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Assessing U.S.-DPRK educational exchanges

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Although there are no formal diplomatic relations between the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, nonetheless there have been constant attempts by U.S. academia, friendship organizations, and NGOs to develop and promote educational interaction and exchanges between the citizens of these two countries. Drawing from a conference that took place at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center in November 2010, a newly published downloadable book and a related article by Karin J. Lee and Gi-Wook Shin in 38 North provide an insightful analysis of past educational exchanges and offer suggestions for the future.
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DPRK physicians attend Stanford TB laboratory training in Pyongyang, 2010. | Courtesy Sharon Perry
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Is China's Soft Power a Threat? Reconceptualizing Capabilities and Foreign Policy

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The concept of "soft power" is central for the multi-dimensional rise of China as well as the evolving global strategy of the United States. Beijing is increasingly concerned with projecting soft power to neutralize perceptions of China as a threat while Chinese global influence grows. Washington, meanwhile, looks to employ soft power in remaking its post-Iraq international image, countering terrorist ideological extremism, and attracting the cooperation of international partners to deal with global challenges.

This seminar will address several key questions about soft power:

- What are the different implications when governments use "hard power" in "soft" ways versus when they try to use "soft power" in "hard" ways?

- How is soft power understood and operationalized differently in China than in the United States?

- What are the different visions for projecting soft power among various political actors in China?

- Can soft power be threatening? How can we disentangle capabilities and policies that may be threatening from those that are attractive to other states and encourage cooperation?

About the speakers

Qinghong Wang
Qinghong Wang is currently coordinating the Education Exchange Program for the East-West Center in Honolulu. He received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 2010. His dissertation is entitled, Reinventing Democracy through Confucianism: Representation, Application and Reorientation of Western Transnational Nonprofit Organizations (WTNPOs) in Post-Mao China. Dr. Wang earned his MA in Asian studies from the University of Hawaii in 2003 and his BA in Chinese language and literature from Peking (Beijing) University in 1999. Dr. Wang is originally from Beijing. He was the Lloyd (Joe) R. and Lilian Vasey Fellow with the Pacific Forum at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) from 2006 to 2007, and has since remained an adjunct fellow with the Forum. His research focuses on the development of civil society in China, U.S.-China relations, traditional and nontraditional security issues in the Asia Pacific, and comparative politics and philosophies of East and West.

Leif Eric Easley
Leif-Eric Easley is the 2010-11 Northeast Asian History Fellow at Shorenstein APARC. Dr. Easley completed his Ph.D. at the Harvard University Department of Government in 2010, specializing in East Asian international relations. His dissertation presents a theory of national identity perceptions, bilateral trust between governments, and patterns of security cooperation, based on extensive fieldwork in Seoul, Tokyo, and Beijing. At Stanford, he is teaching a course on nationalism, contested history, and the international relations of Japan, China, South Korea, and the United States. Dr. Easley is actively involved in high-level U.S.-Asia exchanges (Track II diplomacy) as a Sasakawa and Kelly Fellow with the Pacific Forum CSIS. His research appears in a variety of academic journals, supplemented by commentaries in major newspapers.

With regional perspective commentary by:

Donald Emmerson, Director, Southeast Asia Forum, Shorenstein APARC

Daniel Sneider, Associate Director for Research, Shorenstein APARC

David Straub, Associate Director, Korean Studies Program, Shorenstein APARC

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Seminars

Martha Crenshaw: How Bin Laden's death changes terrorism (with video)

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Martha Crenshaw has been researching terrorist organizations since the late 1960s. In the wake of the U.S. military’s successful mission against Osama bin Laden, she comments on what happens to Al Qaeda now, and the challenges that remain.

CISAC: What does the death of Osama bin Laden mean for the world?

Crenshaw: The killing of bin Laden brings closure to a pursuit that began well before the 9/11 attacks. The successful raid demonstrated American tenacity as well as a somewhat surprising ability to keep a secret over the past several months as American intelligence agencies zeroed in on bin Laden's fortified compound in Abbottabad. Although most of the world thought he was hiding in the mountainous and inaccessible border regions of Pakistan, sheltered by local tribes, he was actually centrally located in a city not too far from Islamabad. It is often said that terrorism cannot be deterred because terrorists have no return address, but it turned out that bin Laden did. After years of patient intelligence work the U.S. finally found it. 

CISAC: What happens to Al Qaeda now?

Crenshaw: There are differing opinions. One is that bin Laden is a unique figure and that there's no other leader of a terrorist organization that has the kind of aura he has. People who joined Al Qaeda swore personal allegiance to him. He had this kind of bearing, and they respected his personal piety. It's hard to replace a leader like that. At the same time, that part of the organization affiliated with bin Laden is still a major actor. A lot of attacks, like the London bombing, are traced back toward them. A lot of the failed and foiled attacks in the U.S. were traced back there, too, suggesting he played an operational role as well as an inspirational role.

