Stanford University

Scholars Discuss Growing Evidence of China’s Interference in American Government and Society

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Noa Ronkin
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While Americans may be well acquainted with China’s quest for influence through the projection of power in the diplomatic, economic, and military spheres, they are less aware of the various ways in which Beijing has more recently been exerting cultural and informational influence. According to a new report, some of these ways challenge and even undermine our democratic processes, norms, and institutions.

With a growing realization that the ambition of Chinese influence operations requires far greater scrutiny than it has been getting, a group of American scholars and policy practitioners set out to document the extent of China’s influence-seeking activities in American society. The working group, co-chaired by Larry Diamond, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and at the Hoover Institution, and Orville Schell, Arthur Ross director of the Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations, just released its findings and recommendations in a report that has drawn much attention, “Chinese Influence and American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance.” On December 4, Diamond and Schell discussed the report’s findings and implications at a special roundtable organized by Shorenstein APARC’s U.S.-Asia Security Initiative (USASI).

Diamond and Schell described the report’s detailing of a range of assertive and opaque “sharp power” activities that China has stepped up within the United States in multiple sectors, including Congress, state and local government, universities, think tanks, media, corporations, technology and research, and the Chinese American community. These activities, they argue, penetrate deeply the social and political fabric of our democratic society and exploit its openness. Unlike legitimate “soft power” efforts within the realm of normal public diplomacy, they constitute improper interference that demands greater awareness and a calibrated response.

“The report was born out of a recognition that things have changed,” said Schell. “Our engagement with China has either failed or is teetering on the brink of failure. The report aims to put the question of our interaction and exchange with China within the context of policy.”

Diamond noted that “The question at least has to be asked whether there is a threat to U.S. national interests.” He emphasized that the members of the working group that produced the report seek a productive relationship between China and the United States. The report therefore advocates for perspective and framework that are built on three principles regarding U.S.-China relations: transparency, institutional integrity, and reciprocity.

Diamond and Schell were joined at the panel by Hwang Ji-Jen, a Taiwanese scholar in the Institute for East Asian Studies at the University of California - Berkeley, who helped situate the forms and effects of Chinese “sharp power” in the United States in comparison to its practice in and toward Taiwan. Karl Eikenberry, director of USASI, chaired the discussion.

The event was co-sponsored by the US-Asia Security Initiative in the Asia-Pacific Research Center, and FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.

Audio from the event is available for download or streaming:

 

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Larry Diamond, Orville Schell, and Karl Eikenberry speak to audience members during 12/4 panel on China's Sharp Power
(Left to right) Larry Diamond, Orville Schell, and Karl Eikenberry speak to audience members during 12/4 panel on China's Sharp Power | Noa Ronkin, APARC
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APARC Scholar on Taiwan's Local Elections

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The ruling Democratic Progressive Party suffered a large setback in Taiwan’s local elections on November 24, 2018, with voters delivering a sharp rebuke to President Tsai Ing-wen.

We curate here commentary and analysis on the election results from Kharis Templeman, Project Manager for the Taiwan Democracy and Security Project.

On November 30, Templeman spoke at a seminar about the election results. Read his commentary and related media coverage below:

 

Latest Commentaries:

11/28/18 - 2018 Taiwan Local Elections: What Happened? (Global Taiwan Institute)

11/23/2018 - Taiwanese Voters From Overseas Vote in Midterm Election and Referendums (Ketaglan Media)

11/23/2018 - The 2018 Local Elections – Five Questions for Election Night (Taiwan Insight)

11/20/2018 - Taiwan's independence rally draws thousands, irks China (Deutsche Welle)

 

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Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen (Center) and Vice President Chen Chien-jen (L) wave to the crowd on May 20, 2016 in Taipei, Taiwan.
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen (Center) and Vice President Chen Chien-jen (L) wave to the crowd on May 20, 2016 in Taipei, Taiwan. | Getty Images - Ashley Pon / Stringer
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2017-18 Shorenstein APARC Overview Available

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Shorenstein APARC's annual overview of the Center's 2017-18 activities  is now available to download. 

Feature sections look at the Center's seminars, conferences, and other activities in response to the North Korean crisis, research and events related to China's past, present, and future, and several Center research initiatives focused on technology and the changing workforce.

The overview highlights recent and ongoing Center research on Japan's economic policies, innovation in Asia, population aging and chronic disease in Asia, and talent flows in the knowledge economy, plus news about Shorenstein APARC's education and policy activities, publications, and more.

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2017 18 center overview full
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Ketian Zhang

616 Serra StreetEncina Hall E301Stanford, CA 94305-6055
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ketian_zhang.jpg Ph.D.

