Stanford University

Stanford Korea Democracy Project

This project seeks to understand the emergence and evolution of social movements during the 1970s and 1980s in South Korea. During the authoritarian years when Korea was ruled by (former) military generals, various social groups participated in the movement to restore democracy and ensure human rights. Their activism was instrumental to democratic changes that took place in the summer of 1987 and they continued to play an important role even after democratic transition.

APEC and the future of regionalism in Asia

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"Pan-Asian regionalism remains a long-term aspiration rather than a short-term prospect, but that having been said, that was true of Europe fifty years ago." - Michael Armacost, Shorenstein Distinguished Fellow

On November 2 Stanford University's Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, in association with University of California at Berkeley's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Study Center, convened regional and economic experts to discuss the role of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group and its relationship to the future of regionalism and regional integration in East Asia.

The meeting was timely, as APEC's annual week of high-level meetings begins on November 12th in Hanoi, Vietnam. It will culminate in a summit of heads of state (and a representative from Taiwan) on November 18-19 -- a key opportunity for President Bush to talk with regional leaders about a range of issues, including North Korea. In examining APEC's agenda and its potential institutional challengers, scholars focused on how the US might get more out of the forum and how the US could alter its approach to Asian regionalism to ensure continued relevance and influence in the region.

According to Dr. Donald Emmerson, director of the Southeast Asia Forum and senior fellow at Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), "Asian regionalism is at a crossroads, and it may be at a crossroads for sometime." Recent events have demonstrated that countries in the region face a crucial choice: Will they move in the direction of an East Asian identity that actively excludes the US, or more toward trans-Pacific networks such as APEC that include the US? Or both?

As Asian countries consider the merits of APEC and American inclusion, US policy on Asian regionalism has been "curiously passive," especially when juxtaposed with the positive role the US played in supporting development of the European Union, according to Ambassador Michael Armacost, who was US ambassador to Japan and the Philippines and held senior policy positions on the staff of the National Security Council and in the Departments of State and Defense.

Dr. Vinod Aggarwal, a professor of political science and director of the Berkeley Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Study Center, pointed to the example of the European Union (of which the US is not a member), urging that the US seek compatibility among regional and trans-Pacific institutions. Armacost agreed and maintained that the US should not fear exclusion from regional forums, such as the East Asia Summit (EAS), an outgrowth of the annual dialogue between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and other powers, which held its first meeting in Malaysia last year.

North Korea has said it will rejoin the six-party talks, but a meeting will not take place until after the APEC meeting. Here is an illustration of the utility of APEC that has nothing to do with economics. There could be an informal meeting of the five parties (without North Korea) in Hanoi. And that could be quite helpful in terms of coordinating strategy, especially with China. - Donald Emmerson, director, Southeast Asia Forum, Shorenstein APARC

Armacost underlined that American participation needs to correspond with American interests. In this sense, the US should put more effort into the Asian organizations of which it is already a member, including APEC. Armacost also suggested looking to Northeast Asia --"where the interests of the great powers intersect most directly" and there is no ASEAN counterpart -- according special attention to the six-party talks convened to denuclearize North Korea. He told the group that "fortuitously in the six-power talks, one has a negotiation which could be in embryonic form a regional security institution, in which American participation is not an issue -- it's self-evident. The US should put effort into the six-power talks succeeding, not only because of the substance of those talks, but because if they do succeed, then that format can provide a basis for a sub-regional institution of great importance to us, one that will give us a continuing role in the larger institutions that may emerge in Asia."

Emmerson said that there are essentially two views in Washington on US participation in Asian regional institutions: "one is to say that if these meetings are merely 'talk shops,' then our absence doesn't matter, and the other is to say that we are being, as the phrase goes, 'absent at the creation' of regional architecture, which we will regret not having been able to influence from the beginning, the longer we stay out." He urged greater US involvement in regional organizations and more creative approaches to tackling obstacles to involvement, such as finding a way to compromise on accession to the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, a key criterion for membership in the EAS. Attending that summit, in Emmerson's view, "would send a clear signal to East Asians that the US does want to be involved on the ground floor in the creation of an emerging regional architecture in Asia for the 21st century."

