In 2008, the U.S. National Intelligence Council (NIC) published the fourth installment in its effort to identify “megatrends” likely to shape world events a decade or more into the future. Shorenstein APARC Fellow and China expert Thomas Fingar, the then chairman of the NIC, oversaw that report, Global Trends 2025. The unclassified report uses scenarios to illustrate some of the ways in which the factors driving world events – from climate change to demographic decline to changing geopolitical powers – may interact to generate challenges and opportunities for future decisionmakers. One of these scenarios is the emergence of a global pandemic that bears a chilling resemblance to COVID-19.

We sat down with Fingar for an online conversation about the NIC report and its pandemic scenario, the government action it spurred, the United States’ failed initial response to the COVID-19 outbreak, and the implications of the current crisis for U.S.-China relations. Watch:

Twelve years after its publication, the NIC’s "Potential Emergence of a Global Pandemic" scenario (p. 75) has proven to be woefully accurate:

“The emergence of a novel, highly transmissible, and virulent human respiratory illness for which there are no adequate countermeasures could initiate a global pandemic. If a pandemic disease emerges by 2025, […] it probably will first occur in an area marked by high population density and close association between humans and animals, such as many areas of China and Southeast Asia […] Slow public health response would delay the realization that a highly transmissible pathogen had emerged […] Despite limits imposed on international travel, travelers with mild symptoms or who were asymptomatic could carry the disease to other continents. Waves of new cases would occur every few months. The absence of an effective vaccine and near-universal lack of immunity would render populations vulnerable to infection.”

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It was not a prediction, recalls Fingar, but rather an attempt to urge policymakers to think “beyond tomorrow,” past the end of their administration, and to stimulate strategic thinking about how to reinforce positive trends and change or ameliorate negative ones. If the report and its global pandemic scenario are precise, he notes, it is because the NIC’s effort involved the best specialists within the U.S. intelligence community and engaged numerous and varied groups of non-U.S. Government experts.

Yet the United States has been unprepared for the COVID-19 pandemic and the crisis is now worsening U.S.-China tensions. To address the crisis, however, argues Fingar, both countries must cooperate in the international fora. “Let that be the way that builds towards a better bilateral relationship.”

STANFORD, CA, April 8, 2020  — Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) is pleased to announce that journalist and author Tom Wright is the recipient of the 2020 Shorenstein Journalism Award for excellence in coverage of the Asia-Pacific region. Wright, who over the past twenty-five years has worked mainly in South and Southeast Asia, is the coauthor of the New York Times bestseller Billion Dollar Whale, which unravels the story of one of the world's greatest financial scandals involving the multibillion-dollar looting of the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB). The book builds on Wright’s multiyear investigative reporting for the Wall Street Journal, where he most recently served as Asia economics editor. In the coming fall quarter, Wright will receive the award at a ceremony and headline a panel discussion at Stanford.

Wright started his career with Reuters in Indonesia in the 1990s at a time when Gen. Suharto’s military dictatorship was crumbling. During the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, he joined Dow Jones Newswires in Bangkok, later moving to the Wall Street Journal. He has investigated corruption in Indian companies, the failure of the U.S.’s civilian aid program for Pakistan, and was one of the first journalists to arrive at the scene of the raid in which Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden. His 2013 award-winning series on the Rana Plaza factory disaster in Bangladesh, which killed over 1,000 people, exposed how international garment manufacturers turned a blind eye to safety violations to reduce costs.

In 2015, he began investigations into the 1MDB scandal, one of the largest financial frauds of all time in which bankers at Goldman Sachs helped a young Malaysian financier steal at least $4 billion from Malaysian state fund 1MDB. The three-year investigation revealed the degree to which Western institutions, from Wall Street banks, law firms, auditors, and even Hollywood film companies, ignore malfeasance in the pursuit of profits. Wright’s work sparked investigations by law enforcement and regulators in multiple countries and outrage in Malaysia, where the ruling coalition, after 61 years in power, suffered a landslide defeat in a shocking 2018 election.

“Throughout his career, Tom Wright’s consummate reporting and persistent investigations have repeatedly shone a light on major Asian affairs and the complicity of Western institutions in the affliction of corruption in Asia,” said Gi-Wook Shin, Shorenstein APARC director. “His work embodies an unwavering commitment to the pursuit of truth and to advancing a critical consideration of both Asian and Western societies. We are delighted to recognize him with the Shorenstein Journalism Award.”

