The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center’s (Shorenstein APARC) Japan Studies Program kicked off its inaugural academic year with a lineup of major events and meetings at Stanford and in Japan.

Here are some highlights from the autumn:

Corporate Affiliates Alumni Reunion in Tokyo

In early September, Shorenstein APARC Corporate Affiliates Program alumni from 1997 to 2011 gathered for a lively reunion in Tokyo. Participants introduced their current positions and jobs, and outlined how their experience at the Center has enhanced their work and life. Shorenstein Distinguished Fellow Michael H. Armacost, associate director for research Daniel C. Sneider, and Takahashi Research Associate Kenji E. Kushida hosted the event on behalf of Shorenstein APARC.

U.S.-Japan Strategic Exchange with Japanese Policymakers

On October 10, a delegation of Japanese Diet members from several different parties and representatives from the Japan Institute of International Affairs, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the San Francisco Consulate of Japan visited Shorenstein APARC. The delegates exchanged views with Stanford and Center scholars, focusing on the U.S. political situation and the strategic environment facing Japan. David Kennedy, a Stanford professor of American history, presented a luncheon keynote on U.S. politics.

Japanese Academic Delegation Speaks with Shorenstein APARC China and Japan Experts

A delegation of Japanese scholars spoke on October 11 with Shorenstein APARC experts on China and Japan. The scholars were part of a group invited by the Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA), and included professors from Aoyama Gakuin University and research fellows at JIIA. Shorenstein APARC participants included China scholars Scott Rozelle, Jean C. Oi, and Xueguang Zhou along with international relations and Japan experts Phillip Lipscy and Kenji Kushida. 

Post-Catastrophe Japan: Economic and Political Prospects  

Richard Katz, editor of the Oriental Economist Report, gave a seminar on November 14 about the broader global economic and political prospects for Japan after the March 11 triple disaster. He also presented lessons from Japan for U.S. policymakers fighting the current slump.

Asia’s demographic landscape is changing in a big way. Japan’s population is shrinking, as people are living longer, marrying later, and choosing to have fewer or no children. Korea is moving in the same direction, while China and the countries of South and Southeast Asia face similar issues in the coming decades. As this takes place, more people are moving to, from, and across Asia for job, education, and marriage opportunities.

These demographic changes present policymakers with new challenges and questions, including: What are the interrelationships between population aging and key macroeconomic variables such as economic growth? How will it impact security? What are the effects on employment policy and other national institutions? How have patterns of migration affected society and culture? What lessons can Asia, the United States, and Europe learn from one another to improve the policy response to population aging?

The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) focused its third annual Stanford Kyoto Trans-Asian Dialogue on addressing the possible economic, social, and security implications of Asia’s unprecedented demographic transition. Thirty scholars, government figures, journalists, and other opinion leaders from Stanford, the United States, and countries across the Asia-Pacific region gathered September 8–9, 2011, in Kyoto, Japan, to discuss key issues related to the question of demographic change.

Comparative Demographics and Policy Responses

Japan’s shrinking workforce calls for labor policy changes, stressed presenters during the opening Dialogue session. Stanford Center for Population Research director Shripad Tuljapurkar stated that Japan’s population could decrease by as much as 25 percent and that its government has a window of approximately 40 years in which to act. In describing Japan’s demographic shift, Ogawa Naohiro, director of the Nihon University Population Research Institute, also emphasized the importance of good financial education for individuals as life expectancy increases.

Macroeconomic Implications

Economists Masahiko Aoki and Cai Fang addressed changes to East Asia’s economic landscape. Aoki, an FSI senior fellow, spoke of the transition from agriculture to industry that has occurred at different stages in Japan, Korea, and China and of the increasing cost of human capital that has followed. Cai, a Chinese Academy of Social Sciences labor and population expert, stated that after several decades of industrial growth China is now at a turning point in terms of its global competitiveness.

Labor and Migration

Scott Rozelle, codirector of Stanford’s Rural Education Action Program (REAP), opened the next day with a discussion of China’s rural human capital investment. Offering Mexico’s situation after the mid-1990s peso crisis as a comparison, he emphasized the immediate need for allocating more health and education resources to China’s rural areas. Ton-Nu-Thi Ninh, president of Tri Viet University, discussed the socioeconomic and cultural aspects of labor migration—a growing trend in Asia—and advocated that governments factor it more into their foreign policy development.