As the panelists encouraged the US to devote greater effort to the project of Asian regionalism, they also acknowledged that President Bush and other US delegates to this year's APEC meetings would not be in a position to embark on any bold initiatives, including the talked-of Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific, or FTAAP. According to Aggarwal, "in the current climate, the FTAAP is a political non-starter." Preoccupied by US midterm elections and the Iraq issue, "the administration is unlikely to put a lot of political capital into pushing for something like an FTAAP," not least because of the upcoming expiration of President Bush's Trade Promotion Authority. Aggarwal said, "I just can not imagine that any congressmen or senators will advocate free trade with countries with which we have our largest trade deficits. These massive trade deficits make the issue a political hot potato and no one will touch it." Instead, he recommended a less direct approach for trade liberalization. (A spokesman for the US Trade Representative's office has said that while they are still in the process of preparing their APEC agenda, they would consider discussing the FTAAP with their regional trading partners.)

But if you're ever going to pump new life into [APEC] you've got to find some practical projects around which people can rally. I would have thought the one economic issue that seems to be very timely, although some of the timeliness is being lost as prices sink, is energy. Virtually everybody in Asia is an importer of energy, and there are a lot of consumer interests that would benefit from the kind of collaboration that you could organize at a meeting like this. I would try to get subjects like that on the agenda, maybe more than trade liberalization. - Michael Armacost, Shorenstein Distinguished Fellow

Founded in 1989, APEC has 21 member economies on both sides of the Pacific. As a trans-Pacific, network, APEC connects the US, Chile, Mexico, and Canada on one side of the Pacific with a diverse group of Asian economies including China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Australia, and New Zealand. Aggarwal described the body as more of a "discussion forum" than an organization, as it explicitly rejects the deeply institutionalized approach taken by the European Union in Brussels - something he said should be reconsidered if it is to become more effective.

Panelists raised the paradox that APEC's agenda seems overly ambitious, yet at the same time the forum is under-utilized, in terms of addressing some pressing issues in the region, including as energy, avian flu, and maritime security.

Aggarwal acknowledged that APEC has been host to a wide range of activities, including security, environment, women's rights, finance, and technology policy. "What's striking is that these activities have been discussed in the European Union, for example, but really only in any significant way after 25 years of economic integration." In the mid-1990s, APEC set deadlines for trade liberalization -- 2010 for developed countries and 2020 for other countries. These goals will be hard to meet.

Security in the Asia-Pacific means lots of things. If we always focus on the latest American security issue, then that becomes the driving factor in Asians saying because the Americans have their own agenda, we want to have our own organization. So, yes, I think we should revitalize some of [APEC's] trade goals, we should try to work toward that, but we should be willing to address broader issues, other than only counterterrorism or only North Korea. - Vinod Aggarwal, director of the Berkeley Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Study Center (BASC) at UC - Berkeley

Armacost compared APEC to the European Union, asserting that the EU succeeded in large part because it "started small, built gradually and focused on depth rather than breadth at outset." In addition, the European body, considered the gold standard of regional integration, concentrated on very practical projects that yielded tangible benefits and generated political support for further endeavors.

In this vein, Armacost recommended two practical purposes for the group. "Virtually everybody in Asia is an importer of energy, and there are a lot of consumer interests that would benefit from the kind of collaboration that you could organize at a meeting like this." Also, returning to one of the organization's fundamental purposes, Armacost contended that in large part, "APEC is only useful insofar as the US uses it as a place to rally support for making one last ditch effort in trying to stimulate the Doha Round."

"I don't think that these bilateral trade agreements are particularly good for American business, or in general for trade negotiations at the Doha Round." - Vinod Aggarwal, director of the Berkeley Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Study Center (BASC) at UC - Berkeley

"If APEC members really wanted to get the Doha Round back on track, they should agree to a moratorium on preferential trade agreements for a period of one year and challenge the Europeans and other non-APEC members to match them in this moratorium on preferential trade agreements," urged Aggarwal.

