-

The Sino-Japanese competition for influence in Asia is often overlooked by Western observers. While the US-Japan Alliance has been the cornerstone of security in East Asia for over a half-century, under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan has modernized its military, steadily enhanced it regional activities, and deepened relations with countries around the region. Economically, as well, Tokyo has offered a counterpart to Chinese investment and development aid. The alliance with the United States is a indispensable element in Japan's regional strategy, one which Beijing would like to disrupt. How has China pursued its goal of driving a wedge between Tokyo and Washington? From military buildup, through pressure in the East China Sea, to diplomatic initiatives, Beijing has sought to raise the perceived risk to both Japan and the United States of maintaining their unique relationship. What are the prospects for the future of the US-Japan alliance, especially in the post-Abe era?

 

SPEAKER

Image
auslin headshout

Michael Auslin is the Payson J. Treat Fellow in Contemporary Asia at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. A historian by training, he specializes in contemporary and historical U.S. policy in Asia and political and security issues in the Indo-Pacific region. A best-selling author, Dr. Auslin’s latest book is The End of the Asian Century:  War, Stagnation, and the Risks to the World’s Most Dynamic Region (Yale). He is a longtime contributor to the Wall Street Journal and National Review, and his writing appears in other leading publications, including The Atlantic, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, and Politico. He comments regularly for U.S. and foreign print and broadcast media. Previously, Dr. Auslin was an associate professor of history at Yale University, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo.  He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and has been named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, a Fulbright Scholar, and a Marshall Memorial Fellow by the German Marshall Fund, among other honors, and serves on the board of the Wilton Park USA Foundation. He received a BSc from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and his PhD in History from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

 

PARKING

Please note there is significant construction taking place on campus, which is greatly affecting parking availability and traffic patterns at the university. Please plan accordingly. Nearest parking garage is Structure 7, below the Graduate School of Business Knight School of Management.
 

Seminars
-

WE HAVE REACHED VENUE CAPACITY AND ARE NO LONGER ACCEPTING RSVPS

NOTE: THIS EVENT IS CLOSED TO THE MEDIA 

UPDATE: We will provide a live video stream of the conference on this link: https://youtu.be/5D5QSZi6u2w  Please check back at 2:25 PM on October 2 for the livestream.

RSVP required for admission.  No walk-ins.  Only one registration permitted per person. 
Stanford or government-issued photo ID must be presented for admission. 
No cameras, audio, video recording or flash photography will be permitted. 
No signs, flyer distribution, banners or posters will be allowed inside the venue.  
Please arrive 30 minutes early to check-in.  There will be no late seating.  

Sponsored by Freeman Spogli Institute for International StudiesShorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford China Program, and Center for East Asian Studies.

Prompted by the government’s introduction of the Fugitive Offenders and Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Legislation (Amendment) Bill 2019, Hong Kong has been rocked by intense unrest, its most volatile since the handover in 1997. Millions have taken to the streets and violence has escalated on both sides. Beijing has likened Hong Kong’s demonstrations to the “color revolutions,” and has also condemned the disruptions as “near-terrorist acts.”

In this critical time, our conference will explore questions such as: What are the root causes of Hong Kong’s unremitting protests? Why has this extradition bill generated such intense and widespread reactions? Facing massive governance challenges, what will be the future of Hong Kong? Is there a viable future for “one country, two systems”? How should the U.S. and the international community best respond?

 

Speakers

Image
anson chan2

The Honorable Anson Chan retired as the Chief Secretary for Administration of the Hong Kong Government in 2001, after nearly forty years of service.  As Chief Secretary, she headed the 190,000-strong civil service.  She was the first woman and the first Chinese to hold the second-highest governmental position in Hong Kong.  During her career in the public service, she was responsible, amongst other things, for development of Hong Kong's economic infrastructure including the planning and construction of Hong Kong's new international airport, which opened in July 1998; port expansion and deregulation of the telecommunications market. Mrs. Chan is Convenor of Hong Kong 2020 - a think tank concerned with transparent and accountable Government, universal suffrage and protection of rights and freedoms enshrined in the "one country, two systems" concept that applies to Hong Kong.

