The U.S.-Japan relationship is not much in the headlines these days—and when it is the stories seem to focus on issues, such as Okinawa and beef, that have bedeviled ties seemingly for decades. But, in the midst of seismic shifts in Asia-Pacific security and global economic relations, shouldn’t the two countries be talking about something else?

Many in American industry have thought so and in 2009 the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan released a white paper calling for a new set of discussions with Japan directed at capturing the innovation and growth potential of the emerging global Internet economy. Accompanying the call were a set of over 70 specific recommendations for discussion in areas ranging from privacy, security, intellectual property, spectrum management, cyber security to competition—an agenda for the future not the past.

The paper found resonance with the new Democratic Party government in Japan and the Obama administration that were searching for a new direction and vocabulary for U.S.-Japan economic relations and were mindful that partnership with Japan in this area strengthened the U.S. hand in dealing with preemptive attempts elsewhere to define rule of the road for the Internet and “cloud computing.” 

The Dialogue was formally launched in the fall of 2010 and its third plenary session is taking place in Washington, D.C. October 16 to 19, 2012. Professor Jim Foster is participating in the Dialogue as a leading member of the U.S. private sector delegation to the talks. He will be coming to Stanford immediately following the joint industry-government meeting on October 18 (the governments will continue in closed-door session through the 19th) and will offer his analysis and insight into the discussions in Washington and their implications for future cooperation between Japan and the U.S. industry in the cloud computing field and for the two governments on challenging issues of broader Internet governance.

Jim Foster is currently a professor in the Graduate School of Media and Governance at Keio University, where he teaches and researches on U.S. foreign policy issues and global Internet policy. He is the co-director of Keio’s Internet and Society Institute. Foster worked as a U.S. diplomat from 1981 to 2006, serving in Japan, Korea, the Philippines and at the U.S. Mission to the EU. He was director for corporate affairs at Microsoft Japan from 2006 to 2011. He is a former vice president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan and a co-author of the ACCJ White Paper on the Internet Economy.

A yearlong U.S. effort to engage nuclear-armed North Korea culminated in the announcements by Washington and Pyongyang of the so-called “Leap Day” understanding on February 29. A fortnight later, North Korea announced it would launch a multi-stage rocket carrying what the reclusive state said was a civilian satellite. After an intensive four weeks of public and private calls on Pyongyang from the other five members of the Six-Party Talks not to proceed, the April 13 launch failed, but triggered unanimous censure from the 16-member UN Security Council. Ambassador Davies will describe the talks leading to the Leap Day understanding, the fallout from North Korea’s aborted launch, and where this leaves our efforts to hold Pyongyang to its denuclearization and other promises. He will also discuss Washington’s views of new leader Kim Jong Un, the likelihood of change in North Korea, and diplomatic prospects in this season of political transition in key Six Party states.
 
Glyn Davies, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, was appointed by Secretary of State Clinton as Special Representative for North Korea Policy in November 2011.
 
Ambassador Davies joined the Foreign Service in 1980 and has served in numerous posts in Washington and overseas, including the position of Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs from 2007 to 2009. From 2009 to 2011, he was U.S. Permanent Representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency and United Nations agencies in Vienna.
 
Ambassador Davies holds a BS in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and a masters degree from the National War College in Washington, D.C.
 

Northeast Asia has witnessed growing intra-regional interactions, especially in the realms of culture and economy. Yet wounds from past wrongs—committed during colonialism and war—are not fully healed and the question of history has become heated across Northeast Asia.  East Asians have recognized the need for reconciliation and sought to achieve that goal through various tactics—apology politics, litigation, joint history writing, and regional exchanges. While each had its own merit none have succeeded and all nations, sharing a reluctance to fully confront the complexity of that past, tend to blame others. With the increased salience of the history question in Northeast Asian regional relations, a growing body of works, both academic and policy-oriented, addresses this issue.  However, much of the discourse treats the history question as an intra-Asian issue and neglects to involve the U.S. as a central variable. A predominant view among U.S. officials has been that this is primarily a matter for Asians. However, the United States can hardly afford to stand outside these disputes and we need to explore how the U.S. can play a constructive role in facilitating historical reconciliation in the region.

From 18 to 20 November 2012 Phnom Penh in Cambodia will be the summit capital of the world. President Obama and the heads of nearly 20 other countries will gather there for a series of high-level meetings organized by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Events will include the ASEAN Summit, the ASEAN Plus Three Summit, and the East Asia Summit (EAS). Obama will attend the EAS and the US-ASEAN Leaders Summit as well.

