Ian Johnson, a veteran journalist with a focus on Chinese society, religion and history, is the 2016 recipient of the Shorenstein Journalism Award. The award, given annually by the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, is conferred to a journalist who produces outstanding reporting on Asia and has contributed to greater understanding of the complexities of Asia. He will deliver a keynote speech and participate in a panel discussion on May 1, 2017, at Stanford.

“Ian Johnson is one of those rare writers who has not only watched China’s evolution over the long haul, but who is also deeply steeped in the culture and politic of both Europe and the United States as well,” said Orville Schell, the Arthur Ross Director at the Asia Society of New York’s Center on U.S.-China Relations and jury member for the award. “This cross-cultural grounding has imbued his work on China with a humanistic core that, because it is always implicit rather than explicit, is all the more persuasive.”

Ian Buruma, the Paul W. Williams Professor of Democracy, Human Rights, and Journalism at Bard College and jury member for the award, added further praise, “Ian Johnson is one of the finest journalists in the English language. He writes about China with extraordinary insight, deep historical knowledge and a critical spirit tempered by rare human sympathy. His work on China is further enriched by wider interests, such as the problems of Islamist extremism in the West, specifically Germany, where he lives when he is not writing from China.”

The Shorenstein award, now in its 15th year, originally in partnership with the Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard, was created to honor American journalists who through their writing have helped Americans better understand Asia. In 2011, the award was broadened to encompass Asian journalists who pave the way for press freedom, and have aided in the growth of mutual understanding across the Pacific. Recent recipients of the award include Yoichi Funabashi, former editor-in-chief of the Asahi Shimbun; Jacob Schlesinger of the Wall Street Journal; and Aung Zaw, founder of the Irrawaddy, a Burmese publication.

Johnson has spent over half of the past 30 years in the Greater China region, first as a student in Beijing from 1984-85, and then in Taipei from 1986-88. He later worked as a newspaper correspondent in China, from 1994-96 with Baltimore's The Sun, and then from 1997-2001 with the Wall Street Journal, covering macroeconomics, China’s social issues and World Trade Organization accession.

Johnson returned to China in 2009, where he now lives and writes for the New York Times and freelances for the New York Review of Books, the New Yorker and National Geographic. He also teaches and leads a fellowship program at the Beijing Center for Chinese Studies.

Johnson has also worked in Germany, serving as the Wall Street Journal’s Germany bureau chief and senior writer. Early on in his career, he covered the fall of the Berlin Wall and German unification, and later returned to head coverage on areas including the introduction of the euro and Islamist terrorism.

Johnson has been twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and won in 2001 for his coverage of the Chinese government’s suppression of the Falun Gong spiritual movement and its implications of that campaign for the future. He is also the author of two books, Wild Grass (Pantheon, 2004) which examines China’s civil society and grassroots protest, and A Mosque in Munich (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010). His next book, The Souls of China: The Return of Religion after Mao (Pantheon, April 2017) explores the resurgence of religion and value systems in China.

Additional details about the panel discussion and the award are listed below.

About the Panel Discussion and Award Ceremony

A keynote speech will be delivered by Shorenstein Journalism Award winner Ian Johnson, followed by a panel discussion with Orville Schell, the Arthur Ross Director at the Asia Society of New York’s Center on U.S.-China Relations, and Xueguang Zhou, professor of sociology at Stanford; moderated by Daniel C. Sneider, associate director for research at Shorenstein APARC.

May 1, 2017, from 12:00 – 1:30 p.m. (PDT)

Bechtel Conference Center, Encina Hall, 616 Serra Street, Stanford, CA 94305

The keynote speech and panel discussion are open to the public. The award ceremony will take place in the evening for a private audience.

To RSVP for the panel discussion, please visit this page.

About the Shorenstein Journalism Award

The Shorenstein Journalism Award honors a journalist not only for excellence in their field of reporting on Asia, but also for their promotion of a free, vibrant media and for the future of relations between Asia and the United States. Originally created to identify American and Western journalists for their work in and on Asia, the award now also recognizes Asian journalists who have contributed significantly to the development of independent media in Asia. The award is presented annually and includes a prize of $10,000.

The award is named after Walter H. Shorenstein, the philanthropist, activist and businessman who endowed two institutions that are focused respectively on Asia and the press - the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford and the Joan Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

Past recipients of the award include: Yoichi Funabashi, formerly of the Asahi Shimbun (2015); Jacob Schlesinger of the Wall Street Journal (2014), Aung Zaw of the Irrawaddy (2013), Barbara Demick of the Los Angeles Times (2012), Caixin Media of China (2011), Barbara Crossette of the New York Times (2010), Seth Mydans of the New York Times (2009), Ian Buruma (2008), John Pomfret of the Washington Post (2007), Melinda Liu of Newsweek (2006), Nayan Chanda of the Far Eastern Economic Review (2005), Don Oberdofer of the Washington Post (2004), Orville Schell (2003), and Stanley Karnow (2002).

