This commentary first appeared in The Diplomat magazine.

In March 2025, one of the authors vividly observed hundreds of thousands of people filling downtown Seoul over President Yoon Suk-yeol’s impeachment. Reminiscent of the “candlelight protests” of 2017 but with greater intensity, these rallies began after the short-lived martial law declaration of last December, with some demanding Yoon’s immediate removal from office and others denouncing it as illegitimate. Even after the Constitutional Court’s unanimous decision to impeach him on April 4, rival protests continued through the June 3 snap elections.

Such rallies were hardly unprecedented in South Korea, given its rich history of civic engagement in politics. However, in the context of Yoon’s martial law declaration and subsequent impeachment, the protests illustrated a fragile democracy divided against itself. In fact, Yoon had justified his action as a necessary measure to remove “anti-state forces” in the face of the intensifying political fight with opposition forces, which controlled South Korea’s legislature throughout Yoon’s presidency.

Public opinion polls and election outcomes show how deeply divided the nation has been. A 2022 Pew survey found that 83 percent of South Koreans believed there were strong partisan conflicts, the highest among all 19 countries surveyed. Recent election results reflected such societal and political division. Yoon’s razor-thin 2022 victory over Lee Jae-myung and Lee’s narrow win in the 2025 snap election revealed a nation split down the middle.

In addition, mass protests, largely associated with progressives, have become common for conservatives too and spilled from plazas to online platforms. Politics has turned into “culture wars” and competing claims to be representative of “the people,” provoking moral charges and emotional responses. Polarization now cuts across gender and generational lines beyond political and ideological divisions of the past, standing alongside illiberalism and populism as a core threat to Korean democracy.

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Following his keynote remarks, Khalil joined a panel discussion with William Dobson, the coeditor of the Journal of Democracy and a veteran in international reporting, and Elora Shehabuddin, a professor of gender and women's studies and the director of the Chowdhury Center for Bangladesh Studies at UC Berkeley. James Hamilton, Stanford University’s vice provost for undergraduate education, the Hearst Professor of Communication, and director of the Journalism Program, chaired the discussion. Both Dobson and Hamilton also serve on the judging committee for the Shorenstein Award.

The Shorenstein Award, which carries a cash prize of $10,000, recognizes outstanding journalists and news outlets whose work has deepened the understanding of Asia while advancing the values of a free press.
 

Bearing Witness 

Khalil opened his remarks by sharing a photograph of himself listening to a Bangladeshi woman whose son had been abducted by the Rapid Action Battalion, the country’s elite counterterrorism force that has been accused of serious human rights violations and abuse of power. For Khalil, the image encapsulates the animating question at the heart of Netra News: What does it truly mean to comfort the afflicted?

Investigative journalists, he argued, are first and foremost witnesses. Their work requires listening and documenting, for as long as it takes. He described an investigation that started with a phone call from a day laborer in Malaysia, who recounted his experience being abducted in Dhaka and held in a secret site by a plainclothed squad. Khalil kept calling back with questions, continuing the conversation over months. The source shared precise recollections that helped Netra News map a clandestine detention facility in the heart of the Bangladeshi capital. The investigation, "Secret Prisoners of Dhaka," published in 2023, shed light on hidden abuses and was shortlisted for the Global Shining Light Award for investigative journalism in developing countries. 

Khalil described other Netra News investigations that have sought to expose high-level crimes. “Body Count” combined data journalism and fieldwork to analyze more than a decade of alleged extrajudicial killings and acts of torture by Bangladeshi security forces. The patterns revealed which agencies were involved, geographic concentration, and spikes in killings during election cycles, all underscoring a systematic practice. For this work, the newsroom won a 2024 Sigma Award for Data Journalism.

Bearing witness, Khalil noted, means that public interest journalism must listen not only to the afflicted, but also to the perpetrators of horrible crimes. In another project, collaborating with German TV broadcaster Deutsche Welle, Netra News interviewed former Rapid Action Battalion commanders on camera about how extrajudicial killings were carried out. The investigation, "Inside the Death Squad," was the first to provide evidence of targeted killings and torture by the RAB, and was recognized with a 2024 Human Rights Press Award for documentary video.

Another joint investigation with DW exposed a pattern of deploying RAB members implicated in torture and killings to serve as United Nations peacekeepers. The revelations were cited by governments and lawmakers, and intensified scrutiny of peacekeeping vetting practices. 

“This is accountability journalism at its purest: reporting that not only informs, but also confronts power and demands justice, said Hamilton in his remarks before the award presentation.

