The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) is pleased to invite applications for a host of fellowships in contemporary Asia studies to begin in Autumn quarter 2025.

The Center offers postdoctoral fellowships that promote multidisciplinary research on Asia-focused health policy, contemporary Japan, and contemporary Asia broadly defined, postdoctoral fellowships and visiting scholar positions with the Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab, and a fellowship for experts on Southeast Asia. Learn more about each opportunity and its eligibility and specific application requirements:

Asia Health Policy Program Postdoctoral Fellowship

Hosted by the Asia Health Policy Program at APARC, the fellowship is awarded to one recent PhD undertaking original research on contemporary health or healthcare policy of high relevance to countries in the Asia-Pacific region, especially developing countries. Appointments are for one year beginning in Autumn quarter 2025. The application deadline is December 1, 2024.

Japan Program Postdoctoral Fellowship

Hosted by the Japan Program at APARC, the fellowship supports research on contemporary Japan in a broad range of disciplines including political science, economics, sociology, law, policy studies, and international relations. Appointments are for one year beginning in Autumn quarter 2025. The application deadline is December 1, 2024.  

Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellowship on Contemporary Asia

APARC offers two postdoctoral fellowship positions to junior scholars for research and writing on contemporary Asia. The primary research areas focus on political, economic, or social change in the Asia-Pacific region (including Northeast, Southeast, and South Asia), or international relations and international political economy in the region. Appointments are for one year beginning in Autumn quarter 2025. The application deadline is December 1, 2024. 
 

This article originally appeared on the Stanford Law School's website.

Curtis J. Milhaupt, the William F. Baxter-Visa International Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, recently received a “Best Paper” award from the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) for his 2023 working paper, “The (Geo)Politics of Controlling Shareholders.” Milhaupt is also a senior fellow, by courtesy, at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and affiliated faculty at Shorenstein APARC.

Milhaupt’s paper “makes a substantial and novel contribution to the literature on corporate governance and controlling shareholders by analyzing how the features of firms with controlling shareholders enhance their geopolitical significance,” according to a press release from ECGI. His paper advocates for the study of corporate governance to extend beyond traditional economic analysis to incorporate geopolitical and political-economic dimensions.

“Corporate governance scholarship on controlling shareholders has focused almost exclusively on shareholder wealth diversion and creation,” said Milhaupt, who was appointed a Fellow of the ECGI in January 2024. The ECGI selects as fellows individuals who have demonstrated scientific excellence or other outstanding achievements in the area of corporate governance and stewardship.

“It is an honor to be recognized for my effort to analyze the complex interplay between corporate control and wide-ranging geopolitical and domestic political concerns,” he said.

Milhaupt focuses his research and teaching on comparative corporate governance, the legal systems of East Asia, and Chinese state capitalism. In addition to numerous scholarly articles, he has co-authored or edited seven books, including Regulating the Visible Hand? The Institutional Implications of Chinese State Capitalism (Oxford, 2016), Law and Capitalism: What Corporate Crises Reveal about Legal Systems and Economic Development Around the World (Chicago, 2008) and Transforming Corporate Governance in East Asia (Routledge, 2008).

The prize will be awarded at the ECGI Annual Conference in Brussels on October 8, 2024.

You can view Professor Milhaupt's presentation of his award-winning paper on the Stanford Law School's YouTube channel.

Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) is delighted to share that Chris Buckley, the chief China correspondent for the New York Times, has won the 2024 Shorenstein Journalism Award for Excellence in Asia-Pacific Coverage. The award recognizes Buckley’s expertly crafted narratives unraveling the intricate tapestry of politics, social dynamics, and security issues in China and Taiwan. He will receive the award at a public ceremony at Stanford in October 2024.

