The opening up of Myanmar (Burma) and the steps undertaken taken toward political reform in that formerly isolated dictatorship have been among Asia's most dramatic and least expected events.  But the establishment of full democracy is still on the agenda and faces many challenges.  How willing is the current government in Burma to allow a full and free exercise of political rights, including media freedom?  A panel of experts, including Aung Zaw, the editor and founder of The Irrawaddy and this year's recipient of the Shorenstein Award for Journalism in Asia, will address that question in discussing "Burma's Democracy:  How Real?"

Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) is pleased to announce Aung Zaw as the 2013 recipient of the Shorenstein Journalism Award. Zaw has been selected for his leadership in establishing independent media in Myanmar (Burma) and his dedication to integrity in reporting on Southeast Asia.

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Aung Zaw

Aung Zaw is the founding editor-in-chief and executive director of The Irrawaddy, an independent Burmese media organization operating in Myanmar and northern Thailand. Zaw has been an active campaigner for democratic reform in Burma/Myanmar over the last two decades. He was awarded the 2010 Prince Claus Fund Award for journalism along with two journalists from Iran and Cuba – and is recognized for his active dedication to achieving democratic governance in Burma and his work to uphold press freedom.

Zaw studied Botany at Rangoon University. As a student activist in Burma, he was part of the 1988 protests in Rangoon against the Burmese military regime of General Ne Win. He was arrested and detained for a week in Rangoon’s notorious Insein prison where he was severely tortured during interrogation about his pro-democracy activities. Upon release Aung Zaw continued to work with the resistance movement until the military staged a coup in September that year and he was forced to leave the country for neighboring Thailand.

Two years later, Aung Zaw founded the Burma Information Group (BIG) in Bangkok, to document human rights violations in Burma. He began to write political commentaries for national newspapers in Thailand and internationally, and in late 1993 launched The Irrawaddy News Magazine in Bangkok, covering Burma affairs. He worked in Bangkok for two years producing The Irrawaddy Magazine until relocating to the more secure position in Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand.

In February 2012, Aung Zaw was able to return to his homeland for the first time in more than 20 years for a temporary visit as an independent journalist. By the end of 2012, The Irrawaddy was able to establish a media and news office in central Yangon, returning to Burma/Myanmar to practice independent journalism, whilst retaining a regional office in Thailand.

In 2013, the government lifted ban on The Irrawaddy and other exiled websites, the Irrawaddy English magazine and the Irrawaddy Dateline Current Affairs TV program is available for audiences in Myanmar. Aung Zaw writes for New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Time, The Guardian, Bangkok Post, The Nation and several publications in the Europe. His interviews have also appeared on CN, BBC and Al Jazeera. He is the author of the Face of Resistance and is a recent Visiting Scholar at UC Berkeley, School of Journalism.

A year has passed since the Japanese government embarked on the new economic policy package called “Abenomics” with three “arrows”: aggressive monetary easing, flexible fiscal policy, and a growth strategy. The package is designed to bring the Japanese economy out of 20 years of stagnation and 15 years of deflation, and put it on a sustainable growth path. How effective has the policy package been during the first year of the Abe administration?  Will it succeed in bringing sustainable growth to Japan?  Professor Takatoshi Ito, a prominent expert on the Japanese economy, tackles these questions.

Takatoshi Ito, Professor at Faculty of Economics and Dean of Graduate School of Public
Policy, University of Tokyo, has taught extensively both in the United States and Japan,
including at University of Minnesota, Hitotsubashi University, and Harvard University.
He held visiting professor positions at Harvard University (1986-87 and 1992-94), Stanford
University (as National Fellow; 1984-85); Columbia Business School (fall semester, 2009),
and Tun Ismail Ali Chair Professor at University of Malaya (summer semester, 2008). His
public sector experiences include Senior Advisor in the Research Department, IMF
(1994-97); Deputy Vice Minister for International Affaires at Ministry of Finance
(1999-2001); and a member of the Prime Minister’s Council of Economic and Fiscal
Policy (2006-08). He is an author of many books including The Japanese Economy (MIT
Press), The Political Economy of the Japanese Monetary Policy (MIT Press), and
Financial Policy and Central Banking in Japan (MIT Press), and more than 50
refereed academic journal articles on international finance and the Japanese economy,
including ones in American Economic Review and Econometrica. He has distinguished
academic and research appointments such as President of the Japanese Economic
Association in 2004; Fellow of Econometric Society, since 1992; Research Associate at
National Bureau of Economic Research since 1985; and Faculty Fellow, Centre for
Economic Policy Research, since 2006. His research interest includes capital flows and
currency crises, microstructures of the foreign exchange rates, and inflation targeting. He
contributes frequently op-ed columns and articles to Financial Times, Nihon Keizai Shinbun,
Mainichi Shinbun, and Toyo Keizai Weekly.

