This paper empirically investigates the labor market effects of China’s 2007 VAT reform, which significantly reduced the tax cost of capital investment. Employing city-by-year variation in the reform, we demonstrate that the tax cuts increased the earnings of skilled workers and left the earnings of the unskilled workers unaffected. Moreover, we find limited impacts of the reform on employment for both skill groups. These results suggest that the tax incentives increased the relative demand for skills, thus resulting in a higher income inequality between skilled and unskilled workers.
Shorenstein APARC's annual report for the academic year 2023-24 is now available.
Learn about the research, publications, and events produced by the Center and its programs over the last academic year. Read the feature sections, which look at the historic meeting at Stanford between the leaders of Korea and Japan and the launch of the Center's new Taiwan Program; learn about the research our faculty and postdoctoral fellows engaged in, including a study on China's integration of urban-rural health insurance and the policy work done by the Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab (SNAPL); and catch up on the Center's policy work, education initiatives, publications, and policy outreach. Download your copy or read it online below.
A warming planet. Backsliding in democracy at home and abroad. Competition with China. And active war in Europe. Broadening conflicts in the Middle East.
The world today is facing no shortage of overlapping, multilateral challenges. At a recent panel titled, “Global Threats Today: What's At Stake and What We Can Do About It,” scholars from the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) had an opportunity to delve deeper into what the data says about how these global threats are evolving, and how we should be thinking about how to address them.
In the highlights below, each scholar shares what they wish people understood better about climate change, the war in Ukraine and Russia's aggression, China's strategy for building power, the health of American democracy, and how the fighting between Israel and Hamas fits into the geopolitical struggle between democracies and autocracies.
Their full conversation can be heard on the World Class podcast, and the panel can be watched in its entirety on YouTube.
Around the world, we are seeing a new axis of influence coalescing. Some have called it the "axis of misery" or the "axis of resistance." It is composed of Russia and Iran and North Korea, with a lot of Chinese involvement as well. It is transforming our international system in unbelievable ways. It is united by the desire to dismantle the liberal international order, and we're starting to see the nature and the interconnectivity of this new axis of chaos much more clearly.
You see North Korean soldiers fighting for Putin in Ukraine. You see Putin helping the Houthis attack international Western shipping in Yemen. We see North Korean tunnel technology turn up in Lebanon with Hezbollah and then with Hamas in Gaza. The interconnectivity is something that we really need to know much more about.
Historically, emperors, kings, dukes, used to spend 50% of their resources on preparing for war or waging war. But in the post-Second World War era, we built a critical norm that we've called the liberal international order. And the miracle of the liberal international order is that we've managed to take global averages of defense spending from about 50% to a global average of about 7%. And the resulting surplus wealth has allowed us to invest in education, health, and scientific discovery.
What is at stake now is the possibility of a return of a norm where states are destroyed and disappear. And we have currently three states in the international system, at the very least — Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan — that are at risk of annihilation. To that end, we must articulate a positive strategic vision for the Middle East that will strive towards a two state solution, that would give the Palestinian people the dignity and the freedom that they deserve alongside a safe and secure Israel, and that will leverage the new spirit of cooperation that exists in the Middle East.
If we allow the norm of the non-disappearance of state to erode and collapse, we will go back to the law of the jungle, where we will have to spend so much more money on the wrong things. That is what is at stake in Ukraine, in the Middle East, and with Taiwan.
Amichai Magen
Visiting Fellow in Israel Studies at the Freeman Spogli Institute
Challenges to Democracy Come From Within | Didi Kuo
Many people think that the threat to democracy comes from outside our borders, particularly from countries like Russia and China that are asserting themselves in new and aggressive ways.
But the real threat to democracies that we're seeing across the globe is coming from within. Leaders come to power through democratic means, but then they begin to erode power from within. They attack the electoral system and the process of democratic elections, and they take power from other branches of government and aggregate it to themselves within the office of the executive.
The good news is there are examples of countries like France, Brazil, and Poland where illiberal leaders have been stopped by pro-democracy coalitions of people who came together. These coalitions don't necessarily agree with each other politically, but they've come together and adapted in order to foreclose on these anti-democratic forces.
