Stanford University

Farmers' Protest in India

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csa-aparc_may_12

Abstracts

Navyug Gill: Despite government repression and a resurgent pandemic, the farmer and laborer struggle in India remains a potent force of transformative politics. It has been ongoing for nearly six months at the Delhi borders, eleven months in Panjab, and many decades in the making. This struggle has captured the attention of millions of people in India and across the world. And it has unsettled a variety of assumptions as well as thrown up profound questions for understandings of societal change and collective wellbeing. Why did this struggle emerge in Panjab at this time? What are its internal faultlines and fissures as well as potential sutures? And how does it challenge the common sense of capitalist progress? By offering new insights into agriculture, hierarchy and neoliberalism, this struggle has become one of global dimensions as much as of imaginations.
Mallika Kaur: The massive agrarian protest in Punjab is unprecedented, but the underlying agrarian plight is not. Over the past several decades, this plight has manifested in a downward social spiral. Yet the protestors today seem to be insisting on the return to a status quo in which thousands kill themselves out of desperation every year. Discussing this seeming paradox, the presentation will focus on how agrarian distress has been decidedly gendered and how the current protests have in fact also become a site of feminist action and challenge to the gender status quo. Women’s participation, contribution, and leadership, cannot be ignored just because it might not meet dominant feminist rhetoric or frameworks. 
Protesting women are demanding ‘others’ stop expecting them to play weeping subjects when they've always been agents of change, stop peddling women’s lack of independent political astuteness. At the same time, they demand ‘their’ men listen—to stories of victimhood & survivorship and build respectful partnerships with no place for sexual discrimination and harassment. The protesting women are raising important questions and illustrating essential ways of organizing, relating, and strengthening inside-out—thus making an undeniable contribution to women’s empowerment across India, South Asia and beyond.
 
Speakers:
Navyug Gill is a scholar of modern South Asia and global history. He is Assistant Professor in the Department of History at William Paterson University. He received a PhD from Emory University, and a BA from the University of Toronto. His research explores questions of agrarian change, labor politics, caste hierarchy, postcolonial critique and global capitalism. Currently, he is completing a book on the emergence of the peasant and the rule of capital in colonial Panjab. His academic and popular writings have appeared in venues such as the Journal of Asian Studies, Economic and Political Weekly, Al Jazeera, Law and Political Economy Project, Borderlines and Trolley Times.
Mallika Kaur is a lawyer and writer who focuses on gender and racial justice. She is the co-founder and Acting Executive Director of the Sikh Family Center, the only Sikh American organization focused on gender-based violence. Her book, Faith, Gender, and Activism in the Punjab Conflict: The Wheat Fields Still Whisper, was recently published by Palgrave MacMillan. Kaur holds a Master in Public Policy from Harvard and a Juris Doctorate from UC Berkeley School of Law where she now teaches skills-based and experiential social justice classes, including "Negotiating Trauma, Emotions and the Practice of Law."

This virtual event is sponsored by:  Center for South Asia, Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, and Institute for South Asia Studies, UC Berkeley
 
 
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Navyug Gill William Paterson University
Mallika Kaur Sikh Family Center

What Does India Want from a Partnership? A Conversation with Shivshankar Menon

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This event is part of Shorenstein APARC's spring webinar series "The United States in the Biden Era: Views from Asia."
 
India claims to prize its strategic autonomy, but it has built an unprecedented partnership with the United States. New Delhi and Washington both see each other as indispensable in their strategic competition with China. They have accordingly deepened their military relationship, begun to coordinate policies on regional issues, and built larger regional groupings like the Quad. Despite perennial disruptions – such as the recent fracas over COVID-related supplies – the foundations of the relationship are strong. But what kind of partnership does India seek with the United States? This conversation will examine how India views the Biden Administration; but more broadly, it will also examine India’s strategy in calibrating its partnership with the U.S., and how that might advance its larger policy goals

Menon_shivshankar_aparc
Ambassador Shivshankar Menon is a Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress, New Delhi, and a Visiting Professor at Ashoka University. His long career in public service spans diplomacy, national security, atomic energy, disarmament policy, and India’s relations with its neighbours and major global powers. Menon served as national security advisor to the Indian Prime Minister from 2010 to 2014, and foreign secretary of India from 2006 to 2009. Previously, he served as ambassador and high commissioner of India to Israel (1995-1997), Sri Lanka (1997-2000), China (2000-2003) and Pakistan (2003-2006). From 2008 to 2014, he was also a member of India’s Atomic Energy Commission. A career diplomat, he also served in India’s missions to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Geneva and the United Nations in New York. He is the author of Choices: Inside the Making of Indian Foreign Policy, published in 2016, and his latest book, India and Asian Geopolitics; The Past, Present, was published in April 2021. He is a graduate of St. Stephens College of the University of Delhi, where he studied ancient Indian history and Chinese. He speaks Chinese and some German.
 

Arzan_Tarapore_May4
Dr. Arzan Tarapore is the South Asia research scholar at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, where he leads the newly-restarted South Asia research initiative. He is also a senior nonresident fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research. His research focuses on Indian military strategy and contemporary Indo-Pacific security issues. He previously held research positions at the RAND Corporation, the Observer Research Foundation, and the East-West Center in Washington. Prior to his scholarly career, he served for 13 years in the Australian Defence Department. Arzan holds a PhD in war studies from King’s College London.

