field research on Japanese grassroots social movements in cities such as Kawasaki, Kunidachi, Kobe, Yamagata, Kanazawa, and Oita. After the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, she organized a team and conducted research in the damaged area. Han is also involved in researching another topic that is of great interest to her: ethnic minorities in contemporary Japan. For this topic, her research has been focused on the identity issues of Zainichi Koreans, particularly on the changing relationship of the Zainichi with their "homeland" in the post-cold war period.

Han served as the director of the Institute for Japanese Studies at SNU from 2006 to 2012 before she joined Shorenstein APARC. She also served as the chair of the Exchange Committee of KSA-AJS at the Korean Sociological Association from 2008 to 2011.

Han is the author of numerous publications, such as the books: Understanding Contemporary Japanese Society (in Korean); Japanese Community and Grassroots Social Movements (in Korean); Multi-Cultural Japan and Identity Politics (co-author, in Korean). Her recent publications include Institutionalization of East Asian Studies and New Dilemmas: With a Focus on Japanese Studies (in English); New Relationship between Zainichi Koreans and the Homeland: Through the Journeys of the Former 'Chosen Nationals' Living in Korea (in Japanese); The Meaning of 'Seikatsu' (Life) in the Citizens' Movement in Contemporary Japan (in Korean); and The Inheritance of the Korean Dance and Identity in the Ethnic Korean Community (in Korean).  

Forecasting is a difficult profession. International economist David Hale and writer Lyric Hughes Hale do not claim they can foretell the future. But as veteran observers of the Asian economies, they can envision scenarios that are contrary to current conventional wisdom, and trends that deserve more attention than they are given in the media. What if China and Japan actually engage in armed conflict? Could East Asia experience its own version of the Arab Spring? What would be the consequences of another major earthquake in Japan? When the United States was the dominant power in the Pacific, security interests and economic interests were aligned in the region. Now that China has become the largest trading partner for many ASEAN countries, a new Great Divergence is emerging, with  potentially destabilizing consequences. While our national attention has been dominated by the Middle East for a decade now, in the coming era of energy self-sufficiency in the United States, we must shift our focus to the Far East.

David Hale
Global Economist & Chairman
David Hale Global Economics, Inc.

                    and

Lyric Hughes Hale
Independent International Affairs Professional &
Board Director, The Japan America Society of Chicago

North Korea, arguably the most isolated country in the world, poses unique challenges for journalists. Access to the country is severely limited and even when a journalist is able to gain entry, the secretive and repressive nature of the state significantly limits what can be learned. Still, despite these difficult conditions, the realities of North Korean life are increasingly finding their way into various media, from newspaper reporting and on-line media to thinly fictionalized accounts.

This panel will take a multi-faceted look at the coverage of North Korea through the journalist (represented by 2012 Shorenstein Journalism Award winner Barbara Demick), the editor, the development/relief worker, and the novelist.

Panelists include:

Barbara Demick, has been Beijing bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times since 2008. She has focused on human trafficking, corruption, and minorities, as well as North Korea. Demick is the author of two books -- Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea and Logavina Street: Life and Death in a Sarajevo Neighborhood. Her work has won awards from the Asia Society, the Overseas Press Club, the American Academy of Diplomacy, among others. Her North Korea book, which has been translated into more than 20 languages, recently won the International Book Award on Human Rights. She is a graduate of Yale and taught a seminar on coverage of repressive regimes at Princeton University. She lives in Beijing with her son Nicholas.

Susan Chira, was named assistant managing editor for news for the New York Times in September 2011. Previously, she had served as foreign editor (since January 2004), and as editorial director of book development (since September 2002). Before that, Chira was the editor of the "Week in Review" section at the Times (since October 1999), after having served as deputy foreign editor of the newspaper (since February 1997). Earlier, she served in a variety of reporting positions including national education correspondent, Tokyo correspondent (from October 1984 until February 1989), metropolitan reporter in the Albany and Stamford bureaus, and reporter for the "Business Day" section.
 

Katharina Zellweger, a Pantech Fellow, joined the Korean Studies Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center after five years of living in Pyongyang where she has served as the North Korea country director for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). Through her SDC and earlier work, she has witnessed modest economic and social changes not visible to most North Korea observers. Her research at the Center has drawn on her over 15 years of humanitarian work in North Korea and explore how aid intervention can stimulate positive sustainable change there

 

Adam Johnson is an associate professor of English, with emphasis in creative writing, at Stanford University. A Whiting Writers’ Award winner, his fiction has appeared in Esquire, Harper's, Playboy, Paris Review, Granta, Tin House, and Best American Short Stories. He is the author of Emporium, a short-story collection, and the novel Parasites Like Us, which won a California Book Award. His novel The Orphan Master's Son, a novel set in North Korea, has just been published by Random House. His books have been translated into sixteen languages. Johnson was a 2010 National Endowment for the Arts Fellow.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon presented a free public talk at Stanford on Thursday, Jan. 17.

Ban, who is the eighth secretary-general of the UN, will speak about the UN's role in creating opportunities out of the challenges posed by today's rapidly transitioning world.

"Times of transition are times of profound opportunity," he recently said during his acceptance speech for the Seoul Peace Prize. "The decisions we make in this period will have an impact for generations to come.”

Ban's initiatives as UN secretary-general have focused on promoting sustainable development; empowering women; supporting countries in crisis or instability; generating new momentum on disarmament, arms control, and nonproliferation; and strengthening the UN. Among his many activities as secretary-general, he has successfully raised major pledges and financing packages for aid and crisis response, established the agency UN Women, and introduced new measures to promote UN transparency and efficiency.

Ban was born in the Republic of Korea in 1944, and he served for 37 years with the ROK Foreign Ministry, in roles including that of minister of foreign affairs and trade, foreign policy adviser to the president, and chief national security adviser to the president. He took office as UN secretary-general in January 2007, and was re-elected for a second term by the UN General Assembly in June 2011. Ban will serve as secretary-general until December 2016.

The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies are co-sponsoring the event. Ban's talk, part of the Asia-Pacific Leaders Forum, will kick off a series of activities commemorating Shorenstein APARC's thirtieth anniversary.

Founded in 2005, Shorenstein APARC's Asia-Pacific Leaders Forum regularly convenes senior leaders from across Asia and the Pacific to exchange ideas on current political, economic, and social dynamics in the region.

RELATED Resources

Speech transcript

Stanford News Service

San Jose Mercury News

Stanford Daily

U.N. News Centre

 

China and India are, by far, the two most populous countries in the world. As a result of declining fertility, increasing life expectancy, and the progression of large cohorts to the older ages, both of them, like all other countries, have aging populations. However, China’s total fertility rate began to fall much earlier and faster than India’s, and its life expectancy began to rise much earlier. As a result, China is aging rapidly, with the ratio of working-age to dependent population set to decline. In India, the ratio is still rising.

For a variety of reasons that encompass but also extend beyond demographic factors, both countries have experienced rapid economic growth, though China’s rate has been much higher than India’s. With the two populations aging at different rates, the relative economic growth paths of the two countries may also change.

This conference features research papers addressing the economic determinants or consequences of population aging in China or India. Some focus on China or India; some compare the two. A lunchtime panel will feature roundtable discussion of invited researchers.

The conference is sponsored by the Program on the Global Demography of Aging, the South Asia Initiative, the Asia Center, the Harvard-Yenching Institute, the Harvard China Fund, and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs (all at Harvard University), and the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (at Stanford University).