Stanford University

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

Via Zoom webinar.
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.
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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

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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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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.

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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

Public-Private Collaborations in Palliative Care in Asia

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This event is part of the Asia Health Policy Program (AHPP) 2020-21 Colloquium series "Health, medicine, and longevity: Exploring public and private roles"

We will hear from distinguished speakers on public-private collaborations in accelerating improvements in palliative care in Singapore and parts of South Asia, as well as informal care and technology-enabled self-management of chronic illness among Asian-Americans. Joining us from Singapore is Mr. Laurence Lian, Chairman of the Lien Foundation, sharing evidence about the impact of the Foundation’s work on end of life care, collaborating with the public sector in palliative care training, improving access to pain medication, and other initiatives. Dr. Ranak Trivedi of Stanford will discuss her work to address the stress management needs of patients and their families and to improve culturally concordant care for South Asian women with breast cancer and their caregivers.

Speakers:

Laurence Lien 4X4
Laurence Lien is Co-Chair and CEO of the Asia Philanthropy Circle (APC), a membership-based platform for Asian philanthropists to exchange, learn and collaborate.  Laurence is also the Chairman of Lien Foundation, a family foundation that has become well-regarded for its forward-thinking and radical approach in the fields of education, eldercare and the environment, as well as the Chairman of Lien AID, the foundation humanitarian arm for enabling sustainable access to clean water and sanitation for Asia’s rural poor.

Laurence was the CEO of the National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre in Singapore from 2008-2014, and was the Chairman of the Community Foundation of Singapore from 2013-2019.  Prior to his work in the non-profit sector, Laurence served in the Singapore Government.  Laurence holds degrees from Oxford University, the National University of Singapore, and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.  He was also a Nominated Member of Parliament in Singapore from 2012-2014. 

Ranak Trivedi 4X4
Dr. Ranak Trivedi is a clinical health psychologist, assistant professor in the Dept. of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University and an investigator at the Center for Innovation to Implementation at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System. She completed her PhD in clinical health psychology at Duke University. Her NIH, VA and foundation-funded studies are focused on improving outcomes for Veterans with mental health conditions, and improving the self-management of serious illnesses by enhancing the collaboration and coping of patients and their caregivers. Her studies have provided insights into how caregivers and chronically and seriously patients collaborate around their mutual health, understanding the impact of their interpersonal relationship on chronic illness self-management, and the individual, dyadic, and systems-level barriers that they encounter. These insights have been used to develop two technology-enabled dyadic self-management programs to address the stress management needs of both patients and their framily. Dr. Trivedi is a Sojourns Scholars Leader, and she is using this platform to improving culturally concordant care for South Asian women with breast cancer and their caregivers. Dr. Trivedi was selected for the year long Leadership Institute for Women in Psychology hosted by American Psychological Association in 2020. Dr. Trivedi serves as the Director of Training and Education at the Center for Innovation to Implementation at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System, site PI and Training Director for the Elizabeth Dole National Center of Excellence for Veteran and Caregiver Research, and the Director of Caregiving and Family Systems at the Stanford Center for Asian Health Research and Education (CARE).

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Register https: https://bit.ly/3slcunI

Laurence Lien Co-Chair & CEO, Asia Philanthropy Circle
Ranak Trivedi Assistant Professor, Stanford University, and Director of Caregiving and Family Systems, Stanford Center for Asian Health Research and Education
Seminars
Asia Health Policy Program (AHPP) 2020-21 Colloquium series "Health, Medicine, and Longevity: Exploring Public and Private Roles"

APARC Names 2021-22 Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellows

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APARC is pleased to announce the appointment of political scientist Dr. Diana Stanescu and doctoral candidate in sociology Mary-Collier Wilks as our 2021-22 Shorenstein postdoctoral fellows on contemporary Asia. They will begin their appointments at Stanford in autumn 2021.

The Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellowship on Contemporary Asia supports recent doctoral graduates dedicated to research and writing on contemporary Asia, primarily in the areas of political, economic, or social change in the Asia-Pacific, or international relations in the region.

Fellows develop their dissertations and other projects for publication, present their research, and participate in the intellectual life of APARC and Stanford at large. Our postdoctoral fellows often continue their careers at top universities and research organizations around the world and remain involved with research and publication activities at APARC.

Meet our new postdoctoral scholars:

Diana Stanescu

Research Project: Do Bureaucratic Networks Matter for Market Access? The Effect of Informal Connections on Trade and FDI of Japanese Firms.

Portrait of Diana Stanescu
Diana Stanescu is a postdoctoral fellow with the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. She holds a B.A. in International Relations and Asian Studies from Mount Holyoke College and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from Princeton University. She is a former pre-doctoral exchange scholar in the Department of Government at Harvard.

Dr. Stanescu’s research interests include international trade, regulation, and lobbying with a focus on Japan. Using formal and quantitative methods, her research addresses the overarching question of how bureaucracies shape global economic governance, from a structural and agent-driven perspective. Her dissertation, “The Bureaucratic Politics of Foreign Economic Policymaking,” explains the mechanisms by which stakeholders shape international economic policy through bureaucratic channels of influence. Additional work looks at the micro-foundations of bureaucratic structure and its consequences for policy, examines the role of individual bureaucrats within domestic and international institutions, and develops micro-level data on bureaucratic careers and appointments.

At APARC, Stanescu will further assess how politicians and interest group representatives maneuver within bureaucratic channels to have influence over foreign economic policy. In particular, she will examine how bureaucratic-interest group networks help firms obtain market access abroad, with evidence from trade and foreign direct investment in Japan.

Mary-Collier Wilks

Research project: How do conceptions of gender, sexuality, and women’s advancement shape the construction of development knowledge and foreign aid?

Portrait of Mary-Collier Wilks
Mary-Collier Wilks is currently a doctoral candidate in Sociology at the University of Virginia. Her research agenda centers on meaning-making and power dynamics in international organizations, with a particular focus on the ways in which people encounter international development in everyday lives and the gendered meanings, divisions, and struggles that arise from such encounters.

It was Wilk’s work as a grant writer at a local NGO, Social Services of Cambodia, that first sparked her interests in globalization, gender, and the politics of international development. Having seen how resources and ideas from all over the world flow through NGOs to affect the lives of people in Cambodia, she began thinking about the complicated process of foreign aid and international development. She also gained experience as a consultant in the development sector, performing a gender analysis for a USAID health project and serving as a trainer for a USAID Women’s Leadership Conference.

For her dissertation, which is funded by the National Science Foundation and the Fulbright IIE, Wilks conducted a multi-sited ethnography comparing U.S. and Japanese international NGOs that advance women's health in Cambodia. Her work contributes to scholarly theories of global civil society and international development, contending that to adequately analyze and improve development outcomes, we must attend to national variation in international NGO programs and practices.

At APARC, Wilks will transform her dissertation manuscript into a book and extend her comparative research agenda to investigate how NGO practices are shaped by the business cultures in which their donors are embedded.

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[Left] Radhika Jain, [Right] Postdoc Spotlight, Radhika Jain, Asia Health Policy Program
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Spring blooms in the courtyard near History Corner, Stanford University. L.A. Cicero
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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.

New Book Reveals How China and the United States Engage the Private Sector to Deliver Public Goods

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Noa Ronkin
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China and the United States are usually cast as fierce rivals, but there are broad areas of society where the two nations share profound similarities. As they confront growing demands to provide their citizens with goods and services such as healthcare, education, housing, and transportation, both the Chinese and U.S. governments engage the private sector in the pursuit of public value, although they do so in different ways.

