Please note venue change to Bechtel Conference Room (Encina Hall, 1st Floor)

This panel aims to bring together a diverse spectrum of speakers to generate discussion and debate regarding Chinese Influence and American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance, a report jointly issued on November 29, 2018 by the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and the Center on U.S.-China Relations at Asia Society.

Chinese Influence and American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance has sparked sharp reactions as it urges American governments, organizations and individuals to engage in “constructive vigilance” to counter China’s illicit, influence-seeking operations across a broad spectrum of American political and civic life, including U.S. federal and state governments; university campuses; and the technology sector.  What is the evidence behind these claims? What are the implications of these claims? Is the Chinese threat real or speculative? How can we responsibly assess the difference? 

Link to report found

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Gordon H. Chang is the Olive H. Palmer Professor in Humanities and professor in the Department of History at Stanford University. With degrees from Princeton and Stanford, Chang specializes in the history of U.S.-China relations and Asian American history. He has written and edited many books and essays on these topics. Among these are Friends and   Enemies: The United States, China, and the Soviet Union, 1948-1972 (Stanford University Press, 1990); Morning Glory, Evening Shadow: Yamato Ichihashi and His Internment Writing, 1942-1945 (Stanford University Press, 1997); Asian Americans and Politics: Perspectives, Experiences, Prospects (Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2001); Chinese American Voices From the Gold Rush to the Present (University of California Press, 2006); Asian American Art: A History, 1850-1970 (Stanford University Press, 2008); and Fateful Ties: A History of America’s Preoccupation with China (Harvard University Press, 2015). At Stanford, he is co-directing the Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project that is   recovering and interpreting the history of Chinese workers who toiled on the first transcontinental rail line and other lines in the 19th century.

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Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Freeman Spogli Institute (FSI) for International Studies. For more than six years, he directed FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, where he now leads its Program on Arab Reform and Democracy and its Global Digital Policy Incubator. He is the founding co-   editor of the Journal of Democracy and also serves as Senior Consultant at the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy. His research focuses on democratic trends and conditions around in the world, and on policies and reforms to defend and advance democracy.  His 2016 book, In Search of Democracy,  explores the challenges confronting democracy and democracy promotion, gathering together three decades of his writing and research, particularly on Africa and Asia.  He has just completed a new book on the global crisis of democracy, which will be published in 2019, and is now writing a textbook on democratic development.

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Elizabeth C. Economy is the C.V. Starr senior fellow and director for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a distinguished visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. Her most recent book, The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State,   (Oxford University Press, 2018) analyzes the contradictory nature of reform under President Xi Jinping. She is also author of By All Means Necessary: How China's Resource Quest is Changing the World(Oxford University Press, 2014) with Michael Levi, and The River Runs   Black: The Environmental Challenge to China's Future (Cornell University Press, 2004; 2nd edition, 2010; Japanese edition, 2005; Chinese edition, 2011). She has published articles in policy and scholarly journals including Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and the Harvard   Business Review; and op-eds in the New York Times and Washington Post, among others. In June 2018, she was named one of the "10 Names That Matter on China Policy" by Politico Magazine.

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David M. Lampton is Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow and Research Scholar at Stanford University’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. He also is Hyman Professor and Director of China Studies Emeritus at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Having started his academic career at The Ohio State University, Lampton has been   Chairman of the The Asia Foundation (2015-2018), president of the National Committee on United States-China Relations (1988-1997), and former Dean of Faculty at SAIS (2004-2012). He is the author of: Same Bed, Different Dreams: Managing U.S.-China Relations, 1989-2000 (2001); The Three Faces of Chinese Power: Might, Money, and   Minds (2008); and, The Making of Chinese Foreign and Security Policy (editor, Stanford University Press, 2001). He received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University where, as an undergraduate student, he was a fireman. Lampton has an honorary doctorate from the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Far Eastern Studies. His   newest book, Following the Leader: Ruling China, from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping, was first published in January 2014 and will be reissued in paperback with a new Preface early in 2019 by the University of California Press. His current field research and book-length project focuses on Beijing’s effort to build high-speed and other rail lines to Singapore from southern China.

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Jean C. Oi is the William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics in the department of political science and a Senior Fellow of FSI at Stanford University. She is the founding director of the Stanford China Program at Shorenstein APARC. Professor Oi also is the founding Lee Shau Kee Director of the Stanford Center at Peking University. Her work focuses on comparative politics, with special expertise on political economy and the process of reform in transitional systems.  Oi has written extensively on China’s political economy. Her most recent works include, Zouping Revisited: Adaptive Governance in a Chinese County, with Steven Goldstein (2018); Challenges in the Process of China’s Urbanization, with Karen Eggleston and Yiming Wang (2017); Going Private in China: The Politics of Corporate Restructuring and System Reform (2011); and Growing Pains: Tensions and Opportunity in China’s Transformation, with Scott Rozelle and Xueguang Zhou (2010).

