International Relations

FSI researchers strive to understand how countries relate to one another, and what policies are needed to achieve global stability and prosperity. International relations experts focus on the challenging U.S.-Russian relationship, the alliance between the U.S. and Japan and the limitations of America’s counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan.

Foreign aid is also examined by scholars trying to understand whether money earmarked for health improvements reaches those who need it most. And FSI’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center has published on the need for strong South Korean leadership in dealing with its northern neighbor.

FSI researchers also look at the citizens who drive international relations, studying the effects of migration and how borders shape people’s lives. Meanwhile FSI students are very much involved in this area, working with the United Nations in Ethiopia to rethink refugee communities.

Trade is also a key component of international relations, with FSI approaching the topic from a slew of angles and states. The economy of trade is rife for study, with an APARC event on the implications of more open trade policies in Japan, and FSI researchers making sense of who would benefit from a free trade zone between the European Union and the United States.

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Michael McFaul, director of Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and several other members of the International Working Group on Russian Sanctions will speak about and answer questions about the group's new white paper, "Action Plan 2.0 on Strengthening Sanctions against the Russian Federation." The event will begin with brief presentations from the following working group members, with additional commentary from other members afterwards: 
 

  • Anders Åslund, Senior Fellow, Stockholm Free World Forum
  • Andriy Boytsun, Founder and Editor of the Ukrainian SOE Weekly; Independent Corporate Governance Consultant; Former Member of the Strategic Advisory Group for Supporting Ukrainian Reforms
  • Benjamin Hilgenstock, Senior Economist, KSE Institute in Frankfurt, Germany
  • Dr. Craig Kennedy, Center Associate, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University, and Former Vice Chairman, Bank of America Merrill Lynch
  • Oleksandr Novikov, Head of the National Agency on Corruption Prevention
  • Nataliia Shapoval, Vice President for Policy Research, Kyiv School of Economics
     

Additional comments by:
 

  • James Hodson, Director and Chief Executive Officer of AI for Good; Researcher at the Jozef Stefan Institute Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in Slovenia
  • Dr. Benjamin Schmitt, Project Development Scientist at Harvard University; Senior Fellow for Democratic Resilience at the Center for European Policy Analysis; Rethinking Diplomacy Fellow at Duke University
  • Pavlo Verkhniatskyi, Managing Partner and Director at COSA
Michael A. McFaul
Michael McFaul

Via Zoom

Seminars
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Flyer for Asia in 2030, APARC@40 Conference and Celebration with an image of Encina Hall facade

The culmination of a special event series celebrating Shorenstein APARC's 40th Anniversary, "Asia in 2030, APARC@40"

Join us in celebrating APARC's 40 years of research, education, and engagement. Recognizing the accomplishments of the past four decades and looking forward to the future, the two-day program will highlight multiple aspects of APARC’s core areas of expertise and examine key forces affecting Asia’s present and shaping its future.

1-1:30 p.m.

Opening Session

Opening Remarks

Gi-Wook Shin
Director of Shorenstein APARC and the Korea Program
William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea
Professor of Sociology
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Stanford University

Congratulatory Remarks

Kathryn Ann “Kam” Moler
Vice Provost and Dean of Research
Marvin Chodorow Professor
Professor of Applied Physics, Physics, and Energy Science Engineering
Stanford University

Condoleezza Rice
Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution
Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution
Denning Professor of Global Business and the Economy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business
Professor of Political Science
Senior Fellow at Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Stanford University

Scott D. Sagan
Co-Director and Senior Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science
Mimi and Peter Haas University Fellow in Undergraduate Education
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Stanford University


1:30-2:45 p.m. 

The Future of Diplomacy

John Everard
Former Ambassador to Belarus, Uruguay, and North Korea for the United Kingdom
Coordinator of the UN Security Council’s Panel of Experts on North Korea
Former Pantech Fellow at Shorenstein APARC

Laura Stone
Former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Maldives
Former Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for China and Mongolia;
Former Director of the Office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs
Former Director of Economic Policy Office in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs
Visiting Scholar and Inaugural China Policy Fellow at Shorenstein APARC at Stanford University

Moderator

Michael Beeman
Former Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Japan, Korea, and APEC at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative
Visiting Scholar at Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University


2:45-3 p.m. ~ Coffee and Tea Break


3-4:15 p.m.

