2018 Holiday Party
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Facing the Demographic Tidal Wave: Collaborative Solutions for an Aging World
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In Beijing’s bustling Chaoyang District stands a multi-story building known as the Gonghe Senior Apartments: a 400-bed nursing home for middle-income seniors who are disabled or suffer from dementia. Why is Gonghe unique and why is it worth considering? Because Gonghe is a public-private partnership (PPP), a collaborative organizational structure supported by the District Civil Affairs Bureau Welfare Division that donated the land and building and the nonprofit Yuecheng Senior Living that operates the facility. And because PPPs like Gonghe might just be the right model to address the challenges surrounding elderly care in China as well as in other nations that face a looming burden of population aging.
This was a core message shared by Alan Trager, founder and president of the PPP Initiative Ltd., who spoke at a special workshop organized by Shorenstein APARC’s Asia Health Policy Program (AHPP). Focused on PPPs in health and long-term care in China, the workshop was part of a two-day convening related to the Innovation for Healthy Aging project, a collaborative research project led by APARC Deputy Director and AHPP Director Karen Eggleston that identifies and analyzes productive public-private partnerships advancing healthy aging solutions in East Asia and other regions.
The Innovation for Healthy Aging project is driven by the imperative to respond to a world that is aging rapidly. This demographic transition, reminded Trager at the opening of his talk, is a defining issue of our time, as aging is a multisectoral issue that increases the demand for health care, long-term care, and a large number of other social services. The aging challenge is exacerbated by its convergence with the rising prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), also known as chronic diseases. For while NCDs affect all age groups, they account for the highest burden among the elderly.
China: Ground Zero for Global Aging
Alan Trager discusses health and long-term care in China in the GSB's Highly Immersive Classroom
The need to advance healthy aging and NCD prevention is a matter of grave concern in China, whose older population is larger than in any other country. Moreover, the aging challenge in China is interwoven with unique social trends. In particular, filial piety—which, for thousands of years, has been a fundamental family value and a mainstay of health and elder care—is under pressure, as young people strive to balance the demands of careers, fewer children per family, and migrating to cities for school and work, without affordable housing or long-term care financing support for their parents and other elderly relatives, who often stay in rural areas.
China’s health system is yet to adapt to the shift in the disease burden and health care needs driven by the aging population. Its existing health insurance programs are insufficient for outpatient management and care of chronic conditions, and as Trager emphasized, there is a lack of investment in training geriatric medicine professionals and incorporating geriatric principles into clinical practice.
How can China meet the high demand for elder care, increase workforce capacity, and promote healthy aging?
The answer, claims Trager, lies in developing multisector, integrated solutions to the challenges posed by population aging. While system-level efforts, such as building the social protection system and sustaining universal health coverage, continue to be led by the government, PPPs can play a major role in capacity building to ensure the sustainability of such systems through the advancement of technology, human resources, and innovation. Trager shared PPP Initiative Ltd.’s recent efforts to develop PPP solutions for aging populations in China and elsewhere. The workshop was held on October 10 at the Stanford GSB’s Highly Immersive Classroom, which is equipped with advanced video conferencing technology that allows participants in Palo Alto and at the Stanford Center at Peking University to collaborate in real-time. Experts from Beijing joined the discussion and followed Trager’s presentation with comments on how to move from awareness to action.
Private Efforts, Public Value
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From left to right: John Donahue, Karen Eggleston, Richard Zeckhauser. (Photo: Thom Holme)
Public-private collaborations—or rather collaborative governance–in China as well as in the United States is the subject of an upcoming volume co-authored by Eggleston with Harvard scholars Richard Zeckhauser and John Donahue. Both Zeckhauser and Donahue joined Eggleston the following day, October 11, at an AHPP-hosted seminar to discuss this upcoming publication, titled Private Roles for Public Goals in China and the United States: Contracting, Collaboration, and Delegation.
Eggleston, Donahue, and Zeckhauser define collaborative governance as private engagement in public tasks on terms of shared discretion, where each partner bears responsibilities for certain areas. Their upcoming book explores public-private collaborations in China and the United States, two countries where public needs require solutions that far outstrip the capacities of their governments alone. Beyond considering merely health and elderly care, the book features research into public and private roles in the governance of multiple other sectors, including education, transport infrastructure, affordable housing, social services, and civil society.
At the seminar, the three scholars reviewed different models of private efforts providing public value, outlined the justifications for collaborative governance, and explained some of the conditions that make such collaborative partnerships productive and valuable. They emphasized the need to account for the unique contexts in China and the United States and to steer clear of one-size-fits-all solutions.