Ketian Vivian Zhang joined the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) as the 2018-2019 Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow in Contemporary Asia. Ketian studies coercion, economic sanctions, and maritime territorial disputes in international relations and social movements in comparative politics, with a regional focus on China and East Asia. She bridges the study of international relations and comparative politics and has a broader theoretical interest in linking international security and international political economy. Her book project examines when, why, and how China uses coercion when faced with issues of national security, such as territorial disputes in the South and East China Seas, foreign arms sales to Taiwan, and foreign leaders’ reception of the Dalai Lama. Ketian's research has been supported by organizations such as the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School, Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at George Washington University, the Smith Richardson Foundation, and the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation.

At Shorenstein APARC, Ketian worked on turning parts of her book project into academic journal papers while conducting fieldwork for her next major project: examining how target states of Chinese coercion respond to China's assertiveness, including the business community and ordinary citizens.

Ketian received her Ph.D. in Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2018, where she is also an affiliate of the Security Studies Program. Before coming to Stanford, Ketian was a Predoctoral Research Fellow in the International Security Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. Ketian holds a B.A. in Political Science and Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was previously a research intern at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., where she was a contributor to its website Foreign Policy in Focus.

2018-2019 Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow in Contemporary Asia

Taiwan’s National Security Strategy during a Time of Uncertainty

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With the looming great power competitions, Dr. Huang will discuss the concept of “free and open Indo-Pacific,” China’s rapid expansion of economic and military sphere of influence, and a critical examination of Xi Jinping’s “Chinese Dream” agenda from Taiwan’s perspectives. He will then inform and explain Taiwan’s current national security strategy, defense policy and the military modernization directions. Lastly, Dr. Huang will address current issues across the Taiwan Strait and the prospect of presidential elections in 2020.

SPEAKER:
Dr. Alexander C. Huang, Senior Associate (Non-resident), Freeman Chair in China Studies, Center for Strategic and International Studies

Alexander C. Huang

BIO:
Alexander Chieh-cheng Huang is a professor and has been director of the Institute of Strategic Studies and the Institute of American Studies at Tamkang University, Taiwan. He is also a senior associate at CSIS with the Freeman Chair in China Studies. Dr. Huang previously served in the Taiwan government as deputy minister of the Mainland Affairs Council and has worked closely with consecutive governments on foreign and security policy matters. He spent nearly 15 years in the United States before moving back to Taiwan in 2000. He was a senior fellow in the International Security Program at CSIS (1999–2000) and a visiting fellow in the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution (1998–1999). In addition, he taught Chinese foreign policy and U.S. security policy at the University of Maryland at College Park (1998–2000). Between 1993 and 1998, he was a senior consultant on political and security affairs for the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Washington, D.C. 

Dr. Huang received his master’s degree from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and his doctorate from the Department of Political Science at George Washington University. He specializes in Asian and Chinese foreign and security affairs and is a nationally syndicated columnist for the United Daily, the Journalist, and Want China News in Taiwan. He has also been frequently interviewed by local and international media on security, foreign, defense, and cross-strait affairs. As a leading specialist in war-gaming, Dr. Huang has designed and directed more than 30 senior-level interagency political-military war games for the Taiwan government.
Philippines Conference Room Encina Hall, 3rd Floor 616 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305
Alexander Huang <i>Senior Associate (Non-resident), Freeman Chair in China Studies, Center for Strategic and International Studies</i>

The 2018 Taiwanese Local Elections: Results and Implications

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On November 24, 2018, Taiwan's electorate will go to the polls to select thousands of ward chiefs, hundreds of council members, and dozens of mayors and county executives. This talk will cover the results of the election and discuss the implications for Taiwan's future, including party politics and cross-Strait relations.

Kharis Templeman
Kharis Templeman is the Project Manager of the Taiwan Democracy and Security Project in the U.S.-Asia Security Initiative, and a social science research scholar at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) at Stanford University. His current research includes projects on party system institutionalization and partisan realignments, electoral integrity and manipulation in East Asia, the politics of defense spending in Taiwan, and the representation of Taiwan’s indigenous minorities.
 
His most recent publication is “When Do Electoral Quotas Advance Indigenous Representation?: Evidence from the Taiwanese Legislature,” in Ethnopolitics. He is also the editor (with Larry Diamond and Yun-han Chu) of Taiwan’s Democracy Challenged: The Chen Shui-bian Years (2016, Lynne Rienner Publishing). Other work has appeared in the Taiwan Journal of Democracy, Comparative Political Studies and APSA Annals of Comparative Democratization.
 

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Encina Hall, 3rd Floor
616 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305

Kharis Templeman <i>Project Manager, Taiwan Democracy & Security Project, U.S.-Asia Security Initiative, Stanford University</i>
Lectures

The Taiwan Relations Act: Too Much or Too Little?

