The Gathering Storm: Cloud Computing and Implications for Japan and Asia
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Cloud Computing is rapidly transforming not only computing, but the very fundamentals of how we process, store, and use information—and information is the very basis of civilization. Cloud Computing is historically unique by simultaneously being an innovation ecosystem, production platform, and global marketplace. While the technology and business models are almost inherently global in scale, national politics and regulations will powerfully influence how Cloud Computing unfolds across the world. Critical issues such as information privacy (who gets to see and use information), security (how to protect information from unauthorized access), and communications network policy (the political economy of broadband and wireless networks) will be settled at the national or regional level. There are powerful tensions as US-based multinational firms are rapidly taking over the global Cloud Computing industry. What are the appropriate frameworks to understand how the competitive dynamics are unfolding? What are the options for national-level players? How should we understand the policy issues as they unfold? What is the role of Japan and Asia as this transformation unfolds?
Kenji Kushida is the Takahashi Research Associate in Japanese Studies at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. He holds a PhD in political science from the University of California, Berkeley, and was a graduate research associate at the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy. Kushida has an MA in East Asian studies and BAs in economics and East Asian studies, all from Stanford University.
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Kenji E. Kushida
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Former Research Scholar, Japan Program
Kenji E. Kushida was a research scholar with the Japan Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center from 2014 through January 2022. Prior to that at APARC, he was a Takahashi Research Associate in Japanese Studies (2011-14) and a Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow (2010-11).
Kushida’s research and projects are focused on the following streams: 1) how politics and regulations shape the development and diffusion of Information Technology such as AI; 2) institutional underpinnings of the Silicon Valley ecosystem, 2) Japan's transforming political economy, 3) Japan's startup ecosystem, 4) the role of foreign multinational firms in Japan, 4) Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster. He spearheaded the Silicon Valley - New Japan project that brought together large Japanese firms and the Silicon Valley ecosystem.
He has published several books and numerous articles in each of these streams, including “The Politics of Commoditization in Global ICT Industries,” “Japan’s Startup Ecosystem,” "How Politics and Market Dynamics Trapped Innovations in Japan’s Domestic 'Galapagos' Telecommunications Sector," “Cloud Computing: From Scarcity to Abundance,” and others. His latest business book in Japanese is “The Algorithmic Revolution’s Disruption: a Silicon Valley Vantage on IoT, Fintech, Cloud, and AI” (Asahi Shimbun Shuppan 2016).
Kushida has appeared in media including The New York Times, Washington Post, Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Nikkei Business, Diamond Harvard Business Review, NHK, PBS NewsHour, and NPR. He is also a trustee of the Japan ICU Foundation, alumni of the Trilateral Commission David Rockefeller Fellows, and a member of the Mansfield Foundation Network for the Future. Kushida has written two general audience books in Japanese, entitled Biculturalism and the Japanese: Beyond English Linguistic Capabilities (Chuko Shinsho, 2006) and International Schools, an Introduction (Fusosha, 2008).
Kushida holds a PhD in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. He received his MA in East Asian Studies and BAs in economics and East Asian Studies with Honors, all from Stanford University.
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(Un)Covering North Korea at Stanford
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Just hours ahead of North Korea’s most recent nuclear test, an event which pushed the country once again into headlines around the world, a panel gathered at Stanford to discuss the challenges journalists face “uncovering” facts about North Korea.
The discussion, organized by the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, was held on Feb. 11 at Stanford in conjunction with the 2012 Shorenstein Journalism Award.
Barbara Demick, Beijing bureau chief of the Los Angeles Times and recipient of the 2012 Shorenstein Journalism Award, said it was the lack of access to North Korea that inspired her to first want to cover the country.
“I felt like if I could not go to North Korea, I should be able to get into the mindset of the people,” Demick said. “I think this has been true for my entire career as a foreign correspondent—you are trying to really understand how people tick.”
Susan Chira, assistant managing editor for news at the New York Times, emphasized that reporters have a responsibility to piece together credible news from the fragments of often unreliable or biased information about North Korea.
“I always feel as an editor that your responsibility is to write in the caveats as clearly as possible so readers understand that you are dealing—to a much greater degree than with other articles we publish—with highly fragmented information,” Chira said.
Adam Johnson, an associate professor of English at Stanford and the author of the novel The Orphan Master’s Son, suggested that literary fiction can help bring to life the incomplete and untold stories of North Korea.
“For fiction, the things you can’t use in journalism—legend, rumor, story, whisper, and suggestions—these are all equally valid in my realm,” Johnson said. “Those can all be used to conjure a portrait.”
Katharina Zellweger, a former development worker who lived in Pyongyang for five years and who is the current Pantech Fellow at Stanford, spoke of the need to provide more balanced coverage of North Korea, especially of its regular citizens.
“Nobody has the full picture,” Zellweger said, “But I hope there will be more efforts to give the North Korean people the attention they deserve.”
A full-length video of the panel is available on the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center website.
Established in 2002, the Shorenstein Journalism Award recognizes the work of veteran American and Western journalists whose work has generated a greater awareness of the complexities of Asia. It also honors Asian journalists and media organizations engaged in helping build stronger U.S.-Asia ties by presenting a clear picture of key issues facing Asia’s society and politics.
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