John Wilson Lewis, William Haas Professor Emeritus of Chinese Politics at Stanford University, is one the founders of the field of contemporary China studies. After receiving a doctorate from UCLA, he taught at Cornell University before coming to Stanford in 1968. He founded and directed Stanford's Center for East Asian Studies, as well as the Center for International Security and Arms Control, and the Northeast Asia-United States Forum on International Policy (now Shorenstein APARC). He currently directs the Project on Peace and Cooperation in the Asian-Pacific Region. Professor Lewis has written widely about China, Asia, and security matters. Many of his works have long been required reading for students of Chinese politics, especially his still often cited Leadership in Communist China. His edited volumes include: The City in Communist China, Party Leadership and Revolutionary Power in China, Peasant Rebellion and Communist Revolution in Asia, and Next Steps in the Creation of an Accidental Nuclear War Prevention Center. His history of the Chinese nuclear weapons program, China Builds the Bomb, written with Xue Litai, is published both in English (by Stanford University Press), and, in Chinese, by the Atomic Energy Press in Beijing. He has also co-authored Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao, and the Korean War and China's Strategic Seapower: The Politics of Force Modernization in the Nuclear Age. In addition to his work at Stanford, John Lewis has served on the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academy of Sciences, the Joint Committee on Contemporary China of the Social Science Research Council, and the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. He has been a consultant to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the Department of Defense, and is currently a consultant to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Office of Technology Assessment, U.S. Congress. He has made numerous visits to the People's Republic of China (PRC), Japan, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and the Soviet Union/Russian Federation.

Mike Pillsbury earned a BA at Stanford and a PhD in political science at Columbia University. He is a longtime analyst in Chinese foreign policy and national security strategy at RAND Corporation, the Defense Department, and as a staff member on Capital Hill. He has authored several influential books and articles, including, most recently, Chinese Views of Future Warfare and China Debates in the Future Security Environment.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) which is the country's market regulator has recently released its draft rules on corporate governance. Mr. L.K. Singhvi will discuss the SEBI draft. The Securities and Exchange Board of India is India's primary regulator of financial markets. A member of the Indian Civil Service, Mr. Singhvi heads SEBI's Investigation, Enforcement and Surveillance Departments and its Derivative and Venture Capital Fund Departments. Prior to joining SEBI, he held positions in the Indian Revenue Service and the Income Tax Department. When India began reform in 1991, Mr.Singhvi undertook the important assignment of the Director of Enforcement of Foreign Exchange Regulations and was also a member of the committee for dilution of Foreign Exchange Regulations. Mr. Singhvi has participated both in national and international conferences especially in the area of capital market and is also an active member of the Asia Pacific Regional Committee on Enforcement.

Air Chief Marshal S.K. Mehra will be discussing the formulation of the doctrine by the National Security Advisory Board. Since it was made public, the Doctrine has received both domestic and international reactions. Air Chief Marshal Mehra will discuss these reactions as expressed in the media. While in the Service, Air Chief Marshal S.K. Mehra progressed from junior to middle levels in operational fighter units specializing in both air defence and strike roles, and commanded key operational squadrons and major Air Force fighter bases. The senior staff appointments held by him include Director of Air Staff Inspection, Director of Personnel (Officers), Assistant Chief of Air Staff (Operations), and Deputy Chief of the Air Staff. He held the appointment of Air Officer commanding-in-Chief, South Western Air Command with the responsibility of all air operations in the sector, prior to being appointed as the Chief of the Air Staff in 1988. He retired in 1991 on completion of the three-year tenure as the Air Chief. Presently, he is on the Governing Council of the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA), and a member of the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies-both located in New Delhi. He has also been nominated by the Government of India to the National Security Advisory Board.

The great economist, Alfred Marshall, said of industrial districts: "The mysteries of the trade...are as it were in the air...." This seminar reports on a project that addresses the "mysteries" of the Valley (at least to many of the people who want to replicate it). Key topics to be discussed are a habitat that is unmatched in its ability to create new firms and take ideas to market rapidly, the edge provided by communities of practice, the high quality and highly mobile labor force, the various roles of government in the rise of the Valley, and how changes in technology and markets have favored it. Henry S. Rowen is Director of the Asia/Pacific Research Center at Stanford University. He is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Edward B. Rust professor emeritus at the University's Graduate School of Business. From 1989 to 1991, Rowen was the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs in the U.S. Department of Defense. He was also chairman of the National Intelligence Council from 1981 to 1983, served as president of the RAND Corporation from 1968 to 1972 and was assistant director of the U.S. Bureau of the budget from 1965 to 1966. He recently was the editor of Behind East Asian Growth: The Political and Social Foundations of Prosperity, published by Routledge Press, 1998. At the present time, he is co-editing a book on how the Silicon Valley system of innovation and entrepreneurship works. The next phase of this project will examine high technology centers in Asia.