Honors & Awards: 
-  Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (1992) 
-  Grand Bauhinia Medal (1999): the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region’s highest honor 
-  Honorary Dame Grand Cross of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George (GCMG) conferred by Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain (2002) 
-  Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award, Tufts University (2005) 
-  Chevalier of the National Order of the Legion d’Honneur conferred by the President of France (2008) 
-  American Chamber’s Women of Influence Lifetime Achievement Award (2016) 
-  O’Connor Justice Prize Honoree (2018) 
-  Justice of the Peace

 

Image
harding squaredsc 91341

Harry Harding is University Professor and Professor of Public Policy at the University of Virginia, where he was the founding dean of the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy.  He is also Distinguished Adjunct Professor at National Chengchi University in Taiwan. Professor Harding has previously held appointments at Swarthmore College, Stanford University, The Brookings Institution, as Dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, and visiting appointments at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the University of Hong Kong.  A specialist on U.S.-China relations, his major publications on that topic include “Has U.S. China Policy Failed?” and A Fragile Relationship: The United States and China Since 1972. He is now writing a sequel, A Fraught Relationship: The United States and China from Partners to Competitors.

 

 

Image
lampton headshot

David M. Lampton is Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow and Research Scholar at FSI and affiliated with Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC).  He also is the Hyman Professor of China Studies and Director of the China Studies Program at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) Emeritus.  Professor Lampton's current book project is focused on the development of high-speed railways from southern China to Singapore.  He is the author of a dozen books and monographs, including Following the Leader: Ruling China, from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping  (University of California Press, 2014, and second edition 2019) and The Three Faces of Chinese Power: Might, Money, and Minds (University of California Press, 2008).  He has testified at multiple congressional and commission sessions and published numerous articles, essays, book reviews, and opinion pieces in many venues, popular and academic, in both the western world and in Chinese-speaking societies, including Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The American Political Science Review, The China Quarterly, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. 

 

Image
Jean Oi

Jean C. Oi is the William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics in the Department of Political Science and a Senior Fellow of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University.  She directs the China Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center in FSI and is the founding Lee Shau Kee Director of the Stanford Center at Peking University.  Professor Oi has published extensively on political economy and the process of reform in China.  Recent books include Zouping Revisited:  Adaptive Governance in a Chinese County, co-edited with Steven Goldstein (2018); and Challenges in the Process of China's Urbanization, co-edited with Karen Eggleston and Yiming Wang (2017).  Professor Oi also has an edited volume with Tom Fingar, Fateful Decisions: Choices that will Shape China's Future, Stanford University Press, forthcoming.  Recent articles include "Unpacking the Patterns of Corporate Restructuring during China's SOE Reform," co-authored with Xiaojun Li, Economic and Political Studies (2018); and “Reflections on Forty Years of Rural Reform,” in Jacques deLisle and Avery Goldstein, eds., To Get Rich is Glorious: Challenges Facing China’s Economic Reform and Opening at Forty, Brookings, 2019.  Current research is on fiscal reform and local government debt, continuing SOE reforms, and China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

 

Image
mingsingphoto2

Ming Sing is associate professor, Division of Social Science, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.  His research interests include the comparative study of democracy and democratization, political culture, civil society, quality of life, and Hong Kong politics. He obtained his D.Phil from Oxford University in sociology and has been the author or editor of four books and over thirty articles. His refereed publications can be found in the Journal of Politics, Journal of Democracy, Democratization, Government and Opposition, and Social Indicators Research, among others. He has been working on a book comparing Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement and Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement.  He has also been an active commentator on Hong Kong politics, whose comments have been solicited by local and international media including BBC, CNN, Bloomberg, Financial Times, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal. He was awarded the Fulbright Scholarship for visiting the University of California, San Diego in 2007, and the POSCO Visiting Fellowship by the East-West Center, University of Hawaii in 2010.

Attendees should enter the campus via Galvez Street and park at the Galvez Lot or other designated, paid visitor parking. See also Stanford’s parking mapNo parking at the Stanford Oval is allowed.

