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Please join us for our winter seminar series of four lectures given by multidisciplinary faculty who are leading experts on China's economy and institutions. These lectures will cover discussion topics ranging from rural livelihood and environmental sustainability in China to talent and firm creation in China and will be moderated by Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institution co-directors Scott Rozelle and Hongbin Li.

 

Seminar 2: Tuesday, February 9, 2021 | 11:00 - 12:15 am Pacific Time

A Study of Confucius Institute Teachers Around the World with Professor Jennifer Pan, Stanford University

Confucius Institutes (CI) have been accused of extending Chinese government censorship and propaganda around the world, but there are few systematic studies of how these organizations operate. By combining survey and experimental methods with qualitative analyses, we study the behavior of CI teachers with a focus on how the Chinese government imposes control over teachers and its consequences. 


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Headshot of Dr. Jennifer Pan
About the Speaker

Jennifer Pan is an Assistant Professor of Communication at Stanford University. Her research focuses on political communication and authoritarian politics. Pan uses experimental and computational methods with large-scale datasets on political activity in China and other authoritarian regimes to answer questions about how autocrats perpetuate their rule. How political censorship, propaganda, and information manipulation work in the digital age. How preferences and behaviors are shaped as a result.

Her book, Welfare for Autocrats: How Social Assistance in China Cares for its Rulers (Oxford, 2020) shows how China's pursuit of political order transformed the country’s main social assistance program, Dibao, for repressive purposes. Her work has appeared in peer reviewed publications such as the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Politics, and Science.

She graduated from Princeton University, summa cum laude, and received her Ph.D. from Harvard University’s Department of Government.


Seminar Series Moderators:

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Headshot of Dr. Scott Rozelle

Scott Rozelle holds the Helen Farnsworth Endowed Professorship at Stanford University and is Senior Fellow in the Food Security and Environment Program and the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Freeman Spogli Institute (FSI) for International Studies. For the past 30 years, he has worked on the economics of poverty reduction. Currently, his work on poverty has its full focus on human capital, including issues of rural health, nutrition and education. For the past 20 year, Rozelle has been the chair of the International Advisory Board of the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). In recent years Rozelle spends most of his time co-directing the Rural Education Action Project (REAP). In recognition of this work, Dr. Rozelle has received numerous honors and awards. Among them, he became a Yangtse Scholar (Changjiang Xuezhe) in Renmin University of China in 2008. In 2008 he also was awarded the Friendship Award by Premiere Wen Jiabao, the highest honor that can be bestowed on a foreigner. 

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hongbin li headshot
Hongbin Li is the James Liang Director of the China Program at the Stanford King Center on Global Development, and a Senior Fellow of Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). Hongbin obtained his Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University in 2001 and joined the economics department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), where he became full professor in 2007. He was also one of the two founding directors of the Institute of Economics and Finance at the CUHK. He taught at Tsinghua University in Beijing 2007-2016 and was C.V. Starr Chair Professor of Economics in the School of Economics and Management. He founded the Chinese College Student Survey (CCSS) in 2009 and the China Employer-Employee Survey (CEES) in 2014.

Hongbin’s research has been focused on the transition and development of the Chinese economy, and the evidence-based research results have been both widely covered by media outlets and well read by policy makers around the world. He is currently the co-editor of the Journal of Comparative Economics.

 


Register Here

Register once to receive the Zoom meeting link that will be used for all lectures in this series.

Seminars
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Watch the Recorded Seminar

Please join us for our winter seminar series. Moderated by SCCEI Directors Scott Rozelle and Hongbin Li, the four-part series features leading experts on China, speaking on topics ranging from China's aspirations to build an ecological civilization, to talent and firm creation in China.

 

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Headshot of Dr. Gretchen Daily.
Seminar 1: Tuesday, February 2, 2021 | 11:00 - 12:15 am Pacific Time

China’s Dream: Science, Economics, and Policy for an Ecological Civilization with Professor Gretchen Daily, Stanford University

China’s efforts to build an “ecological civilization” constitute the most comprehensive strategy to achieve inclusive, sustainable development by any major economy. The aspiration is to weave the values of nature into the fabric of the economy and society.  How?  I will open discussion of the transformation being attempted and the arc of their development, both in China and globally, focusing on natural capital and economic dimensions.  These include (i) valuing nature’s contributions to people; (ii) determining where and how much nature to protect or restore, in cities and across the country; (iii) aligning livelihood security and investments in nature; and (iv) tracking progress through Gross Ecosystem Product.


