Reflecting on Shorenstein APARC's successful past and bright future
Thirty years ago, I crossed the Pacific for the first time, traveling from Seoul to attend graduate school in Seattle. Meanwhile, down the coast at Stanford, a visionary group of faculty was laying the bedrock of a unique organization committed to promoting strong U.S.-Asia relations through research on timely, policy-relevant issues.
Early research initiatives looked at themes like Northeast Asia regional security and the development of the high-tech industry in Asia and the United States. From the very beginning of Asia’s transformation and through the twilight of the Cold War era, such projects brought together leading scholars from Asia and Stanford, and high-level U.S. and Asian policymakers, for fruitful collaboration and dialogue.
Twenty years later, in September 2005, I became director of the newly endowed Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC), a thriving organization poised for even greater growth. I gratefully acknowledge the support of Mr. Shorenstein and our many generous donors, as well as the three decades of work by dedicated faculty, researchers, staff, and, not least of all, the five visionary directors who served before me.
Asia has grown over the past three decades into a key global region, and at no other time in history have there been such significant ties between the United States and Asia. Although we have expanded the scope of our regional expertise and research, we stay true to our Center’s original mission.
Today, Shorenstein APARC boasts five flourishing research programs: the Asia Health Policy Program, Japan Studies Program, Korean Studies Program, Southeast Asia Forum, and Stanford China Program. We have brought hundreds of visiting scholars, practitioners, and fellows to the Center over the years, and have established a strong and ever-growing alumni network in Asia through our Corporate Affiliates Program. I remain grateful and honored to serve this wonderful research institution.
As we celebrate our thirtieth anniversary this May, we honor a vision turned into successful reality, and head toward a bright future of possibilities for continuing our work to foster lasting, cooperative relations with the countries of the Asia-Pacific region.
Gi-Wook Shin
Director, Shorenstein APARC
Shooting Without Guns: The Photography of the Great Tokyo Air Raid, Public Memory, and the Optics of Ruination
World War II yielded many photographs of bombed-out cities. In this talk I telescope between two sets and scales of images that represent the principal frames through which the American and Japanese publics have memorialized the incendiary bombings that laid waste to Tokyo: aerial photographs taken by the US Army Air Force during its wartime planning, prosecution, and assessment of the raids; and the ground-level images captured by Ishikawa Kōyō, a photographer working on behalf of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police. By means of a detailed examination of the production, circulation, and consumption of these photographs -- what some scholars have called an “archaeological approach” to images of ruination -- this talk explores not only the visual rhetoric and reality of the destruction of Japan's cities, but also how that destruction is situated in history, memory, and visual culture.
David Fedman is the co-author of “A Cartographic Fade to Black: Mapping the Destruction of Urban Japan during World War II” (Journal of Historical Geography, Vol. 38, No.3) and an affiliate of japanairraids.org, a bilingual digital archive dedicated to the international dissemination of information about the air raids.
Philippines Conference Room
How real is the possibility of a North Korea conflict?
If China Could Re-make the Global Order, What Would it Look Like?
China’s “rise” has been achieved through participation in the international system led by the United States, but many predict that Beijing will attempt to replace the US-led global order with one shaped by its own vision and priorities. The 2013 Oksenberg Lecture will examine China’s desire and ability to remake the global order by focusing on what it would like to retain and what it would like to change. Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow Thomas Fingar will give the keynote address, and Professors Thomas Christensen (Princeton) and Jia Qingguo (Peking University) will provide commentary and their own views on the subject.
The Oksenberg Lecture, held annually, honors the legacy of Professor Michel Oksenberg (1938-2001). A senior fellow at Shorenstein APARC and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Professor Oksenberg served as a key member of the National Security Council when the United States normalized relations with China, and consistently urged that the United States engage with Asia in a more considered manner. In tribute, the Oksenberg Lecture recognizes distinguished individuals who have helped to advance understanding between the United States and the nations of the Asia-Pacific.
