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As the complex and multi-layered US-China relationship has become increasingly strained with the global pandemic led by the US political leadership, Japan-China relations appears to have taken a different path. Despite continued security tensions in the East China Sea, Japan and China seem to have moved closer in crucial ways, according to some important popular opinion surveys and diplomatic cooperation. At the same time, the relationship is complex with Japanese manufacturers rushing to diversify production networks and supply chains to other parts of Asia and with security issues in the oceans surrounding China continuing. 

This panel brings together deep, balanced expertise on Japan-China relations and will examine an array of areas with a focus on moving forward constructively. Panelists will cover diplomatic, security, and public opinion dimensions as well as introducing China's advanced digital technology used for medical care, education, e-commence and the rapid recovery of Japanese companies supported by China's central and local governments.

PANELISTS

Yves Tiberghien, Professor, Political Science and Co-Director, Center for Japanese Research, University of British Columbia

Yves Tiberghien (Ph.D. Stanford University, 2002 and Harvard Academy Scholar 2006) is a Professor of Political Science, Faculty Associate in the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, Director Emeritus of the Institute of Asian Research, Co-Director of the Center for Japanese Research, and Executive Director of the China Council at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Yves is currently a visiting professor at Tokyo University and at Sciences Po Paris.

Yves is also a Distinguished Fellow at the Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada. He serves as the International Steering Committee Member representing Canada at Pacific Trade and Development Conference (PAFTAD). In November 2017, he was made a Chevalier de l’ordre national du mérite by the French President.

Yves' research specializes in East Asian comparative political economy, international political economy, and global economic and environmental governance, with an empirical focus on Japan, as well as China and Korea. His published books include Entrepreneurial States: Reforming Corporate Governance in France, Japan, and Korea. 2007. Cornell University Press in the Political Economy Series directed by Peter Katzenstein and Leadership in Global Institution-Building: Minerva’s Rule, edited volume, Palgrave McMillan, 2013. He is currently working on articles related to Japan’s role in the Liberal and International Order and a book, titled Up for Grabs: Disruption, Competition and the Remaking of the Global Economic Order."

Kenji Kushida, Research Scholar, Shorenstein APARC Japan Program (Moderator)

Kenji E. Kushida is a Japan Program Research Scholar at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and an affiliated researcher at the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy. Kushida’s research interests are in the fields of comparative politics, political economy, and information technology. He has four streams of academic research and publication: political economy issues surrounding information technology such as Cloud Computing; institutional and governance structures of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster; political strategies of foreign multinational corporations in Japan; and Japan’s political economic transformation since the 1990s. Kushida has written two general audience books in Japanese, entitled Biculturalism and the Japanese: Beyond English Linguistic Capabilities (Chuko Shinsho, 2006) and International Schools, an Introduction (Fusosha, 2008). Kushida holds a PhD in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. He received his MA in East Asian studies and BAs in economics and East Asian studies, all from Stanford University.

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To celebrate its May release, contributors Karen Eggleston, Barry Naughton, and Andrew Walder will join editors Thomas Fingar and Jean Oi for a panel discussion of their volume Fateful Decisions: Choices That Will Shape China’s Future (Stanford University Press).  China has enjoyed an extraordinary run of rapid growth and development over the last 40 years.  Yet, as Fingar and Oi point out, China’s future is hardly set in stone.  Sustained economic growth, social welfare and stability will depend upon tough policy decisions confronting Beijing’s leaders today in what is a watershed moment.  Casting doubt on Beijing’s aversion to major reforms and its return to certain Mao-era policy tools, Oi and Fingar argue that China’s challenges are not only complex, but high-stakes – challenges that have become even more daunting in the aftermath of COVID-19.  As China battles the difficulties caused by an aging population, the loss of comparative economic advantage, a politically entrenched elite, and a population with rising expectations, today’s policy decisions will weigh heavily on its future. Topics explored in the volume include China's healthcare challenges in a slowing economy, its global ambitions and track record, economic aims and realities, the country’s mounting governance pressures, and more. 

 

Fateful Decisions is available for purchase here.

 

Fore more information on Fateful Decisions, check out these articles:

Karen Eggleston Examines China’s Looming Demographic Crisis, in Fateful Decisions

Now It Gets Much Harder: Thomas Fingar and Jean Oi Discuss China’s Challenges in The Washington Quarterly

China’s Challenges: Now It Gets Much Harder

 

Karen Eggleston is a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University, director of the Stanford Asia Health Policy Program, and deputy director of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at FSI. She is also a fellow with the Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health and a faculty research fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). Eggleston earned her PhD in public policy from Harvard University, studied in China for two years, and was a Fulbright scholar in South Korea. Her research focuses on comparative health systems and health reform in Asia, especially China; government and market roles in the health sector; supply-side incentives; healthcare productivity; and economic aspects of demographic change.

