Stanford University

Politics of the Chinese Cultural Revolution

Professor Andrew Walder has been examining the large collections of new documentary materials from the 1960s that have become available in recent years. He has discovered that these materials cast doubt on reigning sociological interpretations of Red Guard politics, particularly those that see political factions as expressions of social differences. On closer examination, Red Guard motives were more political than social in their origins.

Social Stratification in China during an Era of Transition

In collaboration with sociologists at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the People's University of China in Beijing, Professor Andrew Walder has worked to design and field a nationally representative survey of 6,400 Chinese households. The survey, which took place in 1996, was the first of its kind in China. It collected detailed information on occupations, income, and housing conditions for families, in addition to complete career and educational histories for respondents and less detailed histories for spouses, parents, and grandparents.

Comparative Health Care Policy Research Project

The Comparative Health Care Policy Research Project was initiated by APARC in 1990 to examine issues related to the structure and delivery of health care in Japan by utilizing contemporary social science. Further, the project was designed to make the study of Japan an integral part of international comparative health policy research. Yumiko Nishimura, the associate director, under the supervision of Daniel I. Okimoto, the principal investigator, leads the project.

Relating the U.S.-Korea and U.S.-Japan Alliances to Emerging Asia Pacific Multilateral Processes: An ASEAN Perspective

Paragraphs

American military power underpinned the security structure of the Asia Pacific region during the Cold War. Post-Cold War, its role is still vital to peace and stability in the region. The most overt manifestations of American military might are the Japan–America Security Alliance (JASA) and the Korea–America Security Alliance (KASA). These bilateral alliances, together with a modified Australia–New Zealand–United States (ANZUS) treaty relationship, point to the diversity of security interests and perspectives in the region. Even during the height of the Cold War, the region never quite presented the kind of coherence that would have facilitated the creation of a truly multilateral defense framework of the sort exemplified by NATO. In Southeast Asia, the lack of strategic coherence resulted in a patchwork of defense arrangements between local and extraregional states. Dominated by the United States, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) was only nominally regional.

During the Cold War, the United States entered into region-wide alliances to “contain” communism. In the post-Cold War period, uncertainties, rather than clearly definable threats, have marked the Asia Pacific’s strategic landscape. While not disen- gaging from the region, the United States is encouraging greater burden-sharing by its friends and allies located there. In consequence, JASA and KASA are undergoing change even as regional states accept their utility and reassurance value. At the same time, region-wide multilateral confidence-building and cooperative security processes, which involve practically all the states on opposite sides of the old Cold War divide, have emerged. China — the object of Cold War containment policies — is being constructively engaged through these multilateral processes. How the existing alliances, which still have their deterrent functions, can be related to these nascent multilateral processes is the focus of this paper. Because the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is the driving force behind the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), the only region-wide process seeking a balanced relationship among the external powers in the post-Cold War setting, we explore first the evolving ASEAN perspectives toward KASA and JASA. The paper will then relate the ASEAN-driven frame- work to the security concerns of Northeast Asia.

Published as part of the "America's Alliances with Japan and Korea in a Changing Northeast Asia" Research Project.

All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Working Papers
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
Shorenstein APARC
Authors

Domestic Context of the Alliances: The Politics of Tokyo, The

Paragraphs

Published as part of the "America's Alliances with Japan and Korea in a Changing Northeast Asia" Research Project.

Please note that, due to technical difficulties, several of the graphics included in this paper are not viewable in PDF format. Should you require a hard copy of the paper, in which all graphics do appear, please email Shorenstein APARC's publications manager. Note that a $10 fee will be assessed for hard copies, which includes shipping and handling. Thank you for your understanding.

All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Working Papers
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
Shorenstein APARC
Authors

Daniel I. Okimoto

0
Professor of Political Science, Emeritus
D_Okimoto_ALT_headshot.jpg PhD

A specialist on the political economy of Japan, Daniel Okimoto is a senior fellow emeritus of FSI, director emeritus of Shorenstein APARC, and a professor of political science emeritus at Stanford University. His fields of research include comparative political economy, Japanese politics, U.S.-Japan relations, high technology, economic interdependence in Asia, and international security.

During his 25-year tenure at Stanford, Okimoto served as a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Northeast Asia-United States Forum on International Policy, the predecessor organization to Shorenstein APARC, within CISAC. He also taught at the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, the Stockholm School of Economics, and the Stanford Center in Berlin.

Okimoto co-founded Shorenstein APARC. He was the vice chairman of the Japan Committee of the National Research Council at the National Academy of Sciences, and of the Advisory Council of the Department of Politics at Princeton University. He received his BA in history from Princeton University, MA in East Asian studies from Harvard University, and PhD in political science from the University of Michigan.

He is the author of numerous books and articles, including Between MITI and the Market: Japanese Industrial Policy for High Technology; co-editor, with Takashi Inoguchi, of The Political Economy of Japan: International Context; and co-author, with Thomas P. Rohlen, of A United States Policy for the Changing Realities of East Asia: Toward a New Consensus.

Director Emeritus, Shorenstein APARC
FSI Senior Fellow, Emeritus
Subscribe to Northeast Asia