Overall, the group agreed that despite inherent problems in APEC, overall participation in this trans-Pacific institution should be considered important to the United States. Armacost made the practical point that "APEC happily provides the major occasion in which the President goes out to the region. Basically, it's an opportunity to cultivate your allies, find out what your adversaries in the region may be up to, and to have a point in your schedule where you've got that agenda of Asian concerns that you are forced to wrestle with. For that reason alone it's worth keeping APEC alive."

All the panelists acknowledged Asian countries' criticisms that the US had too much control over APEC's agenda, and that Washington utilizes the forum to discuss its "issue of the day." Emmerson called on the US to remember that "from the standpoint of a number of developing Asian economies, the American emphasis on trade liberalization has been somewhat distorting. These are low-income countries; they're interested in economic cooperation that can somehow help them raise their populations above poverty levels. There's a whole agenda there that we really haven't discussed, and in a way it has been slighted in APEC by this overriding emphasis on trade liberalization. If trade liberalization turns out to be unrealistic at least in the short run, development goals are an alternative agenda that has some utility, and is worth exploring."

Similarly, Armacost stated that APEC would be a "more valuable institution to us, if we stopped talking for a while and listened a bit." Reflecting on US policy more broadly, he said he "personally regrets that in recent years the institution building instinct, or reflex, in the US has been directed at remaking other people's institutions internally. The international institution focus has been on relieving ourselves of the burdens of institutions which cramp our style or impose limits on diplomatic maneuverability."

I do believe we're not paying enough attention to a region whose importance to us will be greater than any other region ten to fifteen years from now. We should devote more attentiveness to Asia. - Michael Armacost, Shorenstein Distinguished Fellow, Shorenstein APARC

Shorenstein APARC's associate director for research Daniel Sneider moderated the panel. This seminar was an outgrowth of the center's work on the role of regionalism in East Asia. The research center will publish a book on this subject next spring, in conjunction with the Brookings Institution.

About the Panelists:

Vinod Aggarwal is professor in the Department of Political Science, affiliated professor of Business and Public Policy in the Haas School of Business, and director of the Berkeley Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Study Center (BASC) at the University of California at Berkeley.

Michael H. Armacost has been the Shorenstein Distinguished Fellow since 2002. From 1995 to 2002, Armacost served as president of the Brookings Institution. Previously, during his twenty-four year government career, Armacost served, among other positions, as undersecretary of state for political affairs and as ambassador to Japan and the Philippines.

Donald K. Emmerson is director of the Southeast Asia Forum at Shorenstein APARC and a senior fellow at FSI. He also teaches courses on Southeast Asia in International Relations and International Policy Studies.

Daniel C. Sneider is the associate director for research at Shorenstein APARC. He was a 2005-06 Pantech Fellow at the center, and the former foreign affairs columnist of the San Jose Mercury News.

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Democratic Gridlock on Taiwan: Domestic Sources and External Implications

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This is a Special Seminar within the CDDRL Taiwan Democracy Program (co-sponsored with Shorenstein APARC).

Richard Bush is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and Director of its Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies. The Center serves as a locus for research, analysis, and debate to enhance policy development on the pressing political, economic, and security issues facing Northeast Asia and U.S. interests in the region.

Bush came to Brookings in July 2002, after serving almost five years as the Chairman and Managing Director of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), the mechanism through which the United States Government conducts substantive relations with Taiwan in the absence of diplomatic relations.

Dr. Bush began his professional career in 1977 with the China Council of The Asia Society. In July 1983 he became a staff consultant on the House Foreign Affairs Committee's Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs. In January 1993 he moved up to the full committee, where he worked on Asia issues and served as liaison with Democratic Members. In July 1995, he became National Intelligence Officer for East Asia and a member of the National Intelligence Council (NIC), which coordinates the analytic work of the intelligence committee. He left the NIC in September 1997 to become head of AIT.