A jury selects the award winner. The 2016 jury comprised of:

Ian Buruma, the Paul W. Williams Professor of Democracy, Human Rights, and Journalism at Bard College, is a noted Asia expert who frequently contributes to publications including the New York Times, the New York Review of Books and the New Yorker. He is a recipient of the Shorenstein Journalism Award and the international Erasmus Prize (both in 2008).

Nayan Chanda is the director of publications and the editor of YaleGlobal Online Magazine at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization. For nearly thirty years, Chanda was at the Hong Kong-based magazine, Far Eastern Economic Review. He writes the ‘Bound Together’ column in India’s Business World and is the author of Bound Together: How Traders, Preachers, Adventurers and Warrior Shaped Globalization. Chanda received the Shorenstein Journalism Award in 2005.

Susan Chira is a senior correspondent and editor on gender issues and former deputy executive editor and foreign editor at the New York Times. Chira has extensive experience in Asia, including serving as Japan correspondent for the Times in the 1980s. During her tenure as foreign editor, the Times won the Pulitzer Prize four times for international reporting on Afghanistan, Russia, Africa and China.

Donald K. Emmerson is a well-respected Indonesia scholar and director of Shorenstein APARC’s Southeast Asia Program and a research fellow for the National Asia Research Program. Frequently cited in international media, Emmerson also contributes to leading publications, such as Asia Times and International Business Times.

Orville Schell is the Arthur Ross Director at the Asia Society of New York’s Center on U.S.-China Relations and former jury member for the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. Schell has written extensively on China and was awarded the 1997 George Peabody Award for producing the groundbreaking documentary The Gate of Heavenly Peace. He received the Shorenstein Journalism Award in 2003.

Daniel C. Sneider is the associate director for research at Shorenstein APARC, writing on Asian security issues, wartime historical memory and U.S policy in Asia. He also frequently contributes to publications such as Foreign Policy, Asia Policy and Slate. Sneider had three decades of experience as a foreign correspondent serving in India, Japan and Russia for the Christian Science Monitor and as the national and foreign editor of the San Jose Mercury News and a syndicated columnist on foreign affairs for Knight-Ridder.

For more information about the award, please visit this page.

As a new U.S. administration assumes office next year, it will face numerous policy challenges in the Asia-Pacific, a region that accounts for nearly 60 percent of the world’s population and two-thirds of global output.

Despite tremendous gains over the past two decades, the Asia-Pacific region is now grappling with varied effects of globalization, chief among them, inequities of growth, migration and development and their implications for societies as some Asian economies slow alongside the United States and security challenges remain at the fore.

Seven scholars from Stanford’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) offered views on policy challenges in Asia and some possible directions for U.S.-Asia relations during the next administration.

View the scholars' commentary by scrolling down the page or click on the individual links below to jump to a certain topic.

U.S.-China relations

U.S.-Japan relations

North Korea

Southeast Asia and the South China Sea

Global governance

Population aging .

Trade

U.S.-China relations

By Thomas Fingar

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Alarmist predictions about China’s rise and America’s decline mischaracterize and overstate tensions in the relationship. There is little likelihood that the next U.S. administration will depart from the “hedged engagement” policies pursued by the last eight U.S. administrations. America’s domestic problems cannot be solved by blaming China or any other country. Indeed, they can best be addressed through policies that have contributed to peace, stability and prosperity.

Strains in U.S.-China relations require attention, not radical shifts in policy. China is not an enemy and the United States does not wish to make it one. Nor will or should the next administration resist changes to the status quo if change can better the rules-based international order that has served both countries well. Washington’s objective will be to improve the liberal international system, not to contain or constrain China’s role in that system.

The United States and China have too much at stake to allow relations to become dangerously adversarial, although that is unlikely to happen. But this is not a reason to be sanguine. In the years ahead, managing the relationship will be difficult because key pillars of the relationship are changing. For decades, the strongest source of support for stability in U.S.-China relations has been the U.S. business community, but Chinese actions have alienated this key group and it is now more likely to press for changes than for stability. A second change is occurring in China. As growth slows, Chinese citizens are pressing their government to make additional reforms and respond to perceived challenges to China’s sovereignty.

The next U.S. administration is more likely to continue and adapt current policies toward China and Asia more broadly than to pursue a significantly different approach. Those hoping for or fearing radical changes in U.S. policy will be disappointed..

Thomas Fingar is a Shorenstein Distinguished Fellow and former chairman of the U.S. National Intelligence Council. He leads a research project on China and the World that explores China’s relations with other countries.

U.S.-Japan relations

By Daniel Sneider

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Three consecutive terms held by the same party would certainly preserve the momentum behind the ‘pivot to Asia’ strategy of the last few years, especially on the security front. Still there are some dangers ahead. If Japan moves ahead to make a peace treaty with Russia, resolving the territorial issue and opening a flow of Japanese investment into Russia, that could be a source of tension. The new administration may also want to mend fences early with China, seeking cooperation on North Korea and avoiding tensions in Southeast Asia.