Co-sponsored by The Center for South Asia at Stanford University

 
 
 

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Shivshankar Menon Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress, New Delhi, and a Visiting Professor at Ashoka University Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress, New Delhi, and a Visiting Professor at Ashoka University
Arzan Tarapore (Moderator) South Asia Research Scholar, Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University South Asia Research Scholar, Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University
Seminars

U.S. and Japan Gear Up for a New Era of Competition with China

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Kiyoteru Tsutsui
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This op-ed by Kiyoteru Tsutsui originally appeared in Nikkei Asia.

In one of the few unscripted moments in the meticulously planned U.S.-Japan summit meeting last Friday, President Joe Biden referred to Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga as "vice president" before quickly correcting himself.

In a different era, this could have turned into a diplomatic incident, with right-leaning Japanese pundits calling it evidence of the U.S.'s patronizing approach to Japan. Fortunately for Biden, the current geopolitical environment is not conducive to such provocation, and no major media picked up on the slip.

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Much has been made of Suga being the first foreign leader to meet Biden in person. According to the U.S. State Department Office of the Historian, this is only the second time ever that a Japanese prime minister became the first foreign leader to meet a new president in the White House.

The other time was in 1989, when Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita visited President George H.W. Bush. Back then, Japan was a major threat to U.S. economic hegemony. Today, China is that threat, and not just in the economic domain. China is the first bona fide competitor to the U.S. since the Soviet Union, and its threat extends to every nook and cranny of the globe.

To counter China's ascension, the U.S. needs its allies, and Japan is the most important partner for that purpose. This is the context in which Suga visited the White House despite all the COVID-related restrictions.

Not surprisingly, the statements were carefully crafted to send strong signals to China. Building on the two-plus-two dialogue in March, the joint statement touched on the importance of peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific, from the East and South China seas to even Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Taiwan.

Japan certainly wanted a reference to the Senkaku Islands, which Beijing claims and calls the Diaoyu, and the applicability there of Article V of the U.S.-Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security. The Biden administration had made that commitment earlier, calming concerns among Japanese leaders that the new administration may be softer on China than the Trump administration.

Biden has, in fact, been quite tough on China and has given almost a perfect answer to what Japanese foreign policymakers wanted. In return, the U.S. wanted Japan to be squarely on Washington's side. The wording of the joint statement — negotiated until the last minute — saw Japan agree to include a reference to Taiwan for the first time in 52 years, but with Japan's preferred wording, encouraging "the peaceful resolution of the cross-Strait issues."

Predictably, China reacted quickly and strongly, accusing the two countries of interfering in its domestic affairs and warning Japan about siding with the U.S. We have yet to see what retaliatory actions China might take, but the reference to Taiwan signals the beginning of a new trilateral relationship between China, Japan and the U.S.

The summit covered other important issues, all with China in the background. One key issue is economic security. In particular, supply chain decoupling will become a battle cry for the U.S. and its allies as they seek to reduce dependence on materials from China. Semiconductors are especially critical, as they power all the major growth areas in the new economy. Taiwan's dominance in the semiconductor industry is the main reason why Taiwan is so important to both sides.

To remain in the driver's seat in the new economy, the joint statement announced a new U.S.-Japan Competitiveness and Resilience (CoRe) Partnership. The most concrete proposal was an initial commitment of $4.5 billion from the two governments toward fifth generation (5G) and 6G networks, reflecting concerns about China's dominance in the key digital infrastructure of the future.

Human rights is another thorny issue, with the joint statement specifying concerns over Xinjiang and Hong Kong. With some companies joining the boycott campaign on cotton from Xinjiang, and China countering by criticizing racial division in the U.S., the clash between China and the U.S. will intensify in this area as well. Japan has stepped out of its comfort zone and criticized China on human rights, following the American approach more explicitly than before. In this regard, it is notable that Suga also referred to rising violence against Asians in the U.S.

One area in which China might be more of a partner than a competitor is climate change, with all three countries committing to zero emissions by mid-21st century. Almost concurrently with the Biden-Suga meeting, American and Chinese climate envoys — John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua — met in China and issued a joint statement affirming their commitment to work together on global climate challenges.

All these initiatives and commitments are potentially meaningful and consequential developments that can reshape the Indo-Pacific, although more concrete ideas are needed before we can evaluate their impact. The biggest take-away ought to be the confirmation that the U.S.-Japan alliance is gearing up for a new era of competition with China.

Japan more than reaffirmed its commitment to the alliance with the U.S., risking its economic relations with China. The U.S. will be sure to ask for more concrete actions from Japan on the basis of the joint statement, and Japan can no longer evade questions about what it would do in a confrontation with China. Japan has to navigate a tough terrain of standing with the U.S. in the competition with China while preventing the escalation of tensions between Beijing and Washington, and at the same time protecting its own national interests.

A new phase of the trilateral relationship has just begun, and like it or not, other Asian nations might face the same decision that Japan faced, and sooner rather than later.