On the other side, even if Al Qaeda disappeared, other affiliates like Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula are still extremely dangerous and capable. They can trade on his reputation and inspire others to join. They might make demands for revenge. There are also those who could replace bin Laden, not so much as an inspirational leader but in terms of operations. The central organization's more visible second in command, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, is free although he will be under intense pressure. There is also a second-tier leadership whose abilities and appeal are largely unknown. Local affiliates such as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula have often overshadowed AQ central, and in fact AQAP is currently considered to be the most serious threat to US security. 

CISAC: It sounds like there is likely to be jockeying for power.

Crenshaw: There certainly will be. Will Zawahiri necessarily step into the No. 1 role now? Or will he be challenged? It's possible. You can kind of see how little we know and how hard it is for the U.S. to piece it together by how long it has taken to find bin Laden. The U.S. has been looking for him since 1998.

CISAC: Does that make things more or less dangerous?

Crenshaw: There's a theory that the more fragmentation you have, the higher the level of violence. The way you get more resources and support is to be more audacious than your rivals. You could have violence from one faction against another. There's also the idea that you attack your enemy to show how dangerous you really are. Nobody wants to be seen as weak, so they feel that they have to do what the other side is doing. 

More: An interview with Fundación para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Diálogo Exterior, a European think tank based in Madrid. 

 

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Images Against Words: German and Soviet Engagements of the Other in World War II (1941-1943)

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This talk presents the prolonged deadly encounter between the Germans and Soviets in World War II as a clash between two different interpretive templates.  In engaging the Soviet enemy, Nazi German leaders and soldiers employed visual frames of analysis, centering on physiognomy and racial makeup.  As they fought back, the Soviets assessed the German invaders through a palpably textual register, focusing on their psychology and political consciousness.  The talk shows how these templates worked in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union and how they collided in the course of the war.

Talk Synopsis:

In this seminar Jochen Hellbeck explains the German-Soviet war as having been a battle of "images against words," a term that reflects both a clash of wartime ideologies and the different choices of media used to express these ideologies. Germany, Hellbeck explains, relied heavily on visual media, using videos and photos as propaganda, while the Soviets used written materials to inspire their soldiers and citizens and to demoralize Germans. Hellbeck focuses on the battle of Stalingrad, which involved a long standoff and extended exposure between the two sides.

The Germans used multimedia, as well as strong visual imagery in written materials, to portray the battle as a conquest of an inferior race and a vast landscape available for the taking. A compilation of German soldiers' reports from the Eastern front in July 1941, and the 1942 war diary of a German journalist  embedded with troops in Stalingrad, use descriptive imagery to paint Soviets as mute and beastly and Germans as war heroes full of vitality.  Letters from German officials employed vivid language of the landscape, with repeated references to art as representations of German culture and greatness. Wartime photography by German soldiers, many of whom were amateur photographers, was common. The German use of visual media is exemplified by "Soviet Paradise," a 1942 short film made to discredit the Soviet Union's campaign of print propaganda. The film, which employed sophisticated cinematography techniques and very little commentary, was made into an exhibit in Berlin during the summer of 1942 and was visited by 1 million people.

In contrast, the Soviets did not come close to the amount of investment the Germans made in wartime multimedia.   Soviet soldiers were forbidden from keeping photos, and only officers could occasionally take them, in the rare event they had access to cameras. Instead, Hellbeck finds ample written records of the Soviet wartime experience. The Soviet military leadership commissioned a war history and invested heavily in the work of Soviet writers and historians, rather than photographers or film crews, to document events on the front lines.

Hellbeck’s presentation also includes analysis of the war records of prominent military personnel on both sides, as well as a review of the sources he used in his research, and his perceptions of how the Germans and Soviets interpreted each other’s wartime records. The next step in Hellbeck's research project will involve comparing techniques used in German and Soviet news film chronicles.

A discussion period following the talk addressed such questions as: did Germans and Soviets employ the same strategies in their military engagements with other countries? Why is there so much portrayal of Soviet POWS in Germany, and so little of German POWs in the Soviet Union? How was the defeat at Stalingrad represented by the Germans and by the Soviets? How did the strategies resonant with the respective sides?

 

About the Speaker:

Jochen Hellbeck is Associate Professor in the Department of History at Rutgers University.  He is the author of Revolution On My Mind: Writing a Diary under Stalin (Harvard, 2006), and is currently writing a book about the clash and the entanglements of Germans and Soviets in the battle of Stalingrad.

