China’s maritime pursuits in the East and South China Seas and President Xi Jinping’s announcement of a new Asian security concept have gathered considerable attention in recent months, leading American analysts to critically examine the strategic value of the U.S.-China alliance. Is the United States in a position where the costs outweigh the gains?

In an article by the Global Times, Thomas Fingar, the Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow at Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, responds to questions about U.S. alliance management, discussing the origin and United States’ interests behind its relationship with China.

Over the past few decades, when developing its alliance network, did the United States have a clear and comprehensive mission? Does the United States have any concerns over responsibilities or risks that alliances may generate?

The principal purposes of U.S. alliances are deterrence and collective self-defense, as they were when most were established after World War II and the Korean War. They also contribute to stability and security by requiring transparency and confidence-building among members of the alliances, and to limiting the spread of nuclear weapons by reducing vulnerability to conventional attack and enhancing security through extended deterrence. The United States bears a disproportionate share of the costs associated with its collective security and stability in the global order to justify the costs and risks involved.

Compared to America’s transformation (from upholding isolationism to building a formidable alliance system), how should we evaluate China’s non-aligned strategic partnership policies?

The alliances in which the United States participates are one part of the global system that has contributed to the unprecedented peace and prosperity that we­–the world–have today. Other elements include the United Nations, the World Trade Organization and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and other control regimes, and all other institutions in the liberal, open and rule-based system developed by the “Free World” during the Cold War and transformed into a global system in the years since 1991. I would describe the difference between the U.S. vision of relationships among states and China’s non-aligned strategic partnerships as the difference between obligations and expectations within a family and those among colleagues and friends.

The above text is reposted with permission from the Global Times. A version of this text ran as an excerpt written in the Chinese language, which can be accessed here.

Standing upright, then slowly clasping both hands and drawing them up to shoulder height, Kevin Won next kneeled on the floor. Bending forward, he bowed his head toward his silent audience.

Won’s demonstration of the Sebae, a traditional bow performed for elders during South Korea’s lunar new year, may have seemed out of place during a warm, sunny day on Stanford’s campus. But the intricate display was in perfect context during a cross-cultural conference for secondary school teachers from the United States to learn about Korean society, as well as providing a forum to directly engage with Korean teachers and students.

Despite Korea’s growing relevance worldwide, there has been little development of Korean studies below university-level, leaving a vacuum for misunderstanding, including stereotypes, to form at an early age. The conference – now in its third year – aims to shift this reality.

For three days in late July, twenty-four teachers from across America participated in a variety of activities and seminars intended to give them new perspectives and teaching strategies.

Gary Mukai, director of SPICE, welcomes participants.

The conference was co-organized by the Korean Studies Program (KSP) at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) and the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE), both in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. The two groups work together to convert research on Asia into material that is suitable for younger students.

“Our mission is to make Stanford scholarship accessible to all,” said SPICE director Gary Mukai, who has been with SPICE for over 26 years. SPICE and Shorenstein APARC, under the direction of Gi-Wook Shin, a professor of sociology, have coordinated curriculum development for key projects on Korean history and perceptions of wartime history in Northeast Asia. 

A cadre of scholars and practitioners from Stanford and other universities and organizations offered talking points and actionable ideas for instruction. Among them was David Straub, the associate director of KSP, who lived in Korea for eight years as a senior U.S. diplomat. 

The United States and Korea have a very close relationship, but lack equal dialogue, explained Straub. America is still “number one” for Koreans, as such, Koreans know more about the United States than Americans know about Korea. This imbalance can lead to misunderstanding. Straub took the teachers through the recent history of U.S.-Korea relations, which is often narrowed to the context of the Korean War. 

Two teachers work together on a curriculum exercise comparing political cartoons.

Since 1945, South Korea overcame extreme poverty and effectively established a democratic society, a transition that was uncommonly quick and relatively smooth, and one that now supports a global powerhouse of trade and culture.

Throughout the conference, SPICE staff demonstrated ways for educators to bring Korea, and greater Northeast Asia, into their classrooms. They gave the teachers a chance to practice student lessons. In one exercise, the teachers deciphered sets of political cartoons and compared news headlines from Japan, China and Korea, using material from SPICE instructional materials. 

Each activity was carefully prepared to guide teachers to examine their own preconceptions. Greater cultural awareness can come when both teachers and students are “more critical consumers of information,” said Rylan Sekiguchi, a SPICE curriculum specialist, in his presentation.