That flexibility and adaptability is the reason democracies succeed. We see this over and over again in the the United States. When our institutions have become out of date, we've changed them. We extended suffrage, first to Black Americans who were formerly enslaved, then to women, then to Native Americans. We eliminating poll taxes and rethought what it means to have a multiracial democracy. We have a long track record of making changes.
Today in 2024, some of our democratic institutions are antiquated and don't reflect our contemporary values. This is a moment where we should lean into that flexible strength of democracy and think about institutional reforms that will both strengthen our system against illiberal creep and help us better achieve the ideals that we aspiring to as a people.
Didi Kuo
Center Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law
There's a narrative that's taking place that Russia is winning the war, Ukraine is losing, and it's only a matter of time. And it is true that Russia has captured a bit more territory than they occupied at the start of the year. But they've only achieved that at enormous cost.
As of September, the Pentagon says Russia had lost 600,000 dead and wounded soldiers. To put that in context, in February of 2022 when this major invasion began, the total Russian military — not just the army, but the total Russian military — was 1.1 million people. And the British Ministry of Defense earlier this week assessed that Russia now is losing 1,200 soldiers killed or severely wounded per day. You have to ask how long that's sustainable.
When I talk to Ukrainians, they still regard this war as existential. They're very determined to win, and we need to do a better job of supporting that. A stable and secure Europe is vital to America's national security interests, and you're not going to have a stable and secure Europe unless there's a stable and secure Ukraine. So we need to both provide them the weapons they need and relieve some of the restrictions we currently have and allow the Ukrainians to use those weapons to strike military targets in Russia.
Because we have to ask ourselves: what does an emboldened Vladimir Putin do if he wins in Ukraine? I don't think his ambitions end with Ukraine, perhaps not even with the post-Soviet space. There's going to be a much darker Russian threat hovering over Europe if Putin wins. So let's not count the Ukrainians out.
Steven Pifer
Affiliate at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and The Europe Center
China Isn't Going Away Anytime Soon | Oriana Skylar Mastro
There is a lot of discussion right now about the fact that the economy in China is slowing down and its demography is undergoing significant changes. What I'm here to tell you is that the challenge of China is not over, and is not going to be over any time soon. China has built power in a different way than the United States, and we have to reassess how we understand that power if we want to effectively deter, blunt, and block them from acting out in ways that threaten our partners and allies.
Since the 1990s, China has developed a significant amount of political, economic, and military power. They've gone from having an economy smaller than France’s to the second largest in the world. They've gone from not being involved in international institutions to a great degree, not even having diplomatic relations with major countries like South Korea, to now having stronger and greater diplomatic networks, especially in Asia, than the United States.
What we really need to understand is that the U.S.-China competition is not about the United States or about China; it's about the rest of the world, and how the rest of the world sees us and how China interacts with us. The balance of power is shifting, and we have to be a lot smarter and a lot faster if we want to make sure it shifts in favor of our interests.
The United States hasn't had a comprehensive strategy towards the developing world in a long time. And we are running out of time to get that balance right in Asia. We don't have the right stuff. We don't have it in the right numbers, and it's not in the right place. Some of this is about deterring war over Taiwan, but it's also about generally maintaining peace and stability in Asia.
Oriana Skylar Mastro
FSI Center Fellow at the Asia-Pacific Research Center and the Center for International Security and Cooperation
We're Doing Better (But Not Enough) on Climate Change | Marshall Burke
Many people don't recognize how much progress we're actually making on climate issues. Emissions have fallen by 20% since 2005. We're actually speeding up the amount of substantial progress being made in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and dealing with the core climate change problem, which is the human emission of greenhouse gasses.
In the United States, the Inflation Reduction Act and the subsequent implementation of various rules the Biden administration has championed has given a huge boost in transitioning our economy to greener energy technologies, transportation technologies, and other kinds of infrastructure. We're moving a lot of cash to get that done, and the president is trying to get as much of it out the door as he can before his term ends.