Presented annually by APARC, the Shorenstein award, which carries a $10,000 cash prize, honors the legacy of APARC’s benefactor, Mr. Walter H. Shorenstein, and his twin passions for promoting excellence in journalism and understanding of Asia. “We are grateful to the Shorenstein family for its support of our Center and its mission and to the members of the award selection committee for their expertise and service,” noted Shin.

The selection committee for the Shorenstein Journalism Award, which unanimously chose Wright as the 2020 honoree, includes Wendy Cutler, vice president and managing director, Washington, D.C. Office, Asia Society Policy Institute; James Hamilton, Hearst Professor of Communication, chair of the Department of Communication, and director of the Stanford Journalism Program, Stanford University; Raju Narisetti, global publishing director-elect, McKinsey & Company; Philip Pan, weekend editor, former Asia editor, the New York Times; and Prashanth Parameswaran, senior editor, the Diplomat. 

Eighteen journalists have previously received the Shorenstein award, including most recently Maria Ressa, CEO and executive editor of Rappler; Anna Fifield, the Washington Post’s Beijing bureau chief and long-time North Korea watcher; Siddharth Varadarajan, founding editor of the Wire; Ian Johnson, a veteran journalist with a focus on Chinese society, religion, and history; and Yoichi Funabashi, former editor-in-chief of the Asahi Shimbun.

Information about the 2020 Shorenstein Journalism Award ceremony and panel discussion featuring Wright will be forthcoming in the fall quarter.

Find out more at aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/events/shorenstein-journalism-award.

Media Contact:

Noa Ronkin
Associate Director for Communications and External Relations
Shorenstein APARC
noa.ronkin@stanford.edu

To support Stanford students working in the area of contemporary Asia, the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center is offering up to ten research assistant internships for summer 2020 and up to three predoctoral fellowships for the 2020-21 academic year. The Center will review applications starting April 15 and expects to fill the positions by April 30, 2020. 

Amid the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, students are facing summer internship cancelations and hiring freezes. They are left wondering about the long-term implications of the current crisis for their academic careers and their access to future jobs and valuable work experience.

At Shorenstein APARC, we want to do all we can to support Stanford students. That’s why we are announcing new internship and fellowship opportunities for current students working in the area of contemporary Asia: research assistant internships for the summer quarter of 2020 and predoctoral fellowships for the 2020-21 academic year.

The summer internships are all remote: research assistants will work as telecommuters. Regarding the predoctoral fellowships, we hope we can all have a normal 2020-21 academic year, in which case we expect the fellows to be in residence, but we will reassess the evolving COVID-19 situation closer to the appointment start dates and shift to flexible, online options as needed.

APARC will review applications for both opportunities on a rolling basis starting April 15, 2020. The Center will select up to ten research assistants and up to three predoctoral fellows by April 30, 2020.

Read on to learn more about these offerings and the application requirements, and follow the guidelines below to submit your candidacy.

Summer 2020 APARC Research Assistant Internships

Shorenstein APARC is seeking highly motivated and dedicated undergraduate and graduate students to join our team as paid research assistant interns for the summer quarter of 2020. Research assistants will work with assigned APARC faculty members on projects focused on contemporary Asia, studying varied issues related to the politics, economies, populations, security, foreign policies, and international relations of the countries of the Asia-Pacific region.

All positions will be for eight weeks starting late June or early July 2020. The hourly pay rate is $17 for undergraduate students, $25 for graduate students.

Research assistant positions are open to current Stanford students only. Undergraduate- and graduate-level students are eligible to apply.

Apply Now

• Complete the application form and submit it along with these two (2) required attachments:
  • CV;
  • A cover letter (up to 1 page).
• Arrange for a letter of recommendation from a faculty to be sent directly to APARC. Please note: the faculty members should email their letters directly to Kristen Lee at kllee@stanford.edu.

We will consider only complete applications that include all the abovementioned supporting documents.  