Security

The security impact of Asia’s demographic transition will take several decades to understand, but it will eventually lead to the need for significant policy re-strategization, stated Yu Myung Hwan, Korea’s former minister of foreign affairs and trade, during the closing Dialogue session. He suggested focusing on impacts that could result from the major changes taking place in fertility, urbanization, and migration. Concurring with many of Yu’s views, Stanford’s Shorenstein Distinguished Fellow Michael H. Armacost also noted the current lack of literature on the link between security and demography. In addition, he emphasized the need for the United States to continue pursuing good relations with China and Russia during this time of transition.

“Low fertility rates are not because women are all out there working. In fact, a number of countries have lots of females in the labor force and have achieved a resurgence of fertility. Achieving work-life balance is important, not just for women, but for men as well, and might play a role in lessening the gap in life expectancy between men and women.”

-Karen Eggleston, Director, Asia Health Policy Program

Throughout the event, Dialogue participants unanimously acknowledged the serious challenges facing policymakers as they look for ways to meet the evolving needs of individuals, families, and organizations. The demographic outlook is not entirely gloomy, however. Numerous participants also pointed to the potential for exciting advances and innovations in technology and international cooperation.

As in previous years, the event concluded with a lively public symposium and reception attended by students from Stanford and local universities, Shorenstein APARC guests and affiliates, and members of the general public. Speaking during the reception, Kadokawa Daisaku, mayor of Kyoto, and Kim Hyong-O, member and former speaker of the Korean National Assembly, acknowledged the significance of the Stanford Kyoto Trans-Asian Dialogue as a forum for addressing issues of mutual importance to the United States and Asia.

The Dialogue is made possible through the generosity of the City of Kyoto, FSI, and Yumi and Yasunori Kaneko. To read the final report from this and previous Dialogues, visit the event series page below.

Kenjiro Takenami, Director of Ruby Software Business Development Project at Fukuoka Prefectural Government, spoke to an audience at Stanford about the government’s success in promoting entrepreneurship in the Fukuoka region of Japan, at a seminar organized by the SPRIE-Stanford Project on Japanese Entrepreneurship (STAJE) on November 3^rd, 2011.

In Takenami’s presentation, he discussed that Fukuoka now has over 800 local software and digital content companies with the number of companies increasing 20% annually. It is ranked 5^th in Japan for the total number of software businesses and total software sales revenue. He described that in the past, Fukuoka had faced challenges in promoting entrepreneurship because of the lack of investment, mentors, and innovators. In an attempt to solve these challenges, the Fukuoka government created new programs that financed local start-up companies and supported venture capital funds. However, these programs failed to boost entrepreneurship and regional development.

Takenami revealed that the turning point for the Fukuoka government’s success was the decision to support research and development for Ruby, a dynamic, open source programming language developed in Japan. The government committed to build a community around the programming language and helped entrepreneurs and businesses develop new technologies that used Ruby. They launched multiple incubators for developers and held periodic conferences for the community members to inspire and learn from each other.

Fukuoka prefecture has a population of five million and a GDP of over 180 billion US dollars. The city of Fukuoka, which was selected as one of the “Hot Cities The Top 10” by Newsweek in 2006, has been attracting the attention of foreign investors. It is located on the northern tip of Kyushu and is geographically closer to China and South Korea than any other major Japanese city. Historically, it has been the hub for business and trade to continental Asia. The prefecture is ranked 2^nd in Japan for the number of universities and colleges specializing in science and engineering, with approximately 7,000 graduates every year.

Takenami concluded the seminar by highlighting that eight times as many local companies in Fukuoka develop using Ruby since they began in 2008. He also shared success stories of companies which began in Fukuoka, but are now internationally known, such as Nautilus Technologies.

ABOUT THE Speaker

Kenjiro Takenami is Director of Ruby Software Business Development Project, Commercial and Industrial Policy Division of Fukuoka Prefectural Government and is responsible for the Fukuoka’s software industry development efforts. Takenami is the former Executive Director of the Fukuoka Center for Overseas Commerce in America, based in Silicon Valley.

