Ambassador Sen was born on 9 April 1944. After graduating from college he joined the Indian Foreign Service in July 1966. From May 1968 to July 1984, Sen served in Indian missions and posts in Moscow, San Francisco, Dhaka and in the Ministry of External Affairs. He also served as secretary to the Atomic Energy Commission of India.

From July 1984 to December 1985, Sen served as the joint secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs. He was thereafter joint secretary to the prime minister of India from January 1986 to July 1991 where he was responsible for foreign affairs, defense, and science and technology.

Mr. Sen was ambassador to Mexico from September 1991 to August 1992; ambassador to the Russian Federation from October 1992 to October 1998; ambassador to Germany from October 1998 to May 2002; and high commissioner to the United Kingdom from May 2002 to April 2004. He assumed charge as ambassador of India to the United States of America in August 2004.

The Ambassador participated in summit meetings in the United Nations, Commonwealth, Non-Aligned Movement, Six Nation Five Continent Peace Initiative, South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, IAEA, G-15 and other forums and also in over 160 bilateral summit meetings. He had several assignments as special envoy of the prime minister of India for meetings with foreign government representatives and heads of state.

The Ambassador's visit is co-sponsored by the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Freeman Spogli Institute and the Stanford Center for International Development at Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.

China once again is in the midst of a major reshuffling of leadership. The upcoming 17th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party will form a new Politburo and its Standing Committee. While the current top leaders, including Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, will most likely remain in power for the next term, a new generation of leaders, known as the "Fifth Generation," is poised to emerge in the national leadership.

Candidates to succeed Hu, Wen and other top leaders will become known within a year. Dr. Li will present his analysis of who the front-runners of the Fifth Generation are, how the selection of the possible successors reflects the changing nature of Chinese elite politics, in what aspects this rising generation of leaders differs from their predecessors, and how these differences will change the way in which China will be governed.

Cheng Li is the William R. Kenan Professor of Government at Hamilton College in New York and a visiting fellow at the newly-established John L. Thornton China Center of the Brookings Institution in Washington DC.

Dr. Li grew up in Shanghai during the Cultural Revolution. In 1985, he came to the United States where he received an M.A. in Asian Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Princeton University. He is the author of Rediscovering China: Dynamics and Dilemmas of Reform, and Chinas Leaders: The New Generation, and the editor of the recent book, Bridging Minds Across the Pacific: The Sino-U.S. Educational Exchange 1978-2003. Dr. Li is also a columnist for the Stanford University journal, China Leadership Monitor.

Dr. Li has advised a wide range of U.S. government, education, research, business and not-for-profit organizations on work in China. Dr. Li is a director of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, a trustee of the Institute of Current World Affairs, a member of the Academic Advisory Group of the Congressional U.S.-China Working Group, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations' Task Force on U.S. policy toward China, a member of Committee of 100, and a member of the U.S. National Committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific.

This talk is part of the "China's Year of Decision" colloquium series sponsored with the Center for East Asian Studies.

When Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao assumed power in 2002, they immediately put a new populist and egalitarian spin on Chinese policy pronouncements. To the surprise of many, they then followed through with a systematic reorientation of economic policy in a "left" direction. Policy has shifted away from growth at all costs, and toward policies that favor regional redistribution, reduce urban bias and support rural development. Budget allocations for health and education have increased, and the commitment to the environment has been stepped up.

So far, these policies can be characterized as moderate and overdue efforts to address problems that emerged in the course of rapid economic growth. But there is implicit tension with pro-growth policies. Politically, Hu and Wen's policies balanced those of Jiang Zemin's coalition of "winners." At the 17th Party Congress in 2007, Hu will attempt to consolidate his power and redefine the policy direction.

Barry Naughton teaches at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California, San Diego. His new book The Chinese Economy: Transitions and Growth. was published by MIT Press this year. He received his Ph.D. in economics and M.A. in international relations from Yale University and holds a B.A. in Chinese language and literature from University of Washington.

This talk is part of the "China's Year of Decision" colloquium series sponsored with the Center for East Asian Studies

In the mid-1990s, North Korea experienced a famine that killed up to a million people. In this talk, Professor Haggard will examine the origins of the famine, the subsequent humanitarian aid effort, including the problems of diversion of aid, and the market reforms that followed in the famine's wake. These political economy questions have played an important backdrop to the current negotiations over a resolution to the North Korean nuclear issue.

Stephan Haggard is the Lawrence and Sallye Krause Professor at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS) at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He is the author of Pathways from the Periphery: the Political Economy of Growth in the Newly Industrializing Countries (1990), The Political Economy of Democratic Transitions (1995, with Robert Kaufman) and The Political Economy of the Asian Financial Crisis (2000). In addition to Famine in North Korea: Markets, Aid and Reform (forthcoming 2006) he has completed a report on North Korean refugees for the US Committee on Human Rights in North Korea and is initiating a project with TaiMing Cheung and Barry Naughton on Chinese-North Korean economic relations.