2020-21 Shorenstein APARC Predoctoral Fellowships

APARC is inviting applications from current Stanford students for the 2020-21 Shorenstein APARC Predoctoral Fellowship. The fellowship supports predoctoral students working within a broad range of topics related to contemporary Asia. 

Up to three fellowships are available to Ph.D. candidates who have completed all fieldwork and are nearing the completion of their dissertation. The Center will give priority to candidates who are prepared to finish their degree by the end of the 2020-21 academic year.

Shorenstein APARC offers a stipend of $36,075 for the 2020-21 academic year, plus Stanford's Terminal Graduate Registration (TGR) fee for three quarters. We expect fellows to remain in residence at the Center throughout the year and to participate in Center activities.

Apply Now

• Complete the application form and submit it along with these three (3) required attachments:
  • CV;
  • A cover letter including a brief description of your dissertation (up to 5 double-spaced pages);
  • A copy of your transcripts. Transcripts should cover all graduate work and include evidence of recently-completed work.
• Arrange for two (2) letters of recommendation from members of your dissertation committee to be sent directly to Shorenstein APARC. Please note: the faculty/advisors should email their letters directly to Kristen Lee at kllee@stanford.edu.

We will consider only complete applications that include all the abovementioned supporting documents. 

Despite the coronavirus pandemic, North Korea continues to carry out weapons testing and to declare that not a single COVID-19 patient has emerged in the country. Analysts and medical experts, however, are highly skeptical of Pyongyang’s claims. A coronavirus outbreak would overwhelm the North’s weak healthcare system and would be devastating to its people, who suffer from relatively high levels of malnutrition and have no access to information about the pandemic.   

North Korea is one of the worst human rights violators in modern history. In February 2014, the United Nations Human Rights Council published the landmark Report of the Commission of Inquiry (COI) on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, a comprehensive account of human rights abuses committed by the authoritarian country’s leadership against its people. It was seen as a major milestone in the effort to shine a light on the gravity and scope of the problem and to hold the perpetrators accountable by bringing them before the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

Over the past three years, however, the momentum for action on the report’s recommendations has faded and the human rights issue has been largely viewed as less serious a concern than the regional and global security threat posed by the North Korean nuclear program and long-range missiles.

Coinciding with the sixth anniversary of the COI report, it was the goal of the Korea Program’s twelfth annual Koret Workshop to regenerate awareness of the role of human rights in policy toward North Korea by gathering experts at Stanford to discuss the topic and generate concrete recommendations for action. In this post, we share highlights from select presentations prepared for this workshop that was canceled due to the COVID-19 crisis.

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Human Rights and Denuclearization

As the Trump administration shifted from a “war of words” with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to prioritizing summit diplomacy, the focus on the human rights problem receded and many stakeholders, both within and outside the administration, preferred to play it down so as not to jeopardize the negotiation over a denuclearization agreement.

Yet the irony, argues Asian affairs and security expert Victor Cha, is that the denuclearization and human rights agendas are inextricably intertwined. “Human rights is an integral and unavoidable component of a comprehensive North Korea strategy,” he says. Cha, professor of government and holder of the D.S. Song-KF Chair in Government and International Affairs at Georgetown University, joined APARC as the Koret Fellow in Korean Studies for the winter quarter of 2020.

Cha notes that revenues gained from forced labor exports and other human rights abuses help the Kim regime finance its proliferation activities. Furthermore, improvements in the country’s human rights condition would reflect the leadership’s commitment to reform and make a denuclearization commitment by the DPRK more credible. The United States, claims Cha, must take actionable steps to include the human rights issue in bilateral relations with Pyongyang: establish a rights-first approach in future negotiations, resume humanitarian assistance, and fill the position of a Special Envoy for Human Rights as mandated by the Congress.

Watch Professor Cha discuss these issues in our recent virtual Q&A:

Tae-Ung Baik, professor of Law and director of the Center for Korean Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, calls for a step-by-step approach, advancing small, concrete changes that will have a cumulative effect toward better protection of the rights of the people of North Korea. For example, cooperation and consultation on human rights protection should be exerted to promote reform in specific areas such as the North Korean judicial and criminal justice systems.

Ambassador Robert King, who served as a special envoy for North Korean human rights issues at the U.S. Department of State in the Obama administration, also stresses that addressing the human rights problem is essential to making progress toward denuclearization and security goals. King argues that North Korea must accept international norms and standards for denuclearization, but its acceptance of international human rights standards is necessary if it is to win international legitimacy.

