Dr. Brad Roberts is director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Center for Global Security Research. Previously he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear and Missile Defense Policy (2009-2013). In this role, he served as Policy Director of the Obama administration’s Nuclear Posture Review and Ballistic Missile Defense Review and had lead responsibility for their implementation. From 1995 to 2009, Dr. Roberts was a member of the research staff at the Institute for Defense Analyses in Alexandria, Virginia and an Adjunct Professor at George Washington University. His book, The Case for U.S. Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century (Stanford University Press) was recently recognized by the American Library Association as one of the outstanding academic titles of 2016. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Roberts has a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Stanford University, a MA. from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a PhD in international relations from Erasmus University.
From August 18-22, the Japan Studies Program welcomed scholars of political science and economics to the Oksenberg conference room in Encina Hall for the first annual Stanford Summer Juku on the Japanese Political Economy.
The main goal of the program is to attract young researchers who will go on to become leaders in the study of Japanese politics and Japanese economy in the near future. The Summer Juku is distinctive by allowing ample time for informal discussions and interactions beyond the standard presentations and discussions. Juku is a word most commonly associated with the modern Japanese cram schools, but here it actually refers to the private schools at the end of the Edo period, which attracted young, motivated students and ended up producing numerous leaders of the Meiji Restoration.
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The first two days focused on political science, while the second two days were on economics.
In the first session, Yusaku Horiuchi from Dartmouth College presented a coauthored paper analyzing the role of the U.S.-Japan security alliance on Japan’s postwar economic growth. They employed a novel statistical method relatively new to political science called the synthetic control method to contend that the acceleration of Japan’s economic growth from 1958 coincided with the consolidation of the alliance. Discussants were Amy Catalinac (Australian National University) and William Grimes (Boston University).
In the second session, Shorenstein APARC fellow and political science faculty Phillip Lipscy presented part of his book project on the question of what explains cross-national variation in energy policy. He contended that electoral incentives best explained variation in energy efficiency policies. Using a new dataset of transportation trends in OECD countries and an in-depth examination of the impact of Japan’s 1994 electoral reform, he finds that energy efficiency-enhancing policies are more feasible in non-majoritarian systems, which allow the imposition of high, diffuse costs on the general public. Discussants were Gregory Noble (University of Tokyo) and Yusaku Horiuchi (Dartmouth College).
In the final session on the first day, Amy Catalinac presented her paper that poses the question of what led to the dramatic rise in conservative Japanese politicians’ attention to national security since 1997. She argued that electoral reform in 1994 led to new incentives for conservative politicians to focus on national security. Her analysis involved applying a statistical model called latent Dirichlet allocation to over 7000 election manifestoes over 8 House of Representatives elections. Discussants were Saori Katada (University of Southern California) and Christina Davis (Princeton University).
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Kenji Kushida, research associate at Shorenstein APARC, started off the second day by presenting the main argument of his book project on understanding why Silicon Valley companies have continually disrupted the global information and communications technology (ICT) industry. Analyzing the case of Japan’s ICT sector in comparative international context, he showed that national political settlements at initial stages of liberalization shaped industry structures, which in turn shaped global markets characterized by rapid commoditization. Discussants were Gregory Noble (University of Tokyo) and Ulrike Schaede (University of California, San Diego).
The second presenter was Kay Shimizu from Columbia University, who presented her book project analyzing distributive politics under conditions of fiscal austerity. Focused on the question of what happens to personalistic politics when resources run low, she argued that budget-constrained politicians work to find new resources locally and to secure votes by creating more personal linkages to voters. Her study is based on an analysis of Japan between 1991 and 2011, showing how subnational politicians sought to influence lending practices of private regional banks through publicly funded credit guarantees. Discussants were Steven Vogel (UC Berkeley) and Jonathan Rodden (Stanford University).
The third presenter, Saadia Pekkanen (University of Washington), presented the introduction of her edited volume explaining the construction of external institutions by Asian states. She explained how the project was motivated by the desire to better understand how and why Asian states might shape the contemporary world order, and what kinds of institutionalized rules and structures they might bring into play, along with the consequences for global patterns of governance. She presented a typology of external institutional designs based on formal/informal underlying organizational structures, and hard/soft underlying legal rules, based on a new database of over 6000 international institutions covering Asia’s economic, security, and transnational human security institutions. Discussants were William Grimes (Boston University) and Christina Davis (Princeton University).