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Jochen Hellbeck Associate Professor, History Speaker Rutgers University
Seminars

The Trilateral Process: The United States, Ukraine, Russia and Nuclear Weapons

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When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Ukraine had the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal on its territory.  When Ukrainian-Russian negotiations on removing these weapons from Ukraine appeared to break down in September 1993, the U.S. government engaged in a trilateral process with Ukraine and Russia.  The result was the Trilateral Statement, signed in January 1994, under which Ukraine agreed to transfer the nuclear warheads to Russia for elimination.  In return, Ukraine received security assurances from the United States, Russia and Britain; compensation for the economic value of the highly-enriched uranium in the warheads (which could be blended down and converted into fuel for nuclear reactors); and assistance from the United States in dismantling the missiles, missile silos, bombers and nuclear infrastructure on its territory.  Steven Pifer recounts the history of this unique negotiation and describes the key lessons learned.

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Internal and External Innovation Ecosystems in China 2.0

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About the seminar

Strategic value creation networks have become critically important in technology development and economic growth; co-creation relies the relationship infrastructure of people, organizations and policies. These complex intangible relationship assets can be observed through network analysis of small, medium and large enterprises. By identifying relationships through which information and financial resources flow, visual insights toward a shared vision can be created and strategic network orchestration can be implemented. Using social network analysis, these relationship patterns can reveal competitive forces, gatekeepers and collaboration opportunities - within and across sectors - in internal and external innovation ecosystems around the world, including China 2.0.

Dr. Russell's presentation is available here.

About the speaker

Martha G. Russell is a senior research scholar at the Human Sciences Technology Advanced Research Institute and associate director of Media X at Stanford University, a membership-based, interdisciplinary research catalyst focused on people, media, technology, and innovation.
 
Dr. Russell’s background spans a range of business development, innovation, and technology-transfer initiatives in information sciences, communications, and microelectronics at the University of Minnesota, the University of Texas at Austin, and Stanford University. She collaborates with Stanford’s Innovation Ecosystems Network and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Interactive Advertising, the Journal of Electronics, and Technology Forecasting and Social Change.

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Martha G. Russell Associate Director Speaker Media X at Stanford University
Seminars

Assisting the escape from persistent ultra-poverty in rural Africa

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This paper was prepared for Stanford University’s Global Food Policy and Food Security Symposium Series, hosted by the Center on Food Security and the Environment, and supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is home to two-thirds of the world’s ultra-poor today. This paper offers current thinking on the structural causes of the spatially concentrated, persistent ultra-poverty that has plagued Africa for a generation and some key entry points for facilitating Africans’ escape from persistent ultra-poverty.

The increased recognition of persistent ultra-poverty has rekindled long-dormant interest in poverty traps. The essence of a poverty trap is that there exists one or more low equilibrium level(s) of well-being in which people appear caught unnecessarily. Small adjustments fail to move people out of those equilibria sustainably. Rather, systems must change, major positive shocks must occur, or both. And in the absence of systemic change, recurring adverse shocks only drive more people into the trap.

The ultra-poverty trap that characterizes much of rural SSA today is intimately caught up with (i) the bidirectional interrelationship among hunger, ill-health, low productivity, weak institutions and natural resources degradation, all of which become manifest in low incomes, (ii) poor initial conditions associated with health and nutrition, especially early in childhood, but also with the state of infrastructure and the natural resource base on which rural livelihood disproportionately depend, and (iii) uninsured risk exposure, which is especially severe in rural areas and in agriculture. The closely coupled nature of these problems adds substantially to the challenge of addressing any one of them on its own and thereby makes integrated strategies essential. 

The available theory and evidence suggests that the policy focus must fall squarely on stimulating a smallholder food productivity revolution. Toward that end, the paper concludes by identifying and explaining key entry points for assisting the escape from persistent ultra-poverty in sub-Saharan Africa.

  1. Build and protect the productive asset endowments of the ultra-poor
  2. Improve the productivity of the ultra-poor’s current asset holdings
  3. Improve risk management options for the ultra-poor
  4. Facilitate favorable transitions out of agriculture

Although the topic of persistent ultra-poverty would seem to lend itself to a pessimistic ending, the future for Africa is actually rather hopeful. The East Asian experience demonstrates that mass, rapid escape from persistent ultra-poverty is feasible. Real agricultural output growth rates are accelerating in SSA, nearly doubling from the 1980s rate so that per capita food output is growing again, helping reduce rural poverty rates in countries enjoying increased agricultural productivity. Finally, the  policymaking and donor communities are now appropriately focusing on how best to stimulate investment incentives, productivity growth, risk management and productive transitions out of agriculture. These broad foci are appropriate and reasonably well-grounded in both theory and empirical evidence.  

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