While curriculum is important, establishing rapport seemed an essential part of the conference. A key component to a successful cross-cultural workshop is creating a community, “and looking around the room, I think we’ve done that here,” said Mukai, in an address to participants at a reception.

Also in attendance was a delegation of 11 Korean teachers and students from Hana Academy Seoul, a private high school in Korea with a unique structure and curriculum. The school’s name comes from the Hana Financial Group, which established the school in 2010, and is also the supporter of the Stanford conference. The Korean students gave presentations that covered a wide range of topics, including an analysis of teenage life and the public education system in Korea.

(Left to right): Students Nayoon Kim, Kevin Won, Seung-hyun Kim and Sarah Chey presented on Korean culture and society.

Six students from Hana Academy Seoul performed Samulnori, one of Korea’s most popular genres of music. The musical group, known as Da-Seu-Reum, showcased their talents while wearing traditional, brightly colored outfits. Afterward, the students became the teachers – when they invited the American teachers to come up and play the instruments. 

Three students were also honored for their research and participation in the Sejong Korean Scholars Program (SKSP), a distance-learning opportunity for 25 high school students across the United States to engage in an intensive study of Korea for a semester. SKSP is dually led by SPICE and Shorenstein APARC, and sponsored by the Korea Foundation.

“I feel very honored to attend, and have learned a lot about U.S.-Korea relations,” said Won, who is from Korea and attends The Taft School in Connecticut. “But mostly, I am just glad my presentation went well.” 

Won, a relative newcomer to public speaking, explained Korean holidays and how to perform a traditional bow. After demonstrating the correct posture and sequence to the audience, he asked for, and easily received, teacher participation. 

Kelly McKee, a teacher from Illinois, tries playing the Buk, a drum used in Samulnori, with direction from a Hana Academy Seoul student.

“From the impeccably credentialed presenters to the wonderful pacing of the presentations, I thoroughly enjoyed my three days here,” said Eladio “Lalo” Martin, a humanities teacher at Cesar Chavez Middle School in Watsonville.

“This conference, by far, is the best I’ve ever attended,” he added. Martin has been teaching for more than 18 years, and says he looks forward to returning to Stanford.

“The speakers have been fantastic,” said Kelly McKee, a social studies teacher. “They’ve shared in-depth expertise on topics like Korea’s special economic zones and North Korea – areas you can’t find in professional development workshops elsewhere.”

McKee, who works at Lake Forest High School in Illinois and is a leader of a student exchange program to Shanghai, says she plans to supplement her Korea unit with what she has learned. As the availability of Asian studies curriculum continues to grow, she says the future certainly looks bright.

Karl Eikenberry, a William J. Perry Fellow in International Security at CISAC and Shorenstein APARC Distinguished Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute, says we mustn’t assume that tensions between China, a rising power, and the United States, a status quo power, will lead to conflict, in American Review.

He says the Thucydides Trap, a term derived from the Athens-Sparta dynamic which eventually lead to conflict more than 2,400 years ago, would be largely misapplied if used to describe the current context of U.S.-China relations.

“While it is generally true that struggles between rising and status quo powers historically have led to war, the various cases of the past – and Athens-Sparta in particular – are quite different from each other and certainly from today’s rivalry between the United States and China,” Eikenberry writes.

While the future of U.S.-China relations is uncertain, and if mismanaged, could lead to conflict, analysts in both countries would be unwise to assume a re-enactment of the Peloponnesian War.

His essay can be found on American Review online. A Stanford Report news release on 20 August covered his essay.

Globalization is a commonly cited process in the study of political economy, but its complexities can be easily overlooked. When examined with a comparative lens across many Chinese cities, the story of globalization becomes one of institutional tension and individual ambition. 

According to emerging research by Ling Chen, a 2013­–14 Shorenstein APARC Postdoctoral Fellow in Contemporary Asia, the connection between government and industry, particularly in an authoritarian country like China, reveals a web of competition among, and within, city bureaucracies. These agencies coordinate relations between foreign and domestic firms, sometimes leading to policy manipulation.

Ling Chen

China’s increasing interest and interaction with foreign firms is clear, but the creation of policies affecting industry, and their patterns of implementation on the ground, remain vague. What happens after industrial policy is created? How does policy affect the way that local governments allocate resources among businesses? What are the implications for foreign and domestic firms going forward?

Chen, a scholar of comparative politics and political economy of East Asia, seeks to uncover the decisions and flow of resources related to foreign direct investment, and its impacts on local government and domestic firms. She finds that bureaucracies in many Chinese cities have industrial policies that favor certain firms over others, for example, in government funding, tax breaks and land allocation. And as resource competition in China rises, rivalry among and within Chinese bureaucracies is only destined to grow.

