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.

North Korea Policy: Why the Obama Administration is Right and the Critics are Wrong

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Critics of the Obama administration's North Korea policy charge flatly that it is a "failure." They argue that "time is not on our side," sanctions are counterproductive, and "strategic patience" means "doing nothing." They assert that the Obama administration is unwilling to negotiate with North Korea unless it first gives up its nuclear weapons program, that it is foolishly and fecklessly "outsourcing" its North Korea policy to Beijing while waiting for the North Korean regime to collapse, and that, out of incompetence or malevolence, it has irresponsibly refused to respond to North Korean proposals, such as for negotiations to replace the current armistice agreement with a peace treaty. David Straub, associate director of Shorenstein APARC's Korea Program, will explain why such criticisms are ill-founded and not constructive. He will outline the real-world parameters within which the Obama and previous U.S. administrations have formulated and implemented North Korea policy, assess how the strategic situation on the Korean Peninsula is evolving, and forecast how the next U.S. administration is likely to approach the North Korea problem.
 

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David Straub has been associate director of the Korea Program at The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center since 2008. In 2007-08, he was the Pantech Fellow in the Korea Program at Shorenstein APARC. He retired from the U.S. Department of State in 2006 as a Senior Foreign Service Officer after a thirty-year career focused on Northeast Asian affairs, including service as the director of the Department's office of Korean affairs and participation in "New York Channel" talks with the North Koreans as well as the first three rounds of the Six Party Talks. He also accompanied former President Bill Clinton to Pyongyang in 2009 for the return of two incarcerated American journalists. In addition to Stanford University, Straub has taught U.S. foreign policy at Seoul National University's Graduate School of International Studies and Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. 

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David Straub

No longer in residence.

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Associate Director of the Korea Program
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David Straub was named associate director of the Korea Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) on July 1, 2008. Prior to that he was a 2007–08 Pantech Fellow at the Center. Straub is the author of the book, Anti-Americanism in Democratizing South Korea, published in 2015.

An educator and commentator on current Northeast Asian affairs, Straub retired in 2006 from his role as a U.S. Department of State senior foreign service officer after a 30-year career focused on Northeast Asian affairs. He worked over 12 years on Korean affairs, first arriving in Seoul in 1979.

Straub served as head of the political section at the U.S. embassy in Seoul from 1999 to 2002 during popular protests against the United States, and he played a key working-level role in the Six-Party Talks on North Korea's nuclear program as the State Department's Korea country desk director from 2002 to 2004. He also served eight years at the U.S. embassy in Japan. His final assignment was as the State Department's Japan country desk director from 2004 to 2006, when he was co-leader of the U.S. delegation to talks with Japan on the realignment of the U.S.-Japan alliance and of U.S. military bases in Japan.

After leaving the Department of State, Straub taught U.S.-Korean relations at the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in the fall of 2006 and at the Graduate School of International Studies of Seoul National University in spring 2007. He has published a number of papers on U.S.-Korean relations. His foreign languages are Korean, Japanese, and German.

Associate Director, Korea Program
Korean Studies Colloquium Series

Rebuilding Trust: China-U.S. Relations

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Please note the venue is now the Bechtel Conference Center at Encina Hall.

This event is jointly sponsored by the China Program at at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) and the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL).

 

Geostrategic rivalry and economic interdependence coexist in uneasy balance between the U.S. and China. Ambassador Fu will identify key strands in U.S. perceptions of China, frequently marked by confusion and anxiety, and China’s perceptions of the U.S., riddled by the desire for closer cooperation and suspicions over U.S.’s exclusion of China. The speech will highlight the South China Sea issue and emphasize the harmful effects of negative perceptions and the importance of cooperation. Commentary will be provided by Dr. Thomas Fingar, the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center Distinguished Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University, after the speech.

 

Ambassador Fu Ying has been the Chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National People’s Congress of China since March 2013. She is also the Chairperson of the Academic Committee for China’s Institute of International Strategy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. From 1993 to 2000, she served successively as the Director, Counselor of the Foreign Ministry’s Asian Department and the Minister Counselor of the Chinese Embassy in Indonesia (1997). While serving as the head of the Asian Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2000, she was instrumental in crafting China’s comprehensive strategic partnership with ASEAN and for launching the Six Party Talks with North Korea. She has served as China’s Ambassador to the Philippines (1998), Australia (2004) and to the United Kingdom (2007). From 2009 to 2013, she served as the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs for the P.R.C.