The Future of Asian Studies

Panelists

Donald K. Emmerson
Director of the Southeast Asia Program at Shorenstein APARC
Affiliated Faculty with the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law
Affiliated Scholar with the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies
Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Stanford University

Thomas B. Gold
Professor of Sociology
University of California, Berkeley

Jisoo Kim
Korea Foundation Associate Professor of History, International Affairs, and East Asian Languages and Literatures
Director of the Institute for Korean Studies
Co-Director of the East Asia National Resource Center
The George Washington University

Moderator

Kiyoteru Tsutsui
Deputy Director of Shorenstein APARC
Director of the Japan Program
Henri H. and Tomoye Takahashi Professor and Senior Fellow in Japanese Studies
Professor of Sociology
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Stanford University


4:15-4:30 p.m. ~ Coffee and Tea Break


4:30-6 p.m.

Oksenberg Panel: The Future of U.S.-China Relations

Introduction

Jean C. Oi
Director of the China Program at Shorenstein APARC
Lee Shau Kee Director of the Stanford Center at Peking University
William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Stanford University

Panelists

M. Taylor Fravel
Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science and Director, Security Studies Program
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

David Michael Lampton
Professor Emeritus and former Hyman Professor and Director of SAIS-China and China Studies, School of Advanced International Studies at John Hopkins University
Former Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow at Shorenstein APARC

Oriana Skylar Mastro
Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Stanford University

Moderator

Thomas Fingar
Former U.S. Department of State Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Analysis, Director of the Office of Analysis for East Asia and the Pacific, and Chief of the China Division
Former Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Analysis and Chairman of the National Intelligence Council
Fellow at Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University
 

Conferences
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U.S. and India flags with event title "U.S.-India Relations in 2030: The Future of Strategic Technologies”

This event has reached capacity. Registration is now closed.

The sixth installment in a special event series on the occasion of Shorenstein APARC's 40th Anniversary, "Asia in 2030, APARC@40"


How will key technologies shape India’s strategic capacity, and its relationship with the United States, in the years ahead? The Indian and U.S. governments both recognize that critical and emerging technologies, from artificial intelligence to synthetic biology, are increasingly vital for national security and global influence. Effectively harnessing those technologies requires the right mix of state policy, academic research, and private-sector-led innovation. The South Asia Initiative will bring together leading researchers and practitioners to better understand India’s approach to applying technologies in its defense industrial base, and the evolution of US-India cooperation on strategic technologies. 

An initial keynote session will provide an overview of key trends and policy priorities for India and the bilateral relationship. Two research presentations will then examine how India has sought to develop its defense industrial sector, with new partnerships and private sector involvement, and an aspirational goal of indigenization; and how the major powers including the US and India have traditionally managed the expectations, conditions, and anticipated returns of high technology transfers. The research will be critically evaluated by dedicated discussants who draw from both academic scholarship and personal experience as technology-sector practitioners. By the end of the workshop, we anticipate setting a rigorous baseline appreciation of how India and the US-India relationship approach the strategic applications of key technologies, and generating important new cues for future research and public-private collaboration. 

 

Agenda

8:30-9 a.m. ~ Coffee and Tea Served


9-9:30 a.m. 

Welcome Remarks

Gi-Wook Shin
Director of Shorenstein APARC and the Korea Program
William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea
Professor of Sociology
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Stanford University

Arzan Tarapore
South Asia Research Scholar at Shorenstein APARC 
Stanford University


9:30-10:30 a.m.

Keynote Conversation: "The Future of U.S.-India Tech Cooperation" (virtual)

Rudra Chaudhuri
Director of Carnegie India
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Helena Fu
Director for Technology Alliances
National Security Council


10:30-10:45 a.m. ~ Coffee and Tea Break


10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m. 