Here at Stanford the issues at stake in these summits will be assessed in conversation among the ambassadors to the United States from five ASEAN member countries—Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Viet Nam—and the president of the US-ASEAN Business Council. How will the ASEAN Community planned for 2015 affect economy, security, and democracy in Southeast Asia? What are China’s intentions in East Asia?  How should ASEAN respond to Chinese behavior? Will a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea be announced in Phnom Penh? What can we expect from Indonesia’s leadership of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in 2013? Is protectionism in Southeast Asia on the rise? Has Europe’s recent experience discredited economic regionalism? Is the US-backed Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (TPP) good or bad for Southeast Asia? Should the controversial American “rebalance” toward Asia be rebalanced? How reversible are the reforms in Myanmar (Burma)? What changes inside ASEAN will make the organization more effective? What is the single change in US policy that each ambassador would most like to see?

Hong Sun Ko, "Competition in Korea's Smartphone Market"

Like a fierce sports match, competition between the best enterprises drives the force to provide better products and service to customers.  Additionally, other macro-environmental factors such as politics, economics, social and cultural issues play an equally important role.  However, the core of competition never changes - the key point is to get to the consumer’s mind first with “usability” and “newness” and continue to do so.  In this presentation, Ko will discuss the competition in the smartphone market in Korea based on his personal experience and perspective.

Since Thailand’s coup of September 2006, which forced the controversial government of billionaire businessman Thaksin Shinawatra out of office, pro- and anti-Thaksin forces have waged an intense battle for control of the government. Rural people in Thailand have played an important role in this struggle, but the nature of their politics is poorly understood. On the one hand there are breathless accounts of agrarian class struggle, while on the other hand rural protest is dismissed as the product of elite manipulation and financial inducement. These paradigms are unhelpful because they ignored the emergence of a new political relationship between the state and the rural population. Sustained economic growth since the 1960s had lifted rural households to levels of income and consumption previously unimagined. They are no longer mainly challenged by food insecurity but by the need to diversify economically and improve productivity. The state plays a key role in addressing these challenges through an array of subsidy, welfare, and community development schemes. Modern peasant politics in Thailand are motivated not by an antagonistic relationship with the state but by a desire to draw the state into mutually beneficial transactions. The classic frameworks for explaining peasant political behavior, based on rebellion or resistance, are impediments to understanding this new style of political behavior. Prof. Walker will propose instead an alternative model of rural “political society” based on the relationship between a persistent peasantry and a subsidizing state.  Copies of Thailand's Political Peasants will be available for signing and sale by the author following his talk.

Andrew Walker is an anthropologist who has worked in northern Thailand since the early 1990s. His latest book is Thailand’s Political Peasants: Power in the Modern Rural Economy (2012). His many earlier publications include “Royal Succession and the Evolution of Thai Democracy,” in Montesano et al., eds, Bangkok May 2010: Perspectives on a Divided Thailand (2011); Tai Lands and Thailand: Community and State in Mainland Southeast Asia (edited, 2009); Forest Guardians, Forest Destroyers: The Politics of Environmental Knowledge in Northern Thailand (co-authored, 2008); and The Legend of the Golden Boat: Regulation, Trade and Traders in the Borderlands of Laos, Thailand, China and Burma (1999). He also co-founded and co-convenes New Mandala, a widely read and highly regarded blog that offers fresh perspectives, both analytic and anecdotal, on mainland Southeast Asia.

About the Topic: The Tiananmen Square massacre of June 1989 remains a taboo topic in the People’s Republic of China (PRC); the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) still detains participants and suppresses online, popular, and scholarly discussions of it.  The twentieth anniversary of the end of the transatlantic Cold War, however, saw the release of new sources from high-level contacts between the CCP and foreign leaders. These new sources, combined with older ones, show the extent to which Chinese political leaders were obsessed with the democratic changes in Eastern Europe and were willing to take violent action to prevent similar events on their territory.

About the Speaker: Mary Sarotte is professor of history and professor of international relations at the University of Southern California. Her most recent book, 1989: The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe, was called a new "classic" by Foreign Affairs and selected as a Book of the Year by the Financial Times. It received the DAAD Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in German and European Studies and became the first book to win both the Ferrell Prize for the best book on US foreign policy and the Shulman Prize for the best book on Communist foreign policy. Professor Sarotte received her PhD in History from Yale. She has been a White House Fellow and a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Professor Sarotte is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.