 

Seminar Series Moderators:

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Headshot of Dr. Scott Rozelle

Scott Rozelle holds the Helen Farnsworth Endowed Professorship at Stanford University and is Senior Fellow in the Food Security and Environment Program and the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Freeman Spogli Institute (FSI) for International Studies. For the past 30 years, he has worked on the economics of poverty reduction. Currently, his work on poverty has its full focus on human capital, including issues of rural health, nutrition and education. For the past 20 year, Rozelle has been the chair of the International Advisory Board of the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). In recent years Rozelle spends most of his time co-directing the Rural Education Action Project (REAP). In recognition of this work, Dr. Rozelle has received numerous honors and awards. Among them, he became a Yangtse Scholar (Changjiang Xuezhe) in Renmin University of China in 2008. In 2008 he also was awarded the Friendship Award by Premiere Wen Jiabao, the highest honor that can be bestowed on a foreigner. 

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hongbin li headshot
Hongbin Li is the James Liang Director of the China Program at the Stanford King Center on Global Development, and a Senior Fellow of Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). Hongbin obtained his Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University in 2001 and joined the economics department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), where he became full professor in 2007. He was also one of the two founding directors of the Institute of Economics and Finance at the CUHK. He taught at Tsinghua University in Beijing 2007-2016 and was C.V. Starr Chair Professor of Economics in the School of Economics and Management. He founded the Chinese College Student Survey (CCSS) in 2009 and the China Employer-Employee Survey (CEES) in 2014.

Hongbin’s research has been focused on the transition and development of the Chinese economy, and the evidence-based research results have been both widely covered by media outlets and well read by policy makers around the world. He is currently the co-editor of the Journal of Comparative Economics.

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This is a virtual event. Please click here to register and generate a link to the talk. 
The link will be unique to you; please save it and do not share with others.

The past decade has witnessed a great digital transformation in China. In 2006, China’s online retail sales were merely 3% of U.S. sales. China now hosts the world’s largest e-commerce retail market with a 40% share of global sales. Mobile pay has taken the country by storm so that even beggars are accepting alms through QR codes. What accounts for the leapfrog development in China’s e-commerce market? What are the larger implications of the rise of this 700-million-user online market? This talk will discuss the institutional foundation of China's giant e-commerce market, as well as its political and economic effects.

This event is part of Shorenstein APARC's winter webinar series "Asian Politics and Policy in a Time of Uncertainty."



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Portrait of Lizhi Liu
Lizhi Liu is an Assistant Professor in the McDonough School of Business and a faculty affiliate of the Department of Government. Her research specializes in the politics of trade, technology and innovation, and the political economy of China. Her work has been published by American Economic Review: Insights and Minnesota Law Review, and has been funded by numerous institutions, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Weiss Family Program Fund, and the Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies. She received the 2020 Ronald H. Coase Best Dissertation Award from the Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics (SIOE), and the 2019 Best Dissertation Award in the area of Information Technology and Politics by American Political Science Association (APSA). 

Via Zoom Webinar. Register at: https://bit.ly/38yUFdn

Lizhi Liu Assistant Professor, McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University
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* Please note all CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

 

Seminar Recording:  https://youtu.be/trpJJ0-nJzE

 

About the Event: In the middle of the twentieth century, geophysical science and new technologies pried open three of Earth's most remote and inhospitable regions: Antarctica, the ocean floor, and the exosphere—that is, outer space. As human activity in these frigid zones increased, so too did their status as “global commons,” domains belonging to all, and therefore none. This presentation examines how one issue in particular, nuclear weapons, galvanized the politics of the global commons from the 1950s to the 1970s and sheds light on how the United States navigated the new spaces as part of its Cold War foreign policy.

 

 

About the Speakers: 

Stephen Buono is a postdoctoral fellow at CISAC. He earned his PhD in History from Indiana University. At Stanford, he is at work on his first book, The Province of All Mankind, a history of how outer space became a realm of American foreign policy and international law in 1950s and 1960s. Before arriving at CISAC, Stephen was an editor for the journal Diplomatic History and an Aerospace History Fellow with the American Historical Association and the National Aeronautical and Space Administration.

 

Ryan A. Musto is a MacArthur Nuclear Security Fellow at CISAC. He holds a PhD in history from The George Washington University and master’s degrees in international and world history from Columbia University and the London School of Economics. Prior to joining CISAC, Ryan served as a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at MIT. His work has been published in Diplomatic HistoryDiplomacy & StatecraftPolar RecordBulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and Americas Quarterly, amongst other outlets. Ryan is currently writing a book manuscript on the international history of regional denuclearization.