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Protesters hold signs and chant slogans during a Black Lives Matters Peaceful March on June 14, 2020 in Tokyo, Japan.
Commentary

What Japan and the U.S. Can Learn from Each Other

Japan Program Director Kiyoteru Tsutsui explores the cost of racial division versus the cost of homogeneity by comparing the experiences of Japan and the United States.
What Japan and the U.S. Can Learn from Each Other
President Biden walks past a row of Chinese and American flags.
News

APARC Experts on the Outlook for U.S.-Asia Policy Under the Biden Administration

Ahead of President-elect Biden’s inauguration and on the heels of the attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob that has left America shaken, an APARC-wide expert panel provides a region-by-region analysis of what’s next for U.S. policy towards Asia and recommendations for the new administration.
APARC Experts on the Outlook for U.S.-Asia Policy Under the Biden Administration
President-elect Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping
News

Biden Administration Will Rely On U.S. Allies for Support as Tensions with China Continue to Rise

On the World Class Podcast, international security expert Oriana Skylar Mastro says conflict between China and Taiwan is plausible within the next 15 years, and the U.S. will likely be involved.
Biden Administration Will Rely On U.S. Allies for Support as Tensions with China Continue to Rise
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President Biden and President Suga walk through the Rose Garden colonnade at the White House Getty Images
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The time is near when other Asian nations will have to pick a side in the great power competition between the United States and China, says Japan Program Director Kiyoteru Tsutsui.

Predoctoral Spotlight: Shan Huang on Development and Urban Politics in Hong Kong

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Hong Kong is a geographically, culturally, and historically unique city. Shan Huang, a Stanford doctoral candidate in anthropology, is fascinated by how the history and culture of “Asia’s World City” continue to affect its social and political development.

A predoctoral fellow at APARC during the 2020-21 academic year, Shan researches urban studies and contemporary social movements with a focus on Hong Kong and mainland China. His dissertation examines how the Hong Kong government’s developmental schemes are confronted by grassroots actions aimed at democratizing urban planning and promoting alternative urban futures.

APARC introduced the predoctoral fellowship in January 2021 as part of our expanded funding and training offerings in response to the harsh impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on students' academic careers and their access to future jobs and valuable work experience, and in recognition of the critical need to make the field of Asian Studies more diverse and inclusive.

We chatted with Shan to learn more about how his study of anthropology informs his research interests, how's he has spent his time away from Stanford during the pandemic closures, and how he's planning for the future in unpredictable times.

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Tell us about your dissertation and research interests. What initially drew you to these topics?

My current research broadly concerns the contested field of urban politics in which established regimes of “development” meet various sociopolitical demands and cultural aspirations that call these regimes into question. My dissertation, Land, Democracy, and the Urban Future: An Ethnography of Political Culture in Late Colonial Hong Kong, examines how Hong Kong government’s developmental schemes are confronted by grassroots actions that aim at democratizing land-use planning and promoting alternative urban futures. A full-length ethnography of Hong Kong's political culture, it also seeks to reflect on urbanism of our times.

With characteristic images filled with skyscrapers and dense residential buildings, Hong Kong is typically portrayed as an urban miracle. In contrast, my main fieldwork was conducted in the massive countryside of the metropolis. There, I followed the path of a network of advocate groups, local residents, and activists who are invested in reviving agriculture, studying local history, and strengthening community ties through experimental social projects. In revitalizing the villages that many of them used not to be familiar with, they are also exploring how to make new environmental, social, and political visions tangible and participatory for ordinary citizens. It is these methodologies of envisioning that interest me the most.

I was initially drawn to this research on a field trip to Hong Kong’s countryside during the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Summer School at Lingnan University in 2016. Thanks to the wonderful tours led by local activists and researchers, I came to be fascinated by the anti-displacement campaigns there and the question of how the urban-rural connections shape what we know as “Hong Kong.”

What’s something unexpected that you’ve learned through the course of your research?

The most unexpected experience during the course of my research in Hong Kong was certainly my witness of the 2019-2020 protest movements triggered by the Extradition Law Amendment Bill. As an anthropologist trying to understand Hong Kong’s political culture, I learned from this game-changing event about the limit of my field. As I wrote elsewhere, it means the government’s exhaustion of strategies of control, which, read in the longer trajectory of the city’s social and political transformation, suggests the furthest extent to which the post-Handover arrangement can win consensus among citizens. I also think that the failed politics of land-use planning, which is another field of civil participation, may also serve as a concrete example that explains how this grand limit has eventually arrived, though in a less eventful manner.

When you’re not working on your dissertation, what kinds of things have you done to stay grounded during this year of quarantine?

In the first few months of quarantine, I couldn’t do much on my dissertation, so I started learning more cooking skills by watching videos by vloggers who specialize in Chinese cuisines. After I relocated to China in the past summer, I had the chance to cook for my extended family a few times with all I had learned and they seemed to really like it!

How have the unusual circumstances of this past year and your time as a remote predoctoral fellow at APARC affected your research goals?

I was fortunate to complete the main part of my fieldwork before the COVID-19 pandemic, so I’m very lucky in that. The main challenge regarding my predoctoral fellowship is that I couldn’t join as many APARC/FSI talks as I wish due to the awkward time difference!

Where are you hoping your interests take you after you receive your degree from Stanford?