Buckley’s reporting journey spans over two decades, covering Chinese politics, foreign policy, social change, and environmental issues. In recent years, he has focused on detailing the complex dynamics of the Chinese Communist Party’s governance, the transformative impact of Xi Jinping's leadership on China’s domestic and international affairs, and the varied responses to these developments from the Chinese populace. Since relocating to Taipei in late 2022, he has expanded his coverage to include Taiwanese society, politics, and culture, providing a comprehensive view of the region’s evolving landscape. His perceptive coverage navigates the challenges of tightened restrictions on foreign press reporting on China.

Sign up for APARC newsletters to receive our experts' analysis and commentary >

Buckley was with colleagues a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in international reporting for gripping accounts that revealed China's covert efforts to repress millions of Uyghurs and other ethnic groups in the Xinjiang region through a system of labor camps, harsh treatment, and extensive surveillance. He was also part of the Times team that won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Public Service for coverage of the Covid pandemic. One of several Times correspondents to race into Wuhan in the earliest days of the Covid outbreak, he spent 76 days in the city during the lockdown there, reporting on the Chinese government’s opacity as the Coronavirus spread and covering the public outcry following the death of whistleblower Dr. Li Wenliang.

In May 2020, Buckley was forced to leave mainland China, where he had lived and worked for more than two decades, and was then barred from working in Hong Kong. Based in Taipei since 2022, he has continued to report on China and now also covers Taiwan.

“With his journalistic prowess, profound insights into China’s political system, and finely honed accounts, Chris Buckley has shined a critical light on the shifts in Chinese society and politics and broke numerous stories despite facing government backlash and personal sacrifices,” said APARC Director Gi-Wook Shin. “We are honored to recognize him with the Shorenstein Journalism Award.”

Before rejoining the New York Times in 2012, Buckley was a senior correspondent in Beijing for Reuters News Agency for 7 years, and before that worked as a researcher and reporter for the Times and International Herald Tribune in Beijing. He grew up in Sydney, Australia, earned a bachelor's degree in history from the University of Sydney, studied Chinese Communist Party history at Renmin University in Beijing, and received a doctorate in Chinese studies from Australian National University.

Presented annually by APARC, the Shorenstein Award carries a $10,000 cash prize and commemorates the legacy of APARC’s benefactor, Mr. Walter H. Shorenstein, and his twin passions for promoting excellence in journalism and understanding of Asia. The selection committee for the award praised Buckley’s exemplary work as embodying the award’s purpose, commenting that he is “truly unparalleled in his knowledge and understanding of China.”

The committee members are William Dobson, co-editor of the Journal of Democracy; Anna Fifield, the Washington Post's Asia-Pacific editor and recipient of the 2018 Shorenstein Journalism Award; James Hamilton, the Hearst Professor of Communication, chair of the Department of Communication, and director of the Journalism Program at Stanford University; Louisa Lim, associate professor, Audio-Visual Journalism Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne; and Raju Narisetti, publisher of McKinsey Global Publishing at McKinsey and Company.

Twenty-two winners previously received the Shorenstein Award. Recent honorees include The Caravan, India's premier magazine of long-form journalism; Emily Feng, international correspondent for NPR covering China, Taiwan, and beyond; Swe Win, editor-in-chief of Myanmar Now; and Nobel Laureate Maria Ressa, CEO and president of the Philippines-based news organization Rappler.

Information about the 2024 Shorenstein Journalism Award ceremony and panel discussion celebrating Buckley will be forthcoming in the fall quarter.

This opinion piece originally appeared in Nikkei Asia

Addressing a joint session of the U.S. Congress two weeks ago, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida cracked a joke about how he has rarely received such a warm welcome from the Diet back in Tokyo.

Indeed, while many observers saw his trip to the U.S. as a great success, back in Japan, Kishida is facing tough problems.

His biggest headache right now is the ongoing scandal around the funding of factions of his ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Kishida's achievements in foreign affairs, such as the successful hosting of the Group of Seven summit in his hometown of Hiroshima last year, and his trip beforehand to Kyiv to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, have often been more than offset by domestic setbacks.