Panel: "The Evolution of India's Defense Industrial Base: Trends, Trade-offs, and Technologies"

Speaker

Joshua T. White
Professor of the Practice of International Affairs
Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies

Discussants

S. Paul Kapur
Professor at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School 
Visiting Scholar at the Hoover Institution 
Stanford University

Sarah Hess
West Coast Director
Silicon Valley Defense Group


12:15-1 p.m. ~ Lunch Break


1-2:30 p.m. 

Panel: Transactionalism Revisited? Unpacking the Logic of Major Power Technology Transfers"

Speaker

Sameer Lalwani
Senior Expert of South Asia Programs
U.S. Institute of Peace

Discussants

Julie George
Predoctoral Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
Stanford University

Akhil Iyer
Vice President
Shield Capital


2:30-3 p.m. 

Concluding Discussion


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Headshot for Rudra Chaudhuri

Rudra Chaudhuri is the director of Carnegie India. His research focuses on the increasingly important role of emerging technologies in diplomacy and statecraft. He works on comparative models of cross-border data flows and how data is treated by national capitals in inter-state and multilateral negotiations. He is the author of Forged in Crisis: India and the United States Since 1947, and the editor of War and Peace in Contemporary India. He is also a visiting professor of international relations at Ashoka University, New Delhi. From 2009 to 2022 (on leave since 2018), Rudra was  a lecturer and a senior lecturer at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, and in 2012, he established the U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office's (FCDO) Diplomatic Academy for South Asia at King’s College London. He holds a PhD in War Studies from King’s College London.

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Headshot for Helena Fu

Helena Fu, Director for Technology Alliances, National Security Council

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Headshot for Joshua White

Joshua T. White is Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, and serves as the inaugural director of the U.S.-ASEAN and U.S.-Pacific Institutes for Rising Leaders. He is also a Nonresident Fellow in the Foreign Policy program at The Brookings Institution. He previously served at the White House as Senior Advisor & Director for South Asian Affairs at the National Security Council, where he staffed the President and National Security Advisor on the full range of South Asia policy issues pertaining to India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the Indian subcontinent, and led efforts to integrate U.S. government policy planning across South and East Asia. Prior to joining the White House, White was a Senior Associate and Co-Director of the South Asia program at The Stimson Center and, previously, Senior Advisor for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, a position he held in conjunction with an International Affairs Fellowship from the Council on Foreign Relations. White has written on a wide range of issues including defense policy, electoral politics, Islamic movements, and nuclear deterrence.

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Headshot for Sameer Lalwani

Sameer Lalwani is a senior expert on South Asia at the U.S. Institute of Peace. He is also a non-resident senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Lalwani’s research interests include nuclear deterrence, interstate rivalry, alliances, crisis behavior, counterinsurgency and Indo-Pacific security. He has conducted field research in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Lalwani is a term member with the Council on Foreign Relations, and a contributing editor to War on the Rocks. He earned his doctorate in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was an affiliate of the MIT Security Studies Program. From 2015 to 2022, Lalwani was a senior fellow for Asia strategy and the director of the South Asia program at the Stimson Center. He was also as an adjunct professor at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and a Stanton nuclear security postdoctoral fellow at the RAND Corporation.

Rudra Chaudhuri
Helena Fu
Joshua White
Sameer Lalwani
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Lunch will be served at the William J. Perry Conference Room from 12:00 PM-12:30 PM

About the Event: What is happening in Ukraine? The free world is fighting a war against dictatorship. And good news...the free world is winning.

About the Speaker: Oleksiy Goncharenko is a Ukrainian politician, member of the Ukrainian parliament, member of the Ukrainian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and Vice President of the PACE Committee on Migration, Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons. He is a member of the "European Solidarity" group in Parliament, and head of the caucuses "For Democratic Belarus," and "For Free Caucasus." 

After the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Oleksiy Goncharenko joined the country’s civilian Territorial Defense Forces for the first month. Не has fought against Russian propaganda, and he also publishes widely in international media in order to bring the truth to the world about Ukraine. He was included in the sanctioned persons lists of the Russian Federation. 

Oleksiy is a founder of Ukraine’s largest network of educational-cultural centers, the Goncharenko Centers, which since February 2022 have become volunteer hubs.