The big challenge, however, will be guiding the TPP through Congress. While there is a strong sentiment within policy circles in favor of rescuing the deal, perhaps through some kind of adjustment of the agreement, insiders believe that is highly unlikely. The Sanders-Warren wing of the Democratic party has been greatly strengthened by this election and they will be looking for any sign of retreat on TPP. Mrs. Clinton has an ambitious agenda of domestic policy initiatives – from college tuition and the minimum wage to immigration reform – on which she will need their support. One idea now circulating quietly in policy circles is to ‘save’ the TPP, especially its strategic importance, by separating off a bilateral Japan-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. Tokyo is said to be opposed to this but Washington may put pressure on for this option, leaving the door open to a full TPP down the road. .

Daniel Sneider is the associate director for research and a former foreign correspondent. He is the co-author of Divergent Memories: Opinion Leaders and the Asia-Pacific Wars (Stanford University Press, 2016) and is currently writing about U.S.-Japan security issues.

North Korea

By Kathleen Stephens

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From an American foreign policy perspective, North Korea policy challenges will be inherited by the next president as “unfinished business,” unresolved despite a range of approaches spanning previous Republican and Democratic administrations. The first months in a new U.S. president’s term may create a small window to explore potential new openings. The new president should demonstrate at the outset that North Korea is high on the new administration’s priority list, with early, substantive exchanges with allies and key partners like China to affirm U.S. commitment to defense of its allies, a denuclearized Korean Peninsula and the vision agreed to at the Six-Party Talks in the September 2005 Joint Statement of Principles. Early messaging to Pyongyang is also key – clearly communicating the consequences of further testing or provocations, but at the same time signaling the readiness of the new administration to explore new diplomatic approaches. The appointment of a senior envoy, close to the president, could underscore the administration’s seriousness as well as help manage the difficult policy and political process in Washington itself.

2017 is a presidential election year in South Korea, and looks poised to be a particularly difficult one. This will influence Pyongyang’s calculus, as will the still-unknown impact of continued international sanctions. The challenges posed by North Korea have grown greater with time, but there are few new, untried options acceptable to any new administration in Washington. Nonetheless, the new administration must explore what is possible diplomatically and take further steps to defend and deter as necessary. .

Kathleen Stephens is the William J. Perry Distinguished Fellow and former U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Korea. She is currently writing and researching on U.S. diplomacy in Korea.

Southeast Asia and the South China Sea

By Donald K. Emmerson

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A new U.S. administration will be inaugurated in January 2017. Unless it wishes to adapt to such outcomes, it should:

(1) renew its predecessor’s refusal to endorse any claim to sovereignty over all, most, or some of the South China Sea and/or its land features made by any of the six contending parties—Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam—pending the validation of such a claim under international law.

(2) strongly encourage all countries, including the contenders, to endorse and implement the authoritative interpretation of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) issued on July 12, 2016, by an UNCLOS-authorized court. Washington should also emphasize that it, too, will abide by the judgment, and will strive to ensure American ratification of UNCLOS.

(3) maintain its commitment to engage in publicly acknowledged freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs) in the South China Sea on a regular basis. Previous such FONOPs were conducted in October 2015 by the USS Lassen, in January 2016 by the USS Wilbur, in May 2016 by the USS Lawrence, and in October 2016 by the USS Decatur. The increasingly lengthy intervals between these trips, despite a defense official’s promise to conduct them twice every quarter, has encouraged doubts about precisely the commitment to freedom of navigation that they were meant to convey.

(4) announce what has hitherto been largely implicit: The FONOPs are not being done merely to brandish American naval prowess. Their purpose is to affirm a core geopolitical position, namely, that no single country, not the United States, nor China, nor anyone else, should exercise exclusive or exclusionary control over the South China Sea.

(5) brainstorm with Asian-Pacific and European counterparts a range of innovative ways of multilateralizing the South China Sea as a shared heritage of, and a resource for, its claimants and users alike. .

Donald K. Emmerson is a senior fellow emeritus and director of the Southeast Asia Program. He is currently editing a Stanford University Press book that examines China’s relations with Southeast Asia.

Global governance

By Phillip Y. Lipscy

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Global economic activity is increasingly shifting toward Asia – most forecasts suggest the region will account for about half of the global economy by the midpoint of the 21^st century. This shift is creating important incongruities within the global architecture of international organizations, such as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund and World Bank, which are a central element of the U.S.-based international order and remain heavily tilted toward the West in their formal structures, headquarter locations and personnel compositions. This status quo is a constant source of frustration for policymakers in the region, who seek greater voice consummate with their newfound international status. 

The next U.S. administration should prioritize reinvigoration of the global architecture.  One practical step is to move major international organizations toward multiple headquarter arrangements, which are now common in the private sector – this will mitigate the challenges of recruiting talented individuals willing to spend their careers in distant headquarters in the West. The United States should join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, created by China, to tie the institution more closely into the existing architecture, contribute to its success and send a signal that Asian contributions to international governance are welcome. The Asian rebalance should be continued and deepened, with an emphasis on institution-building that reassures our Asian counterparts that the United States will remain a Pacific power. .