Imperative for the Young Generation
One thing, they all agree, applies to both countries: government collaboration with private entities is inevitable if China and the United States are to achieve their articulated goals and meet rapidly increasing demand for high-end public services.
This sentiment echoed a claim Trager made the preceding day: a tidal wave of noncommunicable diseases in an aging world is approaching us quickly and governments cannot handle it alone. Young people must care about advancing creative solutions to this pressing problem because they will be the ones who will pay for the consequences if we get it wrong.
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Senior citizens relax on the Duolun Road in Shanghai, China.
China Photos/ Getty Images
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How and Why Did the Opposition Win in Malaysia? Lessons for Semi-Authoritarian Asia
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Malaysia's ruling National Front (BN) coalition ran one of the most durable authoritarian governments in the world. But in May 2018, a coalition of opposition parties won power, unseating the BN government for the first time in 61 years. In two complementary talks, APARC scholars Sophie Lemière and Sebastian Dettman will examine the roots of this victory in light of the strategies, coalitions, and messianic messages used by the opposition. Using findings from their fieldwork in Malaysia, they will show how and why the opposition parties were successful and draw implications of the victory for Malaysia’s future under its new coalition government. The speakers will also convey broader insights about political competition in Southeast Asia’s semi-authoritarian polities and beyond.
Sebastian Dettman completed his doctorate in the Department of Government at Cornell University in 2018. He researches party building, electoral competition, and political representation in newly democratic and authoritarian regimes, with a focus on Southeast Asia. Sebastian has an MA in Southeast Asian Studies from the University of Michigan and has worked as a consultant and researcher for organizations including the Asia Foundation, the International Crisis Group, and the Carter Center.Image
Sophie Lemière is a political anthropologist in the Ash Center for Democracy at Harvard University. At Stanford she is working on a political biography of Malaysia’s current prime minister that features his recent election campaign. She is the editor of a series of books on politics and people in Malaysia, including Gangsters and Masters (2019), Illusions of Democracy (2017), and Misplaced Democracy (2014). She has held visiting research positions at universities in Singapore, Australia, and the US. Her PhD is from Sciences-Po in Paris. Image
Philippines Conference Room
Encina Hall, 3rd Floor
616 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305
Sebastian Dettman
2018-19 Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow on Contemporary Asia
Sophie Lemière
2018-19 Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Fellow on Contemporary Southeast Asia
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Why Xi Jinping’s Anti-Corruption Campaign Has Undermined Chinese Citizens’ Regime Support?
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Populist leaders around the world often fight against corruption in an effort to win public support. Conventional wisdom holds that this strategy works because leaders can signal their benevolent intentions by removing corrupt officials. We argue that fighting against corruption can produce unintended consequences. By revealing scandals of corrupt officials, anti-corruption campaigns can alter citizens’ beliefs about public officials and lead to disenchantment about political institutions. We test this argument by examining how China’s current anti-corruption campaign has changed citizens’ public support for the government and the Communist Party. We analyze the results of two surveys conducted before and during the campaign, and employ a difference-in-differences strategy to show that corruption investigations decrease respondents’ support for the central government and party. We also examine our respondents’ prior and posterior beliefs, and the results support our updating mechanism.
SPEAKER:
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Yuhua Wang is an assistant professor in the Department of Government at Harvard University. He received his B.A. from Peking University and his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. Yuhua's research has focused on the emergence of state institutions, with a regional focus on China. Yuhua is the author of Tying the Autocrat’s Hands: The Rise of the Rule of Law in China (Cambridge University Press, 2015). He is currently working on a book-length project to examine long-term state development in China.
Philippines Conference Room
Encina Hall, 3rd Floor
616 Serra Mall
Stanford, CA 94305
Yuhua Wang
Assistant Professor, Department of Government at Harvard University
Independence and Governance in Singapore: The Highest Stage of Colonialism?
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Singapore’s government is widely seen as competent, honest, and meritocratic—an exceptional case of post-colonial governance. Nor can any elected incumbent party anywhere match Singapore’s People’s Action Party’s 59-year record of uninterrupted rule. But recent events have cast doubt on the PAP government’s reputation for performance and stability. Despite acknowledging its need for new leaders, the government has been unable to select a clear successor to the current prime minister, even as his talented and popular deputy is sidelined, apparently due to his ethnic-minority background. When the government tried to ascertain public opinion on legislation against “deliberate online falsehoods,” the exercise descended into name-calling and threats against witnesses. Resentments have meanwhile risen over socioeconomic inequality and the mismanagement of public transport, housing, and health care.