 

 

 

Dr. Thomas Fingar is the inaugural Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. From 2005 to 2008, he served concurrently as the first deputy director of national intelligence for analysis and 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).

Chairperson, Foreign Affairs Committee of the National People’s Congress, China; former PRC Ambassador to the Philippines, Australia, and the U.K.
Chairperson, Foreign Affairs Committee of the National People’s Congress, China; former PRC Ambassador to the Philippines, Australia, and the U.K.
Fu Ying <i>Chairperson, Foreign Affairs Committee of the National People’s Congress, China; former PRC Ambassador to the Philippines, Australia, and the U.K.</i> <i>Chairperson, Foreign Affairs Committee of the National People’s Congress, China; former PRC Ambassador to the Philippines, Australia, and the U.K.</i> <i>Chairperson, Foreign Affairs Committee of the National People’s Congress, China; former PRC Ambassador to the Philippines, Australia, and the U.K.</i>
Dr. Thomas Fingar <i>Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center Distinguished Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford Universit</i>
Seminars

China’s Growth Prospects and Implications for Southeast Asia

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With the G-7 economies in the doldrums since 2008, the roller-coastal behavior of global commodity markets from 2010 to 2015 is convincing evidence of the huge impact that China’s economy now has on the prosperity of many regions, Southeast Asia notably included. The future course of the China’s economy will determine, among other things, the legitimacy of its government, the incentive to project force beyond its borders, and the ability to build an effective international coalition to advance its agenda in world affairs.  Prof. Woo will examine (a) the recent marked slowdown in China’s growth, distinguishing temporary factors from the medium-term trend and comparing the policy options, and (b) the domestic and external implications of two scenarios of Chinese growth for two settings­­­­­­­­ in Southeast Asia.

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Wing Thye Woo, in addition to the positions noted above, is a special-term professor in the Fudan University School of Economics (Shanghai). He is co-editing a forthcoming book on the global economy and its Asian component. His many previous publications include Ranking the Liveability of the World’s Major Cities (co-author, 2012); The Asian Financial Crisis: Lessons for a Resilient Asia (co-editor, 2000); and Fiscal Management and Economic Reform in the People's Republic of China (co-authored, 1997). He is the convener of the Asian Economic Panel (AEP), a network of leading scholars on Asian economies who meet tri-annually, and the chief editor of Asian Economic Papers, a journal co-sponsored by research institutes in Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, and the US. He has also served as a special advisor to Malaysian prime minister Abdullah Badawi (2005-08), US treasury secretary Robert Rubin (1997-98), and officials of other governments.

 

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Wing Thye Woo President, Jeffrey Cheah Institute on Southeast Asia, Sunway University, Kuala Lumpur, and Professor of Economics, University of California, Davis
Seminars

Open Sesame!: Alibaba and E-commerce in China

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We have reached venue capacity and can no longer accept RSVPs.

 

Half the world is on the Internet. By the end of June 2015, China recorded a total of 667 million Internet users. Taobao and Tmall, Alibaba Group’s giant e-commerce platforms, posted a record-breaking RMB 91.2 billion on Singles' Day, 2015; and Alibaba Group with its annual sales volume of RMB 3 trillion, has surpassed Walmart to become the world’s largest retail platform. Dr. Ming Zeng, Chief Strategy Officer of Alibaba Group, will first give an insider’s account of how Alibaba was able to scale up its operations from Jack Ma’s humble operations into one of the world’s largest companies. He will further discuss how the Web technology is transforming China’s consumer and production economy.

 

Dr. Ming ZENG currently serves as Executive Vice President of Alibaba Group Holding Limited and Chief Strategy Officer of Alibaba Group. Dr. Zeng is also the founding Dean of Hupan University of Entrepreneurship, an educational institution founded in 2015 by Jack Ma and other business leaders in China. He is a frequent contributor to leading management journals and is the author of Dragons at Your Door: How Chinese Cost Innovation Is Disrupting Global Competition (2007). Dr. Zeng previously served as a faculty member at INSEAD from 1998 to 2002 then helped to found the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business in Beijing, the first private business school in China. Dr. Zeng obtained his Ph.D. in International Business and Strategy from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1998, and his Bachelor's degree in International Economics from Fudan University, China, in 1991.