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The Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) was enacted by Congress on April 10, 1979, and has served as the formal basis for U.S.-Taiwan relations ever since. In this talk, Professor Goldstein will provide an assessment of the TRA’s influence on America’s foreign policy in Asia as we approach the 40th anniversary of its adoption.
 
SPEAKER:
Photograph of Steven M. Goldstein
Steven M. Goldstein was the Sophia Smith Professor of Government at Smith College from 1968 to 2016. He is now an Associate of the Fairbank Center and the director of the Taiwan Studies Workshop at Harvard University. He has been a visiting faculty member at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Columbia University and United States Naval War College. Goldstein's research interest has been largely related to issues of Chinese domestic and foreign policy. He has published studies of Sino-American relations; Sino-Soviet relations; and the emergence of a Chinese Communist view of world affairs. His current research focus is on the relations between the mainland and Taiwan as well as the evolution of U.S.-Taiwan relations.

Philippines Conference Room
Encina Hall, 3rd Floor
616 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305

Steven M. Goldstein <i>Director of the Taiwan Workshop at the Fairbank Center, Harvard University</i>
Lectures

From Within and Without: Taiwan’s New Security Challenges

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From Within and Without: Taiwan’s New Security Challenges

Since 2016, Beijing’s pressure campaign on Taiwan has threatened the island’s international space and domestic tranquility. Few, if any, areas of politics have gone untouched. Whether through attempts to pick off Taiwan’s diplomatic partners or lure away the island’s talent, the full range of PRC statecraft is on display. Taiwan’s political dynamics — especially the solidification of Taiwanese identity and collapse of the Kuomintang — also appear to have driven an aggressive shift in Beijing’s approach to political influence operations to include pressure on international companies. The shift in intensity and tactics raises important questions about Taiwan’s future and dealing with an increasingly powerful PRC.

Peter Matis
Peter Mattis is a Research Fellow in China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and a contributing editor at War on the Rocks. He was a Fellow in the China Program at The Jamestown Foundation, where he also served as editor of the foundation’s China Brief, a biweekly electronic journal on greater China, from 2011 to 2013. Mr. Mattis also worked as a counterintelligence analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency. He received his M.A. in Security Studies from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and earned B.A.s in Political Science and Asian Studies from the University of Washington in Seattle. Mr. Mattis’s analysis of China and intelligence has appeared in The National Interest, China Brief, Sydney Morning Herald, The Hill, Jane’s Intelligence Review, Taipei Times, the East-West Center’s Asia-Pacific Bulletin, The Diplomat, War on the Rocks, the Asia Society’s ChinaFile, Cipher Brief, the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, and Studies in Intelligence.  Mr. Mattis is the author of Analyzing the Chinese Military: A Review Essay and Resource Guide on the People’s Liberation Army (2015) and co-author of a forthcoming handbook on Chinese intelligence.

Peter Mattis <i>Research Fellow, China Studies, at Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation</i>
Lectures

Taiwan's Place in the Evolving Security Environment of East Asia

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In March 2018 the Taiwan Democracy and Security Project, a part of the U.S.-Asia Security Initiative at Stanford University’s Shorenstein Asia- Pacific Research Center, convened a workshop that examined Taiwan’s place in the evolving security environment of East Asia. Participants from the United States, Taiwan, and elsewhere in Asia were experts on a wide array of economic, diplomatic, and security topics. The discussions at the workshop were intended to place Taiwan’s security challenges in a broader regional context, to consider possible obstacles to and opportunities for greater multilateral cooperation on security issues, and to devise a set of recommendations for steps that Taiwan and its friends and partners could take to enhance regional security relationships.

This workshop report provides an executive summary, policy recommendations for both the United States and Taiwan, and a summary of workshop sessions.

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Kharis Templeman, Ph.D.

Assessing the Effectiveness of Alliance Responses to Regional and Global Threats

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From 31 January through 1 February 2018, Stanford University’s U.S.-Asia Security Initiative (USASI) and the Sasakawa Peace Foundation (SPF), gathered in Tokyo representatives from the government, defense, and academic sectors of the United States and Japan for the second workshop of the U.S.-Japan Security and Defense Dialogue Series. The purpose of the workshop was to facilitate frank discussions between academic scholars, subject matter experts, government officials, and military leaders on the current strategic and operational security challenges to the U.S.-Japan security alliance. The goal of the dialogue was to establish a common understanding of the problems facing the U.S.-Japan security alliance and to develop actionable policy recommendations aimed at addressing these issues.

This conference report provides an executive summary, policy recommendations, and a summary of the workshop sessions and findings. More information about USASI is available here.

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