How did this happen? In his talk, Dr. Thum will explore the historical forces that have shaped Singapore's politics and governance; explain the political economy of decision-making there; and recount his own experience with the turmoil affecting the country's government. He will argue that Singapore's post-colonial independence and governance are an evolution of—not from—British colonial rule. The government is responsive and accountable to international capital. But the PAP needs the approval of voting citizens to legitimize its continuation in power. The party’s leaders embody this dilemma in their struggles to reconcile two such different and competing sets of interests.
Thum Ping Tjin (“PJ”) is a historian. He founded and serves as managing director of New Naratif (www.newnaratif.com), a Southeast Asian platform for research, journalism, art, and community organization that supports democracy and human rights. He is also a founding director of Project Southeast Asia, an interdisciplinary research cluster on the region at the University of Oxford. A Rhodes Scholar, Commonwealth Scholar, Olympic athlete, and the only Singaporean to have swum the English Channel, his scholarship centers on the history of Southeast Asian governance and politics. In March 2018 he was questioned for six hours by Singapore’s minister for law and home affairs for his criticism of statements and actions undertaken by PAP politicians acting under internal security laws in Singapore during the Cold War.Image
Philippines Conference Room Encina Hall, 3rd Floor 616 Serra Street, Stanford, CA 94305
Thum Ping Tjin
Visiting Research Fellow, University of Oxford
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Student Interns with Military in Hawaii, an Opportunity Supported by APARC
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Rachel Hirshman, BS ’18, MS ’19, spent the summer in Hawaii helping plan and execute military exercises via an internship with the United States Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) sponsored by APARC’s U.S.-Asia Security Initiative. Stanford News spoke with Hirshman about U.S. military operations in Hawaii and her work with INDOPACOM.
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Research Handbook on Digital Transformations (Book Chapter)
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The digital transition of the world economy is now entering a phase of broad and deep societal impact. While there is one overall transition, there are many different sectoral transformations, from health and legal services to tax reports and taxi rides, as well as a rising number of transversal trends and policy issues, from widespread precarious employment and privacy concerns to market monopoly and cybercrime. This Research Handbook offers a rich and interdisciplinary synthesis of some of the recent research on the digital transformations currently under way.
This comprehensive study contains chapters covering sectoral and transversal analyses, all of which are specially commissioned and include cutting-edge research. The contributions featured are global, spanning four continents and seven different countries, as well as interdisciplinary, including experts in economics, sociology, law, finance, urban planning and innovation management. The digital transformations discussed are fertile ground for researchers, as established laws and regulations, organizational structures, business models, value networks and workflow routines are contested and displaced by newer alternatives.
This book will be equally pertinent to three constituencies: academic researchers and graduate students, practitioners in various industrial and service sectors and policy makers.
Chapter 17 of this book, The Impact of Digital Technologies on Innovation Policy, was written by Shorenstein APARC Research Scholar Kenji Kushida.
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Reinventing Japan: New Directions in Global Leadership (Book Chapter)
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Highly readable yet deeply researched, this book serves as an essential guide to the many ways in which Japan has risen to become one of the world's most creative and innovative societies.
• Challenges conventional views of Japan as mired in two unproductive "lost decades" by documenting the myriad ways in which the nation has embraced creativity and innovation
• Describes the ways in which Japan has transformed our lives and explains the guiding principles of one of the world's least understood, most vibrantly creative societies
• Explains how Japan, as the world's first non-Western developed nation, can inspire other nations at a time when America's economic and social models are being challenged as never before
• Argues that, in a world that seems to have lost its direction in the face of threats ranging from terrorism to angry populism, Japan can assume greater leadership in preserving global peace and prosperity
Chapter 4 of this book, Departing from Silicon Valley: Japan's New Startup Ecosystem, was written by Shorenstein APARC Research Scholar Kenji Kushida.
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Anna Fifield, Beijing Bureau Chief for The Washington Post and Veteran North Korea Watcher, Wins 2018 Shorenstein Journalism Award
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Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) is pleased to announce that The Washington Post’s Beijing Bureau Chief Anna Fifield is the 2018 recipient of the Shorenstein Journalism Award. The award, given annually by APARC, is conferred upon a journalist who has produced outstanding reporting on critical issues affecting Asia and has contributed significantly to greater understanding of the region.