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

William J. Perry Conference Room

Oleksiy Goncharenko
Seminars
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A Discussion with Congressman Ro Khanna on Rebalancing China with Economic Patriotism, happening April 24, 2023 at 2:30pm PT at the Hauck Auditorium at Stanford University

Ro Khanna, representative of California’s 17th Congressional District, will deliver remarks on competition with China, U.S. foreign policy toward Taiwan, and the economic dynamics of geopolitics, including revitalizing American manufacturing and building supply chain resiliency.

A discussion with scholars from the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Hoover Institution will follow the congressman's remarks.

A question-and-answer session with the in-person audience will follow the discussion.

This event is cosponsored with the Hoover Institution.



Meet the Speaker


Congressman Ro Khanna represents California’s 17th Congressional District, located in the heart of Silicon Valley, and is serving his fourth term.

Rep. Khanna serves on the House Armed Services Committee as ranking member of the Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies and Information Systems (CITI), as co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, a member of the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, and on the Oversight and Accountability Committee, where he previously chaired the Environmental Subcommittee.

As a leading progressive in the House, Rep, Khanna is working to restore American manufacturing and technology leadership, improve the lives of working people, and advance U.S. leadership on climate, human rights, and diplomacy around the world.

Ro Khanna

Ro Khanna

U.S. Congressman, 17th District of California
Full Profile

Hauck Auditorium
David and Joan Traitel Building
435 Lasuen Mall Stanford, CA 94305

Ro Khanna U.S. Congressman U.S. Congressman
Lectures
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Avik Roy

 

Join us for a fireside chat with Avik Roy, President of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, and Karen Jagodin, Director of Vabamu, who will discuss:

How the Estonian Model Can Expand Economic Opportunity in America

At its best, the United States is a dynamic society in which people can rise from humble origins to achieve amazing things. But many Americans still struggle to rise, due to the increasing cost of living, inflexible public services, and barriers to economic and political competition. In many of these areas, tiny Estonia has leapfrogged the U.S. with its remarkable digital infrastructure. How can the Estonian model help Americans do better?

Panelists:

Avik Roy is the President of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP.org), a non-partisan, non-profit think tank that conducts original research on expanding opportunity to those who least have it. Roy’s work has been praised widely on both the right and the left. National Review has called him one of the nation’s “sharpest policy minds,” while the New York Times’ Paul Krugman described him as a man of “personal and moral courage.”

Roy serves as the Policy Editor at Forbes, where he writes on politics and policy. His writing has also appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington PostUSA TodayThe AtlanticNational Review, and National Affairs, among other publications.

Roy is an Aspen Institute Health Innovators Fellow. He serves on the advisory boards of the National Institute for Health Care Management, the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream, the Cicero Institute, and the Bitcoin Policy Institute; is a Senior Advisor to the Bipartisan Policy Center; co-chaired the Fixing Veterans Health Care Policy Taskforce; and serves on the Boards of Directors of CrowdHealth and the Texas Bitcoin Foundation. From 2011 to 2016, Roy served as a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. Previously, he served as an analyst and portfolio manager at Bain Capital, J.P. Morgan, and other firms, where he invested in biotechnology and healthcare companies.

Karen Jagodin serves as the CEO of Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom (Tallinn, Estonia). Karen graduated from the Estonian Academy of Art in art theory and University College London, Bartlett School of Architecture with MA in architectural history. Before joining Vabamu, Karen worked at the Museum of Estonian Architecture and the Estonian Maritime Museum and has led a number of major projects on the museum scene. She is a member of the Estonian Museum Association and the Estonian Society of Art Historians and Curators.
At Vabamu, Karen has been the primary driver behind the 'Why Estonia?' exhibition on digital society, overseeing its development and successful opening in November 2021. Vabamu is the largest active non-profit museum in Estonia with a mission to educate the people of Estonia and its visitors about the recent past and the fragility of freedom and to advocate for justice and the rule of law. It operates in three areas: Vabamu Museums, Youth Engagement, and Global Conversations.

Admission Info

The event is free and open to the public.

In order to attend the event in person, RSVP is requested.

The event can also be followed via live stream. No registration is needed to watch the live stream.