Following the second day, a conference dinner was joined by both political science and economics segment participants.
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The third day began the economics-focused segment of the Summer Juku, beginning with Ulrike Schaede (UC San Diego) presenting a co-authored paper with Tatsuo Ushijima (Aoyama Gakuin University) analyzing the economic role and valuation effects of subsidiary M&A in Japan between 1996 and 2010. They conducted an event study, pairing and analyzing both sides to the deal, finding that abnormal returns to buyers and sellers both increase with deal size. They find that Japanese firms selling core business subsidiaries lead to negative returns, accentuated in larger deals. They interpret that this penalty was either an uncertainty discount or a signaling effect that the firm was in distress. Discussants were Robert Eberhart (Santa Clara University) and Ayako Yasuda (University of California, Davis).
The second presentation by Hitoshi Shigeoka examined the effects of school entry cut-off ages for children on the timing of births. Given the tradeoff for parents to time births just before and after cutoff dates, his analysis of births from 1974-2010 in Japan led to his finding that more than 1800 births per year were shifted roughly a week before the cut-off date to the week following the cut-off date. He went on to analyze the heterogeneity in responses among mothers along dimensions including work, baby gender, income and skill levels. Discussants were Karen Eggleston (Stanford FSI) and Toshiaki Iizuka (University of Tokyo).
In the third session, Thomas Cargill (University of Nevada) presented a paper co-authored with Jennifer Holt Dwyer (City University of New York) examining the concept of central bank independence and the case of Japan. Their core contention was that the postwar evolution of Bank of Japan policy reveals that de facto central bank independence was neither necessary nor sufficient for price stability. They argue that the causal association between central bank independence and price stability is a myth, with the broader implication that less time should be spent measuring central bank independence in correlation with inflation measures, with efforts instead focused on understanding the political and economic conditions under which central banks are most likely to contribute to price stability and how to design operating frameworks that facilitate this. Discussants were Helen Popper (Santa Clara University) and Ken Kuttner (Williams College)
The fourth day opened with Koichiro Ito (Boston College) presenting his paper co-authored with Takanori Ida (Kyoto University) and Makoto Tanaka (GRIPS) that investigates how consumer responds to marginal prices of dynamic electricity pricing. Their randomized field experiments yield various findings including consumers’ reduction of consumption facing hourly marginal price changes, the effectiveness of dynamic pricing with certain parameters over conservation warnings, and differences across factors such as income levels and the level of electricity usage. Discussants were Aoki Masahiko (Stanford Shorenstein APARC) and Matthew Kahn (University of California, Los Angeles).
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The second presentation was by Satoshi Koibuchi (Chuo University) of a paper co-authored with Takatoshi Ito (RIETI), Kiyotaka Sato (Yokohama National University), and Junko Shimizu (Gakushuin University). The paper examined the choice of invoicing currency for Japanese export firms based on an extensive questionnaire. Key findings included variation of yen-invoicing according to arms-length versus intra-firm trade, size and trade type, and the extent of currency hedging that the firm engages in. Discussants were Katheryn Russ (University of California, Davis) and Mark Spiegel (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco).
The final presentation was by David Vera (California State University, Fresno) of a paper co-authored with Kazuki Onji (Australian National University) and Takeshi Osada (Bunri University of Hospitality), which examines how capital injections into Japanese banks triggered labor force rejuvenations at those banks. Using a difference-in-difference analysis of a panel of Japanese banks from 1990-2010, they find that for banks receiving public capital injections, the average age of employees got younger. They also find that the number of employees of those banks was reduced on a stand-alone basis, but on a consolidated basis including subsidiaries, the number of employees was not reduced. Their findings suggest that lifetime employment survived, though in a limited form, among restructured banks. Discussants were Masami Imai (Wesleyan University) and Kelly Wang (Federal Reserve Board).
Each day, the sessions finished shortly after two o’clock, leaving ample time for informal discussion and networking. Summer Juku participants could be found around Encina Hall and other parts of campus working on collaborative projects, exchanging information, and discussing ideas for future collaboration. We look forward to future collaborations hatched at this event, and are committed to further developing this Stanford Summer Juku as an ongoing activity at the Shorenstein APARC Japan Studies Program.