Fifield has been selected in recognition of her exceptional work over a long career reporting on the Koreas, as well as on Japan and periodically other parts of Asia. She will receive the award at a special ceremony at Stanford on November 14, 2018. On that day, she will also headline an APARC-hosted panel discussion focusing on how North Korea is, and isn’t, changing under Kim Jong Un.
"We are delighted to honor Anna Fifield with the Shorenstein journalism award," says Gi-Wook Shin, Shorenstein APARC director. "Drawing on her knowledge of Asian societies and her remarkable ability to communicate insights to audiences all around the world, Anna exemplifies how crucial it is to get the complexities of Asia right and the profound role of journalism in shaping public and decision maker approaches to our counterparts in the region. Walter Shorenstein, APARC's benefactor and a champion of Asian-American relations, understood clearly that role. We are committed to upholding Walter's legacy with this award."
As the Post's Tokyo bureau chief from 2014 to 2018, Fifield’s journalism focused primarily on Japan and the Koreas. During this period, she particularly concentrated on North Korea, working to shed light on the lives of ordinary people there and on how the regime managed to stay in power.
Fifield started as a journalist in her home country of New Zealand, then for 13 years was a correspondent for the Financial Times , covering nearly 20 countries and reporting from, among other places, Sydney, Seoul, Pyongyang, Tehran, Beirut, and finally Washington D.C., where she was White House correspondent and covered the 2012 President election campaign. Prior to joining The Washington Post, Fifield was a fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, where she studied how change happens in closed societies.
“For many years, Anna Fifield has been the premier Western reporter on Korea, setting the standard for coverage of a story that occupies our front pages," notes Daniel Sneider, a member of the jury for the Shorenstein Award and a long-time foreign correspondent. "But she has also broadened her Asian expertise, as the Tokyo bureau chief for the Post and now in Beijing. She moves easily across the digital as well as the print space and is a crusader for diversity in sourcing. Anna Fifield, in short, is the very definition of a journalist in our modern era.”
Sixteen journalists have previously received the Shorenstein award, which carries a cash prize of $10,000. Among the award’s recent recipients are Siddharth Varadarajan, founding editor of The Wire and former editor of the The Hindu; Ian Johnson, a veteran journalist with a focus on Chinese society, religion, and history; and Yoichi Funabashi, former editor-in-chief of the Asahi Shimbun.
RSVPs for the Shorenstein award panel discussion are requested.
About the 2018 Shorenstein Journalism Award Panel Discussion and Award Ceremony
Shorenstein Journalism Award winner Anna Fifield will deliver a keynote speech and join a panel discussion focusing on how North Korea is, and isn’t, changing under Kim Jong Un. The panel includes Andray Abrahamian, the 2018-19 Koret Fellow in the Korea Program at Shorenstein APARC, and Barbara Demick, New York correspondent of the Los Angeles Times, former head of the bureaus in Beijing and Seoul, and the 2012 recipient of the Shorenstein Journalism Award. The panel will be chaired by Yong Suk Lee, SK Center Fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Deputy Director of the Korea Program at APARC.
November 14, 2018, 12:00 – 1:30 p.m. (PDT)
Fisher Conference Center at the Frances C. Arrillaga Alumni Center, 326 Galvez St, Stanford, CA 94305
The panel discussion is open to the public. The award ceremony will take place in the evening for a private audience.
RSVPs for the panel discussion are requested.
About the Shorenstein Journalism Award
The Shorenstein Journalism Award, which carries a cash prize of $10,000, honors a journalist not only for a distinguished body of work, but also for the particular way in which that work has helped audiences around the world to understand the complexities of Asia. The award, established in 2002, was named after Walter H. Shorenstein, the philanthropist, activist, and businessman who endowed two institutions that are focused respectively on Asia and on the press: the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) in the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University, and the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In 2010, Shorenstein APARC expanded the scope of the award that since then has recognized Asian journalists who, in addition to their professional excellence and contribution to knowledge of Asia, have helped defend and build a free media in their home countries.
Media contact:
Noa Ronkin, Associate Director for Communications and External Relations
noa.ronkin@stanford.edu
(650) 724-5667
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Artificial Intelligence: The Algorithmic Revolution Driving the Next Industrial Transformation
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Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly becoming one of the underlying drivers of the next wave of industrial transformations. There is every reason to believe that we are on the cusp of a sea change in how human activities and decision-making are transformed by abundant computing power. This research note will provide the basis for understanding the conceptual building blocks and paradigmatic examples of how the development of AI is accelerating, and how its deployment will be transformative.
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