The event is part of the Global Conversations, a series of talks, lectures, and seminars focusing on the benefits and fragility of freedom, and is hosted by Stanford University Libraries and co-sponsored by The Europe Center and Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies.

Karen Jagodin, Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom

Cecil H. Green Library, Hohbach Hall, Room 122 (first floor) 

557 Escondido Mall, Stanford, CA

Avik Roy, Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity
Seminars
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Seminar Recording

About the Event: Systemic risks derive from a mix of economic, technological, socio political, and ecological factors. Inherently interdisciplinary, the study of systemic risk draws on financial shock models, operations research, global health, foresight, management, military strategy, risk assessment, risk sociology, disaster research, security studies, science and technology studies, existential risk research, as well as the AI risk and biorisk communities. Pulling together core insights from those fields, the talk presents the argument that even mid-range (meso level) risks may become systemic, and so might contribute to catastrophic or even existential outcomes, depending on the order and magnitude of the interaction effects between them. However, the study of systemic risk requires developing transdisciplinary tools that can better integrate the insights drawn from these disparate fields despite high uncertainty. Nevertheless, apart from a tiny literature on risk assessment of rare events (black/grey swans), and embryonic efforts at the the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) at a high level of abstraction, there is still no overarching framework specifically formulated for systemic risks beyond economics.

This talk seeks to promote the integrated study of systemic risk by offering a snapshot of five risk scenarios for 2075 (in video format), a custom-created board game, a transdisciplinary approach, conceptual clarifications, risk factor identification heuristics, and early results from an ongoing survey. The talk includes a novel attempt to structure and visualize systemic risk factors. It also sketches a notation that enables a simple way to annotate relationships between systemic risks and the cascading effects and relationships between them. Lastly, the case is made that we need a dual notation (scientific and lay) for any scenario models used in scientific results meant to also be consumed by the public.

About the Speaker: Dr. Trond Arne Undheim (see his Stanford profile), Ph.D is a Research Scholar in Global Systemic Risk, Innovation, and Policy at the Stanford Existential Risk Initiative (SERI) at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford. He leads a research project on Global Systemic Risk Scenarios for 2075, addressing the fact that humanity faces a myriad of existential risks of technological, sociopolitical, and ecological origin. The project involves developing a set of audiovisual scenarios, quantitative online surveys, technology reviews (generative AI, immersive AR/VR, quantum tech, synthetic biology platforms), and regional case studies (Nigeria, Mexico, USA, Scandinavia, India). He is also developing a framework to analyze cascading risks, assembling a set of risk factors and associated mitigation strategies, which is intended as a resource towards transdisciplinary collaboration. At Stanford, he teaches STS 156 The Future Of Global Systemic Risk (EARTHSYS 156, SOC 128) and is working on a 2024 course (STS X) tentatively called From Regenerative Entrepreneurship to Giga Projects. His next book, Eco Tech: Investing in Regenerative Futures comes out in the fall and will be on pre-order starting Aug 2, 2023 from Routledge.

Trond Arne Undheim is a futurist, scholar, podcaster, and venture partner and an expert on the evolution of technology and society. He is a Research Scholar in Global Systemic Risk, Innovation, and Policy at the Stanford Existential Risk Initiative (SERI) at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), Stanford University. He is also a venture partner at Antler, and a co-founder of technology foresight consulting firm Yegii. Formerly with Tulip Interfaces, Hitachi Ventures, MIT, WPP, Oracle, and the EU, he’s a co-author (with Natan Linder) of Augmented Lean (Wiley 2022), and is the author of Health Tech (Routledge 2021), Future Tech (Kogan Page 2021), Pandemic Aftermath (Atmosphere Press 2020), Disruption Games (Atmosphere Press 2020), and Leadership From Below (Lulu Press 2008). In addition, he hosts the Futurized podcast, and is a Forbes columnist. Trond's work has featured in a variety of business, industrial, and mainstream media, including in The Boston Globe, NPR's Cognoscenti, Fast Company, Forbes, Fortune, IndustryWeek, and MIT News. He holds a Ph.D. on the future of work and artificial intelligence. 