Chen gathered qualitative and quantitative data through intensive fieldwork between 2008 and 2011 on China’s east coast, and did additional follow up interviews this past June. In total, she has conducted about 270 interviews with Chinese bureaucrats and firms, and even observed a few official bureaucratic meetings, an opportunity not afforded to many. Chen’s research at Shorenstein APARC furthers her dissertation work, which she is expanding into a full book manuscript. Before her departure, she spoke with Shorenstein APARC about her research. 

Can you tell us about China’s system of local governance? What are bureaucrats competing for, and what institutional rules exist?

China’s bureaucratic system is very complicated, and being a successful bureaucrat means you are selected for promotion among the 8,000 people working for the government in a typical large city. This implies that bureaucrats compete with each other in order to improve their own status. The party branch and city governments, which are always under pressure for cadre evaluation, appoint bureau leaders based on an assessment of their performance in terms of policy targets each year. Typically, bureaucrats compete for political survival, control over policies, and resources associated with these policies. These factors can help create opportunities for political achievement and facilitate their promotion. So, in general, the institutional rules encourage competition. Whether such competition is good or bad is another question. Interestingly, I found through text analysis of interview transcripts that inter-department and intra-department competition have different influence on the implementation of policies, with the former impeding the process of policy implementation, and the latter facilitating the process. And the types of foreign firms that the government attracts precisely affect such patterns of competition.

Chen visited the Global Center in Chengdu, the largest building in the world, which houses businesses and various recreation centers.

What is policy manipulation, and which policies concern both government and foreign firms?

The policies that interest both sides include: government funding (who gets funding for projects), tax breaks (exemption or reduction), and land (who gets access to economic development zones). Policy manipulation occurs when an agent outside of the issue area diverts resources from its original purpose to another purpose. For example, the government has set up high-tech economic zones and incubators for innovation purposes. But, if bureaucrats utilize the advantages of these zones for other purposes, like attracting foreign firms interested in cheap labor, this reflects policy manipulation because the original goal of the policy is not fulfilled. Bureaucrats are the immediate agents implementing industrial policies, but foreign firms are important as business clients of particular bureaus. Foreign firms’ outsourcing strategies affect the division of labor among government agencies and their local perception regarding who to gain and lose from certain economic policies.  

How do patterns of government-foreign firm interaction and power seeking differ in the rural versus urban settings?

My work mainly concerns the urban areas, but there are interesting variations between rural and urban areas. Due to limited land availability in China, many firms now locate their manufacturing in rural areas, while their headquarters remain in urban areas. In cities that host leading global firms, such as Intel and Foxconn, the firms’ leadership and top city bureaucrats interact directly and often. Typically, the government gives those firms land in top-ranked development zones, whereas rural areas are no longer allowed to host industrial parks to attract foreign firms. If the government allowed rural areas to attract investment, those areas would garner some smaller foreign firms (guerilla investors), and cause messy overlaps with industrial park policies, especially those concerning the hiring of immigrant labor. During the early reform days in the late 1980s and early to mid-1990s, some of these firms were registered as collectively-owned firms under government corporations and only later became independent foreign-invested firms. Interestingly, they didn’t hire local peasants because their village could rent land to earn money. In this situation, you see highly planned bargaining and formal negotiation on the one hand, and on the other hand, informal deals tailored for the firm through various dense networks.

What is the business environment like for foreign firms in China? What does the future hold?

In the eyes of many Chinese bureaucrats, few countries can compete with China in providing services to foreign firms. China attracts firms by setting up “hotel-style” hospitality to cater to the firms’ needs. Some bureaucrats, in my earlier interviews in Jiangsu in 2009, showed that accommodation of foreign firms was written into city rules in the 1980s. If you ask bureaucrats to rank who comes first in the business environment, the answer will often be foreign firms and state-owned enterprises. Domestic private firms are located on the other side of the scale. According to my later research, the situation is slowly starting to change today. Two main reasons are behind this change. First, as land resources become scarce, the city government, particularly on China’s east coast, has been more selective in its preferences. Officials are now mostly focused on the number of global Fortune 500 companies there. Second, the government now has increasingly shifted its focus to innovation and technology capabilities. In contrast to the 1990s, when local governments focused on attracting foreign firms, the support for local R&D by China’s own enterprises has steadily increased. However, the Chinese government is very cautious in saying that they promote domestic firms, at least to external media, because they don’t want to lose investment or violate any World Trade Organization rules.