JSP director Takeo Hoshi's coauthored article, "Japanese government debt and sustainability of fiscal policy," is the most downloaded article from the Journal of the Japanese and International Economies. In the article, Hoshi and his coauthors construct quarterly series of the revenues, expenditures, and debt outstanding for Japan from 1980 to 2010, and analyze the sustainability of the fiscal policy.
Ling Cao completed her Ph.D. in Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Trained as an agronomist and environmental scientist, she has focused on interdisciplinary research at the interface between the sustainability of food and natural systems. Her dissertation research quantitatively assessed the sustainability of emerging shrimp farming systems and technologies, and in particular focused on applying these results to producers and consumers in China and US. In early 2018, Cao was selected as a recipient of the “National Thousand Talents Program for Distinguished Young Scholars,” an initiative of the Chinese government to attract high-level talent from overseas to work full-time in China. In addition, she was also selected as a fellow of the “Shanghai Thousand Talents Program” which aims to recruit top-talent who are leaders in their fields to help enhance Shanghai's future development and sustainable competitiveness. Cao currently works as an associate professor in the Institute of Oceanographyat Shanghai Jiao Tung University and continues to work with Roz Naylor and colleagues on fisheries and aquaculture research.
The Obama administration says there is no doubt that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was responsible for a recent chemical weapons attack near Damascus, which Syrian opposition forces and human rights groups allege killed hundreds of civilians.
Secretary of State John Kerry called the attack a “moral obscenity” and the White House has vowed to respond – though the question of how is still under debate.
The Syrian government denies using nerve agents on its own people and has allowed U.N. weapons inspectors into the country to investigate.
As the U.S. weighs its options and rallies its allies for a possible military strike, Stanford scholars examine the intelligence and discuss the implications of military action against Syria. Those scholars are:
Martha Crenshaw, one of the nation’s leading experts on terrorist organizations and a senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Thomas Fingar, former chairman of the National Intelligence Council and currently the Oksenberg-Rohlen distinguished fellow at FSI
Thomas Henriksen, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution specializing in U.S. foreign policy and author of the book, “America and the Rogue States”
Anja Manuel a CISAC affiliate, co-founder and principal at RiceHadleyGates LLC, a strategic consulting firm, and lecturer in Stanford's International Policy Studies
Allen S. Weiner, a CISAC affiliated faculty member and co-director of the Stanford Program in International Law at the Stanford Law School
Amy Zegart, an intelligence specialist who is the CISAC co-director and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution
Does a military strike on Damascus risk further inflaming terrorists operating in Syria who hate the United States?
Crenshaw: I doubt that an American military response to the Assad regime's use of chemical weapons will make al-Qaida and affiliates hate us any more than they already do. The effect on wider public opinion in the Arab and Muslim worlds is what we should be thinking about. As the U.N. noted in a recent report, al-Qaida has a strong presence in Syria and is attracting outside recruits. The Al Nusrah Front in Syria is affiliated with the Iraqi al-Qaida branch. And Hezbollah's involvement has only intensified sectarian violence.
The three-year civil war has claimed some 100,000 lives and forced an estimated 1.9 million Syrians to flee their country, according to the U.N. Why is it taking President Obama so long to take a more assertive policy in Syria?
Manuel: There are no great policy options in Syria. The administration said several times that “stability” in Syria — even if that means a continuing, limited civil war — is more important than a decisive victory over President Bashar al-Assad. The administration also believes that U.S. military intervention short of using ground troops is unlikely to lead to the creation of a new post-Assad regime that will be friendly to the United States. Finally, the Obama administration is understandably hesitant to side with the rebel groups, which — in part due to U.S. unwillingness to actively assist moderate Syrian elements for the past two years — have become increasingly radicalized. Al Qaida-allied extremists now make up a growing segment of the rebel movement and some groups are reportedly creating “safe havens” within Syria and Iraq.
Listen to Manuel on public radio KQED Forum about whether U.S. should intervene.
CISAC's Anja Manuel talks to Al Jazeera America about Syria:
Have past U.S. intelligence failures made Obama skittish about taking a tougher stance against Syria?
Zegart: Iraq's shadow looms large over Syria. The intelligence community got the crucial WMD estimate wrong before the Iraq war and they absolutely don't want to get it wrong now. People often don't realize just how rare it is to find a smoking gun in intelligence. Information is almost always incomplete, contradictory and murky. Intentions – among governments, rebel groups, individuals – are often not known to the participants themselves and everyone is trying to deceive someone.
What is the intelligence gathering that goes into making the determination that nerve agents were used?