One practical thing I’ve learned during the pandemic is the need to be prepared for sudden changes in plans. This is particularly true and challenging for the community of floating, “international” scholars to which I belong. My hope is to still find an academic home where I can teach and polish my work, but I am also trying to be more poised for other possibilities. In the end, perhaps learning how to relax about some planning and expectations is not a bad thing either.

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Spring blooms in the courtyard near History Corner, Stanford University.
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APARC Names 2021-22 Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellows

Political scientist Dr. Diana Stanescu and sociologist Mary-Collier Wilks will join APARC as Shorenstein postdoctoral fellows on contemporary Asia for the 2021-22 academic year.
APARC Names 2021-22 Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellows
[Left] Postdoc Spotlight, Jeffrey Weng, Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow in Contemporary Asia, [Right] Jeffrey Weng
Q&As

Postdoc Spotlight: Jeffrey Weng on Language and Society

Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow in Contemporary Asia Jeffrey Weng shares insights from his research into how language and society shape one another, particularly how the historical use of Mandarin affects contemporary Chinese society and linguistics.
Postdoc Spotlight: Jeffrey Weng on Language and Society
Stanford campus, main quad with cloudy sky
News

APARC Offers Fellowship and Funding Opportunities to Support, Diversify Stanford Student Participation in Contemporary Asia Research

The Center has launched a suite of offerings including a predoctoral fellowship, a diversity grant, and research assistant internships to support Stanford students interested in the area of contemporary Asia.
APARC Offers Fellowship and Funding Opportunities to Support, Diversify Stanford Student Participation in Contemporary Asia Research
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[Left] Hong Kong skyline; [Right] Encina Hall, Stanford Florian Wehde, Unsplash
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Meet Shan Huang, a Stanford doctoral candidate in anthropology and a 2020-21 APARC predoctoral fellow, whose dissertation provides an ethnographic account of Hong Kong’s political culture in the post-Handover era.

Strategic Competition in the Bay of Bengal

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The strategic competition between India and China has turned deadly in the Himalayas, but the stakes may be higher elsewhere, in the Bay of Bengal. While India gradually fortifies its island outposts in the Bay, China is preparing for a long-term naval presence there. Both countries are scrambling to build security cooperation with littoral states, especially Bangladesh and Myanmar. This webinar will explore what makes the Bay of Bengal a particularly important sub-region of the Indo-Pacific. It will consider how China’s growing political and military influence poses security risks for India, and how India and its partners – including the United States and the Quad – can build resilience and deterrence in the Bay of Bengal.  

Speakers:
Raja Mohan
Professor C Raja Mohan is the Director of the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore. Professor Mohan is one of India’s leading commentators on India’s foreign policy. He has been associated with a number of think tanks in New Delhi, including the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses, the Centre for Policy Research and the Observer Research Foundation. He was also the founding director of Carnegie India.  He served on India’s National Security Advisory Board, and led the Indian Chapter of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs from 1999 to 2006. He writes a regular column for the Indian Express and was earlier the Strategic Affairs Editor for The Hindu newspaper. Professor Mohan has a Master’s degree in nuclear physics and a PhD in international relations. Among his recent books are Samudra Manthan: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Indo-Pacific (2013) and Modi’s World: Expanding India’s Sphere of Influence (2015).
 
Nilanthi Samaranayake
Ms. Nilanthi Samaranayake directs the Strategy and Policy Analysis Program at CNA. She focuses on the study of US alliances and partnerships globally and led several studies on Indian Ocean security. Her work has examined U.S.-India naval cooperation, water resource competition in the Brahmaputra River, and Sri Lankan foreign policy. She also has conducted research on the navies of Bangladesh and Pakistan, the Maldives Coast Guard, security threats in the Bay of Bengal, and relations between smaller South Asian countries and China, India and the United States. Prior to joining CNA, Samaranayake held positions at the National Bureau of Asian Research and the Pew Research Center. Samaranayake holds an M.Sc. in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a B.A. in International Studies from American University.
 
Moderator:
Arzan Tarapore
Dr. Arzan Tarapore is the South Asia research scholar at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, where he leads the newly-restarted South Asia research initiative. He is also a senior nonresident fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research. His research focuses on Indian military strategy and contemporary Indo-Pacific security issues. He previously held research positions at the RAND Corporation, the Observer Research Foundation, and the East-West Center in Washington. Prior to his scholarly career, he served in the Australian Defence Department. Arzan holds a PhD in war studies from King’s College London.

This event is co-sponsored by: The Center for South Asia

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Please register at:  https://bit.ly/2P4CllG

Seminars

Biden’s America through Southeast Asian Eyes: Problem? Solution? Neither? Both?

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This event is part of Shorenstein APARC's spring webinar series "The United States in the Biden Era: Views from Asia."

When this webinar is held, Joe Biden’s presidency will be exactly three months old. Enough time to allow for the evaluation of his administration, its policies, and his country by observers around the world, including in Southeast Asia. Ms. Ha will share and interpret the findings of the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute’s latest annual survey of elite Southeast Asian opinions regarding the United States and other nations, which she co-led and co-wrote up with ISEAS colleagues.  Professor Liow will will share some observations on regional views on the Biden administration thus far, focusing on its evolving approach to the region .  Regional impressions and judgments of America now and prior to Biden’s term will also be contrasted, alongside the changing reputations of other countries such as China and Japan.  Policy implications will be drawn as well, especially in light of the unfolding political crisis in Myanmar.