This event is part of the China Program’s Colloquia Series entitled "A New Cold War?: Sharp Power, Strategic Competition, and the Future of U.S.-China Relations " sponsored by Shorenstein APARC's China Program.

A New Cold War?: Sharp Power, Strategic Competition, and the Future of U.S.-China Relations

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Trade conflict has exploded. The media is rife with stories of China’s unfair trade practices, cyber theft, IP theft and forced technology transfers. Who will first scale the commanding heights of technological supremacy? Who will be the first mover in AI, robotics and biotechnology? What are the implications of Beijing’s ambitious infrastructure projects, including its Belt and Road Initiative? How is China’s “sharp power” deployed, and what are its implications for political and civic life in the U.S.? Can the Trump administration and Beijing’s leadership reach agreement on our trade disputes? Are these just the beginning salvos of an increasingly turbulent future? As U.S. policy towards China sharply veers away from “constructive engagement” to “strategic competition,” the Stanford China Program will host a series of talks by leading experts to explore the current state of our bilateral relations, its potential future, and their implications for the world order.

https://aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/china/research/new-cold-war-sharp-power-strategic-competition-and-future-us-china-relations

For a recap, audio, transcript and pictures of the event, please see the following link.

https://aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/china/multimedia/transcripts-chinese-influence-real-or-perceived

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EMERGING ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY ASIA

A Special Seminar Series

RSVP required by January 29, 2019 to: https://goo.gl/forms/0bPqyoTQwub8WaRo2

VALID STANFORD ID CARD MUST BE PRESENTED UPON ARRIVAL

ABSTRACT: How does North Korea think about coercion—that is, threats and the use of force to achieve political goals? The answer affects not only the kinds of “sticks” to employ as part of North Korea policy, but the potential cost of using sticks or pressure at all. In this presentation, Jackson argues that part of North Korean strategic culture—specifically its beliefs about coercion—helps explain a durable pattern in its foreign policy and crisis bargaining history: generating deliberate friction with adversaries despite the risk of its own destruction. This presentation will explain the offensive and reputational underpinnings of how North Korea thinks about coercion, detail how this aspect of North Korean strategic culture helps us make sense of its foreign policy history, and explore the implication of this set of beliefs for recent North Korea policy. It will argue that the policy of “maximum pressure,” and its “strategic patience” antecedent, both contained implicit assumptions about North Korean behavior at odds with the historical record— assumptions that were blind to the risks of blowback they were generating.

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The event is jointly sponsored by the Japan Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership.

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Shujiro Urata is a Professor at the Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies, Waseda Univeristy.  His focus of research is in international and development economics.  He received his PhD in Economics from Standford University in 1978.

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The stories of North Korea and Myanmar (Burma) are two of Asia’s most difficult. For decades they were infamous as the region’s most militarized and repressed, self-isolated and under sanctions by the international community while, from Singapore to Japan, the rest of Asia saw historic wealth creation. Andray Abrahamian, author of the recent book North Korea and Myanmar: Divergent Paths (McFarland, 2018), examines and compares the recent histories of North Korea and Myanmar, asking how both became pariahs and why Myanmar has been able to find a path out of isolation while North Korea has not. 

Abrahamian finds that both countries were faced with severe security threats following decolonization. Myanmar was able to largely take care of its main threats in the 1990s and 2000s, allowing it the space to address the reasons for its pariah status. North Korea's response to its security threat has been to develop nuclear weapons, which in turn perpetuates and exacerbates its isolation and pariah status. In addition, Pyongyang has developed a state ideology and a coercive apparatus unmatched by Myanmar, insulating its decision makers from political pressures and issues of legitimacy to a greater degree.

Dr. Andray Abrahamian is currently the 2018-19 Koret Fellow in Korea Program at Stanford. He is a member of the US National Committee on North Korea and an Adjunct Fellow at Pacific Forum and at Griffith University. Working for a non-profit, Choson Exchange, has taken him to the DPRK nearly 30 times; he has also lived in Myanmar.

This event is co-sponsored by Shorenstein APARC's China Program and the Southeast Asia Program

Analysts of China run two occupational risks: One is underestimating PRC capacities to achieve national objectives and the other is overestimating Chinese power. In this talk, David (Mike) Lampton will elaborate upon this observation by focusing on the PRC and Southeast Asian effort to build high speed- and conventional-speed rail connectivity between southern China and seven continental Southeast Asian neighbors, including Singapore. His talk will center on a research project he is undertaking with two Southeast Asian scholars involving field work in eight countries. In his preliminary assessment, “progress has been greater than widely realized, and the problems are very large.” Lampton will analyze: What factors in China and among its neighbors promote, and which retard, progress? Indeed, how do different countries define “progress” and what capacities do China's smaller neighbors have to shape and, in some cases, even resist developments? And, in light of all this, how might the United States think about appropriate economic, strategic, and diplomatic responses?