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

William J. Perry Conference Room

Trond Undheim
Seminars
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About the Event: The U.S. Foreign Service faces one of the most difficult times in its history while dealing with a growing array of challenges around the world. In order to more effectively advance U.S. political, economic and security interests in a time of rapid change, America’s diplomats require additional resources, better training and stronger leadership.

Ambassadors Marc Grossman and Marcie B. Ries, working with a team of career diplomats on the American Diplomacy Project, have produced blueprints for modernizing the U.S. diplomatic service, focusing on four key areas:  a renewed and revised mission and mandate for America’s diplomats; expanded opportunities for professional education and training; a modernized and more flexible personnel system; and a Diplomatic Reserve Corps. 

Ambassadors Grossman and Ries will discuss this important report and its key recommendations on Wednesday, March 29 from 10:00-11:15 am in the Perry Conference Room at Encina Hall at Stanford University.

About the Speakers:

Ambassador Marc Grossman served as the under secretary of state for political affairs, the State Department's third highest position, until his retirement in 2005 after 29 years in the Foreign Service.  As under secretary, he helped marshal diplomatic support for the international response to the September 11 attacks.  He also managed U.S. policies in the Balkans and Colombia and promoted a key expansion of the NATO alliance.  As assistant secretary of state for European affairs, he helped direct NATO's military campaign in Kosovo and an earlier round of NATO expansion.  Ambassador Grossman served as the U.S. ambassador to Turkey 1994–1997.

Ambassador Marcie B. Ries retired after more than 35 years of diplomatic experience in Europe, the Caribbean and the Middle East.  She is a three-time chief of mission, serving as head of the U.S. mission in Kosovo (2003–2004), U.S. ambassador to Albania (2004–2007) and U.S. ambassador to Bulgaria (2012–2015).  She also played a key role in the negotiation of the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

William J. Perry Conference Room

Ambassador Marc Grossman
Ambassador Marcie Ries
Seminars
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Flyer for the panel "Southeast Asia in 2030" panel with headshots of speakers Richard Heydarian, Elina Noor, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, and Don Emmerson.

The fourth installment in a special event series on the occasion of Shorenstein APARC's 40th Anniversary, "Asia in 2030, APARC@40"

Hosted by APARC's Southeast Asia Program

2023 marks the 40th anniversary of APARC. Four decades ago, in 1983, the repercussions of Vietnam's 1978 invasion of Cambodia and China's 1979 invasion of Vietnam were still underway. Those intermestic wars interactively implicated both international and domestic relations. Interstate relations in Southeast Asia have been essentially peaceful ever since, despite some domestic conflicts, as in Myanmar now — but will they remain so?

Join the Southeast Asia Program at APARC’s 40th Anniversary for an expert panel discussion examining this and a host of other questions. Will ASEAN thrive, or merely survive? Will ASEAN's ten countries together constitute the world's fourth-largest economy by 2030 — below the United States, China, and the EU, but above Japan — as predicted by Singapore's prime minister and others? Will ASEAN refuse to choose between the United States and China? Or choose them both? Or somehow choose itself instead? And what would each scenario mean Will minilateralism erode ASEAN's centrality?

Moreover, will the differences between mainland and maritime Southeast Asia split the region into respectively Sinic and Pacific spheres of influence? Is the Indo-Pacific concept dead in the water or gaining ground? Will disinformation fed by social media speed autocratization? How would that matter for foreign policy? Will artificial intelligence help the region or hurt it, or both, and how? In the South China Sea, will the ASEAN claimants resolve their differences for the sake of unity against Beijing, or is it too late for that? How relevant to Southeast Asia's future are the futures of Taiwan and Ukraine likely to be? What are Southeast Asia's greatest strengths/weaknesses and opportunities/challenges going forward?