Richard Bush received his undergraduate education at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. He did his graduate work in political science at Columbia University, getting an M.A. in 1973 and his Ph.D. in 1978. He is the author of a number of articles on U.S. relations with China and Taiwan, and of At Cross Purposes, a book of essays on the history of America's relations with Taiwan.

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Richard C. Bush Director, Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies, and Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies Speaker The Brookings Institution
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Divided Memories and Reconciliation

There are two obstacles to understanding how historical memory about the wartime period has been formed in Northeast Asia. The first is the existence of persistent national myths about war memory—myths created within those nations and perceptions formed from the outside, and entrenched through the media and popular culture. The second obstacle is the lack of comparative context. The study of historical memory has, until recently, been focused almost entirely on Japan, without comparison to other principle actors in Asia such as China and Korea, or to the United States.

Making IT: The Rise of Asia in High Tech

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In 2003, consumption of IT goods worldwide was $1.5 trillion. Asia represented twenty percent of this total. Even more telling, Asia produced about forty percent of these goods. The continued rise of Asian IT innovation will pose a challenge to the eminence of traditional IT centers, notably Silicon Valley.

Making IT examines the causes as well as the major consequences of the dramatic rise of Asia in this industry. The book systematically analyzes each country's policies and results, on both a national level and, more importantly, in the innovation regions that have developed in each country: Japan's excellence in technology and manufacturing skills; Bangalore, India's late start and sudden explosion; Taiwan's Hsinchu Science-based Park's entrepreneurship and steady growth; Korea's Teheren Valley's impressive development of large companies; Singapore's initial reliance on multinational firms and its more recent switch to a home-developed strategy; and China's Zhongguancun Science Park's encouragement of investment from foreign firms while also promoting a domestic IT industry.

The book outlines the difficulties in the IT industry, including Japan's tendency to keep out most foreign firms and China's poor protection of intellectual property. Developed by the team that brought readers The Silicon Valley Edge, Making IT analyzes why this region has an advantage in this industry, the similarities and differences in the countries' strategies, why companies have clustered in specific localities, and most important, what will be changing in the coming years.

Making IT should leave no doubt that the United States and other countries competing in the global economy will face enormous challenges--and opportunities--responding to the rise of an innovative Asia.

"Making IT is an excellent work of collective scholarship. The book provides a wealth of information on one of the most striking episodes in economic development of the past few decades--the rise to global prominence in the IT sector of a part of the world that had long been regarded as a technological backwater." --Nathan Rosenberg, Stanford University

"The great strength of Making IT lies in its detailed case studies of Taiwan, India, Singapore, Korea, China, and Japan. The comparative focus on high-tech clusters and the explicit comparisons to Silicon Valley as the leader and model make an excellent contribution to our understanding of the high-tech cluster phenomenon and the ongoing competitive rise of the Asian economies considered in the book." --Hugh Patrick, Columbia University

Contributors

  • Jun-Woo Bae, Graduate School of Management, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
  • Zong-Tae Bae, Graduate School of Management, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
  • Rafiq Dossani, Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University
  • Kyonghee Han, Department of Human and Community Development, University of California, Davis
  • Ken-ichi Imai, former Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University
  • Martin Kenney, Department of Human and Community Development, University of California, Davis
  • Jong-Gie Kim, Graduate School of Business and Economics in Information, Myongji University
  • Kark Bum Lee, Information and Communications University, School of Management
  • Noboru Maeda, Graduate School of Creative Cities, Osaka City University
  • Sam Ock Park, College of Social Sciences, Seoul National University
  • Jon Sandelin, Office of Technology Licensing (OTL), Stanford University
  • Chintay Shih, College of Technology Management, National Tsing-Hua University
  • Sang-Mok Suh, Myongji University
  • Shoko Tanaka, ST Research
  • Toru Tanigawa, Kyushu University
  • Kung Wang, Graduate Institution of Industrial Economics, National Central University
  • Yi-Ling Wei, Industrial Economics and Knowledge Center, Industrial Technology Research Institute
  • Poh Kam Wong, Entrepreneurship Centre, National University of Singapore
  • Yasuhisa Yamaguchi, Japan Development Bank
  • Mulan Zhao, Administrative Committee of Zhongguancun Science Park
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Henry S. Rowen

A First Look at "Making IT: The Rise of Asia in High Tech"

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On Tuesday, November 14, the Stanford Project on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SPRIE) will be hosting a first look at Making IT: The Rise of Asia in High Tech.

