FSI's research on the origins, character and consequences of government institutions spans continents and academic disciplines. The institute’s senior fellows and their colleagues across Stanford examine the principles of public administration and implementation. Their work focuses on how maternal health care is delivered in rural China, how public action can create wealth and eliminate poverty, and why U.S. immigration reform keeps stalling.
FSI’s work includes comparative studies of how institutions help resolve policy and societal issues. Scholars aim to clearly define and make sense of the rule of law, examining how it is invoked and applied around the world.
FSI researchers also investigate government services – trying to understand and measure how they work, whom they serve and how good they are. They assess energy services aimed at helping the poorest people around the world and explore public opinion on torture policies. The Children in Crisis project addresses how child health interventions interact with political reform. Specific research on governance, organizations and security capitalizes on FSI's longstanding interests and looks at how governance and organizational issues affect a nation’s ability to address security and international cooperation.
Most studies on China’s relations with Southeast Asian states focus on China’s power and how such power has been used to achieve influence in the region. The emphasis is on intention and causation: how China willingly uses its power to coerce, coopt, or persuade others to behave in a certain way. Professor Han will acknowledge but go beyond this conventional approach to explore the unintended outcomes and ripple effects that are also associated with China’s presence in Southeast Asia. His talk will feature a typology for use in thinking about China’s regional presence and the various everyday forms that it takes. He will argue that we need to understand such nuance and complexity if we are to make sense of China’s relations with Southeast Asia and what they imply.
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Enze Han is APARC's 2021-2022 Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Fellow on Contemporary Southeast Asia for the spring quarter of 2022. Dr. Han is also an associate professor at the University of Hong Kong's Department of Politics and Public Administration. His research interests include ethnic politics in China, Southeast Asia’s relations with China, and the politics of state formation in the borderland area shared by China, Myanmar, and Thailand. His many publications include “Non-State Chinese Actors and Their Impact on Relations between China and Mainland Southeast Asia,” ISEAS Trends in Southeast Asia (2021); Asymmetrical Neighbours: Borderland State Building between China and Southeast Asia (2019); and Contestation and Adaptation: The Politics of National Identity in China (2013). Positions and affiliations prior to his professorship at UHK include the University of London (SOAS), Princeton University, the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton), and the East Asia Institute (Seoul). His 2010 doctorate in Political Science is from George Washington University.
Enze Han joined the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) as visiting scholar and 2021-2022 Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Fellow on Contemporary Southeast Asia for the spring quarter of 2022. Dr. Han is currently Associate Professor at the University of Hong Kong's Department of Politics and Public Administration. While at APARC, Dr. Han conducted research on China's increasing connectivity with mainland Southeast Asia, and how such connectivity should be analyzed through the lens of international relations, development studies, and borderland studies.
2021-2022 Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Fellow on Contemporary Southeast Asia
Myanmar’s junta is more than a year old. The vast majority of the country’s people oppose the junta and favor democracy. But the devil is in the details. Many in the opposition want some form of multi-ethnic federal democracy. But levels of disagreement and distrust among different communities, including some of the Ethnic Armed Groups, are impeding a unified vision to push the military out of power and establish civilian rule. This webinar will examine the choices and challenges faced by the opponents of the regime as they try to unite these communities against it on behalf of a better future for Myanmar.
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Nyantha Maw Lin is an independent analyst with more than a decade of interdisciplinary experience in government affairs, public policy, and political risk assessment related to Myanmar. Prior to the February 2021 coup, he supported community and stakeholder engagement efforts in Myanmar’s Rakhine State and served on a voluntary panel of industry and civil society representatives who advised the government on initiatives to fight corruption. He also helped to lead several innovative non-profit entities based in Yangon engaged in philanthropy, business, and social-impact activity. In addition to convening multi-sectoral dialogues with government, the private sector, and civil society in Myanmar, Nyantha has also participated in semi-official conversations elsewhere in Southeast Asia. A former Eisenhower Fellow (2018), he earned his BA in Political Science/International Relations from Carleton College (2008).
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Scot Marciel has had a long career as an American diplomat serving in multiple countries, most recently as US Ambassador to Myanmar (2016-2020). Earlier postings included as Ambassador to Indonesia (2010-2013) and concurrently as Ambassador for ASEAN affairs and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Southeast Asia (2007-2010). He has also served in the Philippines and Vietnam. His assignments at the State Department in Washington DC have included as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs and as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State of Southeast Asia. Based on these experiences, he has been writing a book entitled “Imperfect Partners: The United States and Southeast Asia.” He earned his MA at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (1983) and his BA in International Relations at the University of California at Davis (1981).