This type of engagement, in which the government calls on the private sector to meet public goals, is known as collaborative governance and it is becoming an increasing share of the economy in both China and the United States. A new book, The Dragon, the Eagle, and the Private Sector (Cambridge University Press), analyzes the application of collaborative governance in a wide range of policy arenas in China and the United States.

The book itself is the result of collaborative research by three co-authors: APARC Deputy Director Karen Eggleston, Harvard Kennedy School Raymond Vernon Senior Lecturer in Public Policy John Donahue, and Harvard Kennedy School’s Frank P. Ramsey Professor of Political Economy Richard Zeckhauser. On March 5, 2021, the three co-authors gathered for a virtual book launch, an event co-sponsored by Shorenstein APARC and the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School.

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Introducing the new book, Lawrence H. Summers, president emeritus of Harvard University and the Charles W. Eliot University Professor at the Kennedy School, called the co-authors’ analysis of collaborative governance “micro microeconomics” that shows how particular tasks and particular commitments of resources, once decided on, are going to be best accomplished. This work, Summers noted, sheds light on situations involving both cooperation and competition — aspects that affect almost any complex problem yet are rarely considered by economists.

A key element of collaborative governance, noted Zeckhauser, is the sharing of discretion. Rather than contracting at one pole and complete laissez-faire at the opposite pole, in a collaborative governance process, the two parties involved play a role in determining what is produced and how it is produced. It is a process that calls on the best capabilities of both the private and public sectors and that grants each of them an element of control. Sometimes that process results in triumphs, sometimes in tragedies, and other times in outcomes that are “in-between.” The book analyses cases of this entire gamut. “We hope that this volume provides guidance on how the triumphs can become more common, the tragedies more scarce, and the in-between outcomes improved,” said Zeckhauser.

This book provides a key to understanding how to achieve [...] quality-public-private collaboration, done right. Delving deep into two very different societies, the US and China, the authors provide lessons that illuminate and should inform scholars and policymakers alike.
Fareed Zakaria
Journalist and Author

Collaborative Governance in the Time of COVID-19

The unfolding of the COVID-19 pandemic provides dramatic current illustrations of collaborative governance. The urgent need for an effective vaccine created the conditions for a successful partnership between the U.S. government and the pharmaceutical sector, with the former offering both regulatory processes and significant financing, the latter its innovation. Consider the Moderna vaccine, which, based on evidence from clinical trials, is over 90% effective at preventing laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 illness. The vaccine was created within less than a year using a new approach, based on Messenger RNA technology, by a company that had never before produced a commercial product. “This is a triumph of collaborative governance,” said Zeckhauser.

The vaccine distribution process in the United States, however, has proved to be challenging and chaotic. Zeckhauser contrasted this experience with China’s activation of technology giant Tencent, which is using its ubiquitous WeChat application to allow individuals to easily find where the vaccine is distributed and sign up for vaccination appointments. “There is probably a lesson here in the way these two outcomes came about. We hope that individuals in both China and the United States will examine the lessons in this volume to see how they can achieve outcomes for their citizens that produce public benefits more effectively.”

A Spectrum of Policy Domains

The book details how China and the United States grapple with the complexity of producing the goods and services they need to meet a broad array of public goals. Eggleston surveyed the five broad policy domains she and her co-authors examine in the book through detailed historical legacies and case studies of the application of collaborative governance in both countries.

These domains include the railroads that build the nation historically in both countries and China’s high-speed rail network; real estate's intricate tangle of public and private partnerships; hosting the Olympic Games and the experience of the public and private sectors in that endeavor in both countries; education provision; and state and market in population health and health care in both countries. The book spotlights the different ways in which both countries produce public goods and services in these broad policy domains.

It is crucial for China to embrace the transparency imperative because the evil twin of collaborative governance is cronyism or corruption.
John Donahue
Harvard University

East and West

Professor Yijia Jing of Fudan University, an expert on privatization, governance, and collaborative service delivery, participated in the discussion with the book co-authors and shared insights on public-private relationships in China. Collaborative governance in the country, he said, has undergone a gradual process of institutionalization. He observed that Chinese local governments apply different strategies in collaborating with private companies. For example, local governments like Guangdong and Shanghai partner in different ways with digital giants Tencent and Alibaba to build up their digital capacities — collaborations through which they have been learning how to balance their multiple roles as partners, policymakers, and market regulators.

