In the aftermath of the Asian economic crisis and the Chinese accession to the WTO, the East Asian countries that have up until now been ambivalent towards regional trade integration have recently begun actively to pursue regional and bilateral trade agreements. The recent start of negotiations between Korea and Japan on a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) has spurred much debate among many different groups and financial sectors in Korea. However, the contention of the various interest groups is not necessarily based on an economic rationale. Professor Bark will present the political issues that may emerge during the negotiation of the Korea-Japan FTA and some policy recommendations to reduce the negative effects of the FTA.

Taeho Bark is a professor at the Graduate School of International Studies at Seoul National University. From 1998 he has served as commissioner of the Korea Trade Commission. He has also served as Chair of the Investment Expert Group of APEC, Secretary for Economic Affairs, Office of the President, ROK, and as a consultant at the World Bank.

Breakfast provided to those who RSVP to Yumi Onoyama at yumio@stanford.edu by Monday, May 17. 9:00am ?The Changes and the Challenges of the Venture Capital Industry: The United States and Japan? Hirohisa Takata, Development Bank of Japan 9:20am ?Cosmeceuticals Market in the United States? Shojiro Matsuoka, Kommy Corporation 9:40am ?The Past, Present, and Future of the High-Tech Industry? Kenji Tashiro, Kumamoto Prefectural Government 10:00am ?Progression of the Broadband Infrastructure and Promising Contents Business? Takehiro Fujiki, Tokyo Electric Power Company 10:20am ?The Silicon Valley Model and Its Success in Japan? Takashi Shimotori, Sumitomo Corporation 10:40am ?Legislation of the CRA in Japan? Teruhisa Kurita, Ministry of Finance (Advisor: Dan Okimoto)

Japan Brown Bag hosted with the Center for East Asian Studies

A buffet lunch will be available to those who RSVP by 12:00 p.m. Monday, May 3 to Debbie Warren at dawarren@stanford.edu. Douglas H. Paal is the director of the American Institute in Taiwan, the unofficial instrument for U.S. relations with Taiwan. Previously, he was president of the Asia Pacific Policy Center (APPC), a nonprofit institution in Washington, DC, which advocated bipartisan policy in the promotion of trade and investment, as well as defense and security ties across the Pacific. Prior to forming the APPC, Mr. Paal was special assistant to President Bush for National Security Affairs and senior director for Asian Affairs on the National Security Council, where he also served in the Reagan Administration. Mr. Paal has worked in the State Department with the Policy Planning Staff and as a senior analyst for the CIA. He also served in the U.S. Embassies in Singapore and Beijing. He studied Asian history at Brown and Harvard Universities and the Japanese language in Tokyo. He has published frequently on Asian affairs and national security issues.

Part of the EAST House Spring Seminar Series ?Political and Social Ramifications of the Asian Financial Crisis?.

Japan is known as a "non-litigious" or a "harmonious" society for its extremely low litigation rates per capita as an industrial country. Yet the nation commenced a large-scale judicial reform project in the 1990s that triplicates the number of lawyers, establishes graduate law schools, adopts a jury-like system to the criminal trials, and more. What is the cause of this reform? Has the nation transformed into the litigious society? This presentation will analyze the political economic aspect of this reform process and identify the main reason for the nation to commence this reform project in the 1990s.

Kaori Daimon is currently an assistant judge of Tokyo District Court in Japan and a J.S.M. candidate at Stanford Law School (Stanford Program in International Legal Studies). She got her LL.B. from University of Tokyo in 1998 and joined the civil case division of Tokyo District Court in 2000. Prior to coming to Stanford, she earned her LL.M. degree from Yale Law School in 2003.

Mr. Sun will try to establish a new research framework to analyze the monetary policy transmission mechanism. In this field, previous research has usually assumed that the banking sector would completely transmit the purpose of the central bank to the real sector, thus paying attention to the channels from the banking sector to the real sector. Because the transmission of monetary policy in the banking sector is the most important part of deciding the effectiveness of monetary policy, this research focuses on the transmission mechanism of monetary policy from the central bank to the banking sector. The concept of ?cushion storage reserve? was created by Mr. Sun and was introduced to this framework to analyze the comparison of reserve supply and reserve demand. Based on this concept and a related main formula, commercial banks? behaviors were divided into three reactive approaches -- sterilize, forbear, and adjust. According to the different kinds of reactions, monetary policy has different effects. This new analyzing framework makes the analysis of monetary policy operation more concise and effective. At the end of his paper, Mr. Sun will try to use this approach to explain the present monetary situation of China and Japan. Lunch will be provided for those who RSVP by 3/29/04.