 

Thomas Fingar is a Shorenstein Distinguished Fellow in the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University. From May 2005 through December 2008, he served as the first deputy director of national intelligence for analysis and, concurrently, as chairman of the National Intelligence Council. Previous positions include assistant secretary of state for Intelligence and Research (2000-2001, 2004–2005), principal deputy assistant secretary (2001–2003), deputy assistant secretary for analysis (1994–2000), director of the Office of Analysis for East Asia and the Pacific, and chief of the China Division. Fingar is a graduate of Cornell University (AB in government and history) and Stanford University (MA and PhD, both in political science). His most recent books are Uneasy Partnerships: China’s Engagement with Japan, the Koreas, and Russia in the Era of Reform (editor) (Stanford University Press, 2017); The New Great Game: China’s Relations with South and Central Asia in the Era of Reform (editor) (Stanford University Press, 2016); and Reducing Uncertainty: Intelligence Analysis and National Security (Stanford University Press, 2011).

 

Barry Naughton is the So Kwanlok Professor at the School of Global Policy and Strategy, University of California–San Diego. Naughton’s work on the Chinese economy focuses on market transition; industry and technology; foreign trade; and political economy. His first book, Growing Out of the Plan, won the Ohira Prize in 1996, and a new edition of his popular survey and textbook, The Chinese Economy: Adaptation and Growth, appeared in 2018. Naughton did his dissertation research in China in 1982 and received his PhD in economics from Yale University.

 

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 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.

 

Andrew G. Walder is the Denise O’Leary and Kent Thiry Professor of Sociology in the School of Humanities and Sciences, and a senior fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. A political sociologist, Walder has long specialized in the study of contemporary Chinese society and political economy. After receiving his PhD at the University of Michigan, he taught at Columbia, Harvard, and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. At Stanford he has served as chair of the Department of Sociology, director of the Asia-Pacific Research Center, and director of the Division of International, Comparative, and Area Studies in the School of Humanities and Sciences. His most recent books are Fractured Rebellion: The Beijing Red Guard Movement (2009), China under Mao: A Revolution Derailed (2015), and Agents of Disorder: Inside China’s Cultural Revolution (2019).

ABSTRACT

Democracy promotion has been a longstanding goal of US foreign policy in the Middle East and elsewhere. President George W. Bush championed democracy promotion as a way to counter the ideology and extremism that led to the September 11, 2001 terror attacks against the United States. After Bush’s attempts ended in abject failure, President Barack Obama sought to repair relations with the Muslim world but also withdraw the US footprint in the Middle East. But Obama was forced to take a far more hands-on approach with the outbreak of the 2010-2011 uprisings known as the Arab Spring. President Donald Trump, who has displayed an almost allergic aversion to Obama’s policies, has openly embraced the region’s autocrats with little regard for their abuse of human rights or absence of attention to political or economic freedom. How the United States approaches the region matters – both for aspiring democrats and for those who wish to silence them. Despite the rise of Russia and China, the United States remains the sole superpower, with the loudest voice on the world stage. Thus, the shift from democracy promoter – albeit reluctantly at times – to authoritarian enabler has made the task of democratic political reform far more challenging for people across the Middle East. This discussion will examine the recent democracy promotion efforts of the United States, with a focus on the Obama and Trump years.

SPEAKER BIO

Sarah Yerkes is a fellow in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Middle East Program, where her research focuses on Tunisia’s political, economic, and security developments as well as state-society relations in the Middle East and North Africa.  She has been a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and a Council on Foreign Relations international affairs fellow and has taught in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University and at the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University. Yerkes is a former member of the State Department’s policy planning staff, where she focused on North Africa. Previously, she was a foreign affairs officer in the State’s Department’s Office of Israel and Palestinian affairs. Yerkes also served as a geopolitical research analyst for the U.S. military’s Joint Staff Strategic Plans and Policy Directorate (J5) at the Pentagon, advising the Joint Staff leadership on foreign policy and national security issues.

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Much recent commentary on US relations with China claims that the policy of “Engagement” was a foolish and failed attempt to transform the People’s Republic into an American style democracy that instead created an authoritarian rival. This narrative mocks the policies of eight US administrations to justify calls for “Decoupling” and “Containment 2.0.” Fingar’s talk will challenge this narrative by examining the origins, logic, and achievements of Engagement and explain why Decoupling is neither wise nor attainable.

Thomas Fingar is a Shorenstein APARC Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He was the inaugural Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow from 2010 through 2015 and the Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford in 2009. From 2005 through 2008, he served as the first deputy director of national intelligence for analysis and, concurrently, as chairman of the National Intelligence Council. Fingar served previously as assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (2000-01 and 2004-05), principal deputy assistant secretary (2001-03), deputy assistant secretary for analysis (1994-2000), director of the Office of Analysis for East Asia and the Pacific (1989-94), and chief of the China Division (1986-89). Between 1975 and 1986 he held a number of positions at Stanford University, including senior research associate in the Center for International Security and Arms Control.

Fingar is a graduate of Cornell University (A.B. in Government and History, 1968), and Stanford University (M.A., 1969 and Ph.D., 1977 both in political science). His most recent books are The New Great Game: China and South and Central Asia in the Era of Reform, editor (Stanford, 2016), Uneasy Partnerships: China and Japan, the Koreas, and Russia in the Era of Reform (Stanford, 2017), and Fateful Decisions: Choices that will Shape China’s Future, co-edited with Jean Oi (Stanford, 2020).