Philip Y. Lipscy is an assistant professor of political science and the Thomas Rohlen Center Fellow. He is the author of the forthcoming book Renegotiating the World Order: Institutional Change in International Relations (Cambridge University Press, 2017).

Population aging

By Karen Eggleston

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China’s recent announcement of a universal two-child policy restored an important dimension of choice, but it will not fundamentally change the trajectory of a shrinking working-age population and burgeoning share of elderly. China’s population aged 60 and older is projected to grow from nearly 15 percent today to 33 percent in 2050, at which time China’s population aged 80 and older will be larger than the current population of France. This triumph of longevity in China and other Asian countries, left unaddressed, will strain the fiscal integrity of public and private pension systems, while urbanization, technological change and income inequality interact with population aging by threatening the sustainability and perceived fairness of conventional financing for many social programs.

Investment in human capital and innovation in social and economic institutions will be central to addressing the demographic realities ahead. The next administration needs to support those investments as well as help to strengthen public health systems and primary care to control chronic disease and prepare for the next infectious disease pandemic, many of which historically have risen in Asia. .

Karen Eggleston is a senior fellow and director of the Asia Health Policy Program. She is the editor of the recently published book Policy Challenges from Demographic Change in China and India (Brookings Institution Press/Shorenstein APARC, 2016).

Trade

By Yong Suk Lee

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Anti-globalization sentiment has ballooned in the past two years, particularly in regions affected by the import competition from and outsourcing to Asia. However, some firms and workers have benefited from increasing trade openness. The U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement of 2012, for example, led to substantial growth in exports in the agricultural, automotive and pharmaceutical sectors. Yet, there are winners and losers from trade agreements. Using an economist’s hypothetical perspective, one would assume firms and workers in the losing industry move to the exporting sector and take advantage of the gains from trade. In reality, adjustment across industries and regions from such movements are slow. Put simply, a furniture worker in North Carolina who lost a job due to import competition cannot easily assume a new job in the booming high-tech industry in California. They would require high-income mobility and a different skill set.

Trade policy needs to focus on facilitating the transition of workers to different industries and better train students to prepare for potential mobility in the future. Trade policy will also be vital in determining how international commerce is shaped. As cross-border e-commerce increases, it will be in the interest of the United States to participate in and lead negotiations that determine future trade rules. The Trans-Pacific Partnership should not simply be abandoned. The next administration should educate both policymakers and the public about the effects of trade openness and the economic and strategic importance of trade agreements for the U.S. economy.

Yong Suk Lee is the SK Center Fellow and deputy director of Korea Program. He leads a research project focused on Korean education, entrepreneurship and economic development.

Rennie J. Moon has been selected as the 2016-17 Koret Fellow in the Korea Program at Stanford’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC). She will join the center next January to study diversity in higher education and teach a student course.

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Moon is an associate professor at the Underwood International College at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea. Her research explores the interrelationships among globalization, migration and citizenship, and internationalization of higher education.

Moon, a graduate of Stanford’s Graduate School of Education, Ph.D. ‘09, has collaborated with Stanford professor Gi-Wook Shin on a multiyear research project that examines diversity in higher education in East Asia. She co-edited the book Internationalizing Higher Education in Korea: Challenges and Opportunities in Comparative Perspective published earlier this year.

Stanford professor Francisco O. Ramirez, an expert on international comparative education and sociology of education, recognized her scholarly contributions to the field.

“Moon is a creative contributor to the ‘world society perspective’ in the social sciences,” said Ramirez, noting that Moon's work has been published in leading journals of international comparative education, Comparative Education Review and Comparative Education.

Supported by the Koret Foundation, the Koret Fellowship brings professionals to Stanford to conduct research on contemporary Korean affairs. In 2015, the fellowship expanded its focus to include social, cultural and educational issues in North and South Korea, and aims to identify emerging scholars working on those areas.

During her fellowship, Moon will also give public talks and be a lead organizer of the Koret Workshop, an international conference held annually at Stanford.

“As an alum, I’m very pleased and excited to spend my sabbatical year at Stanford,” Moon said. “Over the last few years, I’ve been collaborating on various research projects with Professor Shin and other colleagues at APARC. I’m looking forward to a productive fellowship during which I hope to bring these evolving projects to fruition.”

Moon holds a doctorate and master’s degree in international comparative education from Stanford and a bachelor’s degree in French from Wellesley College.

The Korea Program at Stanford’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center is soliciting papers for the Koret Workshop entitled “Korea’s Migrants: From Homogeneity to Diversity” held at Stanford University on April 21, 2017.

This ninth annual conference seeks to examine major issues related to recent migrants in Korea. Korea has long promoted a sense of ethnic unity but in recent years has seen an influx of ethnic and non-ethnic Koreans, making the country more diverse. The government has promoted multiculturalism to deal with such diversity; however, migrants, either permanent or temporary, continue to face discrimination. New approaches are needed to create better social cohesion.