Jing noted that China uses collaborative governance not only in domestic arenas but also in areas of international development, through entities such as the BRICS Development Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. China is also promoting collaborative governance as part of its Belt and Road initiative.

A Call for Transparency

The Dragon, the Eagle, and the Private Sector helps decision-makers apply the principles of collaborative governance to effectively serve the public. The book's overarching conclusion is that transparency is the key to the legitimate growth of collaborative governance. In the United States, said Donahue, the principle of governmental transparency is widely accepted as a broad-spectrum accountability device. He recognized that he and his co-authors do not expect China to adopt the U.S. approach to transparency, but expressed their hope to see more transparency “with Chinese characteristics.” “It is crucial for China to embrace the transparency imperative because the evil twin of collaborative governance is cronyism or corruption,” Donahue argued.

In many countries and policy arenas, collaborative governance could effectively increase innovation but is not available because the populace is convinced that any interaction between the public and private sectors amounts to corruption on the part of elites against the public interest. The potential in China to create public value through interaction between its public and private sectors is enormous, concluded Donahue. ”It would be a shame to squander that.”

Related research: Public and private roles in East Asia

Led by Dr. Karen Eggleston, the 'Innovation for Healthy Aging' research project is a collaborative effort that seeks to identify and analyze different dimensions of productive public-private collaborations tackling innovation for healthy aging in East Asia.
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3D mockup of the book 'The Dragon, the Eagle, and the Private Sector'
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In their new book, APARC Deputy Director Karen Eggleston and co-authors John Donahue and Richard Zeckhauser of Harvard University seek to empower decision-makers to more wisely engage the private sector in the pursuit of public value by analyzing how China and the United States use collaborative governance strategies to meet growing demands for public services.

A Quarter Century of ‘The Proper Scope of Government’: Theory and Applications

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A quarter-century ago in a seminal paper, Hart, Shleifer, and Vishny (NBER1996, QJE1997) developed a theory of the ‘Proper Scope of Government.’ Oliver Hart, 2016 Nobel Laureate, reflects on that framework and its place in economics, as well as the inspiration for his more recent work on norms, guiding principles, and contracts as reference points. In discussion with Karen Eggleston, Hart answers questions posed by economists who have built upon Hart, Shleifer and Vishny (1997) and offers insights on how the theory applies to understanding public and private roles in healthcare, education, and other publicly-financed services.

Watch the webinar featuring Hart's keynote: https://youtu.be/sDp7ytudbsE

Oliver Hart is currently the Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor at Harvard University, where he has taught since 1993. He is the 2016 co-recipient of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, a Fellow of the Econometric Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the British Academy, and the American Finance Association, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association, and has several honorary degrees. Hart works mainly on contract theory, the theory of the firm, corporate finance, and law and economics. His research centers on the roles that ownership structure and contractual arrangements play in the governance and boundaries of corporations. He has published a book (Firms, Contracts, and Financial Structure, Oxford University Press, 1995) and numerous journal articles. He has used his theoretical work on firms and contracts in several legal cases. He has been president of the American Law and Economics Association and a vice president of the American Economic Association.

This keynote is part of the Stanford Asia Health Policy Program colloquium series entitled Health, Medicine, and Longevity: Exploring Public and Private Roles

Oliver Hart, Andrei Shleifer, Robert W. Vishny, The Proper Scope of Government: Theory and an Application to Prisons, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 112, Issue 4, November 1997, Pages 1127–1161, https://doi.org/10.1162/003355300555448.

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Asia Health Policy Program working paper # 64

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Asia Health Policy Program working paper # 64
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