Hoang Thi Ha 4X4
Hoang Thi HA is Fellow and Lead Researcher on Political-Security Affairs at the ASEAN Studies Centre of ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. Her research focuses on political-security issues within ASEAN, including the South China Sea disputes, ASEAN human rights cooperation, ASEAN's relations with the major powers and ASEAN's institutional building. Ms. Hoang worked at the ASEAN Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Viet Nam and the ASEAN Secretariat before joining ISEAS. She holds an MA in International Relations from the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam.

Joseph Liow 4X4
Joseph Chinyong Liow is Dean of College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, where he is also Tan Kah Kee Chair in Comparative and International Politics, and Research Advisor and former Dean at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. He held the inaugural Lee Kuan Yew Chair in Southeast Asia Studies at the Brookings Institution, Washington DC, where he was also a Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Program.

Joseph’s research interests encompass Muslim politics and social movements in Southeast Asia and the geopolitics and geoeconomics of the Asia-Pacific region.

Joseph is the author, co-author, or editor of 14 books, has testified before the U.S. Congress, and has extensive teaching and consultancy experience. He sits on several editorial boards and governing boards of think tanks, and on the Social Science Research Council of Singapore.

 

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Hoang Thi HA Fellow and Lead Researcher on Political-Security Affairs at the ASEAN Studies Centre of ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore
Joseph Chinyong Liow Tan Kah Kee Chair Professor and Dean, College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University and Research Advisor, Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore
Seminars

Peace in Afghanistan: “Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed”

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ABSTRACT:
Despite major international conferences and milestones fast approaching, the peace process in Afghanistan is unlikely to end soon. Referring to the many interdependent and intractable issues to negotiate, the lead U.S. negotiator conceded that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.” Even if ongoing diplomatic efforts yield agreements, such deals – like the February 2020 U.S.-Taliban agreement – will likely be difficult to implement, verify, and enforce. Underlying core concerns, like the presence of transnational terrorist networks and Kabul’s weak institutional capacity, will persist regardless of the diplomatic process. This event will explore the status and prospects of the current peace process and its implications for U.S. policy. It will consider the long-term political competition between the Taliban and the Kabul government, the role of U.S. forces, and the constructive and disruptive roles that regional actors may play.

SPEAKERS:
Asfandyar Mir
Dr. Asfandyar Mir is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. His research is on the international security of South Asia, US counterterrorism policy, and al-Qaeda, with a regional focus on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. Some of his research has appeared in peer-reviewed journals, such as International Security, International Studies Quarterly, and Security Studies, and his commentary has appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, H-Diplo, Lawfare, and the Washington Post Monkey Cage. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago and a BA and MA from Stanford University.
Dipali Mukhopadhyav
Dr. Dipali Mukhopadhyay is an associate professor at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on the relationships between political violence, state building, and governance during and after war. She is currently serving as senior expert on the Afghanistan peace process for the U.S. Institute of Peace. She is the author of Good Rebel Governance: Revolutionary Politics and Western Intervention in Syria (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming) with Kimberly Howe, and Warlords, Strongman Governors and State Building in Afghanistan(Cambridge University Press, 2014). Prior to joining the Humphrey School, Mukhopadhyay was on the faculty at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs from 2012 to 2020. She holds a PhD from Tufts University and a BA from Yale University.
 
MODERATOR:
Arzan Tarapore
Dr. Arzan Tarapore is the South Asia research scholar at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, where he leads the newly-restarted South Asia research initiative. He is also a senior nonresident fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research. His research focuses on Indian military strategy and contemporary Indo-Pacific security issues. He previously held research positions at the RAND Corporation, the Observer Research Foundation, and the East-West Center in Washington. Prior to his scholarly career, he served as an analyst in the Australian Defence Department, which included an operational deployments to Afghanistan. Arzan holds a PhD in war studies from King’s College London.

This event is co-sponsored by: The Center for South Asia
Via Zoom webinar. Please register at:  https://bit.ly/3cOcabZ
Seminars

No Credible Military Defense of Taiwan: Oriana Skylar Mastro on the Munk Debates Podcast

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Can China’s aggression towards Taiwan be stopped? Oriana Skylar Mastro joins the Munk Debate podcast to argue affirmatively that Chinese military capability has advanced too far for the United States to credibly deter the PRC through military means alone. Michael Beckley, an associate professor of political science at Tufts University and visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, offers the rebuttal. The full debate is available below.

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Many of China’s military development goals were set with a target date of 2020, which means the PRC is currently in a strong place with its offensive and defensive capabilities. By Mastro’s measure, China now has the most advanced ballistic missile program in the world, including the United States. For Taiwan, this means the reality of an aggressive neighbor who possesses offensive weapons that are very difficult to defend against.

China also has geographic benefits when it comes to offensive maneuvering. If a hot conflict began, neither Taiwan nor the United States has a comparable network of sole-sovereign military bases in the area such as China’s. Not only does this mean China can utilize its air defense capabilities — again, now one of the strongest in the world, by Mastro’s account — but it can also support a robust blockade against Taiwan across the strait and devastate the island both militarily and economically.

