China and Japan have entered a dangerous standoff in the East China Sea. As China launched a series of unprecedented maritime patrols, anti-Japan protests erupted in more than 200 Chinese cities to condemn Japan's nationalization of the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. What missed signals and domestic political pressures led to this crisis? Why did Chinese authorities tolerate widespread anti-Japanese protests in 2012 after restraining protests in earlier crises, including the 2010 dispute over a Chinese fishing captain's arrest? Drawing on material from her forthcoming book, Powerful Patriots: Nationalist Protest in China's Foreign Relations (Oxford University Press, Summer 2014), Professor Jessica Chen Weiss will trace China's management of anti-Japan protest from 1985 to 2012, discussing the role of nationalism and public opinion in Chinese foreign policy.

Jessica Chen Weiss is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University and Research Fellow at the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies. Her research interests include Chinese politics and international relations, nationalism, and social protest. Her book, Powerful Patriots: Nationalist Protest in China's Foreign Relations, is forthcoming with Oxford University Press (Summer 2014). The dissertation on which it is based won the 2009 American Political Science Association Helen Dwight Reid Award for best dissertation in
international relations, law and politics. Her research has appeared in International Organization and has been supported by the National Science Foundation, Princeton-Harvard China  & The World Program, Bradley Foundation, Fulbright-Hays program, and the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. Before joining the Yale faculty, she founded FACES, the Forum for American/Chinese Exchange at Stanford, while an undergraduate at Stanford (B.A., 2003). She teaches courses on Chinese foreign relations, state-society relations in post-Mao China, and anti-Americanism in world politics.

Vietnamese news accounts of labor-management conflicts, including strikes, and even reports of owners fleeing their factories raise potent questions about labor activism in light of this self-proclaimed socialist country’s engagement in the global market system since the late 1980s. In explaining Vietnamese labor resistance, how important are matters of cultural identity (such as native-place, gender, ethnicity, and religion) in different historical contexts? How does labor mobilization occur and develop? How does it foster “class moments” in times of crisis? What types of "flexible protests" have been used by workers to fight for their rights and dignity, and how effective are they?

Based on her just-published book, Ties that Bind: Cultural Identity, Class, and Law in Vietnam's Labor Resistance, Prof. Trần will highlight labor activism since French colonial rule in order to understand labor issues and actions in Vietnam today. Her analysis will focus on labor-management-state relations, especially with key foreign investors/managers (such as from Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong) and ethnic Chinese born and raised in Vietnam. She will convey the voices and ideas of workers, organizers, journalists, and officials and explain how migrant workers seek to empower themselves using cultural resources and appeals to state media and the rule of law. Copies of her book will be available for sale at her talk.

Prof. Trần's current research on global south-south labor migration focuses on Vietnamese migrants working in Malaysia and returning to Vietnam. In 2008 she was a Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Distinguished Fellow on Southeast Asia. Her co-authored 2012 book, Corporate Social Responsibility and Competitiveness for SMEs in Developing Countries: South Africa and Vietnam, compared the experiences of small-and-medium enterprises in these two countries. Her many other writings include (as co-editor and author) Reaching for the Dream: Challenges of Sustainable Development in Vietnam (2004). She earned her PhD in Political Economy and Public Policy at the University of Southern California in 1996 and an MA in Developmental Economics at USC in 1991.

Copies of Ties that Bind: Cultural Identity, Class, and Law in Vietnam's Labor Resistance will be available for signing and sale by the author following her talk.

The territorial dispute between Japan and China over the Senkaku/Diaoyutai islands now threatens to be the trigger for a deeper conflict between the two powerful Asian neighbors. This dispute has its origins in the postwar U.S. policy toward Japan, the decision to maintain the occupation of Okinawa and the Senkaku Islands under American administration, and the reversion of that territory to Japanese sovereignty. Dr. Eldridge, who has done extensive research on these issues and has published widely, including a new book on the origins of U.S. policy, will discuss his writings on Okinawa, Amami, Ogasawara/Iwo Jima, and the Senkakus to date and introduce research topics for the future.

Robert D. Eldridge is a visiting researcher at Okinawa International University’s Institute of Law and Politics, and a former tenured associate professor at Osaka University's Graduate School of International Public Policy. Eldridge earned his PhD in 1999 from Kobe University and is the author, editor, and translator of more than two dozen books on U.S.-Japan relations, Okinawan history, and Japanese politics and diplomacy, including several titles to be published in 2013: An Inoffensive Rearmament: The Making of the Postwar Japanese Army (Naval Institute Press); Japan’s Backroom Politics (Lexington); Iwo Jima and Ogasawara in U.S.-Japan Relations: American Strategy, Japanese Territory, and the Islanders In-between (Marine Corps University Press); and The Origins of U.S. Policy in the East China Sea Islands Dispute: Okinawa’s Reversion and the Senkaku Islands (Routledge).

Gregory Poling will begin with a multimedia presentation highlighting the most important aspects of the South China Sea disputes, including the competing legal claims, recent clashes, and the oil, fisheries, and trade interests that help feed the conflict. He will then examine recent actions by the various claimants and the motivations behind them, including the Philippines' recent decision to take China's claims to a UN arbitration tribunal. He will show why commentators have been too quick to dismiss Manila's case. During the Q&A he will field questions on any aspect of the disputes, including what they imply for Asia and US-Asian relations.

Gregory Poling’s work at CSIS includes managing projects focused on US foreign policy in the Asia-Pacific, especially in Southeast Asia. In addition to the South China Sea, his research interests include democratization in Southeast Asia and Asian multilateralism. Before joining CSIS he lived and worked in China as an English language teacher. He has an MA in international affairs from American University, earned his BA in history and philosophy at Saint Mary's College of Maryland, and has studied at Fudan University in Shanghai.

An army officer turned social entrepreneur, Vivek Garg will share his transition from combat to economic development work and present three case studies on how he used economic tools to foster peace among hostile communities in conflict affected regions of Kashmir and Northeast India.

Vivek Garg is Founder and CEO of a social venture called BAPAR (Business Alternatives for Peace, Action and Reconstruction), which focuses on impact entrepreneur incubation and early stage investment for the economic reconstruction of conflict affected regions of India. Prior to BAPAR, Garg served as an infantry officer with the Indian Army for over 10 years, wherein he led combat operations in Kashmir and Siachen Glacier. He coordinated operations and deployment of a division size force of 10,000 troops and managed a development aid budget of US$ 2.5M in insurgency infested, tribal regions bordering China and Myanmar. Garg is currently pursuing a degree with the Sloan Master’s Program at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.