Listen to highlights from King’s talk at the Korea Program’s seminar, which he delivered in the fall quarter of 2019 while being affiliated with APARC as the Koret Fellow in Korean Studies.

Freedom of Information

Although the human rights condition in North Korea has not improved, the information landscape in the country has changed significantly over the past quarter-century. Nat Kretchun, deputy director of the Open Technology Fund, describes the transformation as “trending up from an extremely low base toward greater openness and access before, more recently, retrenching.”

In the years following the famine of the mid-1990s, information flowed into the country like never before, exposing North Korean citizens to a range of new content via an array of non-networked technologies, including information from China, South Korean entertainment media, radio broadcasts from NGOs, and outside broadcasts by Voice of America and Radio Free Asia. As they regained some measure of economic stability, however, the North Korean authorities began to reestablish control over information flows. The recent available data demonstrates that access to information is falling off and the era of more socially normalized consumption of outside information is over, says Kretchun. “The government has begun implementing a far more technologically savvy information control strategy than it previously had the capacity to do […in an] effort to move communications and media consumption onto state-controlled networks via state-controlled devices.”

Indeed, Martyn Williams, a veteran watcher of North Korea’s information technology sector, shows that, while the digitization of media was the catalyst that led to the mass spread of foreign content across the country, so too has the same technology been employed to help the government combat it. For example, every Android tablet and smartphone in North Korea logs every page a person visits with the web browser and randomly takes screenshots during his/her use of the device. Users are allowed to see this database of collected screenshots but cannot delete them. “The system is sinister in its simplicity. It reminds users that everything they do on the device can be recorded and later viewed by officials […] it insidiously forces North Koreans to self-censor in fear of a device check that might never happen.”

Furthermore, the security software pre-loaded onto North Korean phones and computers cannot be replaced and the state’s digital certificate system makes mobile devices little more than consumption tools for state propaganda and personal memories. “While digital technology has created new pathways for foreign content, the increased networking of products could work against information freedom and eventually lead to the creation of an even more Orwellian society,” concludes Williams.

Minjung Kim, director of the South Korean NGO Save North Korea, emphasizes that a key to addressing the human rights problem in the country lies in discrediting the regime’s ideology in the minds of the North Korean people. It is, therefore, necessary to further produce and deliver content that educates citizens on how the regime shapes and manipulates ideology.

The Role of the United Nations

The Kim Jong Un regime responded to the 2014 COI report with outrage and denunciation, and Pyongyang has continued to refuse to cooperate with UN Special Rapporteurs.

For three consecutive years following the publication of the report, the UN Security Council returned to consider the North Korean human rights record. Since 2018, however, the issue has not been placed back on the Security Council agenda, while the U.S.-DPRK summit denuclearization diplomacy has not included a single statement regarding improving the lives of North Korea’s people.

The North Korean human rights problem has long been subject to political debates. Still, claims Joon Oh, former ambassador of South Korea to the UN and former president of the UN Economic and Social Council, future efforts can focus on helping the North Korean people realize economic and social rights, as these do not necessitate political reforms that threaten the regime. The challenge here, though, Oh recognizes, is that such efforts require technical cooperation and humanitarian assistance, which, in turn, have been narrowed down since the UN security council imposed sanctions on North Korea in 2017 for its nuclear and ballistic missile development.

Former Justice of the High Court of Australia Michael Kirby, the chair of the COI report, who has argued that there will never be peace on the Korean peninsula as long as there are grave human rights abuses occurring in North Korea, claims that “When a state is unwilling or unable to halt or avert [mass atrocity crimes], the wider international community has a collective responsibility to take whatever action is necessary. […] It is not acceptable simply to wring our hands and cry ‘never again.’ Action must be taken, however difficult and even dangerous is the path of pursuing such action can sometimes be.”

Granted, the international community must urgently reduce and eliminate the dangers posed by North Korea’s nuclear weapons and intercontinental missiles. However, says Kirby, turning a blind eye to human rights crimes because their mention will upset those who are alleged to have committed them or permitted them to be committed in their name is neither a rational nor a just response.