Scot Marciel was the Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, affiliated with the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center from 2022-2024. Previously, he was a 2020-22 Visiting Scholar and Visiting Practitioner Fellow on Southeast Asia at APARC. A retired diplomat, Mr. Marciel served as U.S. Ambassador to Myanmar from March 2016 through May 2020, leading a mission of 500 employees during the difficult Rohingya crisis and a challenging time for both Myanmar’s democratic transition and the United States-Myanmar relationship. Prior to serving in Myanmar, Ambassador Marciel served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asia and the Pacific at the State Department, where he oversaw U.S. relations with Southeast Asia.
From 2010 to 2013, Scot Marciel served as U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country. He led a mission of some 1000 employees, expanding business ties, launching a new U.S.-Indonesia partnership, and rebuilding U.S.-Indonesian military-military relations. Prior to that, he served concurrently as the first U.S. Ambassador for ASEAN Affairs and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Southeast Asia from 2007 to 2010.
Mr. Marciel is a career diplomat with 35 years of experience in Asia and around the world. In addition to the assignments noted above, he has served at U.S. missions in Turkey, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Brazil and the Philippines. At the State Department in Washington, he served as Director of the Office of Maritime Southeast Asia, Director of the Office of Mainland Southeast Asia, and Director of the Office of Southern European Affairs. He also was Deputy Director of the Office of Monetary Affairs in the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs.
Mr. Marciel earned an MA from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and a BA in International Relations from the University of California at Davis. He was born and raised in Fremont, California, and is married with two children.
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Visiting Practitioner Fellow on Southeast Asia, APARC, Stanford University
As reports of leveled mosques, detention camps, and destroyed cultural and religious sites in China's Xinjiang province emerged in the mid-to-late 2010s, the world took notice of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) flagrant oppression of Uighur Muslims and other minorities. Under the Xi Jinping administration, the Xinjiang region in northwestern China has experienced what is perhaps the greatest period of cultural assimilation since the Cultural Revolution. This massive state repression represents a primary research focus for Dr. James Millward, Professor of Inter-societal History at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, who joined both APARC's China Program and the Stanford History Department as a visiting scholar for winter quarter 2022.
Millward's specialties include the Qing empire, the silk road, and historical and contemporary Xinjiang. In addition to his numerous academic publications on these topics, he follows and comments on current issues regarding Xinjiang, the Uyghurs and other Xinjiang indigenous peoples, PRC ethnicity policy, and Chinese politics more generally. We caught up with Millward to discuss his work and experience at Stanford this past winter quarter. Listen to the conversation:
Millward emphasizes the importance of documenting the scope and scale of the crisis in Xinjiang. "What's happened in the last four or five years in Xinjiang is of great global importance and interest to people," he says, and although it is still early to write the history of this period of repression, "it's important at least to try and get an organized draft of it down and to try to begin to interpret rather than just narrate the litany of things going on: the camps, the digital surveillance, forced labor, birth depressions, and try and put it all into some kind of framework where we can understand it."
China’s crackdown on Uyghur Muslims and other minorities in Xinjiang is part of aggressive intolerance of cultural and political diversity that is emerging as a central feature of Xi Jinping’s tenure, explains Millward. The shift in the CCP's assimilationist policies constitutes a complete "reversal of what had been an earlier approach to diversity in China," which allowed for 56 different nationalities to have regional autonomy. His aim is to "point out a really aggressive assimilating thrust under the Xi Jinping regime [...] and then also to look more clearly at settler colonialism in Xinjiang."
In this talk, Millward explains how PRC assimilationist policies, if most extreme in Xinjiang, are related to the broader Zhonghua-izing campaign against religion and non-Mandarin language and perhaps even to intensified control over Hong Kong and efforts to intimidate Taiwan.
U.S.-China Cooperation Amid Strained Ties
The Xinjiang crisis has affected how the United States views China, bringing an unexpected unity to the usually-polarized American foreign policy arena. "The Xinjiang issue has contributed to the broad-spectrum feeling in the American political sphere that engagement with China has failed," notes Millward. The parallels between China's repression of minorities and some of the worst events in the 20th century in Europe "have brought together the political sides in America and rallied them around a much stronger anti-China stance," he says.
