Stanford University

International Relations

FSI researchers strive to understand how countries relate to one another, and what policies are needed to achieve global stability and prosperity. International relations experts focus on the challenging U.S.-Russian relationship, the alliance between the U.S. and Japan and the limitations of America’s counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan.

Foreign aid is also examined by scholars trying to understand whether money earmarked for health improvements reaches those who need it most. And FSI’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center has published on the need for strong South Korean leadership in dealing with its northern neighbor.

FSI researchers also look at the citizens who drive international relations, studying the effects of migration and how borders shape people’s lives. Meanwhile FSI students are very much involved in this area, working with the United Nations in Ethiopia to rethink refugee communities.

Trade is also a key component of international relations, with FSI approaching the topic from a slew of angles and states. The economy of trade is rife for study, with an APARC event on the implications of more open trade policies in Japan, and FSI researchers making sense of who would benefit from a free trade zone between the European Union and the United States.

U.S.-China summit in California

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Barack Obama and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met in California recently for a two-day summit -- their first since Xi took office as president. Shorenstein APARC experts weigh in on key issues surrounding the visit.
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A Chinese pavilion at Sunnylands, the estate where President Barack Obama will meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
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How would China remake the global order?

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China’s impressive economic growth over the last three decades and increasing political influence and military capabilities have caused people around the world to wonder or worry about how China will use its new-found power. More specifically, they wonder whether, and how, China might attempt to transform the international system that has enabled it to become the world’s second largest economy and potential contender for global leadership.

Thomas Fingar, the Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, addressed these and related questions during the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center’s annual Oksenberg Lecture on May 22. 

After describing how China has benefitted from participation in the liberal order led and maintained by the United States, Fingar argued that China has neither the will nor the ability to lead or transform the existing system, and that its continued “rise” will increase its stake in the system and make it even less willing to seek changes that could jeopardize its own success. He also suggested that other nations benefitting from the existing order would constrain China from attempting radical change even if it wanted to.

Following Fingar’s remarks, Jia Qingguo, associate dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University, said it is important to recognize that China is in the midst of a major transition. It is both a developed and a developing country, he said.

Thomas Christensen, director of Princeton University’s China and the World Program, added that due to China’s weight in the world, it will be called on more and more to collaborate on critical global issues, such as climate change and disease.

Fingar’s keynote remarks drew on “China's Vision of World Order,” a chapter published in Strategic Asia 2012–13: China's Military Challenge (National Bureau for Asian Research), as well as Shorenstein APARC’s research initiative on China’s interactions with its neighbors.

Since 2002, Shorenstein APARC has held the Oksenberg Lecture Series as a tribute to the legacy of Michel Oksenberg, a pioneer in the field of Chinese politics and an important force in shaping American attitudes toward China.

An audio podcast of the May 22 event is available on the Shorenstein APARC website.

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"One World, One Dream" opening ceremony presentation at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China.
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2nd Annual Korean Studies Program Prize for Writing in Korean Studies

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The Korean Studies Program Prize for Writing in Korean Studies recognizes and rewards outstanding examples of writing in an essay, term paper, or thesis produced during the current academic year in any discipline within the area of Korean Studies, broadly defined. This competition is open to both undergraduate and graduate students. The prize will be awarded at a special ceremony in the spring, and the winning essays will be published in the Stanford Journal of East Asian Affairs. The first place winner will receive a certificate, a copy of the Stanford Journal of East Asian Affairs, and $1,000; Honorable mention winner(s) will receive a certificate and a copy of the Stanford Journal of East Asian Affairs.

Application Deadline: May 15, 2013

Eligible Students: All currently-enrolled Stanford students

Application Instructions:

Submit the following items by email to John Groschwitz, CEAS Associate Director:

  • Current CV
  • One Korean Sudies paper/essay (minimum 20 pages double-spaced, Times 12pt., 1″ margins)
  • One recommendation letter from a Stanford professor (emailed by the professor directly to CEAS)
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The colorful eaves of a pagoda at Tagpol Park in Seoul.
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Asian Way of Disruption: Samsung and Psy

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From his journalistic point of view, Jaekwon Son will discuss competitiveness and weaknesses of Samsung and Psy that have recently made top news stories.

Son is a 2012-2013 visiting scholar with the Korean Studies Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. Son, a reporter at the Maeil Business Newspaper in Korea, conducts research on the impact of new media journalism, such as social networking through smart devices. He has co-authored several books including The Appstore Economics (2010), Mobile Changes the World (2010), and The Naver Republic (2007). He has been awarded Jounalist of the Month from the Korea Jounalist Association (2012) and Jounalist of the Year from the Hanvit Culture Foundation (2008).

Son holds a BA in classical Chinese from Korea University.

 

Philippines Conference Room

Jaekwon Son 2012-2013 Visiting Scholar, the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center Speaker
Conferences

Great Games: Chinese Relations with South and Central Asia

China and the World

This multiyear project, coordinated by Thomas Fingar, Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow, at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, looks sequentially and systematically at China’s interactions with countries in all regions and across many issue areas. The project seeks to clarify China’s objectives and policies to achieve them, but it also seeks to identify and explain the goals and policy calculations of other countries that see opportunities and perils associated with China’s greater activism on the world stage.

Phase one of the project examined China’s engagement with Japan, the Republic of Korea (ROK), and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Scholars and foreign policy practitioners from China, Japan, the ROK, Russia, and the United Stated discussed these questions at a two-day workshop in Beijing in March 2012. Participants from several Southeast Asian countries also attended the workshop to ensure that questions explored were broad enough to facilitate comparisons and the search for patterns and learning across issues and areas at the follow-on regional workshop held in Singapore in November 2012.