Virtual Seminar

Stephen Buono and Ryan Musto Stanford University
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The 2020 U.S. Election: Stress Test for American Democracy

Time

January 14th (8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. Beijing Time) 

January 13th (4:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Pacific Time)

Language

The language of the event will be English.

Attention

Recording (audiotaping or videotaping) during the event is not allowed.

Sponsored by the Stanford Center at Peking University and the iGCU at Peking University.

Despite a once-in-a-century pandemic, the highest number of voters in 120 years turned out for the U.S. presidential election in November. After all the mail-in ballots were counted, former Vice President Joseph Biden was declared the winner of the popular vote and the Electoral College vote by a wide margin. However, Donald Trump has yet to concede defeat and has mounted a series of court challenges to fight the results, including taking his claims to the Supreme Court.

To help us understand the U.S. election results – an election that some have described as “a referendum on Trump” -- and its aftermath that some have called the “stress test for American democracy,” we convene a roundtable discussion with leading specialists from Stanford University and Peking University. 

Speakers

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David BRADY

David BRADY holds the Bowen H. and Janice Arthur McCoy Professor of Political Science in the Stanford Graduate School of Business and held the Morris M. Doyle Centennial Chair in Public Policy (emeritus).  He is Deputy Director and Davies Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and has published eight books and over 100 papers in journals and books.  Among his more recent publications are Leadership and Growth (World Bank Publications, 2010) coedited with Michael Spence, Revolving Gridlock: Politics and Policy from Carter to Bush II (Westview Press, 2006), and Red and Blue Nation? Characteristics and Causes of America’s Polarized Politics with Pietro Nivola (Brookings Institution Press, 2007).  His study on the “electoral basis of gridlock” is forthcoming.  

Brady has also published essays in the American Interest, Commentary, Policy Review, and National Affairs as well as numerous articles in Real Clear Politics, Project Syndicate and the Wall Street Journal.  He has twice been a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and has been a Visiting Professor at Harvard University, Sciences Po in Paris, and The Libera Università Internazionale Degli Studi Sociali "Guido Carli" (Luiss) in Rome.  He has also been a distinguished lecturer at the American Academy in Berlin and a distinguished professor at Yonsei University in Korea.  Brady was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1987. 


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Bruce E. CAIN

Bruce E. CAIN is an expert in U.S. politics, and particularly the politics of California and the American West. A pioneer in computer-assisted redistricting in the United States, he is a prominent scholar of U.S. elections, political regulation, and the relationships between American lobbyists and elected officials. 

Prior to joining Stanford, Professor Cain was Director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at University of California (U.C.), Berkeley from 1990-2007 and Executive Director of the U.C. Washington Center from 2005-2012.  He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2000 and has won awards for his research (Richard F. Fenno Prize, 1988), teaching (Caltech 1988 and UC Berkeley 2003) and public service (Zale Award for Outstanding Achievement in Policy Research and Public Service, 2000).  He is currently working on state regulatory processes and stakeholder involvement in the areas of water, energy, and the environment.

 

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PAN Wei

PAN Wei obtained his Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He is now a Professor in the School of International Studies at Peking University and frequently lectures on world political theory, Chinese politics, comparative politics, and the history of American social development, etc. At present, PAN serves as the Director of the Center for Chinese and Global Affairs of Peking University. His research interests include comparative political theory, comparative politics, political methodology, and Chinese society and government.

 

 

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WANG Yong

WANG Yong holds a Ph.D. in Law from Peking University. Wang serves as the Director of the Center for International Political Economy and as a Professor and Doctoral Supervisor at the School of International Relations, all at Peking University (PKU). He is an Academic Committee Member of the Center for International Strategic Research, a Professor at the CPC Party School of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, the Leading Professor of a PKU training program for senior civil servants in Hong Kong SAR, and a Professor of a PKU training program for African diplomats held by the Ministry of Commerce of China. He is also a Consultant for the Asian Development Bank, a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (UK), and a member of the Global Agenda Committee of the Global Trade System of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. His research areas include Sino-US relations, Sino-US economic relations, trade politics, regional cooperation, international economic relations, international political economics, etc. In 2008, he was selected into the "Program for New Century Excellent Talents" by the Ministry of Education of China.

