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.
The fifteenth session of the Korea-U.S. West Coast Strategic Forum, held in Korea on November 17, 2015, convened senior South Korean and American policymakers, scholars and regional experts to discuss North Korea policy and recent developments on the Korean Peninsula. Hosted by the Korea Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, the Forum is also supported by the Sejong Institute.
For scholars of corruption, the ferocious anti-corruption campaign launched by Xi Jinping since the end of 2012 has provided a wealth of fresh evidence of corruption in the Chinese body politic and economy. The revelations from media accounts and court documents suggest that crony capitalism -- defined by the incestuous relationship between government officials and private businessmen -- has penetrated key Chinese political institutions and economic sectors. Based on detailed examinations of 50 high-profile cases, many of them prosecuted in the last three years, this study investigates the institutional origins of crony capitalism, identifies principal modes of collusion between political and economic elites, and analyzes its behavioral patterns. The insights from this study imply that Xi's anti-corruption drive will have only limited success if it does not treat the causes of corruption in contemporary China.
Minxin PEI is the Tom and Margot Pritzker '72 Professor of Government and George R. Roberts Fellow and Director of the Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies. Dr. Pei’s areas expertise includes China, Comparative Politics, Pacific Rim, U.S./Asia Relations, and U.S./China Relations. Dr. Pei’s published work includes China’s Transition: The limits of developmental autocracy (Harvard University Press, 2006), and From Reform to Revolution: The demise of communism in China and the Soviet Union (Harvard University Press, 1994).
Please note this event has been moved to the Oksenberg Conference Room.
Thirty-five years after its nationwide implementation, China finally announced the end of the one-child policy in late 2015. How did this change come about? What are the demographic, economic, and social imperatives that have led to this much-delayed policy reversal? What are the historical legacies of this unprecedented birth control policy in human history, and what are the implications of this policy and China’s new demographics for China’s economy in the years to come? This presentation will address these questions and discuss in particular the roles of China’s changed demographics in its economic growth and political governance in the coming decades.
FengWANG is a professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine and at Fudan University, China, and a non-resident senior fellow of the Brookings Institution. Wang Feng is the author of several books and many articles on contemporary social and demographic changes in China, on comparative historical demography and social organization in Eurasia, and on income and social inequalities in post-socialist China.
China’s leaders now acknowledge the reality of much slower growth, and refer to it as the “new normal”. But what does this mean, and what will be the consequences? Exports have slowed, but can domestic consumption pick up the slack? Will this slowdown lead to a rebalancing that will yield a more sustainable and robust growth? How does the end of the “one child policy” fit into this equation, and will this be sufficient to address the demographic challenges that China faces? What impact will Xi Jinping’s vigorous anti-corruption campaign have on this “new normal
Two leading economists on China will launch this year’s China Program Winter Colloquia Series, China's New Normal, by examining the slower growth and its implications. Barry Naughton proactively asks “why be normal”. Is slower growth what the economy needs to be stabilized?. Scott Rozelle asks whether there is a hidden demographic disaster that accentuate existing human capital inequality that derail a soft landing.
Barry Naughton is an economist and Professor at the School of Global Policy and Strategy, at the University of California, San Diego. Naughton has published extensively on the Chinese economy, with a focus on four interrelated areas: market transition; industry and technology; foreign trade; and Chinese political economy. His pioneering study of Chinese economic reform, Growing Out of the Plan: Chinese Economic Reform, 1978-1993 (Cambridge University Press, 1995) won the Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Prize. Dr. Naughton’s comprehensive survey, The Chinese Economy: Transitions and Growth, was published by MIT Press in 2007, and his most recent book (co-edited with Kellee Tsai), State Capitalism, Institutional Adaptation and the Chinese Miracle, has just appeared from Cambridge University Press (2015). Naughton also publishes regular quarterly analyses of China’s economic policy-making online at China Leadership Monitor. Dr. Naughton received his Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University in 1986, and is a non-resident fellow of the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.