Fingar: The first challenge for the U.S. government is to determine whether and what kind of chemical agents were used. Chain-of-custody issues must be addressed to ensure that samples obtained are what they are claimed to be, and once samples have been obtained, what they are can be established with reasonably high confidence using standard laboratory and pathology techniques.
If it is determined that specific chemical agents were used in a specific place and time, then the next step is to determine who used the agents. Analysts would then search previously collected information to discover what is known about the agents in question, which groups were operating in the area, and whether we might have information germane to the specific incident. Policymakers must be informed about any analytical disagreements if they’re to make informed decisions about what to do in response to the incident.
Pressure on decision-makers to “do something” about Syria may influence their decisions, but it should not influence the judgments of intelligence analysts. If they are suspected of cherry-picking the facts and skewing judgments to fit pre-determined outcomes – they are worse than useless.
How do we know the Syrian opposition did not use nerve gas in an effort to provoke military intervention and aid their efforts to topple Assad?
Henriksen: Tracing the precise origin of gas weapons is not an exact forensic science. It is conceivable that a rebel group staged a "black flag" operation of releasing a deadly gas to provoke a U.S. attack on the Assad regime. But in this case, both Israeli and Jordanian intelligence reports appear to confirm U.S. identification of Assad as the perpetrator of the chemical attacks.
If it's confirmed that Syria did use chemical weapons against it own people, is this a violation of the Geneva or Chemical Weapons Conventions?
Weiner: A chemical weapons attack of the kind that's been described in the media certainly violates the laws of war. Syria, as it happens, is one of only a few countries in the world that is not a party to the Chemical Weapons Convention. Nevertheless, the prohibition on the use of chemical weapons in warfare is a longstanding rule. It is reflected in both the 1907 Hague Convention regulating the conduct of war and the 1925 Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare. (Syria is a party to the 1925 Convention.) The use of a weapon like this also violates the prohibition in the 1977 Geneva Protocols and customary international law on indiscriminate attacks that are incapable of distinguishing between permissible military targets, on the one hand, and the prohibited targeting of civilians and civilian objects, on the other.
If Damascus has violated the conventions, are there non-military actions that can be taken?
Weiner: The illegal use of chemical weapons is a violation of a jus cogens norm, i.e., a duty owed to all states, which means states would have the right to respond to the breach. Such an attack would presumably be a basis for the unilateral imposition of sanctions or severance of relations with Syria. There's an open question under international law whether states not directly injured by Syria's actions could take "countermeasures" that would otherwise be illegal as a way of responding to Syria's illegal action. Under a traditional reading of international law, a violation like this does not give rise to the right by other states to use force against Syria absent an authorization under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter by the Security Council.
Are there legal means for Washington to bypass the Security Council, knowing that Russia and China would veto any call to action against Syria?
Weiner: Under the U.N. Charter, a state may use force against another state without Security Council authorization only if it is the victim of an armed attack. Most commentators believe this has been expanded to include the right to use force against an imminent threat of attack. But under the prevailing reading of the U.N. Charter, a mere "threat" to U.S. national security would not provide a justification for the use of force.
But the Obama administration is arguing that Assad's actions pose a direct threat to U.S. national security?
Weiner: Some international lawyers – but not very many – argue that there is a right of humanitarian intervention under international law that would permit states to use force even without Security Council approval to stop widespread atrocities against its own population. But this remains a contested position, and most states, including the United States, have not to date embraced a legal right of humanitarian intervention.
What are some recent precedents in which the U.S. intervened militarily?
Weiner: The situation in Syria is not unlike the one faced in Kosovo in 1999, when a U.S.-led coalition did use force to stop atrocities that the Milosevic regime was committing against Kosovar Albanians. As part of its justification for the use of force, the United States cited the ongoing humanitarian crisis and the growing security threat to the region. What's interesting is that the U.S. was careful to characterize its use of force in Kosovo as "legitimate," rather than "legal." I am among those observers who think that choice of words was intentional, and that the U.S. during the Kosovo campaign advanced a moral and political justification for a use of force that it recognized was technically unlawful.
How does one know when diplomacy has reached a dead-end and military intervention remains the only course of action?