Khalil situated this kind of reportage within a normative framework of journalism that defends democracy and human rights, for which he outlined four roles: monitorial (watching and warning), facilitative (bringing opposing segments of society together), radical (challenging institutions in the name of rights and freedoms), and collaborative (engaging with power when appropriate). First and foremost, this kind of journalism serves the public interest.

An Experiment in Exile

Those commitments guided Netra News from its inception. Khalii established the outlet in 2019 in Sweden, where he had lived in exile since 2008, seeking refuge following his detention and torture by the Bangladeshi military intelligence agency. As he set up the newsroom in exile with colleagues, he made a deliberate choice: rather than defending democratic norms from afar, they would “cover Bangladesh as if it were a democracy, like Sweden or the United States, and report accordingly.”

That meant reporting with no self-censorship or fear. Due to security risks to staff in-country, Netra News adopted the discipline of an intelligence operation, eschewing daily news coverage and opinions to concentrate instead on meticulously vetted investigations. With its reporters distributed across multiple countries and some working undercover in Bangladesh, the newsroom combined offshore editorial independence with on-the-ground reporting, publishing its investigations in both Bangla and English. This approach uniquely positioned the newsroom to cover the July 2024 uprising in Bangladesh with uncommon access.

Now, a year after mass protests toppled Sheikh Hasina’s authoritarian regime, and 18 years after he fled the country, Khalil has returned to open a Netra News bureau in Dhaka. Receiving the Shorenstein Journalism Award on behalf of the outlet at this moment, he said, is both recognition of its impact since its founding and a signal of support to the next generation of journalists carrying its mission forward.
 

Youth-Led Uprising in Context

During the discussion that followed Khalil’s keynote, the panelists considered the prospects for democracy in Bangladesh, the economics of investigative reporting, and the dynamics of youth-led protests in Asia.

Asked how the media landscape in Bangladesh had shifted since the 2024 uprising, Khalil said the media’s muscle memory remains one of censorship and fear. The challenge now is to “unlearn stenography,” that is, the practice of reporting only what those in power say, and build habits of dispassionate public interest journalism that scrutinizes both state and non-state power. That includes the interim government, corporate interests, and majoritarian religious forces.

Investigative journalism is a tough business to monetize and sustain. Khalil explained that Netra News is a nonprofit and that grant funding from the National Endowment for Democracy has made it possible. Long-term independence, however, will require earning monetary support from the people it serves. “The ultimate test is asking the public, ‘Will you pay for this?’”

Turning to Gen Z protest movements that have swept across South Asia, Dobson noted a wave of digitally savvy youth mobilizations pressing entrenched elites for substantive change. “People want real change, not shuffling the same roster of political players.” The youth-led uprisings that swept through Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and, more recently, Nepal, explained Dobson, had not originally set out to topple the established regimes, but to fight deepening inequality and economic disparities. The agendas changed, however, due to the lack of responsiveness from political institutions that have been hollowed out by patronage and corruption.

Shehabuddin underscored the central role women activists played in Bangladesh’s 2024 protests, leading from the front to help topple the authoritarian government, only to find themselves largely absent from decision-making led by the interim government.

The event concluded with questions from the audience about journalism in transitional contexts and under strain amid democratic backsliding. Newsrooms should aim to serve the entirety of society, said Khalil, alluding to the fragmented media landscape in the United States. As for standing up to anti-democratic power, he returned to first principles: the media’s charge is to bear witness, especially when those in power disapprove.

As the U.S.-China competition unfolds in areas ranging from trade to technology to the military, the rival-making discourse surrounding this great power competition was the focus of the conference Beyond a New Cold War, organized and hosted by the Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab (SNAPL).

Held on August 14, 2025, the event showcased SNAPL research illuminating how U.S. political leaders and the media shape narratives concerning China and how citizens in young democracies perceive these narratives. Serving as discussants were experts from Columbia University, the University of California, Berkeley, the Hoover Institution (represented by a former National Security Affairs Fellow), and the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China.

The studies presented and discussed at the conference are part of SNAPL’s U.S.-Asia Relations research track, one of four research streams the lab pursues. Housed at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) and founded by sociologist Gi-Wook Shin, the lab aims to generate evidence-based policy recommendations and promote transnational collaboration with academic and policy institutions to advance the future prosperity of Asia and U.S.-Asia relations.