Scott Rozelle is the Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow and the co-director of the Rural Education Action Program in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He received his BS from the University of California, Berkeley, and his MS and PhD from Cornell University. His research focuses almost exclusively on China and is concerned with: agriculture; the emergence and evolution of markets and other economic institutions and their implications for equity and efficiency; and the economics of poverty and inequality, with an emphasis on rural education, health and nutrition. In recognition of his outstanding achievements, Rozelle has received numerous honors and awards, including the Friendship Award in 2008, the highest award given to a non-Chinese by the Premier; and the National Science and Technology Collaboration Award in 2009 for scientific achievement in collaborative research.
A conference that honored the life and scholarly contributions of Stanford economist Masahiko Aoki was held at Stanford. Dozens of friends, family and community members paid tribute to Aoki, the Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Professor of Japanese Studies and Professor of Economics, emeritus, who died in July at the age of 77.
Eleven renowned economists and social scientists gave talks on Aoki’s extensive fields of research in economic theory, institutional analysis, corporate governance, and the Japanese and Chinese economies at the Dec. 4 conference, which was followed by a memorial ceremony the next day.
“When we contacted people to speak at this conference, few people turned us down,” said Stanford professor Takeo Hoshi. “The reason for this is Masa. It shows how much Masa was respected and how much his work is valued.”
The events were hosted by the Japan Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), Graduate School of Business, Department of Economics and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR).
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Aoki came to Stanford in 1967 as an assistant professor, held faculty appointments at Kyoto University and Harvard, and returned to Stanford in 1984. He retired to emeritus status at Stanford in 2005.
Throughout the conference, Aoki was described as an astute professor and colleague, valuable mentor and loyal friend by the many speakers and participants who shared works, stories and multimedia featuring their interactions with Aoki.
Aoki pioneered the field of comparative institutional analysis (CIA) with a team of scholars at Stanford: Avner Greif, John Litwack, Paul Milgrom and Yingyi Qian, among others. CIA analyzes and compares different institutions that evolve to regulate different societies.
Masahiko Aoki (far left) is pictured with colleagues on the Stanford campus in the late 1960s.
“Masa had a good background in looking at the economy as a whole, financial institutions as a whole – not just how numbers or actors economically interact – but also the people who interact within a given institutional framework,” said Koichi Hamada, a professor emeritus at Yale University.
“Masa had a good background in looking at the economy as a whole, financial institutions as a whole – not just how numbers or actors economically interact…”
-Koichi Hamada, Yale University
Aoki applied a systematic lens to everything he studied, a “take society as a total entity” approach, Hamada said.
Aoki grew up in Japan, and developed a deep interest in Japanese politics at an early age. He was actively involved in student movements in the early 1960s, at the heart of which was a campaign against a controversial U.S.-Japan security treaty. China became another great interest of his as the country began to undergo economic transformation and modernization.
Throughout his career, Aoki traveled to Japan and China often, and sought to better inform policy debates by engaging scholars, government leaders and journalists there.
He believed in sharing lessons learned from his own scholarly analyses on what constitute institutions, particularly the “people” aspects – the employees, their cognitive abilities and levels of participation.
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Top left to right: Yingyi Qian of Tsinghau University talks with Avner Greif of Stanford University and Hugh Patrick of Columbia University. / Koichi Hamada of Yale University delivers his remarks titled "Masahiko Aoki: A Social Scientist." Bottom: Reiko Aoki, the wife of Masahiko Aoki, listens in to Kenneth Arrow, a professor emeritus at Stanford University. Credit: Rod Searcey
Aoki was not only a scholar of institutions but also a builder of them.
“Amid a time of diplomatic tensions between China and Japan…Masa was able to bring Japanese, Chinese and American economists together to study and do research,” said Yingyi Qian, dean and professor at the school of economics and management at Tsinghua.
At Stanford, Aoki played a leading role in the creation of the Stanford Japan Center and a multi-day conference that convened annually in Kyoto on issues of mutual concern between Asia-Pacific countries and the United States.
“Masa Aoki’s legacy will serve as an integral guidepost for many years to come. May his soul rest in peace.”
-Kotaro Suzumura, Hitotsubashi University
Earlier this year, Aoki was hospitalized for lung disease. Even at that stage, he worked tirelessly to revise a paper that examines the institutional development of China and Japan in the late 19th to early 20th centuries.
