Buffet lunch will be provided to those who RSVP to Okky Choi at okkychoi@stanford.edu by Wednesday, April 7.

Future historians will mark the first national election to be held in Malaysia since the retirement of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad (1981-2003) as a watershed in the country's political history. Among key questions circulating in the run-up to the voting on 21 March 2004 were these: Would the ruling National Front gain or lose votes and seats? (Surprise: gained greatly.) Would the opposition Islamic Party, now in control of two states, improve or worsen its position? (Surprise: worsened sharply.) Would KeADILan, the political party which emerged after the sacking of Anwar Ibrahim, gain or lose? (Surprise: lost badly.) Answers to other questions were still unknown: Would the election benefit Malaysia's current Prime Minister, Abdullah Badawi, at the congress of his political party later this year? What would the ruling coalition's landslide imply for Malaysian democracy, stability, and development? For Malaysia's role in the campaign against terrorism? For the country's relations with its neighbors and with the U.S.? (Surprise: Come hear Elizabeth Wong and find out.)

This is the ninth seminar of the 2003-2004 academic year Southeast Asia Forum.

Mr. Sun will try to establish a new research framework to analyze the monetary policy transmission mechanism. In this field, previous research has usually assumed that the banking sector would completely transmit the purpose of the central bank to the real sector, thus paying attention to the channels from the banking sector to the real sector. Because the transmission of monetary policy in the banking sector is the most important part of deciding the effectiveness of monetary policy, this research focuses on the transmission mechanism of monetary policy from the central bank to the banking sector. The concept of ?cushion storage reserve? was created by Mr. Sun and was introduced to this framework to analyze the comparison of reserve supply and reserve demand. Based on this concept and a related main formula, commercial banks? behaviors were divided into three reactive approaches -- sterilize, forbear, and adjust. According to the different kinds of reactions, monetary policy has different effects. This new analyzing framework makes the analysis of monetary policy operation more concise and effective. At the end of his paper, Mr. Sun will try to use this approach to explain the present monetary situation of China and Japan. Lunch will be provided for those who RSVP by 3/29/04.

Ambassador Park joined the Republic of Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1963 and has served as deputy minister for political affairs, ambassador to Morocco and Canada, ambassador to the UN office in Geneva and GATT, chancellor of the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security, special envoy to Iran, Jordan, Qatar and Oman, chief representative of the ROK on the UN Security Council, and president of the UN Security Council. He is currently president of the UN Association of the Republic of Korea.