Co-sponsored by Peking University's Institute for Global Health and Development and the Asia Health Policy Program

Rainfall and flooding frequently disrupt the lives of urban residents worldwide, posing significant public health risks. Rapid urbanisation is exposing larger and more vulnerable populations to these hazards, while climate change intensifies rainfall patterns, and rising sea levels impair drainage systems. Despite the growing recognition and urgency of these hazards, the health impacts of rainfall remain poorly understood, and those of sea level rise are entirely unquantified. Without robust quantification, we lack a complete understanding of the health risks posed by extreme weather and climate change, particularly in rapidly growing megacities where vulnerable populations are disproportionately affected.

Here, we estimate the mortality consequences of rainfall in one of the world’s largest cities — Mumbai, India. We integrate high-resolution data on rainfall, tides, and mortality, to analyse how extreme rainfall and its interaction with tidal dynamics contribute to urban health risks. We find that rainfall causes roughly 8% of Mumbai’s deaths during the monsoon season, and that nearly 90% of this burden is borne by slum-residents. We also find that children face the biggest increase in mortality risk from rainfall, and women face a greater risk than men. Additionally, we demonstrate that mortality risk from rainfall increases sharply during high tides and use this relationship to project how rising sea levels will amplify rainfall-induced mortality in the future.

Our findings reveal that the mortality impacts of rainfall are an order of magnitude larger than is documented by official statistics, highlighting the urgent need for investment in improved drainage, sanitation, and waste management infrastructure, particularly in cities in the Global South. Moreover, our analysis highlights that the health costs of extreme rainfall and sea level rise are a critical omission in current projections of climate change impacts.

Ashwin Rode is director, scientific research in the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. At EPIC, he is working at the Climate Impact Lab, a multidisciplinary endeavor that assesses climate change impacts around the world. His other research areas include environment and development, and the political economy of environmental policy. Ashwin received an A.B. in Economics from the University of Chicago, an M.S. in Economics from the University of Texas at Austin, and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

How stable is politics in today's China? Many observers inside and outside the country were stunned by the sudden dismissal in December of Miao Hua, the head of the powerful political work department of the PLA and a member of the Central Military Commission. Takahara will discuss the state of Chinese politics and look into what we can expect of China's response to the 2nd Trump Administration.

This webinar event is co-hosted by the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center Japan Program and the Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco

Speaker:

Akio Takahara is Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Tokyo Woman’s Christian University and former Professor of Contemporary Chinese Politics at the Graduate School of Law and Politics at The University of Tokyo. From April to July 2024, he is also serving as Senior Fellow of the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS). He received his DPhil in 1988 from Sussex University, and later spent several years as Visiting Scholar at the Consulate-General of Japan in Hong Kong, the Japanese Embassy in Beijing, Harvard University, Peking University, the Mercator Institute for China Studies, and the Australian National University. Before joining The University of Tokyo, he taught at J. F. Oberlin University and Rikkyo University. He served as President of the Japan Association for Asian Studies, and as Secretary General of the New Japan-China Friendship 21st Century Committee. Akio was Dean of the Graduate School of Public Policy at The University of Tokyo from 2018 to 2020, and Director of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development from 2020 to 2023. He currently serves as Senior Adjunct Fellow of the Japan Institute of International Affairs, Distinguished Research Fellow of the Japan Forum on International Relations, Senior Research Adviser of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development, and Trustee of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation. His publications in English include The Politics of Wage Policy in Post-Revolutionary China, (Macmillan, 1992), Japan-China Relations in the Modern Era, (co-authored, Routledge, 2017), and “How do smaller countries in the Indo-Pacific region proactively interact with China? An introduction”, Journal of Contemporary East Asia Studies, DOI: 10.1080/24761028.2024.2309439, 26 January 2024.

Discussant:

Thomas Fingar is a Shorenstein APARC Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He was the inaugural Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow from 2010 through 2015 and the Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford in 2009.