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David M. Lampton is Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow and Research Scholar at Stanford University’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. He also is Hyman Professor and Director of China Studies Emeritus at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Having started his academic career at The Ohio State University, Lampton has been Chairman of the The Asia Foundation (2015-2018), president of the National Committee on United States-China Relations (1988-1997), and former Dean of Faculty at SAIS (2004-2012). He is the author of: Same Bed, Different Dreams: Managing U.S.-China Relations, 1989-2000 (2001); The Three Faces of Chinese Power: Might, Money, and Minds (2008); and, The Making of Chinese Foreign and Security Policy (editor, Stanford University Press, 2001). He received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University where, as an undergraduate student, he was a fireman. Lampton has an honorary doctorate from the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Far Eastern Studies. His newest book, Following the Leader: Ruling China, from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping, was first published in January 2014 and will be reissued in paperback with a new Preface early in 2019 by the University of California Press. His current field research and book-length project focuses on Beijing’s effort to build high-speed and other rail lines to Singapore from southern China and involves interview and field research in eight countries. He is undertaking this research with two colleagues. 

This event is part of the China Program’s Colloquia Series entitled "A New Cold War?: Sharp Power, Strategic Competition, and the Future of U.S.-China Relations " sponsored by Shorenstein APARC's China Program.

A New Cold War?: Sharp Power, Strategic Competition, and the Future of U.S.-China Relations

Image

Trade conflict has exploded. The media is rife with stories of China’s unfair trade practices, cyber theft, IP theft and forced technology transfers. Who will first scale the commanding heights of technological supremacy? Who will be the first mover in AI, robotics and biotechnology? What are the implications of Beijing’s ambitious infrastructure projects, including its Belt and Road Initiative? How is China’s “sharp power” deployed, and what are its implications for political and civic life in the U.S.? Can the Trump administration and Beijing’s leadership reach agreement on our trade disputes? Are these just the beginning salvos of an increasingly turbulent future? As U.S. policy towards China sharply veers away from “constructive engagement” to “strategic competition,” the Stanford China Program will host a series of talks by leading experts to explore the current state of our bilateral relations, its potential future, and their implications for the world order.

https://aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/china/research/new-cold-war-sharp-power-strategic-competition-and-future-us-china-relations

Over the past six years, Chinese leader Xi Jinping and the rest of the senior Chinese leadership have unleashed a powerful set of political and economic reforms: the centralization of power under Xi himself, the expansion of the Communist Party's role in Chinese political, social and economic life, and the construction of a virtual wall of regulations to control more closely the exchange of ideas and capital between China and the outside world. Beyond its borders, Beijing has recast itself as a great power, seeking to reclaim its past glory and to create a system of international norms that better serves its more ambitious geo-strategic objectives. What are the implications of the Chinese leaders' reform efforts? How sustainable are they? What are the implications for relations with the United States and the rest of the world?

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Elizabeth Economy is the C.V. Starr senior fellow and director for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a distinguished visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. Her most recent book, The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State, (Oxford University Press, 2018) analyzes the contradictory nature of reform under President Xi Jinping. She is also author of By All Means Necessary: How China's Resource Quest is Changing the World (Oxford University Press, 2014) with Michael Levi, and The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to China's Future (Cornell University Press, 2004; 2nd edition, 2010; Japanese edition, 2005; Chinese edition, 2011). She has published articles in policy and scholarly journals including Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and the Harvard Business Review; and op-eds in the New York Times and Washington Post, among others. In June 2018, she was named one of the "10 Names That Matter on China Policy" by Politico Magazine.

This event is part of the China Program’s Colloquia Series entitled "A New Cold War?: Sharp Power, Strategic Competition, and the Future of U.S.-China Relations " sponsored by Shorenstein APARC's China Program.

A New Cold War?: Sharp Power, Strategic Competition, and the Future of U.S.-China Relations

Image

Trade conflict has exploded. The media is rife with stories of China’s unfair trade practices, cyber theft, IP theft and forced technology transfers. Who will first scale the commanding heights of technological supremacy? Who will be the first mover in AI, robotics and biotechnology? What are the implications of Beijing’s ambitious infrastructure projects, including its Belt and Road Initiative? How is China’s “sharp power” deployed, and what are its implications for political and civic life in the U.S.? Can the Trump administration and Beijing’s leadership reach agreement on our trade disputes? Are these just the beginning salvos of an increasingly turbulent future? As U.S. policy towards China sharply veers away from “constructive engagement” to “strategic competition,” the Stanford China Program will host a series of talks by leading experts to explore the current state of our bilateral relations, its potential future, and their implications for the world order.

https://aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/china/research/new-cold-war-sharp-power-strategic-competition-and-future-us-china-relations