As Mastro points out, “Taiwan’s economy completely depends on China, so if China decided to use economic coercion, which is defined as a type of aggression, the United States has absolutely no way of protecting Taiwan from any economic harm coming from the PRC.”

Because of this potential for combined military and economic aggression, Mastro pushed for urgency on deterrence in Taiwan. “The United States and international community do not have forever. The Chinese are not happy with maintaining the status quo, and they will soon believe they have the military capability to [take Taiwan].”

Rather than continuing to act alone, Mastro hopes the United States will lead out in organizing an international coalition that includes other regional partners such as Australia, Japan, and India as actively contributing participants. With the United States no longer seen as a monolith in Beijing, only broad, coordinated cooperation will provide effective deterrence and security for Taiwan.

On another podcast, Conversation Six, Mastro joins Abraham Denmark to discuss China's Taiwan strategy and what the United States can do to deter China from invading Taiwan. The threat of non-military intervention by the United States and its allies is the way forward, she says. "The US needs to do more in non-military realms," she argues.

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[Left] Oriana Skylar Mastro; [Right] Logo for 'Policy, Guns, and Money: The ASPI Podcast'
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Breaking Down Assumptions about China's Taiwan Strategy

FSI Center Fellow Oriana Skylar Mastro joins the Australian Strategic Policy Institute's podcast to discuss how she sees China's strategy towards Taiwan and reunification changing as Beijing continues to gain confidence in its military capability and international influence.
Breaking Down Assumptions about China's Taiwan Strategy
Oriana Skylar Mastro testifies to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission on Taiwan deterrence.
News

Oriana Skylar Mastro Testifies on Deterring PRC Aggression Toward Taiwan to Congressional Review Commission

China may now be able to prevail in cross-strait contingencies even if the United States intervenes in Taiwan’s defense, Chinese security expert Oriana Skylar Mastro tells the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Changes must be made to U.S. military capabilities, not U.S. policy, she argues.
Oriana Skylar Mastro Testifies on Deterring PRC Aggression Toward Taiwan to Congressional Review Commission
Photograph of Xi Jinping and Vladmir Putin walking in front of two lines of armed Chinese soldiers
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Military Competition with China: Harder to Win Than During the Cold War?

On February 10th, the APARC China Program hosted Professor Oriana Mastro to discuss military relations between the US and China, and why deterrence might be even more difficult than during the Cold War.
Military Competition with China: Harder to Win Than During the Cold War?
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[Left] Graphic of missile, Taiwan flag, and China flag; [Right] Oriana Skylar Mastro Munk Debates
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The United States can no longer rely solely on its own military capability or influence to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, argues Oriana Skylar Mastro on a new episode of the Munk Debates podcast. Credible pushback can now only be achieved through international coalitions.

The Crisis in Myanmar: Repression, Resistance, Repercussions

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Co-sponsored by the Southeast Asia Program, Shorenstein Asia Pacific Research Center, Stanford University, with the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan

Shocking events obliterate context.  The coup in Myanmar on 1 February 2021 is a case in point.  Who could imagine the cruelty of the Burmese generals who on February 1st 2021 grabbed power and proceeded to retain it by arresting thousands and murdering hundreds of its local opponents?  Who expected that on February 2nd the country’s youth would launch a nonviolent Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) and keep it going and growing against such massively intimidating odds?  In this webinar, two experts will provide the essential but all too often missing contexts—current and historical, domestic and foreign, political and socioeconomic—within which the crisis can be understood, its future projected, and its implications assessed.  To those ends, the on-the-ground knowledge, personal experience, and close observer’s insights of Burmese scholar Moe Thuzar will interact with the insights of American professor David Steinberg based on his Burmese experiences and scholarship dating back into the 20th century.

The webinar will consider in particular what the coup and its aftermath may imply for Southeast Asia and its relations with China.  Relevant in that regard is the involvement of all four panel members in a recent collection, The Deer and the Dragon: Southeast Asia and China in the 21st Century—Steinberg and Ciorciari as authors, Emmerson as editor, and ­­Thuzar as an analyst who is using the book in her own research. 

David I Steinberg 4X4
David I. Steinberg is Distinguished Professor of Asian Studies Emeritus, Georgetown University, where he directed its Asian studies program (1997-2007). Other positions he has held include the presidency of the Mansfield Center for Pacific Affairs and Southeast Asia-related US foreign-policy posts as a member of the Senior Foreign Service. He has also represented The Asia Foundation in South Korea, Burma, Hong Kong, and Washington, D.C.  His 15 books and monographs include one translation, more than 150 articles, and several hundred op-eds.. Among these books are: Myanmar: The Dynamics of an Evolving Polity (ed., 2015); Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone Needs to Know (2013, 2nd edition); Modern China-Myanmar Relations: Dilemmas of Mutual Dependence (with Fan Hongwei, 2012); Turmoil in Burma: Contested Legitimacies in Myanmar (2006); Burma: The State of Myanmar (2001); and Burma’s Road to Development (1981). His expertise includes the two Koreas, about which he has written widely. Professor Steinberg was educated at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, Harvard University, Darmouth College, and Lingnan University in Canton (now Guangzhou), China.

