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.  

Between 2008 and 2009, approximately 25 new private engineering colleges opened in India every week—adding 2500 schools in only two years. Engineering education is also on the rise in the other so-called BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, and China). But does quantity guarantee quality? And what should government policymakers keep in mind to ensure that their higher education investments pay off?

Rafiq Dossani, a senior research scholar at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, recently collaborated with Stanford professor of education Martin Carnoy and a team of scholars in Russia, China, and India on a leading-edge comparative study of higher education systems in BRIC countries. Carnoy led the project, which focused on engineering education, and he, Dossani, and other researchers are currently writing a book coming out in 2012. Dossani speaks here about the project.

 

What is unique to the approach that you have taken with this study compared to anything similar previously conducted?

This is the first systematic study based on a large data collection. Over 7,000 students were surveyed in China and India respectively, and 2,300 students were surveyed in Russia. Brazil regularly collects detailed data on a very large nationwide sample of university students, and we have used this in our study. We also surveyed over 100 educational institutions, including several dozen face-to-face interviews with trustees, heads of institutions, heads of departments, faculty, administrators, and students.

We focus on engineering education in our study because it is the field that attracts the largest number of students. For example, in China, about 63% of students in 2009, or about 1.8 million students, entered through the science track, which is the route to an engineering degree. In India, 1.4 million freshmen engineering students were enrolled in 2011, which is over 40% of the total number of freshmen.

In our study, we ask how governance and finance affect outcomes in higher education. Every country’s educational system shares certain objectives: quality, access, and equity. What has not been studied for the BRIC countries is whether the governance and finance of higher education is consistent with some of these objectives but not others, and how this impacts the shape and effectiveness of the higher education system. The choice of governance and finance are themselves outcomes of the institutional settings in each country. For example, in India, the dramatic transfer of political power in the last two decades from the national government to the provinces has been the key driver of change.

As a result of this shift in political power, the states took charge of higher education and focused on increasing access and equity as their political goals. Given the extreme shortage of funds, they contracted out the actual provision of education to the private sector on attractive terms. The private sector responded briskly. Of the 1.4 million freshmen enrollees in engineering studies in 2011, 98% were enrolled in private institutions, compared with less than 5% in 1990. The rate of growth was so high that in just two years, 2008 and 2009, 2500 new engineering colleges opened their doors. That works out to about five new colleges for each working day!

There were upsides and downsides to this growth. On the positive side, the state offered attractive financial terms for new institutions located in underprivileged areas and mandated that about 50% of seats be reserved for underprivileged students (mostly identified by caste). It also kept tuition fees for the reserved seats very low at about $500 per student per year and allowed the colleges to recover costs and margins by charging a higher fee for the rest. The result was that growth has been geographically spread and access by underprivileged students is high—in our study, 55% of the students came from underprivileged categories.

The downside is that quality remains elusive. Although this does not show up in job placement rates due to pent-up demand, comparisons with the other BRIC countries suggest that the quality is low. The reason is that private providers, for the moment, find it more profitable to provide minimal infrastructure and employ inadequate faculty than to invest in building up quality for the long-term. In fact, given that the investment in long-term quality is likely to be unaffordable, one of our conclusions is that we question the sustainability of the Indian governance and finance model vis-à-vis the other countries in our study, particularly China, where the central government is taking an activist approach in trying to increase quality, at least in the elite universities.

How do your findings in India’s higher education system for engineering compare to the other BRIC countries, especially China as the study’s other Asian country?

In terms of sheer growth and the number of engineering freshmen, China exceeds India. The cost of education is lower in India. In terms of quality, China, Brazil, and Russia, do better. Part of the reason is a superior entering cohort in the case of China and Russia. But the main reason appears to be that governance in the other BRIC countries is more faculty-driven than driven by profit-oriented trustees. We found that the former model is more likely to deliver quality. In the case of China, for example, academic departments determine courses, course content, and the types of disciplines available, whereas in India, trustees make such choices, with poorer quality outcomes.

You have previously said that India’s higher education system is very politicized—how did it come to be this way?