Speakers:

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Portrait of Richard Heydarian

Richard Heydarian, Senior Lecturer, Asian Center, University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City, is a Manila-based scholar and columnist. His academic career has included professorial positions in political and social science at the University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila University, De La Salle University, and a visiting fellowship at National Chengchi University.  His university lecture venues have included Columbia, Harvard, and Stanford.  A columnist for The Philippine Daily Inquirer, he has also written for leading publications such as Foreign Affairs, The Guardian, and The New York Times, and has regularly contributed, for example, to Al Jazeera English, Nikkei Asian Review, The South China Morning Post, and The Straits Times. His books include The Indo-Pacific: Trump, China, and the New Struggle for Global Mastery (2019); The Rise of Duterte: A Populist Revolt against Elite Democracy (2017), and Asia's New Battlefield: The USA, China and the Struggle for the Western Pacific (2015).

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Portrait of Elina Noor

Elina Noor, Senior Fellow, Asia Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, DC. She has written and spoken widely on a range of matters related to Southeast Asia, including currently as a podcaster on Southeast Asia Radio (produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies). Before joining the Carnegie Endowment, she was the Asia Society Policy Institute's Director for Political-Security Affairs, and Deputy Director of its office in Washington, DC. She has held academic and policy positions in the Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (Hawaii), the Institute of Strategic and International Studies (Malaysia), and the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP), and has served on the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace. Her degrees are from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LLM with distinction), Georgetown University (MA), and Oxford University (BA).

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Portrait of Thitinan Pongsudhirak

Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Professor, Faculty of Political Science, and Senior Fellow, Institute of Security and International Studies, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok. While leading his university's Institute of Security and International Studies, he has written on Southeast Asia in books, journals, and media, including more than a thousand op-eds in local, regional, and global media outlets.  His opinion pieces were commended for excellence by the Society of Publishers in Asia. He serves on the editorial boards of South East Asia Research, Asian Politics & Policy, and the Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs. Schools where he has held visiting positions include Stanford University (2009-2010), the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (US), Tubingen University (Germany), Victoria University (New Zealand), and Yangon University (Myanmar). His degrees are from the London School of Economics and Political Science (PhD), the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (MA), and the University of California at Santa Barbara (BA).

Moderator:

Don Emmerson, Director, Southeast Asia Program, Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), Stanford University

Donald K. Emmerson

Online via Zoom Webinar

Richard Heydarian Senior Lecturer, Asian Center, University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City
Elina Noor Senior Fellow, Asia Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, DC
Thitinan Pongsudhirak Professor, Faculty of Political Science, and Senior Fellow, Institute of Security and International Studies, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok
Panel Discussions
Authors
Noa Ronkin
News Type
News
Date
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Amid escalating tensions between the United States and China and as the U.S. government is exploring how to further limit China's access to U.S. technology, discussions about the possibility of decoupling between the two countries have intensified. As businesses operating in China grapple with the potential consequences of decoupling, APARC’s China Program hosted a panel of executives across industries from tech, retail, and finance currently engaged in reshaping their China businesses to provide a view from the ground and consider the future of decoupling with China.

The event was the second installment in a special series celebrating APARC’s 40th anniversary. Titled Asia in 2030, APARC@40, the series highlights core areas of the center’s expertise, examines Asia’s transformation over the past four decades, and considers the drivers and shapers of the region’s future.

The panel featured Dan Brody, the managing director of Tencent Investments, who is responsible for the company’s overseas investments; Frits Van Paasschen, a change management expert, former CEO of Starwood Hotels and Resorts, and former president of EMEA at Nike; and Stuart Schonberger, a founding partner of CDH Investments, one of the leading China-focused alternative asset managers. China Program Director Jean Oi chaired the panel.


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There is a need for cognitive empathy between the United States and China and understanding the motivation behind China's actions.
Stuart Schonberger

Risks and Opportunities

Van Paasschen described his extensive experience developing strategies for expanding licensing and retail in China, which involved navigating the country's infrastructure and legal framework and, as CEO of Starwood Hotels, overseeing the construction of over 100 hotels. He ascribed his success in the country to his recognition of China’s strengths and weaknesses and his finding ways to interact positively with Chinese stakeholders.