We are looking for empirical papers that address the following questions for one of the following groups of migrants: North Korean refugees, Chosonjok, foreign brides, migrant labor (skilled or unskilled), and Korean returnees.

• What are the real and perceived contributions of this group to Korean society?
• What are the remaining challenges and concerns associated with this group as a migrant living in Korea? Have these challenges worsened or improved over time?
• How have Korean perceptions of your migrant group changed over time, if at all? Why or why not?
• Do you think this particular group has been more or less discriminated against compared to other migrant groups? Is there any change over time?
• Based on your study, do you think that boundaries between various migrant groups are blurring, remaining distinct, or becoming more salient?
• Based on your study, what is the most important barrier to social integration in Korean society? Is it ethnicity, citizenship, class, or something else?
• Has multiculturalism as a policy and social discourse adequately addressed the concerns of your migrant group?  If not, then do we need a new framework? What would you suggest?
• Do you think the influx of your migrant group can lessen the looming demographic crisis that will reduce the working-age population?
• In recent years, there has been growing anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States and Europe. Do you think this will be an issue in Korea as well?
• Based on your study of your migrant group, do you think Korea is ready for large-scale mass migration? Why or why not? If not, what would be an alternative to migration?

Submission for the conference
Upload papers in PDF (6,000-8,000 words) here. Inquiries can be made to Dr. Yong Suk Lee at yongslee@stanford.edu. The submission deadline is Dec. 31, 2016.

The authors of the accepted papers will be invited to and asked to present their studies at the conference. After the workshop, selected papers will be published as a special issue at a top Asian studies journal and/or as an edited volume. Travel (domestic or international economy class) and accommodation costs for the presenters will be reimbursed.

About the Koret Workshop
The Koret Workshop is organized by the Korea Program to bring together an international panel of experts in Korean affairs. The Korea Program established the Koret Fellowship in 2008 with generous funding from the Koret Foundation.

Japan and South Korea face serious demographic crises. Japan has the oldest population in the world and South Korea is one of the most rapidly aging. Together they top the list in terms of proportion of elderly by 2050, with 40.1% and 35.9% respectively being 65 and over, according to a U.S. Census Bureau forecast. Both nations are seeing shrinking working-age populations, with their birthrates among the lowest in the world. This puts them at great risk as they struggle to find new engines of economic growth.

Some experts argue that Japan and South Korea should encourage immigration. The former head of Tokyo's Immigration Bureau, Hidenori Sakanaka, said that "we need an immigration revolution to bring in 10 million people in the next 50 years, otherwise the Japanese economy will collapse." Jongryn Mo, a professor at Yonsei University in Seoul has written a book, "Strong Immigration Nation," urging a similar policy for South Korea.

Japan and South Korea are already supplementing their shrinking workforce with foreign labor, mostly unskilled migrant workers from China and Southeast Asia doing jobs that locals shun.

But it is time to attract more skilled workers. In Japan, only 18.4% of foreign workers were technicians or professionals in 2015, while the figure in Korea is just 7.8% this year. Skilled foreign workers can fill many jobs from staffing hospitals to working as technicians in middle-tier companies and software engineers in large ones.

The challenge, however, is that both countries remain exclusionary, closed societies despite a substantial rise in the numbers of foreigners. Politicians fear losing votes from workers worried about foreigners taking their jobs.

According to a recent report by the French business school INSEAD, Japan and South Korea are ranked 53rd and 61st, respectively in their level of tolerance for immigrants. Most foreign skilled workers have little intention to settle down in Japan or South Korea on a permanent basis, although unskilled ones might be more willing to stay.

Maria, a Guatemalan professional, decided to leave South Korea after working for six years in the overseas marketing department of a large Korean corporation. "Some Koreans complain that foreigners leave after a few years, but we leave because we're never included in the first place. Korean companies pay a lot to bring foreigners here. And then they don't even ask these people about their opinion."

Srey, a Cambodian student studying in Japan, said, "The Japanese are very helpful and very friendly, but at the same time they look at me as a 'gaijin' no matter how good I am at Japanese or able to speak to them. I am not planning to work in Japan."

Bridging strategy

South Korea and Japan need to find a more creative strategy in utilizing foreign talent. In particular, they should pay close attention to their transnational networks rather than pushing for permanent migration. Not only should both countries focus on the knowledge and skills of foreign labor talent, but also the social networks they can possess.

This calls for a particular type of social capital: transnational bridging. A person who has social ties in more than one place can serve as a bridge between those different places. Such bridging can be performed within a city or a country or across borders, but the latter is becoming more important with globalization. By bridging distant networks, people can connect disparate cultures, build trust and facilitate cross-national cooperation that are essential in business transactions. Many Indian and Chinese entrepreneurs and engineers working in Silicon Valley are active in transnational bridging with their home country.

Transnational bridging can be a good new strategy for South Korea and Japan in attracting foreign skilled labor since they can offer valuable experiences and networks as advanced economies, if not permanent places to live. They can help foreign talent to build social ties while studying and working and encourage them to serve as a bridge between South Korea and Japan and their next destination once they leave in what could be called "brain linkage."