Between four and five thousand years ago, elephants were found in China as far north as the location of present-day Beijing. Today, wild elephants are confined to a few protected enclaves along the southwest border. To some degree, this retreat was due to a long-term decrease in the mean annual temperature, but the most important cause was the destruction of habitat by Chinese-style agricultural development. Mark Elvin uses the pattern of retreat of the elephants as a means of defining to a first degree of approximation the complementary pattern of the spread of forest clearance for farming in China across space and time, and to discuss the economic and other causes for the historical deforestation. Mark Elvin is Research Professor of Chinese History at the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, ANU, and Emeritus Fellow of St. Anthony's College, Oxford. He is author of The Pattern of the Chinese Past (1973), Another History: Essays on China from a European Perspective (1996), and Changing Stories in the Chinese World (1997, among other works. Elvin was educated at Cambridge University and Harvard.

A pioneering Japanese-English simultaneous interpreter will entertain and enlighten you with the tales of some delightful events where humor has successfully transcended cultural barriers, or some embarrassing ones when the speakers and/or interpreters fell flat on their face. A product of the U.S. occupation of Japan and American tax-payers money later, Muramatsu has served countless international conferences and encounters by any other name, including the first nine G-7 Summit meetings of heads of state and government. (The first, in 1975, at Rambouillet, was G-6; guess who wasn't invited to the dinner.) Meticulously avoiding divulging any state secret or materials for tabloids, he has written essays, books, and given lectures on fascinating episodes that make us laugh and then think the tricks in breaking linguistic and cultural barriers. Born in Tokyo in 1930; worked first as a clerk-typist and then as an interpreter for the U.S. military in Tokyo 1946 through 1955; trained as one of the first eight Japanese simultaneous interpreters by the U.S. State Department, serving some thirty Japanese productivity study teams that toured the U.S. 1956-1960. Tried a new career as an economic researcher with the U.S.-Japan Economic Council in Washington, DC predecessor to the Japan Economic Institute of America). Went back to professional interpreting by returning to Japan in 1965, relinquishing his green card, and established Simul International, Inc., the first professional organization of, by and for interpreters in Japan. After 33 years as its president, then chairman, and also president of the Simul Academy, semi-retired into an advisory, albeit full-time, status in 1998. His clients include Pres. Reagan, Pres. Kennedy, Sen. Kennedy, Professors Milton Friedman, Paul Samuelson, John Kenneth Galbraith, Peter Drucker,Japanese prime ministers from Tanaka to Nakasone, India's Prime Minister Rajif Gandhi, Britain's Prince Charles, Jeffrey Archer, Arthur C. Clarke, Ralph Nader, Betty Friedan, and Yasser Arafat.

Prior to joining RAND in 1989, Dr. Swaine was a consultant in the business sector, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Chinese Studies, University of California, Berkeley, and a research associate at Harvard University. Dr. Swaine holds a Ph.D. and Masters in Political Science from Harvard University and a Bachelor's degree from George Washington University. He specializes in Chinese domestic politics and foreign policy, U.S.-China relations, and East Asian international relations.

Inside Burma, the armed forces have established a chokehold on political power unrivalled in the world. The latest incarnation of junta rule emerged in 1988 following the bloody repression of a nationwide pro-democracy movement. Yet despite international revulsion, today's generals have barely been touched by its effects: the suspension of international economic assistance; the imposition of an arms embargo; and bans on new investment in Burma by Western firms. Over four decades of military rule, there have been rumors of in-fighting among officers, and of mutinies and desertions by foot soldiers. Many have concluded from such reports that the regime must inevitably fall. So far, however, such thoughts have been wishful. While elsewhere in Southeast Asia authoritarian regimes have crumbled, in Burma the junta has endured. How have Burma's generals managed to sustain their dominance for so long? Why hasn't the country's democratic opposition been able to wrest power from this regime? And why have international sanctions and prodding so utterly failed to break the stalemate in Rangoon? Mary Callahan is Assistant Professor at the University of Washington's Jackson School of International Studies. She received her PhD in Government at Cornell University in 1996. Among her many writings are chapters civil-military relations in Burma scheduled to appear in Soldier and State in Asia (Stanford University Press, 2000) and Burma: Strong State/Weak Regime (Crawford House, 2000). Fluent in Burmese, Prof. Callahan also teaches, lectures widely, and serves as a consultant to the United Nations on political conditions in Burma.