The Singapore workshop, phase 2, discussed China's objectives and policies with respect to Southeast Asia, but focused primarily on the ways in which China's approach and actions are perceived by individual countries in the region and what regional countries seek to achieve with respect to China. Implicit in some of the presentations was the notion that China was trying to restore its traditional primacy in the region and to prevent any country inside or outside of Southeast Asia from exercising greater regional influence. Other participants emphasized material goals, including access to resources, markets for Chinese goods, and fostering economic dependence on China. Participants agreed that China's influence and impact are large and growing, and that states in the region are pursuing different strategies to advance their own interests and maximize their own freedom of action.

The third workshop, to be held at Stanford University on June 20-21, 2013, will examine China’s relationship with South and Central Asia. While there is a focus on the bilateral relationship between China and India, the largest and most powerful regional actor, the conference will also look at other key bilateral relationships, such as with Pakistan, and at interactions on a regional level, including in the economic sphere. The workshop will explore the management of cross border issues such as migration flows, water, and energy resource development. The sessions on Central Asia will offer broader understanding of China’s intersection with other powers such as Russia and India in that region.

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Bechtel Conference Center

Conferences

War as Business in South Korea’s Manchurian Action Films

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South Korea's Manchurian action films have recently received critical interest for the genre’s unique configuration of such themes as colonial history, nationalism, masculinity, geography and generic hybridity.  This presentation revisits the genre with a different thematic focus and question: the political economy of anti-colonial nationalism.  More specifically, it brings attention to the logic of money inherent in the genre and explores the broad implications of this thematic convention.  Contrary to the genre’s lofty political agenda, Manchurian action films collectively render the unsettling and scandalous trappings of anti-colonial nationalism of South Korea. 

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An Jinsoo Assistant Professor, Korean Studies, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, University of California at Berkeley Speaker
Lectures

The Tenth Korea-U.S. West Coast Strategic Forum

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In this tenth session of the Strategic Forum, former senior American and South Korean government officials and other leading experts will discuss current developments in the Korean Peninsula and North Korea policy, the future of the U.S.-South Korean alliance, and a strategic vision for Northeast Asia. The session is hosted by the Korean Studies Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, in association with the Sejong Institute, a top South Korean think tank.

 

PARTICIPANTS

Republic of Korea:

Taeho Bark, Graduate School of International Studies, Seoul National University; Ambassador-at-Large for International Economy and Trade; former Trade Minister

Cholho Chong, Research Fellow, the Sejong Institute; Brig. Gen (retired); Professor, Sookmyung University; former commander, Air University, ROK Air Force

Young Sun Ha, Chairman, Board of Trustees, East Asia Institute; Professor (retired), International Relations, Seoul National University

Sang Woo Rhee, President, the New Asia Research Center; former chancellor, Hallym University

Yoon-joe Shim, Member of the National Assembly, Saenuri Party

Daesung Song, President, the Sejong Institute

Myung Hwan Yu, Chairman, Board of Trustees, Sejong University; former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade

United States:

Bruce W. Bennett, Senior Defense Analyst, RAND

Karl Eikenberry, William J. Perry Fellow in International Security, and Shorenstein APARC Distinguished Fellow, Stanford University; former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan

Thomas Fingar, Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow, Stanford University; former chairman of the National Intelligence Council

T.J. Pempel, Professor, Political Science, University of California, Berkeley

Gi-Wook Shin, Professor, Sociology; Director, APARC, Stanford University

Daniel C. Sneider, Associate Director of Research, APARC, Stanford University

David Straub, Associate Director, Korean Studies Program, APARC, Stanford University

Katharina Zellweger, 2012-2013 Pantech Fellow, Korean Studies Program, APARC, Stanford University; former North Korea country director for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)

 

Bechtel Conference Center

Workshops
Korea-U.S. West Coast Strategic Forum

Where Is China Headed?

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** We are currently experiencing some problems with our online RSVP system.  If you have any difficulty registering for this event, please send an email directly to the organizer, Meiko Kotani, via email meiko@stanford.edu. Thank you for your cooperation.  **

 

China has surpassed Japan to become the second largest economy in the world, and is able to strongly impact the global economy, politics and society.  But can China sustain and maintain relatively high economy growth in the future?  Can China surpass the United States to become the largest economy in the world?  Will the "China Growth Model" change?  These questions are now of great concern to the world.  Being a member of the management team of China's leading investment bank for ten years, Tatsuhito Tokuchi will speak on these themes from his China insider point of view.  He will also touch upon the future prospect of the China-Japan relationship and Chinese foreign diplomatic policy, which are the questions that people in neighboring countries are very much concerend about. 


Tatsuhito (Ted) Tokuchi is a Managing Director of CITIC Securities, the largest investment banking in China, and Chairman of CITIC Securities International, a subsidiary of CITICS in Hong Kong.  He is known as an only executive of a native of Japan for large indigenous Chinese companies.  Tokuchi was born in Tokyo in 1952.  In 1964, he went to Beijing with his parents, and there he spent thirteen years of his youth.  Tokuchi joined Daiwa Securities Comapny in 1980 in Japan, and during his twenty-year career at Daiwa, he engaged in investment banking and management of teams in Tokyo, New York, Hong Kong, Singapore and Beijing.  In 2002, he joined CITIC Securities Company as a head of the investment banking division.  Tokuchi received a B.A. in Chinese Literature from Beijing University in 1976, and an M.A. in East Asian Studies from Stanford University in 1985.

Philippines Conference Room

Tatsuhito Tokuchi Managing Director of CITIC Securities in China, Chairman of CITIC Securities International in Hong Kong Speaker
Seminars
Japan Colloquium Series
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