For a summary, video, audio, photos and transcripts of the event, please see the following webpage:

https://aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/news/hong-kong-turmoil-former-chief-secretary-and-scholars-discuss-causes-implications-and-potential

The Honorable Anson Chan <br><i> GBM, GCMG, CBE, JP; Former Chief Secretary of Hong Kong SAR (1993-2001); member of Legislative Council of Hong Kong (2007-2008) </i><br><br>
Harry Harding <br><i>University Professor and Professor of Public Policy, Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, University of Virginia</i><br><br>
David M. Lampton <br><i>Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), Stanford University</i><br><br>
Jean C. Oi (Moderator) <br><i>Director, Stanford China Program; William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics, Stanford University</i><br><br>
Ming Sing <br><i>Associate Professor, Division of Social Science, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology</i><br><br>
Panel Discussions
Authors
News Type
Commentary
Date
Paragraphs

South Korea's decision to end its military agreement with Japan will damage the prospect of continued close security ties among Seoul, Washington and Tokyo because the pact has been a symbol of smooth trilateral military cooperation between them and regarded as a key deterrent against North Korea.

"It is a big mistake," Shin Gi-wook, a Korea studies expert at Stanford University, said in a recent interview adding Seoul's withdrawal from the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) puts the "trilateral security framework at risk."

"The Japan-South Korea relationship may not have hit rock bottom, but it could further deteriorate in the coming months," Shin said. "This is all the more important with the continuing threat of North Korean WMD and the escalating conflict between the U.S. and China in the region. I am concerned that South Korea could be further isolated in the Northeast Asian region—the Moon administration should see the big picture," the professor said…

Read the full article in The Korea Times.

Hero Image
Abe Jae in Getty Logo im Kyung-Hoon - Pool/Getty Images
All News button
1
0
Xinru Ma Website Headshot.png

Xinru Ma’s research focuses on nationalism, great power politics, and East Asian security with a methodological focus on formal and computational methods. More broadly, Xinru’s research encompasses three main objectives: Substantively, she aims to better theorize and enhance cross-country perspectives on critical phenomena such as nationalism and its impact on international security; Methodologically, she strives to improve measurement and causal inference based on careful methodologies, including formal modeling and computational methods like natural language processing; Empirically, she challenges prevailing assumptions that inflate the perceived risk of militarized conflicts in East Asia, by providing original data and analysis rooted in local knowledge and regional perceptions.

She is the co-author of Beyond Power Transitions: The Lessons of East Asian History and the Future of U.S.-China Relations (Columbia University Press, 2024). Her work has been published in the Journal of East Asian Studies, The Washington Quarterly, the Journal of Global Security Studies, and the Journal of European Public Policy, and in edited volumes via Palgrave. 

At SNAPL, Xinru will lead the research group in collaborative projects that focus on US-Asia relations. One of the projects will contrast the rhetoric and debates in US politics surrounding the historical phenomenon of "Japan bashing" and the current perception of a "China threat.” By applying automated text analysis and qualitative analysis to public opinion data and textual data from various sources, such as congressional hearings and presidential speeches, this project uncovers the similarities, differences, and underlying factors driving the narratives and public discourse surrounding US-Asia relations. She will also provide mentorship to student research assistants and research associates. 

Before joining SNAPL, Xinru was an assistant professor at the School of International Relations and Diplomacy at Beijing Foreign Studies University, where she led the Political Science Research Lab, a lab committed to closing the gender gap in computational methods and political science research by offering big-data methods training and professionalization workshops to students. Before that, Xinru was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University (2019-2020) and a pre-doctoral fellow at the Department of Political Science at Vanderbilt University (2018-2019). In 2023, Xinru was selected as an International Strategy Forum fellow by Schmidt Futures, an initiative that recognizes the next generation of problem solvers with extraordinary potential in geopolitics, innovation, and public leadership. 

Research Scholar, APARC Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab
Affiliate, CISAC
Date Label
Authors
David M. Lampton
News Type
Commentary
Date
Paragraphs

In the past six weeks, I have been in mainland China, Hong Kong (three times), and Washington. From these trips and recent developments, I have concluded that Hong Kong is a huge tragedy in the making. Proactive and positive moves by all parties to this rapidly deteriorating situation are required.

Though Washington is not a principal party in these developments, it should be a constructive force rather than irrelevant or counterproductive...