Henriksen: It has become nearly reflexive in U.S. diplomacy that force is the last resort after painstaking applications of diplomacy. The Obama administration followed that arc dutifully with appeals and hoped that U.N. envoys could persuade Assad to step aside. In retrospect, it seems that U.S. intervention soon after the outbreak of widespread violence in the spring of 2011 would have been a better course of action. Now, Russia, China and Iran have entrenched their support of Damascus. And, importantly, Hezbollah has joined the fight.
Now, with Washington's "red line" crossed by Syria's use of chemical arms, America almost has to strike or lose all credibility in the Middle East and beyond.
Should we be concerned about getting pulled into another long and costly war? Or is there a way to get in, make our point, and get out?
Henriksen: The worry about stepping on a slippery slope into another war in the Middle East is of genuine concern. Obama's intervention into Libya in early 2011 does provide a model for the use of limited American power. President Bill Clinton's handling of the 77-day air campaign during the Kosovo crisis in early 1999 provides an example of limited interventions. Both these interventions can be analyzed for their pluses and minuses to aid the White House in striking a balance. But no two conflicts are ever exactly the same.
What is the endgame here?
Henriksen: American interest in the Syrian imbroglio are to check Iran, the most threatening power in the Middle East, and to curtail the conditions lending themselves to spawning further jihadists who will prey on Americans and their allies. At this juncture, it appears that the fragmentation of Syria will become permanent. It's fracturing like that of Yugoslavia in the 1990s and will result in several small states. One or more of these mini-states might possibly align with the United States; others could become Sunni countries with Salafist governments, and the rump state of Assad will stay tight with Iran. The fighting could subside, leaving a cold peace or the tiny countries could continue to destabilize the region. Any efforts that undercut al-Qaida franchises or aspirants are in American interests.
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Children, affected by what activists say was a gas attack, breathe through oxygen masks in the Damascus suburb of Saqba, Aug., 21, 2013.
Stanford pediatrician Jason Wang and researcher Mildred Cho have received $1,087,920 to launch a center in Taiwan and Stanford dedicated to training medical professionals about ethics. Wang -- an associate professor of pediatrics and a CHP/PCOR affiliate, and Cho -- a professor of pediatrics at the School of Medicine’s Center for Biomedical Ethics -- received one of five of this year’s bioethics grants from the Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health.
The Fogarty grant will help support the launch of the Centers of Excellence in Research Ethics Training in the Asia Collaborative for Medical Education (ACME), a consortium of leading medical schools and healthcare institutions, with the Steering Committee chaired by Dr. Harvey Fineberg, President of the U.S. Institute of Medicine. Wang and his colleagues have proposed innovative ways to train practitioners in Southeast Asia, where ethical behavior in healthcare-related research is a pressing concern but training is scarce.
In addition to the Taiwan facility, which will be based jointly at the Koo Foundation Sun Yat-Sen Cancer Center and the National Yang Ming University, the web-based curricular development center will be based at the Stanford’s Center for Health Policy at the Freeman SpogIi Institute for International Studies, and the School of Medicine. The centers will be hubs for training, research, and innovation for Asia health and research professionals.
The training curriculum will incorporate the use of the IDEO design method, a human-centered, design-based approach that uncovers "latent needs, behaviors and desires,” to help scholars develop culturally appropriate lessons. Partnership models include pairing trainees with core faculty members from Stanford, Koo Foundation Sun Yat-Sen Cancer Center, and National Yang Ming University for mentorship on research ethics, which will then be developed into a training curriculum appropriate for their home institutions.
Scholars from different countries will also be invited to participate in a Research Ethics Improvement Network. The model includes face-to-face learning sessions (story boards, role plays, simulations, didactics), a web-based support component (didactics materials, cases discussions, video/audio teleconferences for problem solving,) and the application of traditional quality improvement to curricular improvement.
The collaborative and ongoing improvement training model, inspired by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s Quality Collaboratives, also has a dissemination component where scholars will be encouraged to build networks and to engage policy makers and community leaders to publicize the importance of research ethics in their academic and local communities.
Wang says that “testing and dissemination of the project’s innovative training mechanisms is paramount because of the relevance to other parts of the world facing similar demands.”
Join us for the 4th annual China 2.0 conference on Thursday, October 3 from 9 am - 6 pm at the Frances C. Arrillaga Alumni Center, Stanford University. Be part of the largest annual China tech and business conference hosted by the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Gary Locke U.S. Ambassador to the People's Republic of China
This year's program will feature keynotes, panels and interactive sessions by executives, young entrepreneurs, and investors from China’s leading (and up and coming) internet, mobile, big data, and e-commerce firms. Government leaders and Stanford faculty will also weigh in on the drivers, dynamics and implications of China’s rise in the digital innovation economy.