 

 

Duncan Clark is the Chairman of BDA China, a consultancy he founded in Beijing in 1994 after four years as an investment banker with Morgan Stanley in London and Hong Kong. BDA China is an advisory firm serving investors in China’s technology and consumer sectors, employing over 100 mainland Chinese professionals in Beijing. An early advisor to leading Chinese Internet entrepreneurs, Mr. Clark is also the author of Alibaba: The House that Jack Ma Built (2016), an insider’s look at China’s e-commerce and technology giant and its founder Jack Ma.

 

 

 

This event is off the record.

 

Ming Zeng Chief Strategy Officer, Alibaba Group
Duncan Clark (moderator) Moderator BDA China, Author of Alibaba: The House that Jack Ma Built
Seminars

America’s Pacific Future Is Happening Now

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The United States has transformed its relationships across the Asia-Pacific region under President Obama’s “rebalance” policy.  America’s top diplomat for the region will speak about the strategy the administration has pursued and what lies ahead.

Daniel Russel is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service. Prior to his appointment as Assistant Secretary on July 12, 2013, Mr. Russel served at the White House as Special Assistant to the President and National Security Council (NSC) Senior Director for Asian Affairs. During his tenure there, he helped formulate President Obama’s strategic rebalance to the Asia Pacific Region, including efforts to strengthen alliances, deepen U.S. engagement with multilateral organizations, and expand cooperation with emerging powers in the region.

Prior to joining the NSC in January of 2009, he served as Director of the Office of Japanese Affairs and had assignments as U.S. Consul General in Osaka-Kobe, Japan (2005-2008); Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in The Hague, Netherlands (2002-2005); Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Nicosia, Cyprus (1999-2002); Chief of Staff to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering (1997-99); Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (1995-96); Political Section Unit Chief at U.S. Embassy Seoul, Republic of Korea (1992-95); Political Advisor to the Permanent Representative to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, Ambassador Pickering (1989-92); Vice Consul in Osaka and Branch Office Manager in Nagoya, Japan (1987-89); and Assistant to the Ambassador to Japan, former Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (1985-87).

In 1996, Mr. Russel was awarded the State Department's Una Chapman Cox Fellowship sabbatical and authored America’s Place in the World, (Georgetown University Press). Before joining the Foreign Service, he was manager for an international firm in New York City.

Mr. Russel was educated at Sarah Lawrence College, University College, UK and University of London, UK.

Sponsored by the U.S.-Asia Security Iniatitive 

 

Daniel Russel <i> Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Department of State</i>
Seminars
U.S.-Asia Security Initiative

Stanford historical memory project seeks WWII reconciliation in Asia

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From atomic bombs to harsh military occupations in the World War II period, the past is very much the present in the Asia Pacific region.

Stanford scholars are striving to help heal these wounds from yesteryear. Helping old enemies better understand each other today is the aim of the Divided Memories and Reconciliation project, a multi-year comparative study of the formation of historical memory regarding the wartime period in countries such as China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the United States.

Left unattended, misguided wartime narratives may exacerbate current disputes to the point of armed conflict, said Daniel Sneider, associate director of research at Stanford's Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. He leads the Divided Memories project along with Gi-Wook Shin, a Stanford sociology professor and the Shorenstein center director.

Sneider points out the critical importance of textbooks and what is taught in schools – especially given the rise of nationalism among youth in China, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea.

"Dialogue among youth of the different nations is needed, along with an appreciation for the diversity of views and the complexity of history," he said.

Shin said, "Each nation in northeast Asia and even the U.S. has selective or divided memories of the past, and does not really understand the views of the other side."

Education and history

Launched in 2006, the Divided Memories project has published research findings, issued recommendations and convened conferences. In the early days, the researchers examined high school history textbooks in China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and America.