From Millward's perspective, however, it is not only possible but also necessary for the United States to act on Xinjiang and press China on its human rights record while cooperating with China on other issues. "This is the art of diplomacy, you have to compartmentalize and deal with different issues, particularly with two countries as large as the United States and China." In Millward's view, areas pertinent to U.S.-China collaboration are varied and transcend global challenges such as climate change or pandemics. Those are simplistic dichotomies," he says. "We have 300,000 Chinese students in our universities and we welcome them and learn a lot from them [...] We benefit from Chinese expertise in all sorts of ways."
Millward spent a productive winter quarter at APARC. Returning to Stanford as a visiting scholar provided him a unique opportunity to reconnect with his past on The Farm and survey all that has changed in the years since he completed his doctorate under the tutelage of the late Professor Harold Kahn. "The trailer park where I lived as a first-year graduate student is no more, and I couldn't even find the footprint of where it was."
An Uncomfortable Friendship: Understanding China’s Position on the Russia-Ukraine War and Its Implications for Great Power Competition
On WBUR’s "On Point" and Fox 2 KTVU, Center Fellow Oriana Skylar Mastro shares insights about China's alignment with Russia and the worldwide implications of its calculus on Ukraine.
Bargaining Behind Closed Doors: Why China’s Local Government Debt Is Not a Local Problem
New research in 'The China Journal' by APARC’s Jean Oi and colleagues suggests that the roots of China’s massive local government debt problem lie in secretive financing institutions offered as quid pro quo to localities to sustain their incentive for local state-led growth after 1994
APARC Visiting Scholar James Millward discusses PRC ethnicity policy, China's crackdown on Uyghur Muslims and other minorities in Xinjiang province, and the implications of the Xinjiang crisis for U.S. China strategy and China's international relations.
Once upon a time, there was a seductive story about twin revolutions, a political one in France and an industrial one in Britain, that supposedly ushered in our modern world. This narrative never sat well with empirical realities, yet it lives on in textbooks. What might be a more persuasive framework for a global history of the modern era? What are the implications for research and the teaching of history?
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
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Stephen Kotkin is the John P. Birkelund Professor of History and International Affairs in what used to be called the Woodrow Wilson School and in the History Department of Princeton University, as well as a Senior Fellow (adjunct) at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He directs the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies and co-directs its program in History and the Practice of Diplomacy, which he founded. He also founded Princeton’s Global History Initiative. His scholarship encompasses geopolitics and authoritarian regimes in history and in the present.
Kotkin has published two volumes of a three-volume history of the world as seen from Stalin’s desk: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928 (Penguin, November 2014) and Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 (Penguin, October 2017). The final installment, Totalitarian Superpower, 1941-1990s, is underway. He writes reviews and essays for Foreign Affairs, the Times Literary Supplement, and The Wall Street Journal, and served as the business book reviewer for The New York Times Sunday Business Section. He is an occasional consultant for governments and some private companies. PhD UC Berkeley (1988).
This chapter briefly covers the history of Chinese grand strategy since 1949 before focusing most heavily on China's strategy of rejuvenation under Xi Jinping. It also covers some of the domestic factors that have influenced Chinese grand strategy over time. It then highlights two components central to China's grand strategy — its approach to international institutions and its maritime ambitions. The chapter ends with a discussion of the United States shift to great power competition with China.
Below is an excerpt from Mastro's chapter in Strategy in the Contemporary World, edited by John Baylis, James J. Wirtz, and Jeannie L. Johnson, reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press.
In Strategy in the Contemporary World, edited by John Baylis, James J. Wirtz, and Jeannie L. Johnson, Oriana Skylar Mastro examines the evolution of Chinese grand strategy from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping, its drivers, and its implications.
This article first appeared in the online magazine American Purpose.
On March 9, South Koreans head to the voting booths to elect their new president. Although conventional wisdom posits that foreign affairs have little effect on voting preferences, South Koreans have defied this prediction in the past—and now, they may once again. Indeed, the atmosphere in this year’s election recalls that of 2002, when anti-American sentiments swept the South Korean presidential election. This time, it may be anti-Chinese sentiments that make an impact.
According to our survey of over one thousand South Koreans, conducted this past January, a large majority of respondents—78 percent—indicated that Republic of Korea (ROK)-China relations will be an important consideration when deciding which presidential candidate to vote for. Given that younger South Koreans are expected to be the deciding factor in this election, it is particularly significant that the figure rises to 82 percent for respondents in their twenties. Twenty years ago, anti-American sentiments tipped the vote in favor of Roh Moo-hyun, the liberal candidate, who pledged not to kowtow to the United States. This time, how will anti-Chinese sentiment play out in Seoul? Will it work in favor of the conservatives, who tend to be tougher on China and emphasize the U.S.-ROK alliance? And what does this mean for Washington?