Moderators

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Jean C. OI

Jean C. Oi is the William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics in the Department of Political Science and a senior fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. She directs the China Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and is the Lee Shau Kee Director of the Stanford Center at Peking University. Oi has published extensively on China’s reforms. Recent books include Fateful Decisions:  Choices that will Shape China’s Future, coedited with Thomas Fingar (Stanford University Press, 2020), Zouping Revisited: Adaptive Governance in a Chinese County, coedited with Steven Goldstein (Stanford University Press, 2018), and Challenges in the Process of China’s Urbanization, coedited with Karen Eggleston and Yiming Wang (2017). Current research is on fiscal reform and local government debt, continuing SOE reforms, and the Belt and Road Initiative.

 

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WANG Dong

Wang Dong is the Deputy Director of the Office for Humanities and Social Sciences and the Executive Director of the Institute for Global    Cooperation and Understanding, all at Peking University. He also serves as Member of the Steering Committee of the East Asia Security Forum, Chinese Overseas Educated Scholars Association, International Advisory Committee Member of the Shanghai Academy of Area Studies and Global Governance, Advisory Committee Member for the Carter Center-Global Times US-China Young Scholars Forum, and Secretary-General of the Pangoal Institution, a leading China-based public policy think tank.   

Wang Dong received his bachelor in law from Peking University and M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).  Wang has written extensively on international relations and China’s foreign policy. He is the author and/or editor of such English-language publications as Re-globalization: When China Meets the World Again (Routledge, 2020, forthcoming); and Avoiding the Thucydides Trap: US-China Relations in Strategic Domains, coedited with Travis Tanner (Routledge, 2020, forthcoming). Wang was named a “Munich Young Leader” in 2016 (the only awardee from China); and was selected by the inaugural program of “Preeminent Young Scientists” of Beijing in 2018, one of the most prestigious awards ever given in China.

This is an exclusive Webinar for Stanford and PKU communities. Please use your Stanford or PKU email to register at https://stanford.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_jpjlMTasSfeQo8IcUZE2xQ

PAN Wei Professor, School of International Studies; Director of the Center for Chinese and Global Affairs of Peking University
WANG Yong Director of the Center for International Political Economy; Professor and Doctoral Supervisor at the School of International Relations
Professor
Professor
Professor
David BRADY Professor of Political Economics, Graduate School of Business and Political Science, Emeritus, Stanford University
Bruce E. CAIN Charles Louis Ducommun Professor in Humanities and Sciences; Professor of Political Science, Stanford University
Professor
Professor
Professor
Professor
Jean C. OI Moderator Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies; William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics, Stanford University
WANG Dong Moderator Deputy Director, Office for Humanities and Social Sciences; Executive Director, Institute for Global Cooperation and Understanding, Peking University
Panel Discussions

The United States just experienced a historic election, electing Joseph R. Biden as its 46th president. At the same time, Xi Jinping continues to solidify his control over the Communist Party of China. With escalating tensions between the two countries, many wonder: How will the US presidential election affect the relationship between these two major powers?

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* Please note all CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

 

Seminar Recording:  https://youtu.be/zrDq0xRWnhk

 

About the Event: Determination and verification of the nuclear activities of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) are critical to ongoing disarmament and nonproliferation efforts. This study assesses the complete nuclear fuel cycle of the DPRK, from its capacity to produce fissile material precursors at mining and milling facilities in Pyongsan, to activity at the main Nuclear Scientific Research Center in Yongbyon. An interdisciplinary approach is used to analyze the different stages of the DRPK’s nuclear fuel cycle. In investigating the uranium ore grade and ore production capacity at the mining and milling facilities, we combine analysis of archival geological maps, geological field survey reports, and first-hand collection and geochemical analysis of comparable rock samples from the Korean Peninsula. In analyzing the ongoing activities at fissile material production facilities, we integrate satellite imagery analysis with machine learning algorithms, allowing for automated analysis of large image sets.

 

About the Speaker: Sulgiye Park is a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at CISAC, Stanford University, where she focuses primarily on investigating the front-end of uranium pathway in North Korea. She looks at the uranium mining and milling processes for disarmament and nonproliferation efforts. Prior to joining CISAC, Sulgiye was a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford Geological Sciences and Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, where Sulgiye studied materials' behaviors at extreme environments.