Making IT is edited by Henry S. Rowen, Marguerite Gong Hancock and William F. Miller, and features findings by scholars from from the United States, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, China and India.

As Stanford University Press publishes Making IT this November, we invite you to attend this first look and discussion among scholars, policymakers and industry leaders.

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Henry S. Rowen

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FSI Senior Fellow Emeritus and Director-Emeritus, Shorenstein APARC
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Henry S. Rowen was a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, a professor of public policy and management emeritus at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, and a senior fellow emeritus of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC). Rowen was an expert on international security, economic development, and high tech industries in the United States and Asia. His most current research focused on the rise of Asia in high technologies.

In 2004 and 2005, Rowen served on the Presidential Commission on the Intelligence of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction. From 2001 to 2004, he served on the Secretary of Defense Policy Advisory Board. Rowen was assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs in the U.S. Department of Defense from 1989 to 1991. He was also chairman of the National Intelligence Council from 1981 to 1983. Rowen served as president of the RAND Corporation from 1967 to 1972, and was assistant director of the U.S. Bureau of the Budget from 1965 to 1966.

Rowen most recently co-edited Greater China's Quest for Innovation (Shorenstein APARC, 2008). He also co-edited Making IT: The Rise of Asia in High Tech (Stanford University Press, 2006) and The Silicon Valley Edge: A Habitat for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (2000). Rowen's other books include Prospects for Peace in South Asia (edited with Rafiq Dossani) and Behind East Asian Growth: The Political and Social Foundations of Prosperity (1998). Among his articles are "The Short March: China's Road to Democracy," in National Interest (1996); "Inchon in the Desert: My Rejected Plan," in National Interest (1995); and "The Tide underneath the 'Third Wave,'" in Journal of Democracy (1995).

Born in Boston in 1925, Rowen earned a bachelors degree in industrial management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1949 and a masters in economics from Oxford University in 1955.

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Tsung Chi

Encina Hall, Room E301
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

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Dr. Tsung Chi is professor of politics at Occidental College in Los Angeles where he teaches comparative politics, East Asian politics, Chinese politics, and research methodology. At Occidental College, he was chair of the Department of Politics from 1999-2002 and chair of the Department of Asian Studies from 2005-2006. His most recent publication is East Asian Americans and Political Participation. He received his B.A. in political science from National Chengchi University in Taiwan and Ph.D. in political science from Michigan State University.

Taiwan's Current Political Dilemma and the Prospects of the Cross-Strait relations

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This is a Special Seminar within the CDDRL Taiwan Democracy Program (co-sponsored with Shorenstein APARC).

Tang Fei was the first premier of Republic of China on Taiwan under the current Chen Shui-bian Government in 2000. Before he was appointed premier, Tang served as minister of national defense (1999-2000), chairman (1998) and vice chairman (1995-98) of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and commander-in-chief of the Air Force. He also served overseas as a deputy military attaché to the United States (1972-75) and as chief military attaché to South Africa (1979-82).

Premier Tang was a visiting scholar with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in 2002.

In this special seminar, Premier Tang will address the internal conflicts and external challenges that Taiwan has faced since power transition in 2000.

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Tang Fei Former Premier of Republic of China on Taiwan Speaker
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Chih-Kung Liu

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Corporate Affiliate Visiting Fellow
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C. K. Liu was a corporate affiliate visiting fellow at Shorenstein APARC for 2006-2007 (June - December 2006). He received his Ph.D. degree in political science at National Chengchi University. He has served in Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs for 20 years and has been posted in Pretoria (South Africa), Washington, D. C. and Boston (twice). His last position was Director General of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Boston.

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