The term decoupling is an oversimplification of the relationship between the complex Chinese and U.S. economies, said Van Paasschen. He noted that retailers in many cases are looking to sources from alternative markets to China, but that he believes there are still opportunities for investment in and co-development with China that remain unaffected by current frictions. He highlighted in this context the interplay between the U.S. and Chinese travel and tourism industries before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Schonberger, who also challenged the notion of decoupling as a misleading shorthand, emphasized the need for cognitive empathy between the world’s two great powers and understanding the motivation behind China's actions. He noted that the challenges facing China today are complex, including debt problems, real estate slowdown, and productivity stagnation, but said these are "known knowns" that the Chinese government is actively working to correct.

Schonberger sees two distinct issues facing institutional equity investors worried about China: government policies that negatively affect growth and corporate prospects, and longer-term risks arising from China's geopolitical position. For private investors who are focused on total return and can tolerate overt political pressures, China remains investable, as Chinese stocks have been some of the best performers on the public markets recently, said Schonberger. The challenges are greater, however, for public entities and bond investors who are more affected by political risk in their decisions. While the risks are higher, Schonberger's firm continues to invest in Chinese companies in multiple sectors.

By decoupling with China, the United States would miss out on a generational opportunity for development.
Frits Van Paasschen

Changes Underway

Brody said that China remains a key player in the global economy. As a personal anecdote, he noted that, while he makes fewer trips to the United States, he is traveling more frequently to Europe, India, Japan, and Southeast Asia. According to Brody, the extent to which the Chinese economy would be affected by international fluctuations is unclear, but he expects the country to continue its economic growth and attract foreign investors. He stated that a huge amount of value in the tech sector is still being created in America, so economically driven foreign investors in the tech sector still pay close attention to developments in Silicon Valley.

Van Paasschen, by contrast, pointed out that by decoupling with China, the United States would miss out on a generational opportunity for development and could potentially lose out to other countries. China still presents an enormous opportunity for businesses, he said, particularly in the hotel industry, given the country’s rate of urbanization. He reminded the audience that every country and region presents its own set of challenges and risks for investors. The imperative is to ensure Beijing and Washington maintain a dialogue and businesses are willing to take risks to invest in China.

Van Paasschen went on to describe how the U.S.-China political tensions are affecting business operations in various sectors. For instance, in the biotechnology sector, companies might consider protecting intellectual property and ensuring sustainability in their supply chain. In the apparel business, there is a growing concern about human rights and the opacity of the cotton supply chain. Overall, Van Paasschen sees a transition underway from a bilateral and straightforward approach to trade to a much more nuanced and complicated approach.

When asked if political tensions would affect some sectors more than others, Van Paasschen responded affirmatively. He gave the example of a sovereign wealth fund that refused to support investments in Chinese hotels because of the uncertainty zero-COVID policies had created. He also said that further uncertainty could arise from countries' reactions to China’s foreign policy stance, such as China's support of Russia in Ukraine.

Whatever your political position as an American is on China, you would want more people-to-people ties, which have always been a net positive.
Dan Brody

What advice would the three business experts give Washington?

Van Paasschen expressed his hope the United States finds ways to avoid being reactive. Schonberger, urging policymakers to keep working towards peaceful coexistence, emphasized it would be counter-productive to frame China as an enemy. He also highlighted the importance of redundancy and efficiency in trade relationships and cautioned against overlooking the cost of decoupling, reminding the audience that engagement with China has boosted global trade, lifted millions out of poverty, and created a vibrant society.

From Brody’s perspective, predictability is crucial for business, regardless of the country one is conducting business in. He also stressed that, from a personal perspective and regardless of one’s political stance on China, the reduction in people-to-people ties between China and the United States due to recent travel restrictions is unfortunate. Ultimately, these ties have always been a net positive, and it is important to recognize their value even in the midst of tensions between the two nations. While political leaders may grapple with complex geopolitical issues, the connections between ordinary citizens remain a vital foundation for maintaining a constructive relationship. By fostering personal exchanges, the United States and China can build bridges and promote mutual understanding, even in the face of challenging circumstances.

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In the second installment of a series recognizing the 40th anniversary of Stanford’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, the China Program gathered cross-sector executives currently engaged in reshaping their China businesses to shine a light on what U.S.-China tensions and potential decoupling between the two powers look like on the ground.

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