Virtual Seminar

Sulgiye Park Stanton Postdoctoral Fellow Stanford University
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The disruption of the 2020 pandemic, coupled with significant economic tensions between China and the US, have resulted in global companies rethinking their supply chains.  Many have called for drastic changes - reshoring, near-shoring, regionalization of vertical supply chains, increasing redundancies, or diversification of Chinese manufacturing to Southeast Asia, South Asia, Africa or Latin America, etc.  Empirical data, however, reveal that many are taking a more cautious approach.  Leading companies are continuing to develop innovative ways to redesign their supply chains that still preserve China as their key supply source.  This talk will share some of these innovative ways that, in the end, may provide better long term values.


Portrait of Hau L. LeeHau L. Lee is the Thoma Professor of Operations, Information and Technology at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University.  He was the founding faculty director of the Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies (SEED), and is the current Co-Director of the Stanford Value Chain Innovations Initiative.  Professor Lee’s expertise is on global supply chain management and value chain innovations.  He has published widely in top journals on supply chain management.  He was inducted to the US National Academy of Engineering, and elected a Fellow of MSOM, POMS; and INFORMS.   He was the previous Editor-in-Chief of Management Science.  In 2006-7, he was the President of the Production and Operations Management Society.  His article, “The Triple-A Supply Chain,” was the Second Place Winner of the McKinsey Award for the Best Paper in 2004 in the Harvard Business Review.  In 2004, his co-authored paper in 1997, “Information Distortion in a Supply Chain: The Bullwhip Effect,” was voted as one of the ten most influential papers in the history of Management Science.  His co-authored paper, “The Impact of Logistics Performance on Trade,” won the Wickham Skinner Best Paper Award by the Production and Operations Management Society in 2014. In 2003, he received the Harold Lardner Prize for International Distinction in Operations Research, Canadian Operations Research Society.  Professor Lee obtained his B.Soc.Sc. degree in Economics and Statistics from the University of Hong Kong, his M.Sc. degree in Operational Research from the London School of Economics, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Operations Research from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.  He was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Engineering degree by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and an Honorary Doctorate from the Erasmus University of Rotterdam.

 


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American and Chinese flags
This event is part of the 2021 Winter/Spring Colloquia series, Biden’s America, Xi’s China: What’s Now & What’s Next?, sponsored by APARC's China Program.

 

Via Zoom Webinar. Register at: https://bit.ly/35bMWQx

Hau L. Lee Thoma Professor of Operations, Information and Technology, Stanford Graduate School of Business
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* Please note all CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

 

Seminar Recording:  https://youtu.be/ISsBNJEKP70

 

About the Event: This chapter builds on my earlier writing during the West African Ebola outbreak, in which I argue that health security paradigms and militarized health interventions engender “defensiveness” in landscapes of care, while they also intensify already securitized landscapes and relationships of development and humanitarian aid. In this chapter, I include insights about the US-authored Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA), to suggest that the Government of Sierra Leone’s 2014 adoption of the agenda has helped to strengthen containment and control paradigms at the expense of care, and to prioritize the collection and management of disease event data over other pressing concerns related to health care delivery (cf. Benton 2015). Specifically, I analyze global health security policy discourse and practice outlined in the GHSA and militarized health interventions as they travel and settle in four disparate sites: a rural clinic in eastern Sierra Leone (see Kardas-Nelson and Frankfurter 2018); abandoned and repurposed treatment centers; the Imperial War Museum’s temporary exhibit “Fighting Extremes: From Ebola to Isis;” and US and Sierra Leonean political rhetoric explicitly linking Ebola virus disease and terrorism (whether by metaphor, analogy, or literal means). Reading across these sites, I show how projects of counter-terrorism and humanitarianism subtend global health policy, and become institutionalized in and through the everyday management of public health provision.

 

About the Speaker: Adia Benton is an associate professor of Anthropology and African Studies at Northwestern University, where she is affiliated with the Science in Human Culture Program. She is the author of the award-winning book, HIV Exceptionalism: Development through Disease in Sierra Leone, and is currently writing a book about the West African Ebola outbreak.

Virtual Seminar

Adia Benton Associate Professor of Anthropology Northwestern University
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Authors
Kiyoteru Tsutsui
News Type
Commentary
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Paragraphs

This op-ed originally appeared in Nikkei Asia 


If his recent diplomatic contacts are any indication, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is off to an auspicious start in managing Japan's two most important relationships: the U.S. and China.