Moe Thuzar 4X4
Moe Thuzar joined the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore in 2008. Her responsibilities there have included managing or co-managing its Myanmar Studies Programme, serving as a lead researcher in its ASEAN Studies Centre, and helping the Centre engage with Myanmar regarding its turn to chair ASEAN in 2014. She spent the 2019-2020 academic year as a Fox International Fellow at Yale University's MacMillan Center researching the socio-cultural underpinnings of Burma’s Cold War foreign policy for her National University of Singapore PhD. Earlier she worked for a decade at the ASEAN Secretariat, where she headed its Human Development Unit. Her many publications include, as co-author, the 2020 and 2019 editions of ISEAS’s widely read State of Southeast Asia: Survey Report. Other recent writing includes chapters and articles in ASEAN-EU Partnerships: The Untold Story (ed., 2020); the Journal of Southeast Asian Economies (2019); Southeast Asian Affairs (ed., 2019); Human Security Norms in East Asia (ed., 2019); and, as co-author, ASEAN’s Myanmar Dilemma (with Lex Rieffel, 2018). Earlier works include Myanmar: Life After Nargis (with Pavin Chachavalpongpun, 2009).

Co-moderated by John Ciorciari, Director, Weiser Diplomacy Center, University of Michigan, and Donald K. Emmerson, Director, Southeast Asia Program, Stanford University

Via Zoom Webinar
Register: https://bit.ly/3mdiwEY

David I. Steinberg Distinguished Professor of Asian Studies Emeritus, Georgetown University, Washington, DC
Moe Thuzar Fellow and Co-coordinator, Myanmar Studies Programme, ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore
John Ciorciari Moderator Director, Weiser Diplomacy Center, University of Michigan

Donald K. Emmerson

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Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Affiliated Faculty, CDDRL
Affiliated Scholar, Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies
aparc_dke.jpg PhD

At Stanford, in addition to his work for the Southeast Asia Program and his affiliations with CDDRL and the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, Donald Emmerson has taught courses on Southeast Asia in East Asian Studies, International Policy Studies, and Political Science. He is active as an analyst of current policy issues involving Asia. In 2010 the National Bureau of Asian Research and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars awarded him a two-year Research Associateship given to “top scholars from across the United States” who “have successfully bridged the gap between the academy and policy.”

Emmerson’s research interests include Southeast Asia-China-US relations, the South China Sea, and the future of ASEAN. His publications, authored or edited, span more than a dozen books and monographs and some 200 articles, chapters, and shorter pieces.  Recent writings include The Deer and the Dragon: Southeast Asia and China in the 21st Century (ed., 2020); “‘No Sole Control’ in the South China Sea,” in Asia Policy  (2019); ASEAN @ 50, Southeast Asia @ Risk: What Should Be Done? (ed., 2018); “Singapore and Goliath?,” in Journal of Democracy (2018); “Mapping ASEAN’s Futures,” in Contemporary Southeast Asia (2017); and “ASEAN Between China and America: Is It Time to Try Horsing the Cow?,” in Trans-Regional and –National Studies of Southeast Asia (2017).

Earlier work includes “Sunnylands or Rancho Mirage? ASEAN and the South China Sea,” in YaleGlobal (2016); “The Spectrum of Comparisons: A Discussion,” in Pacific Affairs (2014); “Facts, Minds, and Formats: Scholarship and Political Change in Indonesia” in Indonesian Studies: The State of the Field (2013); “Is Indonesia Rising? It Depends” in Indonesia Rising (2012); “Southeast Asia: Minding the Gap between Democracy and Governance,” in Journal of Democracy (April 2012); “The Problem and Promise of Focality in World Affairs,” in Strategic Review (August 2011); An American Place at an Asian Table? Regionalism and Its Reasons (2011); Asian Regionalism and US Policy: The Case for Creative Adaptation (2010); “The Useful Diversity of ‘Islamism’” and “Islamism: Pros, Cons, and Contexts” in Islamism: Conflicting Perspectives on Political Islam (2009); “Crisis and Consensus: America and ASEAN in a New Global Context” in Refreshing U.S.-Thai Relations (2009); and Hard Choices: Security, Democracy, and Regionalism in Southeast Asia (edited, 2008).

Prior to moving to Stanford in 1999, Emmerson was a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he won a campus-wide teaching award. That same year he helped monitor voting in Indonesia and East Timor for the National Democratic Institute and the Carter Center. In the course of his career, he has taken part in numerous policy-related working groups focused on topics related to Southeast Asia; has testified before House and Senate committees on Asian affairs; and been a regular at gatherings such as the Asia Pacific Roundtable (Kuala Lumpur), the Bali Democracy Forum (Nusa Dua), and the Shangri-La Dialogue (Singapore). Places where he has held various visiting fellowships, including the Institute for Advanced Study and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. 



Emmerson has a Ph.D. in political science from Yale and a BA in international affairs from Princeton. He is fluent in Indonesian, was fluent in French, and has lectured and written in both languages. He has lesser competence in Dutch, Javanese, and Russian. A former slam poet in English, he enjoys the spoken word and reads occasionally under a nom de plume with the Not Yet Dead Poets Society in Redwood City, CA. He and his wife Carolyn met in high school in Lebanon. They have two children. He was born in Tokyo, the son of U.S. Foreign Service Officer John K. Emmerson, who wrote the Japanese Thread among other books.