The elements of the current crisis are many. In Hong Kong, there is a leaderless movement on the ground. There are rising levels of political and socio-economic frustration among many Hong Kong citizens stemming from mobility and economic considerations, as well as perceptions of political retrogression in the special administrative region.

There is a tone-deaf, neutered local leadership that is prideful and unwilling to admit that it made a huge strategic misstep pushing forward with an ill-conceived extradition bill. And there are local tycoons who curry favour with Beijing rather than protecting the rule of law that is in their own long-term interests...

Read the full article on South China Morning Post.


For more by Okseberg-Rohlen Fellow David M. Lampton, read our recently posted Q&A in which he analyzes the escalating U.S.-China conflict.

 

Hero Image
Woman shouts at police officers as they advance towards protesters in Hong Kong
HONG KONG, CHINA - JULY 27: A woman shouts at police officers as they advance towards protesters in the district of Yuen Long on July 27, 2019 in Hong Kong, China.
Getty Images/Laurel Chor
All News button
1
-

Co-sponsored by Asia Health Policy Program (AHPP) and Center for South Asia (CSA).

One-third of our time is dedicated to sleep, yet little is known about the levels and consequences of sleep deprivation, especially in the developing world. To begin to address this gap, we randomized treatments to increase sleep among 452 adults in urban India for a month each, measured their sleep objectively, and gathered fine-grained data on multiple outcomes.  We present five sets of results. First, individuals sleep little -- only 5.6 hours per night, despite spending 8 hours in bed -- and poorly. Second, sleep can be improved; providing devices, encouragement, (and for some) financial incentives, increased night sleep by over 30 minutes. Short naps in the afternoon also increased daily sleep significantly. Third, contrary to the expert predictions, increased night sleep did not increase earnings: while productivity did increase, especially due to naps, countervailing reductions in labor supply counterbalanced the productivity increases. Fourth, increased night sleep had no impacts on cognition, well-being, physical health, or decision-making. In contrast, naps had only suggestive on physical health but significantly improved elements of cognition and well-being. Finally, naps altered decision-making in meaningful ways, increasing savings by up to 14 percent, enhancing attention to non-salient incentives, and reducing present-bias. Taken together, we find strikingly low levels of sleep in an urban population in India and little evidence of increased night sleep impacting short-run economic outcomes but more noticeable short run economic impacts of naps. The results provide a possible explanation for the persistence of widespread sleep deprivation and the relatively high prevalence of afternoon naps in many developing countries.

Image
pennmedeth 011817 99 4x4

Dr. Heather Schofield is an Assistant Professor in the Perelman School of Medicine and The Wharton School. Dr. Schofield is an economist studying development, health, and behavioral economics. Two primary ongoing areas of research include the role of health human capital (nutrition, pain management, adequate sleep) in economic productivity, cognitive function, and decision-making and the role of financial and social incentives in promoting healthy behaviors. Dr. Schofield completed her Ph.D. in Business Economics, MS in Global Health and Population, and BA in Economics at Harvard University. 

<!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Cambria Math"; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} @font-face {font-family:DengXian; panose-1:2 1 6 0 3 1 1 1 1 1; mso-font-alt:等线; mso-font-charset:134; mso-generic-font-family:modern; mso-font-pitch:fixed; mso-font-signature:1 135135232 16 0 262144 0;} @font-face {font-family:Calibri; panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;} @font-face {font-family:"\@DengXian"; panose-1:2 1 6 0 3 1 1 1 1 1; mso-font-charset:134; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-1610612033 953122042 22 0 262159 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:DengXian; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} p {mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-margin-top-alt:auto; margin-right:0in; mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; margin-left:0in; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:DengXian; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} @page WordSection1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;} -->

Heather Schofield Assistant Professor, the Perelman School of Medicine and the Wharton School
Seminars
News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

“Win support from the people,” Yuhua Wang, Assistant Professor of Government at Harvard University, repeated the words from one of Xi Jinping’s speeches that was given to justify China’s massive anti-corruption campaign. The exact scope and motivations for President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign is, as yet, unknowable, Wang stated; but clearly, a major public aim of CCP Chairman Xi Jinping was to build regime support by cracking down on bad actors in the government.