The politicization began at the country’s independence in 1947. Prior to independence, higher education was managed by provinces to produce graduates from the upper classes who would join the colonial civil service. After independence, the state governments faced new demands for higher education from the middle classes. Since these were also important voting classes, the state responded by setting up a large number of public universities. The state controlled all aspects of the university to ensure that their priorities were met, in terms of location, fees, and personnel hired. For example, the state government was represented in the senate of every university and public college. Every senior-level hire needed to be approved by the state government. State government nominees on the senate also reviewed textbook selections and disciplinary choices.

As may be imagined, educational quality suffered and continues to do so in the public colleges. In the mid-1990s, the states faced demands from new voter categories, particularly lower-caste groups. These were earlier excluded from political power but acquired power in the federalization of politics that took place from 1990 onwards. This time around, though, the states decided to subcontract the work to the private sector rather than set up public colleges. This was largely a matter of cost management—the state thought that the private sector would respond to the incentive of providing technical education to those willing to pay full-cost, and invest the needed capital. This would free up the state’s capital for other demands, including for education, such as for primary and secondary education. To ensure that the lower-caste groups were part of the expansion, the state mandated quotas and subsidized fees. In the name of preserving quality—although, in fact, it preserves quality only at low levels—the state continued to exercise other controls. For example, it imposes common curricula and assessment, and, in most cases, certifies a private college only if it is part of a publicly owned university system.

The state’s policies also led to a shift in the profile of the graduates towards technical and professional education, since these were the fields in which the private sector was willing to establish new institutions. This was greatly stimulated by rising income payoffs to higher education engineering and business training. Private colleges account for 60% of the growth in educational provision between 1995 and 2011, and almost all of that growth is in engineering, management, and other professional fields. The value of this is debatable: it reflects the “market” but, deprived of state support, some fields that may be considered to be socially valuable, such as the liberal arts, are in steep decline.

Has the state of higher education in BRIC countries, such as India, led students to seek education opportunities abroad?

In China and India, these are important reasons for student migration to the West. For example, 500,000 students enroll as freshmen overseas from India alone every year. They come mostly from elite families, since the costs of an overseas education are very high.

What long-term policy changes are you hoping to influence through this study and your forthcoming book?

First, we show that the evolution of higher education in the BRICs can be explained by the role of the state (the government sector) and the policy choices it makes in governance and finance.

Second, we show that private provision can substitute for public provision, but with certain disadvantages in terms of quality and educational diversity. In this context, we show that state policy can still influence some outcomes positively, such as access, equity, and cost-control. However, the long-term implications for quality are much more negative through such a model. 

Third, we show that the provincial governance of education offers certain advantages and disadvantages over national regulation. This is a hotly debated topic in China and India. In India, the national regulators seek greater control out of concern about the implications of too politicized an environment created by the states and the poor quality emerging from private colleges. However, we argue that there may be downsides to centralized control, as was witnessed in an earlier period (during the tenure of Indira Gandhi).

Finally, we make the case that the current ”trend” among governments in developing countries of focusing on the creation of a few world-class universities can succeed in the limited sense of creating a few high-quality teaching and research institutions. However, it comes at a very high cost and in no sense guarantees a trickle-down of quality to the remaining institutions. This is particularly the case in the current model in China and Russia, where the emphasis on world-class universities is greatest and these high-cost elite institutions are given increasing funding per student. At the same time, mass universities absorb increasing numbers of students at low and possibly declining per-student funding.

Two Stanford graduates with close ties to FSI’s centers have been named 2012 Rhodes Scholars. A third was selected as a Mitchell Scholar.

Anand Habib was a graduate of the 2011 CISAC honors program in international security studies and a 2010 Dachs undergraduate intern. Habib and Katherine Niehaus – who is now a research assistant for a CHP/PCOR project evaluating whether HIV medication increases the risk of cardiovascular disease – will study at the University of Oxford in England under the Rhodes program. 

Philippe de Koning, who will study in Ireland as a Mitchell fellow, wrote a manuscript about Japan’s defense and financial crisis with Shorenstein APARC faculty member Phillip Lipscy. Lipscy, a political scientist, was de Koning’s advisor through his undergraduate career and also advised him on his senior thesis. De Koning was also a 2010 CISAC honors student.

