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.

Paul Neureiter has been intimately involved in the China semiconductor Value Added Tax case that was recently filed with the WTO. He was a key player in resolving the recent Chinese wireless LAN encryption standard, and he is deeply involved in intellectual property issues. Prior to his work at USTR, he served in the U.S. State Department in a variety of posts, including as an Economic Officer in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and in the office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs in Washington, DC.

Dr. Sáez's recent paper offers a new perspective on the relationship between ex ante barriers to entry and ex post second-generation reforms. Building upon theoretical insights from the literature on new entry, the paper will show why some types of barriers to entry exist in transitional economies. The paper will then show how market segmentation imposes structural barriers to entry will likely affect the level of political opposition that builds during the implementation of second generation reforms. In order to provide empirical support for this theoretical construct, the paper will specifically highlight the experience of financial services reform in India in order to develop an argument about the existing challenges and likely success of second-generation reforms that stemmed from initial barriers to entry.

Lawrence Sáez is a senior associate member at St. Antony's College, Oxford and he teaches international politics at the School of Oriental and Asian Studies in London. Prior to living in England, Dr. Sáez was an assistant research political scientist at the Institute of East Asian Studies and visiting scholar at the Center for South Asia Studies, University of California, Berkeley. He was also the associate editor for South Asia at Asian Survey. He holds a B.A. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley; an M.A.L.D. in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy; and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago.

His research is focused around comparative political economy and fiscal federalism in developing countries. He is currently working on trying to understand how globalization has affected subnational economic growth and the provision of public goods in emerging markets. He is the author of Banking Reform in India and China (Palgrave MacMillan 2004).

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.

Hawke will investigate SOE restructuring issues in the context of attracting foreign investment, through the prism of IMC's experience attempting to buy into Chinese companies on the nonperforming loan lists. IMC Global is the world's largest producer of phosphate and potassium fertilizers, about to merge with the fertilizer assets of Cargill to form a new company.

Prior to joining IMC in 1997, Hawke was a director at Salomon Brothers responsible for investment banking in China and, before that, a vice president of Citibank and Citibank's chief representative in China.

Walter explores the transformation of China's state owned enterprises during the 1990s into corporations able to issue shares, raising billions of dollars internationally, and discusses the consequences of this policy reform. He is co-author of Privatizing China: The Stock Markets and their Role in Corporate Reform (John Wiley & Sons, 2003). Prior to leading JP Morgan?s Beijing office in 2001, he was managing director of China International Capital Corporation and chief representative of Credit Suisse First Boston.

Dr. Nasr's talk will focus on the implications of change of the balance of power between Shi'as and Sunnis for regional politics in Iraq and for the emerging trends in Sunni militancy in the region.

Vali Nasr is a specialist on contemporary Islam and its relations to politics in the Muslim world. His recent work is focused on emerging patterns in Islamism, in particular with regard to Shi'i-Sunni sectarianism. He is the author of The Islamic Leviathan: Islam and the Making of State Power (Oxford University Press, 2001); Mawdudi and the Making of Islamic Revivalism (Oxford University Press, 1996); an editor of Oxford Dictionary of Islam (Oxford University Press, 2003). His works on political Islam and comparative politics of South Asia and the Middle East has been published in a number of journals including, the New York Times, Comparative Politics, Asian Survey, Daedalus, Middle East Journal, and International Journal of Middle East Studies, as well as in numerous edited volumes on the Middle East, South Asia, political Islam and comparative politics. His work has been translated into Arabic, Indonesian, Chinese, and Urdu. Dr. Nasr has been the recipient of fellowship grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council.

Dr. Nasr earned his degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Ph.D., 1991), the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (MALD, 1984), and Tufts University (BA, 1983).