These have included the exposure of close links between LDP politicians and the controversial Unification Church, Kishida's unpopular decision to hold a state funeral for assassinated former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and the chaotic rollout of a new national identity card.

As a result of such troubles, Kishida's public approval rating is hovering at a historic low. With voters going to the polls this weekend to elect new Diet members to fill three vacant seats, the LDP is not even fielding its own candidate in two of the races, and appears to be struggling in the third district although it is usually a party stronghold.

The factional funding scandal could have a lasting impact on Japanese politics. Factions have been central to governance and the distribution of key posts within the LDP since its founding in 1955.

The LDP's factions are relatively unique in that they command members' near-total commitment in respect to parliamentary votes and other key decisions, which are provided in exchange for the factional organization's financial support for operations and campaigning.

Fundraising parties have been an embedded element of the LDP's factional system. These worked in a straightforward manner: The more party tickets politicians could sell, the more money that would come in to their faction.

Individual top ticket sellers would also be rewarded with greater influence by their faction. Large factions, like the one previously headed by Abe, benefitted from selling a large number of party tickets.

This practice was largely legal, as long as the money raised was reported in accordance with the country's extensive election laws. In the current scandal, the problem was that some factions significantly underreported ticket sales.

Such moves, likely with the approval of faction leaders, allowed the factions and their members to evade limits on accepting contributions from individual donors and escape restrictions on how the funds could be used. Abe's faction and a faction headed by former party Secretary-General Toshihiro Nikai are considered to have been the most egregious violators, and their current leaders have been punished accordingly by Kishida.

Kishida has made a couple of bold moves in his handling of the scandal, particularly his decision to voluntarily testify to the upper house's political ethics committee when most other LDP officials resisted appearing, and his move to dissolve his own party faction in response to criticisms about underreporting of its fundraising.

Other factions were then, in effect, forced to follow suit, to the extent that only one of the party's six factions has held back from announcing its dissolution. This could thus be the end of LDP factional politics as we have known it, a development that could transform Japanese politics in a more policy-oriented direction.

As the head of the only faction left standing, former Prime Minister Taro Aso has become even more powerful. He now is not only a critical partner behind Kishida's current administration but also a potential kingmaker for the next government.

Another party figure commanding great influence these days is Yoshihide Suga, whose 2020-2021 prime ministership is being favorably revaluated. He began pushing against party factions long before the current scandal erupted and has been proven correct about their negative effects. As more LDP members become factionless, many are looking to Suga for direction.

Third, considering the severe punishment meted out to some faction leaders, it is noticeable that Nikai and Koichi Hagiuda have been left relatively unscathed.

Nikai shrewdly preempted the announcement of punishments by declaring that he would retire from politics. Hagiuda notably received the lightest punishment among the five top leaders of the Abe faction, likely reflecting Kishida's calculations that he might need his support ahead of September's LDP presidential vote.

The upshot of all this is that factional politics have been transformed but voting blocs will still be important. Kishida's flattening of the LDP party organization could give him more direct influence over many of the party's legislators. The weakening of the factions also means that individual politicians will be able to vote on legislation based on their own judgment rather than the preferences of their faction leader, which could potentially improve the policymaking process.

Yet media reports suggest the factions are moving quite slowly to actually dissolve themselves and dismantle their infrastructure. Only time will tell whether factional politics have been made a thing of the past or whether they will resurface in the LDP in a different form.

September's party leadership vote will give us a great indication of where things are going. Will Kishida be rewarded for rolling the dice on faction dissolution, or will it bite him in the back as Aso, Suga, and others summon the support to topple the prime minister?

In any case, a major transformation is taking place within the LDP, Japan's dominant party since its founding. The results could have a lasting impact on the country's politics.

This profile of Norman Joshua originally appeared in The Stanford Report, part of a profile of three university postdoctoral scholars.

