Since opening its doors to the world in 1978, China has pursued a sometimes erratic but reasonably steady course leading to increasing global economic and political interaction. Its interests now extend from Pyongyang to New York and Sydney to Riyadh. U.S. President Barack Obama’s announcement of a new “pivot” toward Asia, recent events on the Korean Peninsula, and China’s upcoming leadership transition provide additional reasons to seek greater understanding of China’s goals and interactions with other nations.

Thomas Fingar, Stanford’s Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow, is leading a new multiphase Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) initiative to explore the nuances and complexity of China’s foreign relations and domestic issues. The China and the World research project aims to contextualize and better understand China’s regional and global interactions, both from the perspective of China itself and from that of other countries. Beginning with Northeast Asia, the project will analyze China’s relations region-by-region throughout the world, and will involve experts from Stanford, China, and the regions studied. It kicks off with a Shorenstein APARC-organized workshop held Mar. 19 and 20 at the new Stanford Center at Peking University.

Fingar discusses the development of China’s foreign relations since 1978, and describes the project and workshop’s background.

In the three decades since Deng Xiaoping enacted his 1978 Open Door reforms, what have been the main trends in China’s global engagement?

The general trend since 1978 has been for China to become increasingly active and engaged in a growing number of places around the world. There have been a number of phases to this.

The “honeymoon period” of U.S.-China relations (1979–1989) was a period of essentially no competition to China’s interaction within the U.S.-led world economic system. China concentrated on the OECD countries—especially the United States, Japan, and Western Europe—that had money to invest and willingness to trade.

After the 1989 Tiananmen Square Incident, China’s international options became more constrained as its relations with the developed world plateaued. It began to reach out to the places that would deal with it: Southeast Asia and particularly Africa. This was in part diplomatically motivated, and in part a search for new markets for the low-end goods it was beginning to produce. It was also the beginning of its search for energy.

Around 2000, China transitioned from building a more modern economy towards being one—beginning the era of its “rise.” China’s demand for resources went up, as did its capacity to supply more markets and its ability to invest more of its growing foreign exchange earnings. It became globally active, proclaiming that it had a new, less exploitative model than what the United States and Europe offered.

What Northeast Asia issues do you think China will focus on this year, especially as it plans for a major leadership transition?

North Korea’s stability and China’s growing investments in the DPRK. Beijing is acutely interested in whether Kim Jong Un will prove a viable leader and whether the regime will be able to manage its new challenges. China is concerned about possible North Korean provocations that might trigger responses by South Korea and/or the United States, putting at risk the peaceful regional and international situation China needs for its political and economic development.

The second issue is answering the question: what does the U.S. pivot toward Asia mean? What does it mean in terms of security, economics, and relations with Japan and Korea? China is the largest trading partner for each of these countries. They value it as a market, and as a source of resources. Yet they also worry about being excessively dependent on China. They appear not to have worried about this quite so much when their dependence on the U.S. market was comparable.

Two full workshop sessions will be devoted to Japan and South Korea, both countries with close U.S. ties. What are the most important factors with regard to China’s rise for these two countries? What about for Southeast Asia?

One of the reasons for our upcoming Beijing workshop is to develop a general template of questions we can ask for each region. We want to avoid focusing the questions too narrowly on Northeast Asia.

For Japan and Korea, one factor has to do with economic opportunities and with their own vulnerabilities. The other has to do with the security challenges of China’s rise, and the uncertainty of its military aspirations. Japan and Korea do not want to be drawn into U.S.-led activities, but they still value the United States for protection. They are concerned about managing the decoupling of economic and security dependence, about no longer being dependent on the same country for both.

Many regional issues are interrelated, such as maritime territorial claims and naval expansion. China is an economic player in Southeast Asia, and the Philippines and Thailand have an alliance with the United States. Indonesia is a rising county in Southeast Asia, and India is an outside player in the region. The U.S. 7th Fleet currently defends the shipping lanes to Northeast Asia that go through Southeast Asia, which probably is not the long-term solution.  

Russia played an important role in shaping the political ideology in the early days of the People’s Republic of China, and the politics of both countries—especially Russia—have changed so much. What is their relationship like now?

Correct and limited. The West imposed a military hardware embargo on China after Tiananmen, so Russia is a limited alternative for that, and it is also a source of energy and other resources. It is fair to say China has something close to disdain for Russia, for what it sees as political confusion and economic mismanagement. The idea of a strategic triangle—using Russia to balance U.S. influence—is something China sees as unviable.

As you move forward with this project, what is the ultimate goal?

The goal is to understand the dynamics of interaction—to understand the bigger picture. Other countries have objectives and concerns with regard to China, while China has objectives and concerns of its own. It is about identifying things such as where they see the same and different kinds of opportunities; what concerns they have about third country interests or involvement; and how they evaluate the success of policies to date.  

