How stable is politics in today's China? Many observers inside and outside the country were stunned by the sudden dismissal in December of Miao Hua, the head of the powerful political work department of the PLA and a member of the Central Military Commission. Takahara will discuss the state of Chinese politics and look into what we can expect of China's response to the 2nd Trump Administration.

This webinar event is co-hosted by the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center Japan Program and the Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco

Speaker:

Akio Takahara is Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Tokyo Woman’s Christian University and former Professor of Contemporary Chinese Politics at the Graduate School of Law and Politics at The University of Tokyo. From April to July 2024, he is also serving as Senior Fellow of the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS). He received his DPhil in 1988 from Sussex University, and later spent several years as Visiting Scholar at the Consulate-General of Japan in Hong Kong, the Japanese Embassy in Beijing, Harvard University, Peking University, the Mercator Institute for China Studies, and the Australian National University. Before joining The University of Tokyo, he taught at J. F. Oberlin University and Rikkyo University. He served as President of the Japan Association for Asian Studies, and as Secretary General of the New Japan-China Friendship 21st Century Committee. Akio was Dean of the Graduate School of Public Policy at The University of Tokyo from 2018 to 2020, and Director of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development from 2020 to 2023. He currently serves as Senior Adjunct Fellow of the Japan Institute of International Affairs, Distinguished Research Fellow of the Japan Forum on International Relations, Senior Research Adviser of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development, and Trustee of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation. His publications in English include The Politics of Wage Policy in Post-Revolutionary China, (Macmillan, 1992), Japan-China Relations in the Modern Era, (co-authored, Routledge, 2017), and “How do smaller countries in the Indo-Pacific region proactively interact with China? An introduction”, Journal of Contemporary East Asia Studies, DOI: 10.1080/24761028.2024.2309439, 26 January 2024.

Discussant:

Thomas Fingar is a Shorenstein APARC Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He was the inaugural Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow from 2010 through 2015 and the Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford in 2009.

From 2005 through 2008, he served as the first deputy director of national intelligence for analysis and, concurrently, as chairman of the National Intelligence Council. Fingar served previously as assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (2000-01 and 2004-05), principal deputy assistant secretary (2001-03), deputy assistant secretary for analysis (1994-2000), director of the Office of Analysis for East Asia and the Pacific (1989-94), and chief of the China Division (1986-89). Between 1975 and 1986 he held a number of positions at Stanford University, including senior research associate in the Center for International Security and Arms Control.

Moderator:

Kiyoteru Tsutsui is the Henri H. and Tomoye Takahashi Professor and Senior Fellow in Japanese Studies at Shorenstein APARC, the Director of the Japan Program and Deputy Director at APARC, a senior fellow of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and Professor of Sociology, all at Stanford University. Tsutsui received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Kyoto University and earned an additional master’s degree and Ph.D. from Stanford’s sociology department in 2002. Tsutsui’s research interests lie in political/comparative sociology, social movements, globalization, human rights, and Japanese society. His most recent publication, Human Rights and the State: The Power of Ideas and the Realities of International Politics (Iwanami Shinsho, 2022), was awarded the 2022 Ishibashi Tanzan Award and the 44th Suntory Prize for Arts and Sciences.

Join the China Program at Stanford's Shorenstein APARC for a presentation by Hong Kong University of Science Technology Professor David Zweigcovering his work on understanding the process of reserve migration of talent back to China. What he dubs “The Theory of Shortage.”

Drawing on surveys, interviews, and documentary searches, and employing both quantitative and qualitative methods, Dr. Zweig's presentation will show that a key to understanding the process of reverse migration of talent back to China was the returnees' ability to find a skill or a technology which was in short supply in China, thereby giving them a comparative advantage vis-a-vis locals who had not gone abroad in China's marketplace or in China's scientific or academic institutions.

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David Zweig (Ph.D., The University of Michigan, 1983) is Professor Emeritus, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Distinguished Visiting Professor of Taipei School of Economics and Political Science, National Tsinghua University, Taiwan. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard in 1984-85. He lived in Hong Kong from 1996 to 2019 and now lives in New York with his family. Zweig studied in Beijing in 1974-1976 and did field research in rural China in 1980-1981 and 1986 and explored the internationalization of southern Jiangsu Province in 1991-1997. Since 1991, he has surveyed and interviewed returned academics, scientists, entrepreneurs, and employees all over China as well as those who have remained abroad. He has authored or edited ten books, including Internationalizing China (Cornell University Press). His most recent book, The War for Chinese Talent in America: The Politics of Technology and Knowledge in Sino-U.S. Relations was published in August  2024 in the Asia Shorts Series of the Association of Asian Studies, distributed by Columbia University Press.

"China’s Vulnerability Paradox,” recently published by Oxford University Press, presents an original framework to explain the uneven transformations in global commodity markets resulting from the dramatic expansion of China’s economy. At times, China displays vulnerabilities towards global commodity markets because of unequal positions of market power. Why is it that Chinese stakeholders are often unable to shape markets in their preferred direction? Why have some markets undergone fundamental changes while other similar ones did not, including uneven liberalization dynamics across markets? And what does this mean for current debates around critical minerals and economic security? At a time of deepening US-China economic tensions, this book provides an alternative, granular understanding of the interacting dynamics between the political economy of Chinese and global markets.

Join the China Program at Stanford's Shorenstein APARC for a presentation by the book's author on this critical topic for China and the world.

Pascale Massot is an associate professor in the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa. She is also non-resident Honorary Fellow, Political Economy at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis, and a Senior Fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. In 2022, she was a member and adviser to the Co-Chairs of the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs’ Indo-Pacific Advisory Committee, which was tasked with providing recommendations to the Minister on the development of Canada’s Indo-Pacific strategy. She also served as the Senior Advisor for China and Asia in the offices of various Canadian Cabinet ministers, including the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of International Trade, between 2015 and 2017 and again between 2020 and 2021. She was a visiting scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing and at Peking University’s Center for International Political Economy. She received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

Join Stanford's Shorenstein APARC China Program as we welcome Professor Rory Truex from Princeton University to present his recent survey findings on the evolving perspectives of U.S. foreign policy professionals toward China. Based on a survey of nearly 500 professionals and over 50 in-depth interviews, the research reveals a spectrum of policy opinions, alongside a concerning trend of "groupthink" that often shifts discussions toward more hawkish stances. Professor Truex will explore how career and reputational pressures influence these dynamics, shedding light on the shaping of China-related discourse within Washington’s foreign policy circles.

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Rory Truex is an Associate Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. His research focuses on Chinese politics and authoritarian systems. In 2021 he received the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching, the highest teaching honor at Princeton. He currently resides in Philadelphia.