As an Indonesian and a historian, I have always been captivated by how Indonesia thrived under former President Suharto’s New Order regime for 32 years. Yet at the same time, society also buckled under the illiberal and authoritarian rule of the military.

After the fall of Suharto in 1998, the country began to open up. Many archives became much more accessible and writing about topics like the military and government were no longer taboo nor dangerous. That sparked my curiosity about how societies work, and I later earned my undergraduate degree in history from the University of Indonesia and a PhD in history from Northwestern University.

Today, I spend a lot of time working on my book proposal, which explores the origins of authoritarianism in Indonesia. It’s a story about how the Indonesian state and society – following a four-year revolution after World War II – gradually became preoccupied with order and security. I’m looking specifically at how and why the military became involved in non-military affairs, such as politics, culture, and the economy.

During the winter closure, I’ll be in Indonesia to do some work before the Christmas holiday, like visiting archives and libraries. I’ll also be attending a conference in London to present one of my book chapters.

I’m really enjoying the privilege of being at Stanford. Through the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Asia-Pacific Research Center, The Hoover Institution, and other centers, I’ve been able to talk with experts who have inspired my work. I’m really enjoying working with the faculty here – everyone’s been really welcoming and supportive.

The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), Stanford University’s hub for interdisciplinary research, education, and engagement on contemporary Asia, invites nominations for the 2024 Shorenstein Journalism Award. The award recognizes outstanding journalists who have spent their careers helping audiences worldwide understand the complexities of the Asia-Pacific region. The 2024 award will honor a recipient whose work has primarily appeared in American news media. APARC invites award nomination submissions from news editors, publishers, scholars, journalism associations, and entities focused on researching and interpreting the Asia-Pacific region. Submissions are due by Thursday, February 15, 2024.

Sponsored by APARC, the award carries a cash prize of US $10,000. It rotates between recipients whose primary body of work has been featured in Asian news media and those whose primary body of work has been featured in American news media. The 2024 award will recognize a recipient from the latter category.

For the purpose of the award, the Asia-Pacific region is defined broadly to include Northeast, Southeast, South, and Central Asia and Australasia. Both individual journalists with a considerable body of work and journalism organizations are eligible for the award. Nominees’ work may be in traditional forms of print or broadcast journalism and/or in new forms of multimedia journalism. The Award Selection Committee, whose members are experts in journalism and Asia research and policy, presides over the judging of nominees and is responsible for the selection of honorees.

An annual tradition since 2002, the award honors the legacy of APARC benefactor, Mr. Walter H. Shorenstein, and his twin passions for promoting excellence in journalism and understanding of Asia. Throughout its history, the award has recognized world-class journalists who push the boundaries of coverage of the Asia-Pacific region and help advance mutual understanding between audiences in the United States and their Asian counterparts.

Recent honorees include India’s magazine of long-form journalism The Caravan; NPR's Beijing Correspondent Emily Feng; Burmese journalist and human rights defender Swe Win; former Wall Street Journal investigative reporter Tom Wright; and the internationally esteemed champion of press freedom Maria Ressa, CEO of the Philippine news platform Rappler and winner of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize.

Award nominations are accepted electronically through Thursday, February 15, 2024, at 11:59 PM PST. For information about the nomination procedures and to submit an entry please visit the award nomination entry page. APARC will announce the winner by April 2024 and present the award at a public ceremony at Stanford in the autumn quarter of 2024.

Please direct all inquiries to aparc-communications@stanford.edu.

This news entry was last updated on December 14, 2023.

APARC Communications Manager Michael Breger recently spoke with Dr. Soksamphoas Im, our Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Fellow on Southeast Asia in fall 2023.

In this conversation, Im shares insights from her research on social welfare in Cambodia and how such public assistance is used by the ruling regime to establish legitimacy. You can listen to the interview or read the audio transcript.

On November 29, 2023, Dr. Im presented her research at a seminar hosted by the Southeast Asia Program. You can view the event recording on our YouTube channel.