What Does Korea’s 2022 Presidential Election Mean for Its Democracy?
The ongoing South Korean presidential race holds significant sociopolitical implications for the future of democracy as democratic backsliding has now become an undeniable reality in South Korea.
“K-Pop Stars, Too, Should Speak Out on Human Rights Issues,” Says Stanford Sociologist Gi-Wook Shin
K-pop and North Korean human rights are the subjects of two documentaries to be released this spring to mark the 20th anniversary of Stanford University’s Korea Program, reveals Professor Gi-Wook Shin.
Like in many other states worldwide, democracy is in trouble in South Korea, entering a state of regression in the past decade, barely thirty years after its emergence in 1987. The society that recently had ordinary citizens leading “candlelight protests” demanding the impeachment of Park Geun-hye in 2016-17 has become polarized amid an upsurge of populism, driven by persistent structural inequalities, globalization, and the rise of the information society.
The symptoms of democratic decline are increasingly hard to miss: political opponents are demonized, democratic norms are eroded, and the independence of the courts is whittled away. Perhaps most disturbing is that this all takes place under a government dominated by former pro-democracy activists.
The contributors to this volume trace the sources of illiberalism in today’s Korea; examine how political polarization is plaguing its party system; discuss how civil society and the courts have become politicized; look at the roles of inequality, education, and social media in the country’s democratic decline; and consider how illiberalism has affected Korea’s foreign policy.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Korea’s Democratic Decay: Worrisome Trends and Pressing Challenges Gi-Wook Shin and Ho-Ki Kim
1. Why Is Korean Democracy Majoritarian but Not Liberal? Byongjin Ahn
2. Uses and Misuses of Nationalism in the Democratic Politics of Korea Aram Hur
3. The Weakness of Party Politics and Rise of Populism in Korea Kwanhu Lee
4. The Politicization of Civil Society: No Longer Watchdogs of Power, Former Democratic Activists Are Becoming New Authoritarian Leaders Myoung-Ho Park
5. The Politicization of the Judiciary in Korea: Challenges in Maintaining the Balance of Power Seongwook Heo
6. Two Divergences in Korea’s Economy and Democracy: Regional and Generational Disparities Jun-Ho Jeong and Il-Young Lee
7. Democracy and the Educational System in Korea Seongsoo Choi
8. Social Media and the Salience of Polarization in Korea Yong Suk Lee
9. Illiberalism in Korean Foreign Policy Victor Cha
10. The Democratic Recession: A Global and Comparative Perspective Larry Diamond
Epilogue
Korea’s 2022 Presidential Election: Populism in the Post-Truth Era Ho-Ki Kim and Gi-Wook Shin
Media Coverage
To celebrate the publication of South Korea's Democracy in Crisis, APARC held a book launch seminar in Seoul on June 14, 2022. The event received extensive coverage in Korean media, including the following:
Time: 7:30am-8:45am California, USA 2 March 2022
9:00pm-10:15pm New Delhi, India 2 March 2022
India’s international position has evolved sharply in the first two decades of the 21st century, and it is poised to become only more consequential in coming decades. Its strategic interests and influence have now stretched into the distant reaches of the Indo-Pacific, it has emerged as a central actor in managing global governance challenges like climate change, and it may have the capacity to take a commanding position in some key leading-edge technologies. In this webinar, veteran journalist Indrani Bagchi, who spent nearly two decades covering India’s foreign relations for the Times of India, will reflect on India’s recent trajectory and its prospects. Through the prism of some key episodes and issues of India in the 21st century, the webinar will examine India’s capacity and approach to manage international issues, as well as the constraints and challenges Indian policymakers must face.
Speaker:
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Indrani Bagchi is CEO-designate at Ananta Aspen Centre, India. She was Associate Editor with the Times of India, where she reported and analyzed foreign policy issues for the newspaper from 2004 until 2022. As Diplomatic Editor, Indrani covered the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on her news beat, and interpreted and analyzed global trends with an Indian perspective. Earlier, Indrani worked with India Today, the Economic Times and The Statesman, and has held fellowships at Oxford University and the Brookings Institution. She is a Fellow of the Kamalnayan Bajaj Fellowship Class 3 of the Ananta Aspen Centre and a member of Aspen Global Leadership Network. She graduated from Loreto College, Calcutta University with English honors.