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The outcome was the project's first book in 2011, History Textbooks and the Wars in Asia: Divided Memories, which suggests that an "introspective effort" to understand national narratives about WWII has the potential to bring about historical reconciliation in the region. Sneider describes it as the first comparative study of textbooks in the countries involved; it soon evolved into a classroom supplemental textbook published by the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education.

"Formal education is a powerful force in shaping our historical understandings," Sneider noted. "We wanted to look at the textbooks that have the most impact and usage."

A 2014 book, Confronting Memories of World War II: European and Asian Legacies, which was co-edited by Shin, Sneider and Daniel Chirot, a sociologist with the University of Washington, compared successful European WWII reconciliations with lagging Asian efforts. Another book, Divided Lenses, published earlier this year, examined the impact of dramatic film and other forms of popular culture on wartime memory. A new book is due out this summer, Divergent Memories: Opinion Leaders and the Asia-Pacific War, which focuses on leaders in politics, the media and academia in Japan, China, South Korea and the U.S.

The Divided Memories project aims to generate discussions and collaborations among those who create "historical memories" – educators, policymakers and government leaders. One report that grew out of such dialogues included suggestions for reconciliation:

  • Create supplementary teaching materials on the issue. 
  • Launch dialogues among Asian, American and European historians. 
  • Offer educational forums for journalists, policymakers and students. 
  • Conduct museum exchanges and create new museums, such as one wholly dedicated to WWII reconciliation in Asia. 
  • Increase student exchanges among all the countries involved. 

History is reflected in today's geopolitics, as noted in the revived disputes by these nations over rival claims to islands in the South China Sea and elsewhere. Without resolution, these disagreements can flare up into military conflicts, Sneider wrote.

"The question of history taps into sensitive and deeply rooted issues of national identity," he noted.

Whether recounting Japanese atrocities in China, China's exaggerated account of its Communist fighters' role in World War II, or the U.S. decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan, no nation is immune to re-creating the past to further its own interests today, Sneider wrote.

For example, Divided Memories research on Chinese textbooks shows how the Chinese government in recent decades embarked on a "patriotic education" campaign to indoctrinate young people by exaggerating its role in Japan's WWII defeat. This narrative suits the nationalistic desires of a Chinese government no longer exclusively motivated by communist ideology, Sneider said.

One project of APARC and its Japan Program that was also an outgrowth of Divided Memories involved Stanford scholars urging Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to show "clear, heartfelt remorse" in a 2015 speech on the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII. A 15-page report featured hypothetical statements suggesting what Abe might say to make amends for Japanese actions in China and Korea.

"While we cannot claim to have directly influenced the prime minister, his statement did go further in the direction of an expression of remorse over the war and the need to continue to look clearly and honestly at the past than many expected," said Sneider.

 

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A workshop on history textbooks co-hosted by Shorenstein APARC and Academia Sinica's Center for Asia-Pacific Area Studies takes places in Taipei, Sept. 3, 2008.

Generations and grievances

Consciousness-raising on other fronts, however, is getting results, thanks to Stanford's Divided Memories project. A 2015 landmark agreement between Japan and South Korea over the WWII "comfort women" dispute was reached due to extensive U.S. involvement. Comfort women were women and girls who were forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army in occupied territories before and during World War II.

In an article, Sneider explained how the U.S. perceived that the dysfunctional relationship between South Korea and Japan over this issue, among others, threatened to undermine American strategic interests in Asia. 

Shin highlights the importance of U.S. involvement. "The U.S. is not just an outsider to historical and territorial disputes in the region," he said. "From a geopolitical perspective, the U.S. has done a wonderful job in reviving the devastated region into a prosperous one after 1945, but from a historical reconciliation perspective, the U.S. has done a poor job."

He suggests that America should "play a constructive role in promoting historical reconciliation" among the countries involved. And so, the Divided Memories project has included the United States in its efforts.

According to Sneider, Divided Memories is unique among all reconciliation projects for its emphasis on the inclusion of the U.S.; comparative analyses across countries; and real-world policy impacts. As part of the Shorenstein research center, it is housed within Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

"This project reflects what Stanford, our center and the Freeman Spogli Institute are all about – true interdisciplinary research and engagement," Sneider said.