They can still contribute to South Korea or Japan even after they depart. Maria said she was willing to do business involving both South Korea and her home country. Srey is also eager to do business with Japan after graduating, even though he will not work in the country.

South Korea and Japan should adopt a policy of "Study-Work-Bridge" rather than the "Study-Work-Migration" pathway commonly encouraged by settler societies. This new policy framework would establish programs providing systematic networking opportunities for skilled foreigners while in Japan or South Korea. It would upgrade the quality of campus life for foreign students and work environments for foreign professionals so they leave with positive experiences.

Most importantly, it would provide institutional support to help maintain transnational networks between foreigners and South Koreans and Japanese.

In Japan, a Study-Work framework has already begun to take shape. Among foreign students seeking employment in Japan in 2013, approximately 24% found jobs. According to the country's ministry of justice, 10,696 of 11,698 foreign students are successful in applying for a change of visa status after graduating from college. This is very encouraging. Still, foreign students feel that Japanese companies are reluctant to embrace their full potential and largely expect them to assimilate, often leading them to stay in Japan only for a short time.

In South Korea, with a shorter history of foreign student intake, a Study-Work framework has yet to emerge. While 64.3% of South Korean companies say they need and want to hire foreign students, only a very small portion of foreign students work in South Korean companies after graduation, perhaps as low as 1%. South Korea's immigration laws for foreign students have eased slightly in recent years, but there is an urgent need to develop solid, institutionalized support for responding to the substantial demand by foreign students who wish to find employment after their studies.

Challenges ahead

Both countries are moving in the right direction, but until they are ready to embrace a more comprehensive migration policy down the road, they should develop the "bridging" component of a Study-Work-Bridge framework as an interim strategy. That means considering how foreign skilled labor can contribute to their economies even if they stay only temporarily.

This non-migration-bridging concept can be also appealing to foreign workers who like to move on after gaining valuable experiences and networks. By activating the social networks they have left behind, foreigners can later become powerful "transnational bridges." With economic globalization, such linkages will be all the more important.

Research shows that science and engineering majors may have more to contribute as human capital, but business and social science majors are more inclined to play a bridging role. Universities and corporations should establish diversity offices, as seen in the U.S. and elsewhere, to promote a culture of tolerance and non-discrimination.

The challenges associated with aging, depopulation and a shrinking workforce are expected to intensify in the coming years. Yet foreign talent is readily at hand for both countries. They need to look no further than the skilled foreigners who already have connections with South Korea or Japan either through schooling or employment and to continue to cultivate such connections through a Study-Work-Bridge approach.

Gi-Wook Shin is director of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University and co-author of Global Talent: Skilled Labor as Social Capital in Korea. Rennie J. Moon is an associate professor at the Underwood International College at Yonsei University in Seoul.

This article was originally carried by Nikkei Asian Review on Aug. 31 and reposted with permission.

Stanford researcher Kenji Kushida says Japanese social norms are shifting from being highly unfavorable to a tech startup culture toward one much more supportive of it.

Japanese corporations are evolving and adopting a “startup culture” to boost their business creativity and country’s economic prospects, a Stanford expert says.

“We can see that over the past 15 years or so, changes to the overall Japanese political economic context as it undergoes gradual but substantive reform over the past couple decades have created a far more vibrant startup ecosystem in Japan than most people – both inside and outside Japan – realize,” said research associate Kenji Kushida of Stanford’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.

Kushida wrote in a new research paper that, over the past decade, Japan has undertaken significant reforms that are now bearing fruit – reforms ranging from monetary and fiscal policy designed to encourage private investment to a range of regulations surrounding corporate law, university organization, labor mobility and financial market reforms.

As a result – and combined with changes and challenges facing Japan’s large company sector – the country’s people are embracing a “vibrant startup ecosystem,” Kushida said. He is optimistic that such a transformation can occur in a country where stability and corporate loyalty – not necessarily innovation or creativity – have long been dominant social and business values.

Now, large Japanese firms are adjusting to performance crises and uncertain futures. As a result, the Japanese people are learning that with economic opportunity – the kind that startups promise – there also comes the risk of failure.

“A generational shift is accompanying social normative changes that are becoming more supportive of entrepreneurship and high-growth startups. Entrepreneurs and high-growth startups are celebrated in the popular media and in major events more than ever before,” Kushida wrote.

Silicon Valley networking

The influence of California’s Silicon Valley is a factor. For instance, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last year spoke at Stanford about how his country is learning the lessons of Silicon Valley and trying to build networks into the region. So Japan is likely to see an increase in the quality and quantity of high-growth startups, according to Kushida.

He said, “The current relationship between Japan and Silicon Valley is one in which Japanese firms, ranging from large firms to startups, are looking for ways to actively harness Silicon Valley. Large firms are trying by becoming investors in Silicon Valley venture capital firms, setting up their own venture capital arms, setting up branches in the valley, and trying to engage in ‘open’ innovation by entering into tie-ups and attempting to acquire select valley startups.”