SPEAKERS
Thomas Fingar is the inaugural Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. From May 2005 through December 2008, he served as the first deputy director of national intelligence for analysis and, concurrently, as chairman of the National Intelligence Council. He served previously as assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (2004–2005), principal deputy assistant secretary (2001–2003), deputy assistant secretary for analysis (1994–2000), director of the Office of Analysis for East Asia and the Pacific (1989–1994), and chief of the China Division (1986–1989). Fingar is a graduate of Cornell University (AB in government and history, 1968), and Stanford University (MA, 1969 and PhD, 1977 both in political science).
Thomas Christensen is William P. Boswell Professor of World Politics of Peace and War and Director of the China and the World Program at Princeton University. From 2006-2008 he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs with responsibility for relations with China, Taiwan, and Mongolia. His research and teaching focus on China’s foreign relations, the international relations of East Asia, and international security. Before arriving at Princeton in 2003, he taught at Cornell University and MIT. He received his B.A. from Haverford College, M.A. in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania, and Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University.
Jia Qingguo is Professor and Associate Dean of the School of International Studies of Peking University. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1988. He has taught in University of Vermont, Cornell University, University of California at San Diego, University of Sydney in Australia as well as Peking University. He was a research fellow at the Brookings Institution between 1985 and 1986, a visiting professor at the University of Vienna in 1997 and a CNAPS fellow at the Brookings Institution between 2001 and 2002. He is a member of Standing Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and a member of the Standing Committee of the Central Committee of the China Democratic League.
Bechtel Conference Center
Thirty Years Connecting Asia with Stanford University
Welcome to the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, a unique Stanford University institution focused on the interdisciplinary study of contemporary Asia.
A visionary group of Stanford scholars established the Center three decades ago to address the need for research on Asia that — rather than being siloed by discipline and by country — reached across departments, from sociology to engineering, and looked at Asia in a regional context. The Center’s work was imbued with the desire to promote cooperation rather than the distrust of the Cold War. We take great pride in our contribution to the growing understanding of Asia’s global significance, and to the improvement in U.S.-Asia relationships developing today.
The following pages provide a glimpse of how Shorenstein APARC has fulfilled its mission over the past thirty years, by producing outstanding interdisciplinary research; by educating students and the next generation of scholars; by promoting constructive interaction in the pursuit of influencing U.S. policy toward Asia-Pacific regions; and by contributing to how Asian nations understand issues key to regional cooperation and to their relations with the United States.
While we are proud of what we have achieved, it is only the beginning. Shorenstein APARC’s efforts are as dynamic as the rapid changes now taking place in Asia, and we look forward to many decades more of leading the way to deeper, more meaningful understanding and relations with this vital and vibrant world region.
- Welcome
- Shorenstein APARC Leadership, 1983–2013
- Director’s Message
- 1983–1989 Asia’s Emergence
- 1990–1996 Asia After the Cold War
- 1997–2005 Asian Financial Crisis / The War on Terror
- 2006–present China’s Rise / Crisis in Korea
- Research
- Events
- Outreach
- People
- Programs: AHPP / Corporate Affiliates / JSP / KSP / SCP / SEAF
- Publications
- Supporting Shorenstein APARC
- Photo credits
Paying for Performance to Improve Health in Rural China
Grant Miller will discuss the results of his SAPARC-funded research in rural China, supplementing a large NIH-funded project about pay-for-performance to improve health. The research was designed to test the effect of offering school principals small incentives for anemia reduction on the health and academic performance of primary school students – potentially leading to substantially more cost-effective health policies.
Grant Miller, PHD, MPP, is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Stanford School of Medicine, a Core Faculty Member at the Center for Health Policy/Primary Care and Outcomes Research, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). He is also a Faculty Fellow of the Stanford Center for International Development and a Faculty Affiliate of the Stanford Center for Latin American Studies. His primary areas of interest are health and development economics and economic demography.
Miller's current research focuses broadly on behavioral obstacles to health improvement in developing countries. One line of studies investigates household decision-making underlying puzzlingly low adoption rates of highly efficacious health technologies (like point-of-use drinking water disinfectants and improved cookstoves) in many poor countries. Another vein of research investigates misaligned macro- and micro-level incentives governing the supply of health technologies and services. He has conducted these and other research projects at institutions including the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Urban Institute, and the University of California-San Francisco's Institute for Health Policy Studies. He received a BA in psychology from Yale College, a master's degree in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and a PhD in health policy/economics also from Harvard.
Philippines Conference Room