“This conference provided an excellent opportunity to engage the policy community with our research findings,” says Shin, the William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and the director of APARC and the Korea Program. “The lab will continue to foster ongoing dialogue between academic and policy circles.” 

The conference builds on previous SNAPL forums and meetings with policy and academic communities in Washington, D.C., held in September 2024. These policy engagement activities are made possible thanks to a grant from FSI. 

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Dynamics of American Elite Discourse on China

At the first conference panel, Research Fellow Xinru Ma shared a study that unravels who leads elite discourse on U.S.-China relations – whether Congress, the White House, or the media. While prior research suggests that each of these actors could have distinct agenda-setting capacities, their relative influence and its directionality in foreign policy discourse remain empirically underexamined.

The study addresses this question by investigating China-focused discourse and framing by the U.S. legislative and executive branches as well as the media. Using computational and causal inference methods, the study analyzes social media data from the legislative and executive branches alongside major U.S. media outlets across two periods: the 116th Congress (January 3, 2019 – January 3, 2021) and the 118th Congress (January 3, 2023 – January 3, 2025).

The analysis reveals that, both in terms of issue attention and framing, the media tends to follow the lead of Congress and the President. The findings also indicate that Republican lawmakers exert greater influence on setting the China agenda in the media. In contrast, Democratic lawmakers are stronger predictors of how the media frames the issues at stake. Moreover, the findings suggest that presidential influence on China discourse weakened sharply in the 118th Congress, and that there is an overall shift toward party-driven, rather than institutionally mediated, communication among elites. 

Policy Implications
 

• Media Weakness: The reliance of media outlets on partisan cues from political elites on foreign policy issues increases the risk of incomplete or skewed public understanding of China and U.S.-China relations. The risk is especially disconcerting as U.S. reporters face limited access to China.
• Partisan Echo Chambers: Communication flows primarily within partisan networks rather than across institutions, with the separation of powers becoming less effective as a system of checks and balances. The splintering of political discourse into parallel echo chambers risks eroding opportunities for cross-party dialogue and democratic deliberation on complex foreign policy issues.
• Fragmented Messaging: Divergent partisan messaging on China signals inconsistency to both domestic and international audiences who might draw contradictory conclusions about U.S. intentions. This dynamic gives rise to strategic miscalculations abroad and a fragmented public understanding of China policy at home.
• Declining  Institutional Voices: The decline of institutional power over shaping U.S. discourse on China has created a growing vulnerability. As individual political figures gain sway, personalized narratives often prioritize short-term visibility over a coherent, long-term strategy.

Democracy vs. Autocracy: A View from Young Democracies

Despite their deep divisions on most issues, there is one topic Republicans and Democrats converge on: China. Both parties increasingly frame the intensifying U.S.-China tensions as a strategic competition between democracy and autocracy. But is the value diplomacy this approach begets effective in promoting liberal values in young democracies?

At the second conference panel, Visiting Scholar Gidong Kim presented a study that addresses this question. “This study challenges the effectiveness of the value-laden U.S. diplomacy in young democracies and presents a more nuanced explanation of democracy's role in forming public opinion on foreign policy,” says Kim, formerly a postdoctoral fellow with SNAPL and currently an assistant professor of political science at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (HUFS).

The study hypothesizes that in young democracies, where democratic histories are relatively short and legacies of authoritarian rule endure, citizens tend to understand democracy in terms of electoral institutions rather than liberal values. Similarly, in the context of the U.S.-China competition, citizens in these countries tend to perceive China’s threats to electoral institutions more seriously than its threats to liberal values.

To test this proposition, the study uses a country-level, cross-national analysis and an original survey experiment in South Korea. The findings support the hypothesis.

Policy Implications
 

• Context Matters: U.S. policymakers must acknowledge the limits of value-driven diplomacy. Washington should diversify its foreign policy toolkit and adapt it to regional contexts: in Western Europe, liberal values rhetoric can reinforce alliances, but in young democracies, the design and strength of electoral institutions carry greater weight.
• A Crisis of Credibility: For China, there is an equally clear lesson about the need to rethink its approach to diplomacy. Without addressing suspicions of election interference in democratic countries, Beijing will struggle to gain traction with the publics in young Asian democracies and dissipate anti-China sentiments in those countries, even if it increases its soft power through liberalization policies.

SNAPL’s studies presented at the conference underscore the crucial role that narratives and public perceptions play in international relations. They suggest that great power competition is not just about power. Rather, it is also about persuasion, which, in turn, depends on how different audiences — at home and abroad — perceive the story.