Only 500 seats are available for this event which sells out every year. Plan to be part of China 2.0's unique mix of participants--Stanford students, alumni, faculty plus leaders driving the digital innovation economy in China and Silicon Valley.
The Stanford Graduate School of Business’ Greater China Business Club and China 2.0 are partnering to offer additional conference sessions for Stanford students. Details to follow soon.
About China 2.0
China 2.0, an initiative of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, focuses on innovation and entrepreneurship in China by looking at the drivers and dynamics of China as a digital power and its implications for commerce, communications and content in the global economy.
China 2.0 offers students unique educational opportunities, fosters cutting-edge research, connects thought leaders and impacts the next generation of entrepreneurs.
A bridge between China and Silicon Valley, China 2.0 brings together executives, entrepreneurs, investors, policy makers and academicsdriving change on both sides of the Pacific through seminars and the largest annual China technology and business conferences hosted by the Stanford Graduate School of Businessat Stanford and in China.
Audience
In September of 2012, over 600 people attended the China 2.0 conference at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Approximately 70% of the attendees were from the Stanford community (alumni, students, and faculty). The remaining 30% included attendees from companies/organizations including: Applied Materials, American Express, Cisco, Deloitte, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, eBay, Google, HP, Huawei, Oracle, Qunar.com, Silicon Valley Bank, the U.S. Department of State, and Yahoo!
Media coverage
China 2.0 conferences and research output have attracted broadcast, print, and online coverage from leading media organizations such as: ABC7, All Things Digital, Associated Press, Bloomberg Businessweek, China Daily, The Economist, Financial Times, Forbes, The New York Times, Sina, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Korean Armistice Agreement but the situation on the Korean peninsula remains tense and uncertain. Eight months after stepping down as the Republic of Korea’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Kim Sung-Hwan will address the difficult challenges to achieving sustainable peace on the Korean Peninsula.
Minister Kim will examine North Korea’s policies toward South Korea and the United States in light of major developments on the Korean Peninsula since the end of the Korean War in 1953. He will also address international efforts to stop North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons. He will share his insights into the current situation in North Korea, including the differences in North Korea’s policies and behavior since Kim Jong Un succeeded his late father Kim Jong Il two years ago as the supreme leader. Minister Kim will conclude by offering his policy recommendations for dealing with the North Korea of today.
Minister Kim completed thirty-six years as a career diplomat in the Republic of Korea’s foreign service in March of this year. His final two positions in government were as Senior Secretary to the President for Foreign Affairs and National Security (2008 to 2010) and as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade (2010-2013). Earlier assignments in the ministry headquarters included vice minister (2010) and deputy minister for planning and Management (2005). From 2001 to 2002, he served as director-general of the North American Affairs Bureau, in charge of the Republic of Korea’s relations with the United States. Overseas, Minister Kim’s postings included service in the United States, Russia and India. He was Ambassador to the Republic of Austria and Permanent Representative to the International Organizations in Vienna (2006-2008) and Ambassador to the Republic of Uzbekistan (2002-2004). In July 2012, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon appointed Minister Kim as a member of the High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda. Minister Kim graduated from Seoul National University and studied at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London. Currently, Minister Kim is Chair of the Institute for Global Social Responsibility and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Graduate School of International Studies at Seoul National University.
The Koret Distinguished Lecture Series was established in 2013 with the generous support of the Koret Foundation.
Philippines Conference Room
Sung-hwan Kim
Former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade for the Republic of Korea
Speaker
1953 saw both the signing of the Korean Armistice Agreement and a Mutual Defense Treaty between the United States and the Republic of Korea. The uneasy and incomplete peace, coupled with a formalized U.S.-ROK security alliance relationship, ushered in a new era on the Korean Peninsula. 2013 marks the 60th anniversary of these pivotal events.
Ambassador Stephens will draw from her experience in Korean affairs over the past four decades, including her tenure as U.S. ambassador to the ROK 2008-2011, to discuss the evolution of the bilateral alliance, its challenges and achievements, and major issues now and going forward. This lunchtime seminar is scheduled to occur immediately upon Ambassador Stephens' return from a visit to Seoul where she will have participated in a first-ever gathering of former American ambassadors to Korea and former Korean ambassadors to the U.S. aimed specifically at reflecting on the U.S.-ROK alliance at 60. Her comments will also be informed by these discussions.