Following the seminar, SPRIE-Stanford Project on Japanese Entrepreneurship (STAJE), Stanford Graduate Business School and US-Asia Technology Management, Stanford School of Engineering co-hosted the Fukuoka Ruby Night Event, an annual Ruby developer conference, organized by the Fukuoka Center for Overseas Commerce in America (FCOCA).

The video clips for the keynote presentations of this event can be found here.

Philippe de Koning, a recent Stanford graduate who has been selected to study in Ireland as a Mitchell fellow, wrote a manuscript about Japan's defense and financial crisis with Shorenstein APARC faculty member Phillip Lipscy. Lipscy, a political scientist, was de Koning's advisor through his undergraduate career and also advised him on his senior thesis.

Two Stanford graduates with close ties to FSI’s centers have been named 2012 Rhodes Scholars. A third was selected as a Mitchell Scholar.

Anand Habib was a graduate of the 2011 CISAC honors program in international security studies and a 2010 Dachs undergraduate intern. Habib and Katherine Niehaus – who is now a research assistant for a CHP/PCOR project evaluating whether HIV medication increases the risk of cardiovascular disease – will study at the University of Oxford in England under the Rhodes program. 

Philippe de Koning, who will study in Ireland as a Mitchell fellow, wrote a manuscript about Japan’s defense and financial crisis with Shorenstein APARC faculty member Phillip Lipscy. Lipscy, a political scientist, was de Koning’s advisor through his undergraduate career and also advised him on his senior thesis. De Koning was also a 2010 CISAC honors student.

More about the scholars:

Image

Habib is working on community health programs at St. Joseph's Clinic in Thomassique, Haiti, under a one-year global health fellowship awarded by Medical Missionaries. The nonprofit organization is a volunteer group of more than 200 doctors, nurses, dentists, and others who work to improve the health of the poor in the United States and throughout the world.

In 2011, he won a Deans' Award for Academic Accomplishment, which honors extraordinary undergraduate students for "exceptional, tangible" intellectual achievements. One of the professors who nominated him for the award described him as a "superb critical thinker" whose work is characterized by "creative genius" and "mature insights," adding that he "exemplifies exactly the kind of deeply informed, pragmatic and caring leadership that the world needs and Stanford enables."

As a Stanford student, Habib worked on behalf of politically and medically disenfranchised people in India, Mexico and Guatemala. His field research internship in Guatemala’s indigenous region during summer 2010 was carried out under the supervision of Paul Wise, professor of pediatrics and FSI senior fellow, as part of FSI’s Dachs mentored undergraduate research program.  On campus, he turned the Stanford tradition of the annual Dance Marathon into a vehicle dedicated to addressing the HIV/AIDS pandemic by engaging not only Stanford students but also local communities and corporations, raising more than $100,000. His exceptional work was recognized by his participation in the Clinton Global Initiative University Conference in April, 2011.

Image

She plans to pursue a doctorate of philosophy in systems approaches to biomedical science at Oxford.

At Stanford, Niehaus captained Stanford's varsity track and cross country teams, won the Pac-10 5,000 meters, and won Academic-All American status. She also served as a mentor and tutor for students in low-income families.

Working with faculty in the Center for Health Policy, Kate led a project to evaluate how well newer HIV antiretroviral drugs work compared with older drugs.  Her work was among the first to evaluate comprehensively all of the trials of new drugs in treatment of experienced patients, and showed that these drugs have substantial benefits.

Image

He is a Herbert Scoville Jr. Peace Fellow at the Nuclear Threat Initiative in Washington, D.C. The nongovernmental organization works to prevent nuclear, chemical, and biological threats from materializing. De Koning is researching nuclear materials security and the U.S.-China dialogue on nuclear issues.

De Koning, who earlier was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship, spent the 2010-2011 academic year at Hiroshima University in Japan. He examined various components of Japanese security policy, with emphasis on current evolution of Japanese Self-Defense Forces, policies on nuclear issues and approaches toward peacekeeping.

In 2009, he was a member of the Stanford delegation to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.