More about the scholars:

Anand R. Habib, 22, of Houston, Texas, is a 2011 graduate of Stanford, where he earned a bachelor's degree in biology, with honors in international security studies. He plans to pursue a master's degree in public policy and in medical anthropology at Oxford.

Habib is working on community health programs at St. Joseph's Clinic in Thomassique, Haiti, under a one-year global health fellowship awarded by Medical Missionaries. The nonprofit organization is a volunteer group of more than 200 doctors, nurses, dentists, and others who work to improve the health of the poor in the United States and throughout the world.

In 2011, he won a Deans' Award for Academic Accomplishment, which honors extraordinary undergraduate students for "exceptional, tangible" intellectual achievements. One of the professors who nominated him for the award described him as a "superb critical thinker" whose work is characterized by "creative genius" and "mature insights," adding that he "exemplifies exactly the kind of deeply informed, pragmatic and caring leadership that the world needs and Stanford enables."

As a Stanford student, Habib worked on behalf of politically and medically disenfranchised people in India, Mexico and Guatemala. His field research internship in Guatemala’s indigenous region during summer 2010 was carried out under the supervision of Paul Wise, professor of pediatrics and FSI senior fellow, as part of FSI’s Dachs mentored undergraduate research program.  On campus, he turned the Stanford tradition of the annual Dance Marathon into a vehicle dedicated to addressing the HIV/AIDS pandemic by engaging not only Stanford students but also local communities and corporations, raising more than $100,000. His exceptional work was recognized by his participation in the Clinton Global Initiative University Conference in April, 2011.

Katherine "Kate" Niehaus, 23, of Columbia, S.C., earned a bachelor's degree in biomechanical engineering in 2010 and a master's degree in bioengineering in 2011 – both at  Stanford. Her class and research work focused on biomechanics and her interests lie in its applications to high technology entrepreneurship.

She plans to pursue a doctorate of philosophy in systems approaches to biomedical science at Oxford.

At Stanford, Niehaus captained Stanford's varsity track and cross country teams, won the Pac-10 5,000 meters, and won Academic-All American status. She also served as a mentor and tutor for students in low-income families.

Working with faculty in the Center for Health Policy, Kate led a project to evaluate how well newer HIV antiretroviral drugs work compared with older drugs.  Her work was among the first to evaluate comprehensively all of the trials of new drugs in treatment of experienced patients, and showed that these drugs have substantial benefits.

Philippe de Koning, 22, of Paris, France, earned a bachelor's degree in international relations at Stanford in 2010. He plans to pursue a master's degree in international security and conflict resolution at Dublin City University.

He is a Herbert Scoville Jr. Peace Fellow at the Nuclear Threat Initiative in Washington, D.C. The nongovernmental organization works to prevent nuclear, chemical, and biological threats from materializing. De Koning is researching nuclear materials security and the U.S.-China dialogue on nuclear issues.

De Koning, who earlier was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship, spent the 2010-2011 academic year at Hiroshima University in Japan. He examined various components of Japanese security policy, with emphasis on current evolution of Japanese Self-Defense Forces, policies on nuclear issues and approaches toward peacekeeping.

In 2009, he was a member of the Stanford delegation to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.

1. Eight U.S. presidents have said that the United States wants China to be strong, secure, and prosperous. Do you share that objective and what consequences, positive and negative, has China’s rise had for the United States?

2. What is the best way for the United States to respond to the rise of China, India, Brazil, and other large and rapidly growing countries?

3. Do you consider China a partner or an adversary of the United States -- and what should U.S. policy toward China seek to accomplish?

4. Given the importance of defense industry jobs, especially in Republican-leaning states, is it politically necessary for the U.S. to have an enemy to justify a U.S. military budget larger than the total military budgets of most other nations, many of which are allies of the United States. In other words, do we “need” to depict China as an adversary?