Clifton Parker is a writer for the Stanford News Service.

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Japanese soldiers in Shanghai, March 23, 1927 | A Stanford project encourages World War II reconciliation and historical accuracy about the conflict and its consequences in Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan and the United States. Progress has been made on classroom textbooks and scholarly discussions and exchanges.
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Advancing U.S.-Japan-ROK Trilateral Cooperation: A U.S. Perspective

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An analysis of the foundations and future of the trilateral relationship from a U.S. perspective, highlighting the critical role the United States has played in mediating tensions between the Republic of Korea and Japan.

The essay is also part of an expanded NBR Special Report with co-authors Yul Sohn and Yoshihide Soeya that offers insights into both the past and future of trilateral cooperation and provides recommendations for leaders in all three nations to move relations foward.

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Shorenstein Journalism Award Panel Discussion: Continuity and Change in the U.S.-Japan Alliance

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Announced earlier this year, Yoichi Funabashi is the 2015 Shorenstein Journalism Award recipient. As part of the annual ceremonies, Funabashi will deliver remarks on the U.S.-Japan alliance, followed by comments from three Japan experts.

The postwar alliance of the United States and its former wartime foe, Japan, is one of the most enduring relationships of the postwar era. It remains a cornerstone of the foreign policy of both nations. But it is also an alliance in the midst of change. In both countries, domestic politics affects the security alliance, as well as the impact of economic turmoil and the challenges of slowing growth. Populism in the United States is already challenging the need for the alliance. Similar questions are raised by the hollowing out of Japan’s postwar moderative conservativism which long supported the alliance. Both the U.S. rebalance to Asia and Japan’s “proactive pacifism” are now in question. 

Featuring:

Yoichi Funabashi

Co-founder and Chairman, Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation

former Editor-in-Chief, Asahi Shimbun (2007-2010) 

Commentators:

Susan Chira

Deputy Executive Editor, former Foreign Editor and Tokyo Correspondent

New York Times

 

Michael Armacost, Shorenstein Distinguished Fellow

Michael Armacost

Shorenstein APARC Distinguished Fellow, Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University

former U.S. Ambassador to Japan

Moderator:

Daniel Sneider

Associate Director for Research, Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University

former Foreign Correspondent, San Jose Mercury News

Yoichi Funabashi is an award-winning Japanese journalist, columnist and author. He has written extensively on foreign affairs, the U.S.-Japan Alliance, economics and historical issues in the Asia-Pacific.

He has a distinguished career as a journalist. He served as correspondent for the Asahi Shimbun in Beijing (1980-81) and Washington (1984-87), and as U.S. General Bureau Chief (1993-97). In 2013 he won the Oya Soichi Nonfiction Award for his book on the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident ‘Countdown to Meltdown,’ he won the Japan Press Award known as Japan’s “Pulitzer Prize” in 1994 for his columns on international affairs, his articles in Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy won the Ishibashi Tanzan Prize in 1992 and in 1985 he received the Vaughn-Ueda Prize for his reporting on international affairs.

As co-founder and chairman of the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation (RJIF) he oversaw the “Independent Investigation Commission on the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident” (Routledge, 2014) that was ranked in the top 24 policy reports produced by a think-tank in the ‘2012 Global Go-to Think Tank Ranking.’ Since its establishment in 2012, RJIF has published several influential reports on a broad range of key policy challenges facing Japan and the Asia-Pacific.

He received his bachelor of arts from the University of Tokyo in 1968 and his doctorate from Keio University in 1992. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University (1975-76), a visiting Fellow at the Institute for International Economics (1987), a Donald Keene Fellow at Columbia University (2003), a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo Public Policy Institute (2005-2006) and a distinguished guest professor at Keio University (2011-2014). He previously served on the board of The International Crisis Group, and is a member of the Trilateral Commission. He is a former contributing editor of Foreign Policy, and sits on the editorial board of The Washington Quarterly.

Funabashi’s complete profile can be found here.

The Shorenstein Journalism Award, which carries a cash prize of $10,000, 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, established in 2002, 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: the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (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.

Event media contact: Lisa Griswold, lisagris@stanford.edu

Shorenstein Journalism Award
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