The Asia Pacific Observatory of Health Systems and Policies (APO) is a new regional initiative to promote evidence-based health policymaking in the Asia-Pacific region. The Observatory represents a unique partnership of governments, development agencies, and the research community working together to support policymakers to develop health systems that are equitable, efficient, responsive, and transparent.

At the Steering Committee meeting in Bangkok in late January, the appointed members of the APO Research Advisory Group met for the first time, including Karen Eggleston, director of Stanford’s Asia Health Policy Program.

The APO has prepared two Health Systems in Transition reports providing in-depth profiles of the health systems of the Philippines and Fiji. Additional country health system profiles and policy briefs will be published in 2012. The research and analysis generated by the Observatory is considered as a public good and is freely available at the APO website.

Economic development is a dynamic process in East and Southeast Asia, and one that is inextricably tied to policy.

Two new groundbreaking political economy publications are now available from the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC), and a third is forthcoming in August.

Going Private in China: The Politics of Corporate Restructuring and System Reform, addresses many key reform questions faced over the past two decades by China, as well as by Japan and South Korea. Edited by Stanford China Program director Jean C. Oi, this volume demonstrates the commonalities between three seemingly disparate political economies. In addition, it sheds important new light on China's corporate restructuring and also offers new perspectives on how we think about the process of institutional change.

In Spending Without Taxation: FILP and the Politics of Public Finance in Japan, former Shorenstein Fellow Gene Park demonstrates how the Japanese government established and mobilized the Fiscal Investment Loan Program (FILP), which drew on postal savings, public pensions, and other funds to pay for its priorities and reduce demands on the budget. Referring to FILP as a "distinctive postwar political bargain," he posits that it has had lasting political and economic effects. Park's book not only provides a close examination of FILP, but it also resolves key debates in Japanese politics and demonstrates that governments can finance their activities through financial mechanisms to allocate credit and investment.

The Institutional Imperative: The Politics of Equitable Development in Southeast Asia, by former Shorenstein Fellow Erik Kuhonta, argues that the realization of equitable development hinges heavily on strong institutions and on moderate policy and ideology. He does so by exploring how Malaysia and Vietnam have had the requisite institutional capacity and power to advance equitable development, while Thailand and the Philippines, because of weaker institutions, have not achieved the same levels of success.

More detailed descriptions about these insightful volumes, as well as reviews and purchasing information, are available in the publications section of the Shorenstein APARC website.

How do you effectively advise senior-level policymakers when a political crisis emerges? Stanford students taking the course U.S. Policy Towards Northeast Asia (IPS 244), sponsored by the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC), are learning and putting into practice these very skills. Over the ten weeks of the 2011 winter quarter, students will learn about contemporary U.S. policy towards Japan, China, and Korea, and about how to write and present policy-style memoranda to top-level government decision makers. They will also take part in an in-class simulation of a Six-Party meeting to negotiate North Korea's nuclear program.

Students cover a great deal of content in a short amount of time. "Ten weeks goes by pretty quickly," says course leader Michael H. Armacost, the Shorenstein Fellow at FSI and a former U.S. Ambassador to Japan and the Philippines. The real-world approach to the course is similar to what you would find in a professional international relations school, he explains. In previous years, Armacost has taught the course both alone and as part of a team with other former U.S. senior-level policy officials. The current course has been offered in the Ford Dorsey Program in International Policy Studies (IPS) for the last three years. It is co-taught with Daniel C. Sneider, the associate director for research at Shorenstein APARC and a former long-time foreign correspondent in Asia; David Straub, the associate director of the Stanford Korean Studies Program and a former U.S. senior foreign service officer; and Thomas Fingar, the Oksenberg/Rohlen Distinguished Fellow at FSI and a former Chairman of the National Intelligence Council.

In addition to providing a strong understanding of the U.S. foreign policymaking process, each week of the course is dedicated to a different aspect of the relationship of the United States with the countries of Northeast Asia, including Taiwan and the Russian Federation. Students will closely examine the history and dynamics between the great powers of the region; U.S. security relations with Japan and China; East Asian regionalism; democratization in South Korea; the North Korean nuclear crisis; and economics and human rights in China.

Although the case studies that the policy-writing exercises are based upon are hypothetical, they are closely tied to real-world issues and events. A previous year's case study dealt with tensions between China and Japan over rival claims to the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, anticipating the September 2010 conflict between Japan and China in the waters around these islands. The simulation exercise, another highlight of the course when students have the opportunity to collaborate with one another, is also closely tied to current regional events.

In addition to the rich content of the course and the expertise of its instructors, the diverse background of the students lends itself to the overall learning experience. Some of the students are pursuing a master's degree through IPS or the Center for East Asian Studies, while others come from the Graduate School of Business and various other Stanford units. Each year, there are always a few undergraduate students, who Armacost describes as "very strong," as well as early-career foreign affairs and military officials from Northeast Asia.

Interest in the course remains strong each year, and Shorenstein APARC will continue to offer it in order to provide solid, real-world policy training for the next generation of scholars and government officials.