5. Robert Zoelleck, when he was deputy secretary of state, urged China to become a "responsible stakeholder" in the international system.  What did he mean by that and, in your opinion, is China a responsible participant in the international system

As the new academic year gets underway, the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center’s (Shorenstein APARC) Corporate Affiliates Program is excited to welcome its new class of fellows to Stanford University:

• Minoru Aosaki, Ministry of Finance, Japan
• Kazuma Fukai, Kansai Electric Power Company, Japan
• Katsunori Hirano, Shizuoka Prefectural Government, Japan
• Young Muk Jeon, Samsung Life Insurance, Republic of Korea
• Yasunori Kakemizu, Sumitomo Corporation, Japan
• Yuji Kamimai, Sumitomo Corporation, Japan
• Hideaki Koda, Mitsubishi Electric, Japan
• Jong Jin Lee, Samsung Electronics, Republic of Korea
• Masami Miyashita, Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry, Japan
• Prashant Pandya, Reliance Life Sciences, India
• Ramnath Ramanathan, Reliance Life Sciences, India
• Yoshimasa Waseda, Japan Patent Office, Japan

Corporate Affiliates Fellows are already busy auditing classes, strengthening their English skills, and beginning to conduct individual research projects. In consultation with a noted Shorenstein APARC scholar or subject expert, each fellow will refine and present their research at a public seminar in May.

Fellows will take part in other special Corporate Affiliates Program seminars and Shorenstein APARC conferences and events, affording them the opportunity to interact with faculty and students from across the Stanford community. Throughout the year, they will also gain firsthand insight into American business, everyday life, and culture by visiting numerous companies and public institutions in the San Francisco Bay Area, including: Facebook, the Palo Alto Police Department, San Francisco City Hall, and many others.

Visit the Corporate Affiliates website during the coming year for interviews with current and alumni Fellows and descriptions of various site visits.

STANFORD, Calif.—Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) is pleased to announce China’s Caixin Media as the recipient of the 2011 Shorenstein Journalism Award. Caixin was selected for its commitment to integrity in journalism, and for its path-breaking role as a leader in establishing an independent media in China.

The Shorenstein Journalism Award was launched in 2002 to recognize the contributions of Western journalists in deepening our understanding of Asia. In 2011, the recipients of the award have been broadened to encompass Asian journalists who are at the forefront of the battle for press freedom in Asia and who have played a key role in constructing a new role for the media, including the growth of social media and Internet-based journalism. The award will also identify those Asian journalists who, from that side of the Pacific Ocean, have aided the growth of mutual understanding between Asia and the United States.

Asia has served as a crucible for the role of the press in democratization in places such as South Korea, Taiwan, India, Pakistan, and Indonesia. It has also figured greatly in the emergence of social media and citizen journalism. New tests of the role of the media are emerging in China, Vietnam, and other authoritarian societies in Asia. The Shorenstein Journalism Award aims to encourage the understanding of key issues facing the media in Asia, among them whether the Internet will be a catalyst for change or an instrument of authoritarian control.

The decision to name Caixin Media as the first recipient of this award in Asia is a recognition of the leadership role of a group of young journalists, led by a visionary editor, since their founding of Caijing magazine in 1998. The core group moved on in November 2009 to found Caixin Media in an effort to preserve their independence in a media environment dominated by the state in China. The company is based in Beijing and is guided by an independent advisory board of noted Chinese and foreign intellectuals and academics. The Caixin team has achieved renown for its coverage of the profound economic and social changes taking place in China and its willingness to dig into the darker corners of that change. In recent months, Caixin has probed into the errors that led to the crash of a high-speed train in China, and investigated the seizure and sale of children by family planning officials in Hunan province.

Hailed by the Economist as “one of China’s more outspoken media organizations,” Caixin is internationally recognized for its tough-minded investigative reporting. In 2011, Caixin editor-in-chief Hu Shuli was named one of Time Magazine’s Top 100 Influential People, and managing editor Wang Shuo was ranked among China’s top 10 young editors.

Caixin publishes several leading print and online publications, including the weekly business and finance magazine Caixin Century, the monthly periodical China Reform, the bimonthly journal Comparative Studies, and the English-language Caixin Weekly: China Economics and Finance. Caixin’s numerous other offerings include a Chinese- and English-language news portal Caixin.cn, a publication series, video programming, an international journalism fellowship program, and extensive use of social media.

