Education has provided the critical foundation for Asia’s rapid economic growth. However, in an increasingly globalized and digital world, higher education faces an array of new challenges. While the current strengths and weaknesses of educational systems across Asia differ considerably, they share many of the same fundamental challenges and dilemmas.
The fourth annual Stanford Kyoto Trans-Asian Dialogue examined challenges and opportunities in reforming higher education in Asia. At its core, the challenge facing every country is how to cultivate relatively immobile assets—national populations—to capture increasingly mobile jobs with transforming skill requirements. This raises fundamental questions about skills needed for fast-paced change, domestic inequality, the role of government, and choices of resource allocations.
Scholars and top-level administrators from Stanford University and universities across Asia, as well as policymakers, journalists, and business professionals, met in Kyoto on September 6 and 7, 2012, to discuss questions that address vital themes related to Asia’s higher education systems. These included:
The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) established the Stanford Kyoto Trans-Asian Dialogue in 2009 to facilitate conversation about current Asia-Pacific issues with far-reaching global implications. Scholars from Stanford University and various Asian countries start each session of the two-day event with stimulating, brief presentations, which are followed by engaging, off-the-record discussion. Each Dialogue closes with a public symposium and reception, and a final report is published on the Shorenstein APARC website.
Previous Dialogues have brought together a diverse range of experts and opinion leaders from Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, India, Australia, and the United States. Participants have explored issues such as the global environmental and economic impacts of energy usage in Asia and the United States; the question of building an East Asian regional organization; and addressing the dramatic demographic shift that is taking place in Asia.
The annual Stanford Kyoto Trans-Asian Dialogue is made possible through the generosity of the City of Kyoto, the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, and Yumi and Yasunori Kaneko.
Kyoto International Community House Event Hall
2-1 Torii-cho, Awataguchi,
Sakyo-ku Kyoto, 606-8536
JAPAN
Encina Hall
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
Ramesh Srinivasan, Associate Professor at UCLA in Design and Media/Information Studies, studies and participates in projects focused on how new media technologies impact political revolutions, economic development and poverty reduction, and the future of cultural heritage. He has worked with bloggers, pragmatically studying their strengths and limitations, who were involved in recent revolutions in Egypt and Kyrgyzstan, as discussed in a recent NPR interview. He has also collaborated with non-literate tribal populations in India to study how literacy emerges through uses of technology, and traditional Native American communities to study how non-Western understandings of the world can introduce new ways of looking at the future of the internet. His work has impacted contemporary understandings of media studies, anthropology and sociology, design, and economic and political development studies.
Encina Hall
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
Greg Distelhorst is a Ph.D. candidate in the MIT Department of Political Science and a predoctoral fellow at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. His dissertation addresses public accountability under authoritarian rule, focusing on official responsiveness and citizen activism in contemporary China. This work shows how citizens can marshal negative media coverage to discipline unelected officials, or "publicity-driven accountability." These findings result from two years of fieldwork in mainland China, including a survey experiment on tax and regulatory officials. A forthcoming second study measures the effects of citizen ethnic identity on government responsiveness in a national field experiment. His dissertation research has been funded by the U.S. Fulbright Program, the Boren Fellowship, and the National Science Foundation. A second area of research is labor governance under globalization, where he has examined private initiatives to improve working conditions in the global garment, toy, and electronics supply chains.
Ryo Masuda is a corporate affiliate visiting fellow at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) for 2012-13. Masuda has more than six years of experience in media markets working for Sumitomo Corporation, one of Japan's major trading and investment conglomerates. Most recently, Masuda worked for Japan's largest CATV operator, one of Sumitomo Corporation's affiliated companies, where he was responsible for business development. Masuda graduated from Hitotsubashi University with a bachelor's degree in commercial science.
When Kofi Annan announced his plans to step aside as special envoy for the conflict in Syria by the end of the month, he put much of the blame on the United Nations Security Council for the failure to make peace in the war-ravaged country.
"When the Syrian people desperately need action, there continues to be finger pointing and name calling in the Security Council," Annan said. "It is impossible for me or anyone to compel the Syrian government and also the opposition to take the steps to bring about the political process. As an envoy, I can't want peace more than the protagonists, more than Security Council or the international community, for that matter."
The uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad began in March 2011 and rights activists say it has left more than 19,000 dead. Annan became the U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria in February, with the goal of getting both sides to put down their weapons. He designed a six-point plan for peace, which was never fully implemented.
Stephen J. Stedman, FSI's Freeman Spogli Senior Fellow, and Larry Diamond — a senior fellow at FSI and the Hoover Institution as well as director of FSI's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law — offer their analysis of the impact of Annan's resignation.
Does the resignation of Annan, who is well respected among diplomats, signal that there is no hope for peace in Syria?
Diamond: I think it's been apparent for several weeks, at least, that the peace mission was doomed, that the Assad regime was not prepared to negotiate, and that the refusal of Russia and China to agree to any kind of meaningful pressure on the Assad regime has left violent resistance by the opposition and the society as the only option.
Syria is sinking deeper and deeper into all-out civil war, and only an escalation of military pressure and economic sanctions on the Assad regime and its principal leaders and supporters offers any hope of resolution. Sometimes, when one or both parties refuse to negotiate, the only way to end a civil war is for one side to win. Libya provides the most recent example of that. If Assad and his allies are going to negotiate a peaceful exit, it will only be because they are staring at the prospect of fairly imminent military defeat.
Could Annan have done something differently?
Diamond: It is very difficult to negotiate with a regime that is bent on repression and total domination, especially when you can't credibly threaten to impose formidable costs on the regime if it refuses to compromise. I don't think there was anything more that Annan could have done, because he had no leverage, no tools to work with, as a result of the inability of the Security Council to agree on tough sanctions.