Prof. Yuhua Wang gave a talk titled “Why Xi Jinping’s Anti-Corruption Campaign has Undermined Chinese Citizens’ Regime Support?” at the Stanford China Program on November 12th, 2018, based on a national-level survey analysis that he had conducted with his co-author, Prof. Bruce Dickson at George Washington University. Rather than focusing on Xi’s motivations for undertaking his crackdown, however, Wang and Dickson tried to measure the impact of Xi’s anti-corruption campaign on public perception of the central government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Did the campaign, in other words, shore up public support for China’s central government and Party, as Xi hoped it would – or did it, in fact, undermine regime support?

Professor Wang first offered some background on how this anti-corruption campaign got started around 2012-2013, shortly after Xi Jinping became Chairman of the CCP. A staggering 261 vice-ministerial officials and 350,000 officials had been investigated to date; and, even those at the highest levels of China’s leadership – former Politburo and Politburo Standing Committee members, for instance –were not immune from scrutiny. And, equally unprecedented, media coverage of these corruption cases – from Bo Xilai to Zhou Yongkang and Xu Caihou – were extensive, exposing their lavish lifestyles and illicit dalliances on social and traditional media. Wang speculated that such lurid publicity most likely shocked the public, potentially turning citizens against even the central government, which consistently enjoys significantly higher levels of public trust than local governments in China. He decided, therefore, to explore with his co-author what the effects of such exposés might be on public perception of the central regime.

Replicating the same questionnaire and sampling design, Wang and his co-author took a national random sample in two waves – one before the anti-corruption campaign in 2010 and a second one during the campaign in 2014. They interviewed approximately 4,000 people across 25 provinces in China in order to measure potential shifts in people’s attitudes towards the regime over those four years. The findings were, indeed, illuminating:

First, Wang stated, increasing frequency of corruption investigations in a locality was correlated with a greater drop in popular regime support (defined as trust in central government or support for the CCP) in that locality. Higher volume of corruption investigations in a locality was also negatively correlated with people’s perception that government officials were generally honest and clean. The corrosive effects of the campaign, furthermore, proved strongest on those who had initially believed in the integrity of government officials; but for those who were already cynical about official corruption, the campaign had a smaller effect. Lastly, higher the survey respondent’s use of social media like WeChat, stronger the negative effects on his/her support for the regime. The authors also took into account how the chilling effects of the campaign may be negatively impacting local economies and how that slowing economy may actually be the primary cause behind decreasing public regime support. To account for this potentially confounding effect, Wang looked for evidence as to whether the campaign had contributed to a slowdown in China’s economy by 2014. Perhaps because 2014 was still early on in the campaign, he stated that they found no evidence of slower GDP growth rate, growth rate per capita GDP, etc., in the regions where they had undertaken their surveys.

Overall, Wang’s research calls into question whether Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign is, in fact, advancing one of his main goals– i.e., to increase people’s faith in the central regime – or whether it is actually proving counterproductive to his aim. In fact, Wang’s research seems to indicate that the more Chinese citizens are exposed to evidence of government corruption, the more the central regime appears to suffer a loss in credibility. Wang was careful to point out, however, that they were barred, due to political sensitivity, from asking any questions regarding respondents’ attitudes towards Xi Jinping himself. Thus, it is still an open question whether popular support for Xi Jinping himself is increasing even though public trust in the regime might be decreasing.

The recording and transcript are available below.  

Hero Image
wang
Yuhua Wang, Assistant Professor of Government at Harvard University, speaks at the Asia-Pacific Research Center's China Program on November 12th, 2018.
All News button
1
0
Global Affiliate Visiting Scholar, 2019-20
PetroChina / China National Petroleum Corporation
huasheng_zheng.jpeg MBA

Huasheng Zheng is a global affiliate visiting scholar at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) for 2019-20.

0
Global Affiliate Visiting Scholar, 2019-20
Japan Patent Office
hideaki_yonekura.jpeg

Hideaki Yonekura is a global affiliate visiting scholar at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) for 2019-20.  Yonekura has been working since 2009 for the Japan Patent Office, one of the external agencies of the Ministry of Economy, Trade & Industry (METI) of Japan, as a patent examiner, handling applications in the field of microwave technology. 

Subscribe to Asia-Pacific