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Moderator Director, Southeast Asia Program, Stanford University
Seminars

Health, Healthcare, and Cooperation to “Build Back Better” in China and the US: Views from China

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Co-sponsored with the Bush China Foundation

Bush China Foundation logo 4X1

This event is part of Shorenstein APARC's spring webinar series "The United States in the Biden Era: Views from Asia."

The coronavirus pandemic has reinforced the importance of investing in population health domestically and globally, and of public-private collaboration in innovation for health goals--from technology for healthy aging to poverty alleviation and addressing other social determinants of health disparities. China, as the first health system to experience the devastation of COVID-19 and to rebound from pandemic control, offers lessons relevant beyond its borders. What can we draw from China's progress on healthcare development and its aims for innovation and public-private collaboration? In this webinar, Chinese practitioners and experts from academia and government will share their views on post-pandemic health policy and draw lessons for cooperation in global health. Scholars who have worked in and studied both the PRC and US health systems will discuss the challenges facing both—from strengthening risk protection and aligning incentives for quality improvement, to promoting goals articulated in the US’ 5th iteration of population health ‘ten-year plans’ (“Healthy People 2030”) and the PRC’s more recent “Healthy China 2030” and broader 14th Five Year Plan. What will it take to implement these ambitious goals? What is the linkage between health and China's foreign policy objectives and its place in the world? PRC experts share their views in this webinar co-hosted by Stanford’s Asia Health Policy Program and the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations.

Panelists:

Cao Ying 4X4
Ying Cao is the China country director at Vital Strategies, where she leads the team to strengthen local public health systems through Vital Strategies’ Resolve to Save Lives’ global cardiovascular health initiative, tobacco control program, road safety program and evidence-based communication and policy advocacy. Dr. Cao brings over 15 years of experience in designing, leading, implementing and monitoring projects in the field of health and nutrition. She has extensive experience managing complex programs in China, with a specific focus on government and community-based programs to address unbalanced resource allocations to underprivileged areas.  Prior to joining Vital Strategies, Dr. Cao served as the director of Program Operations in Save the Children in China. Prior to Save the Children, she spent six years working in health and development within the non-profit sector and five years as a senior physician specializing in diagnostic ultrasound at Shanghai Ruijin Hospital.  Dr. Cao holds a master’s degree in public health nutrition from Wageningen University in the Netherlands and a bachelor’s degree in medicine from Shanghai Second Medical University.

Gordon Liu 4X4
Gordon Liu is a leading expert on health and development economics, health policy reform, and pharmaceutical economics in China. He is a key figure in Chinese health care reform efforts and sits on the China State Council Health Reform Advisory Commission. Dr. Liu currently serves as an associate editor for Health Economics and China Economic Quarterly (CEQ) journals and was a coeditor of Value in Health, the official journal of ISPOR, and the editor-in-chief of the China Journal of Pharmaceutical Economics. He is president of the Chinese Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research and served as president of the Chinese Economists Society (CES). Prior to joining Peking University, Dr. Liu was a tenured associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an assistant professor at the University of Southern California.

Liang Xiaofeng 4X4
 Dr. Xiaofeng Liang received his medical degree at Shanxi Medical University in 1984 and a Master's degree in Public Health from the College of Public Health of Peking University of Medicine in 1995. From 1996 to 1998, he worked as a visiting scholar at the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, College of Medicine, University of Miami, Florida, USA.  After his return to China, he held the positions of Vice-Director of Epidemic Prevention Station of Gansu Province (1999-2000), Vice-Director of Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, CAPM (2000-2001), and the Director of Immunization Program (NIP) of China CDC (2001-2011), and deputy director of China CDC.  He is the winner of the 2013 Wu Jieping-Paul Janson Medicine and Pharmacy award and has been recognized as an outstanding contribution expert of the Ministry of Health China 2011-2012. He received the special allowance subsided by the State Council of China in 2010.  Since 2008, he has been a member of the Global Strategy Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Immunization of the WHO. He served as the Vice Secretary-general of the Chinese Foundation of Hepatitis Prevention (2005). He was a member of the Chinese Committee Advisory of Immunization Practice, the Chinese Association of Community Health and the Branch of Biological Products, and the Chinese Association of Prevention Medicine. He was a member of the National Polio Eradication Certification Committee and a member of the National Measles Elimination Verification Committee.  His research in public health led to advances in immunization and vaccine-preventable disease control in China. As the principal investigator on the Key Programs for Science and Technology Development of China since 2004, his main scientific research has focused on the epidemiology regularity and prevention and control countermeasures of Hepatitis B. His current research is focused on non-communicable disease control and nutrition and tobacco control. He is the author of more than 30 articles in national and international journals, such as The Lancet and, The New England Journal of Medicine.

Via Zoom Webinar.
Register: https://bit.ly/3wed6hA

Ying Cao China country director, Vital Strategies’ Resolve to Save Lives global health initiatives
Gordon Liu Professor, Peking University
Liang Xiaofeng Executive Vice President and Secretary General of the Chinese Preventive Medicine Association
Seminars
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