A small but growing number of Japanese entrepreneurs visited Silicon Valley either to start their own companies or to grow firms that were started in Japan, Kushida said.

Still, Japan’s tech sector is a long way from what one finds in Silicon Valley, where many of the world’s most “disruptive” and game-changing firms are located. He wrote, “When compared to Silicon Valley, the ecosystem is still small in scale, but so is virtually every other startup ecosystem.”

A growing flow of Japanese entrepreneurs and CEOs is coming to Silicon Valley to get more of a sense of how things work, Kushida said, adding, “That is what we are helping through research at the StanfordSilicon Valley-New Japan Project as part of the Japan Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.”

Kushida said that if current estimates hold, Japan should expect successful startups, all supported by a “stronger ecosystem of startup-related players, combined with more open large firms.”

These large firms, he said, will spin off entrepreneurs who leave to launch other new companies, which will accelerate the startup cycle in Japan.

Spreading technology globally

Key challenges facing Japan’s startup culture, Kushida said, are the need for more entrepreneurial role models and the “overall lack of experience in creating followers.” On the latter, he explained that while Japan has excelled at producing tech products for use in its own markets, it would benefit by getting other firms and parts of the world to adopt its products and services.

“Think of the negotiations that Apple undertook with telecom carriers around the world to roll out the iPhone worldwide, or how Google is continually negotiating with governments such as those in the European Union to allow its services to be adopted broadly,” he said.

Other Stanford scholars, such as Takeo Hoshi, have recently written about the reasons Japan was not able to pull out of a long recession that resulted in virtually no growth in the 1990s. One problem, as Hoshi described it, was that the Japanese government was unable to introduce much-needed “structural reforms” to overhaul its economic structures to increase business competition – such as deregulation to cut operating costs for firms, a key attraction for startup-minded entrepreneurs.

Japan’s “lost decade” originally referred to the 1990s, though the country has still not regained the economic power it enjoyed in the 1970s and 1980s. Some say Japan has actually experienced two lost decades if the 2000s are counted as well.

Kushida’s paper, “Japan’s Startup Ecosystem: From Brave New World to Part of Syncretic New Japan,” was published in the Asia Research Policy journal.

Clifton Parker is a writer for the Stanford News Service.

South Korea is facing a number of challenges. Not unlike other advanced economies in Asia, the country is confronted with a declining working-age population, reduction in birth rates, and risk of long-term stagnation.

A team of Stanford researchers at Stanford’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), in collaboration with other scholars from around the world, is increasingly thinking about those challenges and is working on a number of research initiatives that explore potential solutions in leveraging benefits from globalization.

The researchers propose that Korea can extract value from two major movements of people – outflows of its own population (diaspora) and inflows of foreigners (immigrants and visitors), all of whom hold the capacity to build social capital – a network of people who have established trust and in turn spread ideas and resources across borders.

Engaging diaspora

Emigration is traditionally viewed as a loss of human capital – ‘brain drain’ – movement of skills out of one country and into another, but Stanford professor Gi-Wook Shin and Koret Fellow Joon Nak Choi support an alternative view of outward flows of citizens.

Shin and Choi suggest that people who leave their countries of origin but never return can still provide value to their home country through ‘brain linkage,’ which advocates that there is economic opportunity in cross-national connections despite a lack of physical presence. This concept is a focus of their research which was recently published in the book Global Talent: Skilled Labor and Mobility in Korea.

“What we’re trying to do is to extend the thinking – to not just look at potential losses of having your people go abroad but also the potential gains,” Choi said. “Previous studies have found that if you have more of these relationships or ‘brain linkages,’ you have more trade and more flow of innovations between countries.”

People who stay in a host country become participants in the local economy and often conduct influential activities such as starting companies, providing advice and sitting on boards of directors, Choi said, and these transactions enact flows of resources from home country to host country and vice versa.

Choi, who outside of his fellowship is an assistant professor at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said that this way of thinking pulls away from a zero-sum view of the world and instead sees it as “more globalized, cosmopolitan and diffuse.”

He leads a research project with Shin focused on global talent and cultural movement in East Asia, and over the past quarter, taught a graduate seminar on the Korean development model.

“Cross-national ties are harder to establish than those that are geographically close, but they provide invaluable means of sharing information and brokering cooperation that may otherwise be impossible on other levels,” said Shin, who is also the director of Shorenstein APARC. “In many ways, social ties can be a good strategy to gain a competitive edge. This is an area we endeavor to better understand through our research efforts on Korea.”

Shin has described his own identity of being a part of the very system they are studying. He grew up in Korea, arrived in the United States as a graduate student and has since stayed for three decades and frequently engages the academic and policy communities in Korea.

One cross-national initiative that he recently started is a collaborative study between scholars at Shorenstein APARC and Kyung Hee University in Seoul. The two-year study evaluates the social capital impact of a master’s degree program at the Korean university that trains select government officials from developing countries.