This talk explores the work of Swiss diplomats and Red Cross delegates to explain the experience of Allied POWs and civilian internees in the Pacific War. As the only foreigners allowed into both POW and internee camps, and the only ones to work in Japan as well as Allied countries, they were uniquely positioned to record the flow of information between the two sides, the attempts to deliver material and financial aid, and the intensifying exchange of recrimination and threats. Washington and Tokyo made claims and counter-claims about the observance or non-observance of the Geneva Conventions. Both sides threatened and carried out reprisals and made their observance of international law conditional on the conduct of the enemy. While life was far worse for Allied captives than for their Japanese counterparts, it was not because of a deliberate policy of cruelty. Instead, senior Japanese officials never developed clear policy guidance for POWs and failed to provide adequate logistical and administrative support. The few Japanese officials who oversaw the camp system lacked any authority over individual commanders. Even so, the Swiss may well have helped prevent a bad situation from becoming even worse.

Sarah Kovner is a graduate of Princeton University (A.B.) and Columbia University (Ph.D), associate professor of history at the University of Florida, and is currently a Chauncey Fellow in International Security Studies at Yale. She works on modern Japanese history, international history, and the history of war and society. Kovner's first book, Occupying Power: Sex Workers and Servicemen in Postwar Japan, won the Southeast Conference Association for Asian Studies book prize. It is available in paperback from Stanford University Press. She is now writing a history of Allied prisoners in the Pacific War.

 

By any measure, China’s economy and defense budget are second only to those of the United States. Yet tremendous uncertainties persist concerning China’s military development and national trajectory, and areas with greater information available often conflated misleadingly. Fortunately, larger dynamics elucidate both areas. Particularly since the 1995-96 Taiwan Strait Crisis, China has made rapid progress in aerospace and maritime development, greatly facilitating its military modernization. The weapons and systems that China is developing and deploying fit well with Beijing’s geostrategic priorities. Here, distance matters greatly: after domestic stability and border control, Beijing worries most about its immediate periphery, where its unresolved disputes with neighbors and outstanding claims lie primarily in the maritime direction. Accordingly, while it would vastly prefer pressuring concessions to waging war, China is already capable of threatening potential opponents’ military forces should they intervene in crises over islands and maritime claims in the Yellow, East, and South China Seas and the waterspace and airspace around them. Far from mainland China, by contrast, it remains ill-prepared to protect its own forces from robust attack. Fortunately for Beijing, the non-traditional security focus of its distant operations makes conflict unlikely; remedying their vulnerabilities would be difficult and expensive. Despite these larger patterns, critical unknowns remain concerning China’s economic development, societal priorities, industrial efficiency, and innovation capability. Dr. Erickson will examine these and related issues to probe China’s development trajectory and future place in the international system. 

The views expressed by Dr. Erickson are his alone, and do not represent the policies or estimates of any organization with which he is affiliated.

Dr. Andrew S. Erickson is an Associate Professor in the Strategic Research Department at the U.S. Naval War College and a core founding member of the department’s China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI). He is an Associate in Research at Harvard University’s John King Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies (2008-). Erickson also serves as an expert contributor to the Wall Street Journal’s China Real Time Report (中国实时报), for which he has authored or coauthored 25 articles. In spring 2013, he deployed in the Pacific as a Regional Security Education Program scholar aboard USS Nimitz (CVN68), Carrier Strike Group 11.

Erickson received his Ph.D. and M.A. in international relations and comparative politics from Princeton University and graduated magna cum laude from Amherst College with a B.A. in history and political science. He has studied Mandarin in the Princeton in Beijing program at Beijing Normal University’s College of Chinese Language and Culture and Japanese language, politics, and economics in the year-long Associated Kyoto Program at Doshisha University.

Erickson’s research, which focuses on Asia-Pacific defense, international relations, technology, and resource issues, has been published widely in English- and Chinese-language edited volumes and in such peer-reviewed journals as China Quarterly, Asian Security, Journal of Strategic Studies, Orbis, Asia Policy (forthcoming January 2014), and China Security; as well as in Foreign Affairs, The National Interest, The American Interest, Foreign Policy, Joint Force Quarterly, China International Strategy Review (published in Chinese-language edition, forthcoming in English-language edition January 2014), and International and Strategic Studies Report (Center for International and Strategic Studies, Peking University). Erickson has also published annotated translations of several Chinese articles on maritime strategy. His publications are available at <www.andrewerickson.com> and <www.chinasignpost.com>.

This event is co-sponsored with CEAS and is part of the China under Xi Jinping series.