Will the failure to make peace in Syria tarnish Annan's legacy?
Stedman: The failure to make peace in Syria should not and will not tarnish Annan's legacy. First, he is already a Nobel Peace Prize winner, and one failure in an extraordinarily difficult case does not diminish the rest of his diplomatic successes. With regards to Syria, no one expected him to succeed, but he needed to try and he needed to be seen to try. His position was special envoy of the Security Council, and if anyone is looking for a scapegoat they should start looking at the council.
Diamond: No, I don't think this will tarnish Annan's legacy. He had a nearly impossible mission; everyone knew that. The failure was a collective failure of the international system, not the failure of an individual mediator. Annan is a great man who has made major contributions to world peace and security. It's not his fault that a brutal regime, backed by the world's two most powerful authoritarian states, refused to negotiate.
Brooke Donald is a writer for the Stanford News Service.
On May 16, 2012, President Dilma Rousseff inaugurated the Truth Commission (Comissão da Verdade) and announced the Access to Information Law (Lei de Acesso à Informação). Inspired by other Truth Commissions in other countries such as Argentina, Chile, Peru, Guatemala and El Salvador, the Brazilian Truth Commission has its own distinctive characteristics that respond to specific national political culture and costumes. Understanding these characteristics is fundamental to recognize how these laws may represent and advance the process of accountability for human rights violations in Brazil and the challenges that still persist due to opposing positions between the Legislative and Executive powers that have recognized these violations and a conservative Judiciary supported by the military.
Bolivar House
Recent academic papers have shown that the Japanese sovereign debt situation is not sustainable. The puzzle is that the bond rate has remained low and stable. Some suggest that the low yield can be explained by domestic residents’ willingness to hold Japanese government bonds (JGBs) despite its low return, and that as long as domestic residents remain home-biased, the JGBs are sustainable. About 95% of JGBs are currently owned by domestic residents. This paper argues that even with such dominance of domestic investors, if the amount of government debt breaches the ceiling imposed by the domestic private sector financial assets, the JGB rates can rapidly rise and the Japanese government can face difficulty rolling over the existing debt. A simulation is conducted on future paths of household saving and fiscal situations to show that the ceiling would be breached in the next 10 years or so without a drastic fiscal consolidation. This paper also shows that the government debt can be kept under the ceiling with sufficiently large tax increases. The JGB yields can rise even before the ceiling is hit, if the expectation of such drastic fiscal consolidation disappears. This paper points out several possible triggers for such a change in expectation. However, downgrading of JGBs by credit rating agencies is not likely to be a trigger, since past downgrades have not produced any change in the JGB yield. If and when the JGB rates rapidly rise, the Japanese financial institutions that hold a large amount of JGBs will sustain losses and the economy will suffer from fiscal austerity, financial instability, and inflation.
Original version published in the 2007–08 Shorenstein APARC Annual Overview
Since 2005, Denise Masumoto has managed Shorenstein APARC’s Corporate Affiliates Visiting Fellows Program. Each summer, Masumoto welcomes a new group of fellows and their families to the Center, and helps them to navigate their new country. She also oversees the program curriculum and connects fellows with Center faculty who share their research interests.
How has the program changed since you took over?
When I started at Shorenstein APARC, the program was well established, and it gets better every year. Today, there is more interaction with our faculty and other scholars, which produces better research. The core research goal remains constant, but the changing composition of each group—more female fellows, varied professional backgrounds, new countries joining the mix—keeps the program exciting and unique.
What is the biggest challenge that visiting fellows face when they enter the program?
Definitely deciding which events to attend! In addition to the classes they audit, and the calendar of seminars and site visits arranged specifically for the visiting fellows, there are numerous events within the Center, at our parent institute FSI, all around the Stanford campus, and into Silicon Valley and the greater San Francisco Bay Area. The fellows’ schedules are busy and filled with great opportunities to learn new things and to network; the biggest decision is how to prioritize. What the visiting fellows put into the program is what they get out of it.
How do the visiting fellows integrate into the Center and the University?
I strongly encourage all the visiting fellows to get out and meet people, in Shorenstein APARC and beyond, and to ask lots of questions. Whether this is done in the classroom, at a seminar or conference, or in front of the coffee pot, meeting people and having conversations are valuable parts of their experience. You never know who you might meet, what you might learn, or where it might lead.
In what ways do the visiting fellows contribute to the Center’s research mission?
Research is a continuous process and one that requires feedback and exchange. Our visiting fellows have the opportunity to interact with and learn from our distinguished faculty. At the same time, the knowledge and practical experience that they bring to the Center provide insight and international perspective.
How do the visiting fellows benefit?
In April 2008, we met with affiliate organizations in Japan so we could better understand their objectives. We learned that the affiliate organizations recognize that the program’s value lies in allowing the visiting fellows to take advantage of Stanford’s resources, to develop their professional skills, to expand their international network, and, crucially, to have their way of thinking completely changed. The visiting fellows return home with a fresh perspective on and renewed enthusiasm for their work.
What happens after the program ends each year?
While they are at Stanford, the visiting fellows develop strong relationships with other members of their class. We want this to continue after they return home. Many of our alumni are now in prominent positions within their organizations.
I am focused on growing the network of alumni by maintaining and improving a comprehensive database, which will make it easy for former fellows to stay in touch with one another and with the Center.
Masumoto returned to Japan this autumn to visit with affiliate organizations, and to reconnect with alumni during a reception that was held in Tokyo on September 10.