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An international cohort including many researchers from Stanford’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center have been conducting group interviews with international students at Korean and Japanese universities to better understand their motivations to stay or go following their completion of a degree or non-degree program at Korean universities. Their initial results reveal that gaps in cross-cultural understanding and opportunities cause feelings of disassociation, but recent internationalization efforts are helping to address those gaps and support innovation, knowledge sharing and local economic growth. An op-ed on the topic authored by Stanford professor Gi-Wook Shin and Yonsei University associate professor Rennie Moon can be viewed here. Credit: Flickr/SUNY – Korea/crop and brightness applied

Harnessing foreign skilled labor

Globalization has also led to migration of people to regions that lack an adequate supply of skilled workers in their labor force. This new infusion of people is an opportunity to bridge the gap, according to the researchers.

“In order to be successful, countries need a large talented labor pool to invest in,” said Yong Suk Lee, the SK Center Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and affiliate of the Korea Program. “Innovation is not something like a technology ladder which has a more obvious and strategic trajectory, it’s more about investing in people and taking risks on their ideas.”

Korea currently has a shortage of ‘global talent’ – individuals who hold skills valuable in the international marketplace. Yet, Korea is well positioned to reduce the shortage.

The country produces a vast amount of skilled college graduates. Nearly 70 percent of Koreans between the age of 25 and 34 have the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree. Korea has the highest percentage of young adults with a tertiary education among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Another study found that the foreign student population in Korea has risen by 13 percent in the past five years.

Universities are moving to “internationalize” in seeking to both recruit faculty and students from abroad and to retain them as skilled workers in the domestic labor force. A new book published by Shorenstein APARC Internationalizing Higher Education in Korea: Challenges and Opportunities in Comparative Perspective assesses efforts by institutions in Korea, China, Japan, Singapore and the United States through nine separately authored chapters.

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Shin and Yonsei University associate professor Rennie Moon, who served as book editors and chapter authors, found that Korea has on average more outbound students (students who leave Korea to study elsewhere) than inbound students (international students who come to Korea to study). The figure above compares five countries and finds that Korea and China are more outbound-driven while Singapore, Japan and the United States are more inbound-driven.

“For most national and private universities in Korea, internationalization is more inbound-oriented—attracting foreign students, especially from China and Southeast Asia,” said Yeon-Cheon Oh, president of Ulsan University and former Koret Fellow at Shorenstein APARC who co-edited Internationalizing Higher Education in Korea. “In many ways, it’s about filling up students numbers. There needs to be a balance in inbound and outbound student numbers in order for internationalization to have an optimal effect.”

International students that do come to Korea are on average not staying long after graduation, though. The researchers identify reasons being difficulty in adapting to the local culture, inability to attain dual citizenship, language barriers, and low wages in comparison to that of native Koreans; in short – it is not easy to assimilate fully.

These and other barriers facing foreigners in Korea are a focus of a broader research project led by Shin and Moon that aims to propose functional steps for policymakers striving to internationalize their countries and to shift the discourse on diversity.

Developing a narrative

The Korean government has expanded efforts to recruit foreign students to study at Korean universities – many of which now rank in the top 200 worldwide – but addressing education promotion is only one area.

“The challenge is to propose a pathway that rallies around a general narrative,” Lee said, citing a need for internationalization to be coordinated across immigration policy, labor standards, and social safety nets.

An international group of experts in Korean affairs gathered at Stanford earlier this year at the Koret Workshop to address the challenge of creating a cohesive narrative, focused on Korea as the case study. The Koret Foundation of San Francisco funds the workshop and fellowship in its mission to support scholarly solutions to community problems and to create societal and policy change in the Bay Area and beyond.

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The Koret Workshop brings together an international panel of experts on Korean affairs at Stanford. From 2015-2016, the workshops focused on higher education, globalization and innovation in Korea. Above, Michelle Hsieh (far right) speaks during a question and answer session following her presentation on Korean and Taiwanese small and medium enterprises, next to her is former U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Korea Kathleen Stephens, Stanford consulting professor Richard Dasher, former U.S. foreign affairs official David Straub, and Korea University professor Myeong Hyeon Cho.

The interdisciplinary nature of the workshop was an important aspect, according to Lee, and Michelle Hsieh, one of 27 participants of the conference that covered a range of areas from entrepreneurship to export promotion policies in Korea.

“The workshop demonstrated how internationalization of higher education – and academic research in general – can be achieved by constructing cross-cutting ties,” said Hsieh, who was a postdoctoral fellow at Shorenstein APARC from 2006-07 and is now an associate research fellow at Academia Sinica in Taiwan.

“Participating in the workshop made me realize I really miss the lively and rigorous discussions at Shorenstein APARC, where researchers are interdisciplinary with diverse backgrounds yet focused on a common research interest,” Hsieh said. “I think debate and discussion in that kind of setting can illuminate a completely different take.”

The workshop will result in a book that features multiple areas and policy directions for Korea’s development. The lessons included are also envisioned to apply to other emerging countries facing similar trends of demographic change and economic slowdown. Shorenstein APARC expects to publish the book next year.