Ambassador Stephens recently completed thirty-five years as a career diplomat in the U.S. Foreign Service. She was Acting Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs in 2012, and U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Korea, 2008 to 2011.
Ambassador Stephens has served in numerous posts in Washington, Asia, and Europe. From 2005 to 2007 she was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs (EAP). While Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs (EUR) from 2003 to 2005, she focused on post-conflict and stabilization issues in the Balkans. She was Director for European Affairs at the National Security Council during the Clinton Administration.
Ambassador Stephens’ overseas postings included service in China, Korea, Yogoslavia, Northern Ireland, Portugal, and Trinidad & Tobago.
Ambassador Stephens received the 2009 Presidential Meritorious Service Award. Other awards and recognition include the Korean government’s Sejong Cultural Prize (2013), and in 2011 the Pacific Century Institute’s Building Bridges Award, the Outstanding Achievement Award from the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea, and the Kwanghwa Medal of Diplomatic Merit from the Korean government. Her book, Reflections of an American Ambassador to Korea, based on her Korean-language blog, was published in 2010.
Ambassador Stephens graduated from Prescott College, and holds a master's degree from Harvard University, along with honorary doctoral degrees from Chungnam National University and the University of Maryland. Ambassador Stephens studied at the University of Hong Kong. She was a Peace Corps volunteer in Korea in the 1970s.
The Koret Fellowship was established in 2008 through the generosity of the Koret Foundation to promote intellectual diversity and breadth in the KSP by bringing leading professionals in Asia and the United States to Stanford to study U.S.-Korea relations. The fellows conduct their own research on the bilateral relationship, with an emphasis on contemporary relations, with the broad aim of fostering greater understanding and closer ties between the two countries.
Kathleen Stephens was the William J. Perry Distinguished Fellow at Stanford University's Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center from 2015 to 2017
Kathleen Stephens, a former U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Korea, is the William J. Perry Fellow in the Korea Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC). She has four decades of experience in Korean affairs, first as a Peace Corps volunteer in rural Korea in the 1970s, and in ensuing decades as a diplomat and as U.S. ambassador in Seoul.
Stephens came to Stanford previously as the 2013-14 Koret Fellow after 35 years as a U.S. Foreign Service officer. Her time at Stanford, though, was cut short when she was recalled to the diplomatic service to lead the U.S. mission in India as charge d'affaires during the first seven months of the new Indian administration led by Narendra Modi.
Stephens' diplomatic career included serving as acting under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs in 2012; U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Korea from 2008 to 2011; principal deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs from 2005 to 2007; and deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs from 2003 to 2005, responsible for post-conflict issues in the Balkans, including Kosovo's future status and the transition from NATO to EU-led forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
She also served in numerous positions in Asia, Europe and Washington, D.C., including as U.S. consul general in Belfast, Northern Ireland, from 1995 to 1998, during the negotiation of the Good Friday Agreement, and as director for European affairs at the White House during the Clinton administration, and in China, following normalization of U.S.-PRC relations.
Stephens holds a bachelor’s degree in East Asian studies from Prescott College and a Master of Public Administration from Harvard University, in addition to honorary degrees from Chungnam National University and the University of Maryland. She studied at the University of Hong Kong and Oxford University, and was an Outward Bound instructor in Hong Kong. She was previously a senior fellow at Georgetown University's Institute for the Study of Diplomacy.
Stephens' awards include the Presidential Meritorious Service Award (2009), the Sejong Cultural Award, and Korea-America Friendship Association Award (2013). She is a trustee at The Asia Foundation, on the boards of The Korea Society and Pacific Century Institute, and a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy.
Recent arrests of some Chinese doctors and employees of a multinational pharmaceutical firm provide a window into the incentive distortions of China's healthcare system, as highlighted in an August 7th article of ChinaOutlook that quoted health economist and AHPP program director Karen Eggleston.
2008的6月，超过1000万的考生参加了高考，以竞争570个进入大学的名额。尽管高考的初衷是给予每个学生平等的机会，但严重的不平等依然存在着。同等条件下，北京的考生相对于陕西的考生就有更多的上大学的机会，因为北京有更多大学和招生名额。同世界上其他地方一样，中国的大学也倾于照顾本地的生源。