Aoki was also fondly remembered for his mentorship of students at Stanford and other universities he taught at.
“He was an original and unique professor – quite different from others that I’ve met in many respects. He was generous with his time, not hierarchical,” said Miguel Angel Garcia Cestona, who studied for a doctorate at Stanford and now teaches at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona.
Garcia Cestona, among other former students, spoke of Aoki as a friend and shared memories of their former professor hosting them at his home.
In the wake of the recent historic meeting of the leaders of China and Taiwan, the Stanford News Service asked two of the university's Asia experts about the aftermath of that meeting and its possible effects on political relations between the two countries, the military situation and Taiwan's Jan. 16 presidential and parliamentary elections.
The first presidential meeting between the leaders of the communist mainland and the democratic island, split by civil war in 1949, was held in early November on neutral territory in Singapore.
Do you anticipate any lasting effects from the face-to-face meeting of Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou?
Thomas Fingar: At a minimum, the meeting appears intended by both sides to validate and lock in the much-improved cross-Taiwan Strait relationship that has evolved over the past several years.
Kharis Templeman: I do think the Ma-Xi meeting itself will have one lasting legacy: it has created a precedent for treating the directly elected president of the Republic of China as an equal and as the rightful representative of Taiwanese interests in cross-strait relations. From now on, leaders in Beijing are going to have a hard time arguing that a non-KMT (the Kuomintang, Taiwan's governing party,) president is illegitimate, as they did during the [former Taiwanese president] Chen Shui-Bian era, or to continue to insist on referring to Taiwan’s leaders as provincial-level officials. So, the next president will come into office somewhat strengthened by that precedent.
Will the meeting have any effect on the January elections in Taiwan?
Templeman: I don’t think it will make much, if any, difference. Taiwanese public opinion is deeply divided about Ma Ying-Jeou’s meeting with Xi. Ma himself remains quite unpopular, the economy is barely growing, and the KMT presidential candidate remains at least 20 points behind in the polls. There’s little indication that this meeting has shaken up what has been a large and steady lead for DPP (Democratic Progressive Party) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-Wen, and I would be shocked if she didn’t win a comfortable victory in January.
Fingar: Probably not. Beijing seems to have learned that its past attempts to influence elections on Taiwan have been ineffectual or counterproductive, and the meeting is unlikely to change minds or votes on the island.
How might the elections affect military spending on either sides, or China's aggressive island-building for military bases?
Fingar: The meeting will not have any effect on military spending or the building of artificial islands in the South China Sea, but Beijing may have hoped that agreeing to meet with Ma to demonstrate how "good" the relationship is might persuade Washington not to approve another round of arms sales to Taiwan. Regardless of who wins the election on Taiwan, the next administration is likely to seek another round of U.S. arms sales in order to prove that it has the support of the United States.
Templeman:The meeting will have no impact on the security balance in the region. Ma reportedly raised the issue of PRC (People's Republic of China) missiles within easy range of Taiwan, but Xi claimed, implausibly, that they were not targeted at Taiwan, and that was the end of it. The broader trends are unchanged: the PRC’s military budget is growing annually by double-digit rates while Taiwan’s remains essentially flat. The consequence is that the PRC’s capacity to take coercive measures against Taiwan continues to expand, even as cross-strait cooperation has been improved and institutionalized.
Dan Stober is at the Stanford News Service.
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Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Singapore on Nov. 7, 2015.
Flickr/Office of the President Republic of China (Taiwan)
As we look toward year 2016, the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center documents highlights from the 2014-15 academic year. The latest edition of the Center Overview, entitled "Asia in Flux," includes special research, people, events and outreach features, and is now available for download online.
Shorenstein APARC's center overviews provide detailed information about Shorenstein APARC's mission, history, faculty, financial support, organizational structure, projects, and programs.
South Korea must stand with the United States in the event of escalated tensions between China and the United States in the South China Sea, Stanford professor Gi-Wook Shin advised at a forum in Seoul on November 19th.
"Flexibility is necessary, but what's more important is…principle," said Shin, emphasizing the importance of South Korea’s alliance with the United States over its strategic partnership with China.
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.
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