From 2005 through 2008, he served as the first deputy director of national intelligence for analysis and, concurrently, as chairman of the National Intelligence Council. Fingar served previously as assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (2000-01 and 2004-05), principal deputy assistant secretary (2001-03), deputy assistant secretary for analysis (1994-2000), director of the Office of Analysis for East Asia and the Pacific (1989-94), and chief of the China Division (1986-89). Between 1975 and 1986 he held a number of positions at Stanford University, including senior research associate in the Center for International Security and Arms Control.

Moderator:

Kiyoteru Tsutsui is the Henri H. and Tomoye Takahashi Professor and Senior Fellow in Japanese Studies at Shorenstein APARC, the Director of the Japan Program and Deputy Director at APARC, a senior fellow of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and Professor of Sociology, all at Stanford University. Tsutsui received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Kyoto University and earned an additional master’s degree and Ph.D. from Stanford’s sociology department in 2002. Tsutsui’s research interests lie in political/comparative sociology, social movements, globalization, human rights, and Japanese society. His most recent publication, Human Rights and the State: The Power of Ideas and the Realities of International Politics (Iwanami Shinsho, 2022), was awarded the 2022 Ishibashi Tanzan Award and the 44th Suntory Prize for Arts and Sciences.

This is part of Global Research Workshop series: Developing an Interdisciplinary Research Platform Toward ‘Next Asia’ co-sponsored by Stanford Global Studies.

It is often asserted that the U.S. and China have entered, are now entering, or will enter a new Cold War shortly. But is this assertion empirically accurate? To answer this question, we adopt a historical-comparative approach that contextualizes current U.S. elite discourses on China (2009-2021) with ones on the USSR (1947-1959) and Japan (1981-1993). By applying computational methods to over 41,000 congressional speeches spanning 36 years, we argue that the current US-China rivalry doesn’t mirror the Cold War dynamics in three aspects: First, Cold War debates historically focused on two primary themes—ideological expansion and military aggression—with ideological expansion being the dominant concern. Second, current ideological concerns about China emphasize human rights more than outward ideological expansion, while military concerns focus on budgetary issues rather than the direct confrontations that defined the Cold War. Lastly, the U.S.-China rivalry shares more similarities with the U.S.-Japan economic rivalry of the 1980s, where economic competition and domestic agendas take precedence over ideological and military concerns. With these findings, we establish the empirical baseline for defining the current U.S.-China relations and call for policy attention to the unfortunate consequences of the misleading label of a new Cold War for both China and the U.S.  

Presenter:

Xinru Ma is an inaugural research scholar at the Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab housed in the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, where she leads the research track on U.S.-Asia relations. Her work primarily examines nationalism, great power politics, and East Asian security, with a methodological focus on formal and computational methods. Empirically, a common theme of her research challenges prevailing assumptions that inflate the perceived risk of militarized conflicts in East Asia, offering original data and analysis grounded in local knowledge and regional perspectives. Her work is published in the Journal of East Asian Studies, The Washington Quarterly, Journal of Global Security Studies, Journal of European Public Policy, and edited volumes by Palgrave. Her co-authored book, Beyond Power Transition, is published by Columbia University Press.

Discussants:

Rory Truex is an Associate Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. His research focuses on Chinese politics and authoritarian systems. His work has been published in the American Political Science Review, British Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Perspectives on Politics, and The China Quarterly. His research and commentary has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Hill, South China Morning Post, and The New York Times.  In 2021 he received the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching, the highest teaching honor at Princeton. 

Michael McFaul is the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in Political Science, Director and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, all at Stanford University. He served for five years in the Obama administration, first as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House (2009-2012), and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014). He was also the Distinguished Mingde Faculty Fellow at the Stanford Center at Peking University in the summer of 2015.

McFaul authored and co-authored several books, including, most recently, the New York Times bestseller, From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia. His current research interests include great power relations between China, Russia, and the United States, the relationship between democracy and development, and American foreign policy. He received his B.A. in International Relations and Slavic Languages and his M.A. in Soviet and East European Studies from Stanford University in 1986. As a Rhodes Scholar, he completed his D. Phil. in International Relations at Oxford University in 1991.