Moderator:
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Arzan Tarapore is the South Asia research scholar at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, where he leads the newly-restarted South Asia research initiative. He is also a senior nonresident fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research. His research focuses on Indian military strategy and contemporary Indo-Pacific security issues. Prior to his scholarly career, he served as an analyst in the Australian Defense Department. Arzan holds a PhD in war studies from King’s College London.
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The fundamental reason for the extreme leverage today in China’s banks, enterprises and the state itself is found in the decentralized fiscal arrangements of highly self-reliant local governments. This problem has been compounded by the excessive stimulus lending over the past decade. As a result Beijing has promoted the creation of an extensive shadow banking system designed to protect the stability of the major state banks. Stepping back this has led to the state’s growing leverage. This presentation focuses on the impact of the shadow banking system on the state’s finances and compares the costs of China’s response to the global financial crisis with the US response.
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Carl Walter joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) as visiting scholar with the China Program for the 2021-2022 academic year. Prior to coming to APARC, he served as independent, non-executive Director at the China Construction Bank. He was also previously a visiting scholar with APARC during the winter and spring terms of the 2012–13 academic year after a career in banking spent largely in China.
His research interests focus on China's financial system and its impact on financial and political organizations. During his time at Shorenstein APARC Walter will continue his book project on how fiscal reforms in China have impacted the banking system, the overall economy and the prospect for financial reform going forward. Walter has contributed articles to publications including Caijing, the Wall Street Journal and the China Quarterly. He is also the co-author of Red Capitalism: The Fragile Financial Foundations of China's Extraordinary Rise (2012) and Privatizing China: Inside China's Stock Markets (2005).
Walter lived and worked in Beijing from 1991 to 2011, first as an investment banker involved in the earliest SOE restructurings and overseas public listings, then as chief operation officer of China's first joint venture investment bank, China International Capital Corporation. Over the last ten years he was JPMorgan's China chief operating officer as well as chief executive officer of its China banking subsidiary.
Walter holds a PhD in political science from Stanford University, a certificate of advanced study from Peking University and a BA in Russian Studies from Princeton University.
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Once considered incapable of innovation, China’s contribution to technological advancement has become impossible to ignore as it continues its historic rise. Now home to such tech giants as Alibaba, Tencent, and Huawei, China is competing in the global market. But what does this technological success mean in the context of China's internal and international politics, particularly its tense relationship with the United States? Will efforts to decouple help or hinder progress in tech? Can China’s educational system produce the next generation of innovators and propel them to the forefront of technology? What effects, if any, is the recent tightening on tech giants having on the sector at large? In this program, experts Denis Simon, Senior Adviser to the President for China Affairs at Duke, and Dan Wang, technology analyst for Gavekal Dragonomics, will be discussing the status and consequences of decoupling for the US and China and their technological sectors.
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Denis Fred Simon is Senior Adviser to the President for China Affairs at Duke and Professor of China Business and Technology at Duke's Fuqua School of Business. He also serves as Executive Director of the Center for Innovation Policy at Duke. Fluent in Mandarin Chinese, Simon has more than four decades of experience studying business, competition, innovation and technology strategy in China. In 2006, he was awarded the China National Friendship Award by Premier Wen Jiabao in Beijing. Prior to returning to Duke, Dr. Simon served as Executive Vice Chancellor at Duke Kunshan University in China (2015-2020). Simon’s career included spells as senior adviser on China and global affairs in the Office of the President at Arizona State University; vice-provost for international affairs at the University of Oregon; and professor of international affairs at Penn State University’s School of International Affairs. He also has had extensive leadership experience in management consulting having served as General Manager of Andersen Consulting in Beijing (now Accenture) and the Founding President of Monitor Group China.
Simon is the author of several books including Corporate Strategies Towards the Pacific Rim; Techno-Security in an Age of Globalization; and China’s Emerging Technological Edge: Assessing the Role of High-End Talent.
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Dan Wang is the Shanghai-based technology analyst for Gavekal Dragonomics, the China economics research firm. He tracks the prospects for China's industrial policy, US regulatory measures and the activities of multinationals in China. He has given keynotes for a variety of organizations and his work is widely cited in the press. Dan previously worked in Silicon Valley and studied philosophy at the University of Rochester. Dan's essays have been published in Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic, New York Magazine, and he is a contributor to Bloomberg Opinion
Denis F. Simon
Senior Adviser to the President for China Affairs, Duke University; Professor of China Business and Technology, Duke Fuqua School of Business