Last month, Suga got a pleasant surprise when he spoke to Joe Biden, with the President-elect explicitly stating that the Senkaku Islands, which China claims as the Diaoyu, fall under the protection of Article 5 of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty. A few weeks later, Suga received China's foreign minister Wang Yi, who was there largely to consolidate the warm economic relationships between the two countries -- except for a prickly comment about the Senkakus at the end. Clearly, the U.S. and China both see Japan as a critically important player in their competition for Asia-Pacific hegemony.

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This is a far cry from the precarious position Japan found itself in at the beginning of Shinzo Abe's first and second terms. In 2007, the young Prime Minister Abe elevated a spontaneous joint response by the U.S., Japan, Australia, and India to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami into a quadrilateral working-level group involving regular meetings and maritime exercises. Dubbed the Quad, Abe sought to make the group a counter to China's increasingly expansionist threats in the Indo-Pacific region.

When Abe's first term was cut short, he was succeeded by the more China-friendly Yasuo Fukuda, who prioritized relations with China and stepped back from the Quad. Combined with a leadership change in Australia that saw the pro-China Kevin Rudd become Prime Minister, the Quad fizzled out.

After Abe returned to the prime ministership in 2012, lingering suspicion over his hawkish nationalism and anti-China sentiment was exacerbated by his 2013 visit to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine. That provoked rebuke not only from Japan's East Asian neighbors but from then U.S. Vice President Biden.

With U.S. policymakers still hoping that China's surging middle-class wealth would transform the country into a peace-loving democracy, the Quad seemed like a misguided attempt by Japan's China-hawks best left forgotten. Some in Tokyo were even starting to worry about a "grand bargain" between the U.S. and China that would relegate Japan to a small supporting role in the Asia-Pacific.

How times have changed. Few in Washington believe China will ever metamorphose into a moderate democracy, while in 2017, Abe harnessed Donald Trump's anti-China agenda to revive the Quad, as all four countries realized the need for a viable strategy to contain China. The new Quad has quickly gathered momentum, with India allowing Australia to join the Malabar naval exercises in November for the first time in 13 years so that all Quad members could participate.

As the Quad's main architect, Abe played a central role in bringing the group to this point, pairing it with the Free and Open Indo-Pacific vision, another influential framework for the region for which he can claim authorship. By Abe's side throughout these developments, and now in charge of Japan's foreign policy, how will Suga handle the Quad, and what are its pros and cons?

The highest aspiration for the Quad is that it becomes an Asian version of NATO that can contain China. The combined military capabilities of the four countries are formidable, with the U.S. obviously leading the way and India possibly needing some catching up. The geostrategic impact of a formal alliance to pressure China would be tremendous.

Such an alliance would be even more effective if it included other countries in the region. Some, such as South Korea, New Zealand, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam, have begun to participate in multilateral forums headlined by the Quad, possibly foreshadowing the development of a Quad Plus grouping that could exert significant pressure on China to moderate its expansionist approaches.

While Suga will likely tread carefully in expanding the Quad's activities to avoid damaging important economic relations with China, he has a clear understanding that China will only respond to power, and the game-changing power of the Quad alliance would surely appeal to him.

For all its potential, the Quad is not there yet. Fundamentally, it remains a coalition of like-minded countries discussing their concerns about China. At their most recent meeting in Tokyo in October, the four countries could not even muster a joint statement -- instead releasing separate readouts in each country's capital. Becoming an alliance with reciprocal obligations is clearly much further down the line.

Unless greater institutionalization becomes reality, China's divide and conquer approach will remain a threat, as it will try to target one or another country to break the Quad. China has already successfully done so before, pushing Australia to break from the Quad in 2008.

Today, the Quad's greatest utility for Suga is the threat it poses to China. The potential for this loose coalition to coalesce into a formidable alliance would increase if China continues to engage in provocative actions and further alienate the four countries. This threat could be effective in deterring China's aggressive behavior in the Indo-Pacific.

At this point, Suga will likely use the Quad as a card, gradually deepening its engagements but also preparing to develop it into a stronger alliance if China keeps poking at the Senkakus. The fact that Suga has that leverage today speaks to Japan's improved position relative to the early days of the first Abe administration.

Kiyoteru Tsutsui 120820 crop 4X4

Kiyoteru Tsutsui

Kiyoteru Tsutsui is the Henri H. and Tomoye Takahashi Professor and Senior Fellow in Japanese Studies at Shorenstein APARC, the director of APARC's Japan Program, a senior fellow at FSI, and professor of sociology, all at Stanford.
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The strengths and weaknesses of the Quad

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