On December 7, Hu and Wang will visit Stanford to accept the Shorenstein Journalism Award. They will participate in a daytime public panel discussion on the future of China’s independent media, joining acclaimed China historian and former Pulitzer Prize jury member Orville Schell, Shorenstein APARC associate director for research Daniel C. Sneider, and other noted Asia specialists. That evening, Hu and Wang will receive a cash prize of $10,000 during a dinner and award ceremony.

Hu’s distinguished career spans both print and broadcast journalism. She is a former Stanford Knight Journalism Fellow (1994), and, in addition to her role as Caixin’s editor-in-chief, currently serves as dean of the School of Communications and Design at Sun Yat-sen University. A recipient of the 2007 Louis Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism, Hu is frequently named on annual Who’s Who lists by publications such as Foreign Policy.

Wang is a former international editor for People’s Daily, a Chinese government-run newspaper published nationally. Recognized as one of the brightest rising stars in his field, Wang was named as a Young Leader in 2007 and 2008 by the Boao Forum for Asia, and as a media leader by the World Economic Forum. He has led the investigative journalism teams at Caixin.

About the Award

Established in 2002, the Shorenstein Journalism Award carries a cash prize of $10,000 and honors a journalist not only for a distinguished body of work, but also for the particular way that work has helped American readers to understand the complexities of Asia. The award was named after Walter H. Shorenstein, the philanthropist, activist, and businessman who endowed two institutions that are focused respectively on Asia and on the press: Shorenstein APARC in the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University, and the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

The award was originally designed to honor distinguished American journalists for their work on Asia, including veteran correspondents for leading American media such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, Newsweek, NBC News, PBS, and the Wall Street Journal. Past recipients include Stanley Karnow, Orville Schell, Don Oberdorfer, Nayan Chanda, Melinda Liu, John Pomfret, Ian Buruma, Seth Mydans, and Barbara Crossette.

Shorenstein APARC believes that it is vital to continue the Shorenstein Journalism Award, not only to honor the legacy of Walter H. Shorenstein and his twin passions for Asia and the press, but also to promote the necessity of a free and vibrant media for the future of relations between Asia and the United States. Moreover, as we have seen recently in the Middle East, a free press, not only in its traditional forms of print and broadcast but now also via the Internet and new avenues of social media, remains the essential catalyst for the growth of democratic freedom. The award is given annually based on the deliberations and decision of a distinguished jury whose members include:

Ian Buruma, the Henry R. Luce Professor of Democracy, Human Rights, and Journalism at Bard College, is a noted Asia expert who frequently contributes to publications including the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, and the New Yorker. He is a recipient of the Shorenstein Journalism Award and the international Erasmus Prize (both in 2008). 

Nayan Chanda, director of publications at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, served for nearly 30 years as editor, editor-at-large, and correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review. He was honored with the Shorenstein Journalism Award in 2005.

Susan Chira, assistant managing editor for news and former foreign editor of the New York Times, has extensive Asia experience, including serving as Japan correspondent for the Times in the 1980s. During her long tenure as foreign editor, the Times twice won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting (2009 and 2007).

Donald K. Emmerson, a well-respected Indonesia scholar, serves as director of Shorenstein APARC’s Southeast Asia Forum and as a research fellow for the prestigious National Asia Research Program (NARP). Frequently cited in the international media, Emmerson also contributes op-eds to leading publications such as the Asia Times.

Orville Schell is the Arthur Ross Director at the Asia Society Center on U.S.-China Relations, and is also a former jury member for the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. He has written extensively on China, and was awarded the 1997 George Peabody Award for producing the groundbreaking documentary the Gate of Heavenly Peace. He received the Shorenstein Journalism Award in 2003.

Daniel C. Sneider serves as the associate director for research at Shorenstein APARC and also as a NARP research associate. He frequently contributes articles to publications such as Foreign Policy, Asia Policy, and Slate and had three decades of experience as a foreign correspondent and editor for publications including the Christian Science Monitor and the San Jose Mercury News.