Globally, the progress has been less rapid. Emissions are roughly flat. But overall, we're still making progress. I co-teach an undergraduate class on climate change, and we've had to update our slides on how much warming we're expecting over the next century. We thought it was going to be four degrees Celsius. Now we think it's going to be something between two and three degrees Celsius.
But the flip side of that is that we're still going to get warming of two to three degrees Celsius. We're already experiencing warming of about a degree Celsius, which is about two degrees Fahrenheit, and it's projected that we're going to get another three to five degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. That is a lot of warming, and we are not prepared to deal with it. We need to do much more on mitigation and much more on adaptation if we're going to meet the realities of living in a changing climate.
So we've had progress on the one hand, but there's still a lot of work left to do in the coming decades.
Marshall Burke
Deputy Director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment
Driving Climate-Resilient Infrastructure and Inclusive Industrialization: Highlights from the Third Annual Trans-Pacific Sustainability Dialogue
Held at Stanford and hosted by the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, the third annual Dialogue convened global leaders, academics, industry experts, and emerging experts to share best practices for advancing Sustainable Development Goal 9 in support of economic growth and human well-being.
Lisa Einstein to Lead Artificial Intelligence Efforts at Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
Einstein, an alumna of the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy, was Stanford’s first dual master’s degree recipient in computer science (artificial intelligence concentration) and international policy (cyber policy and security specialization).
Scholars from the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies offered their insights on climate change, the war between Russia and Ukraine, China's ambitions, the current conflicts in the Middle East, and the state of global democracy during a panel held at Stanford's Reunion weekend. | Melissa Morgan
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At a panel during Stanford's 2024 Reunion weekend, scholars from the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies shared what their research says about climate change, global democracy, Russia and Ukraine, China, and the Middle East.
We are pleased to share that Jiwon Bang (MA '24, East Asian Studies) and Jong Beom "JB" Lim (MS '25 Computer Science; BAS '24 International Relations and Mathematical Computational Science) are the co-recipients of the 13th Annual Korea Program Prize for Writing in Korean Studies. Bang is recognized for her thesis, "Multidimensional Diplomacy: The Evolution of the Pacific Pact and the Mutual Defense Treaty between the United States and the Republic of Korea, 1948-1953." Lim is recognized for his thesis "Navigating Asymmetry: Leadership Preferences and Foreign Policy Outcomes in U.S. Security Allies."
"Jiwon meticulously examines the historical origins and evolution of the 1953 Mutual Defense Treaty between the United States and the Republic of Korea (ROK), says Gi-Wook Shin, Professor of Sociology and William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea. "Disputing the conventional view that the Treaty was a direct response to the outbreak of the Korean War (1950-1953), she uncovers its roots and complex processes extending back to pre-war discussions in 1948. Her study provides a nuanced understanding of the early Cold War security dynamics in the Asia-Pacific region and has contemporary relevance. By drawing on lessons from the Pacific Pact's failure, her thesis offers insights for contemporary regional security cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region."
"JB marshals detailed comparative case studies of policy debates over the last two decades in South Korea and the Philippines, augmented by semi-structured interviews of several dozen elites involved in foreign policymaking in the two countries," says Kenneth Schultz, William Bennett Munro Professor of Political Science. "The cases show how alternation in power between leaders from different parties fundamentally altered the tenor of bargaining with the United States and the approach to dealing with domestic opposition. The result is a compelling argument, elegantly and persuasively written. Not only does [this thesis] present an incisive analysis of a key dilemma facing South Korean leaders, but it situates this case in a comparative context alongside the Philippines. It also provides timely insights into the challenges of alliance management and makes a nuanced contribution to the scholarly literature on domestic politics and international bargaining."
Sponsored by the Korea Program and the Center for East Asian Studies, the writing prize recognizes and rewards outstanding examples of writing by Stanford students in an essay, term paper, or thesis produced during the current academic year in any discipline within the area of Korean studies, broadly defined. The competition is open to both undergraduate and graduate students.
Master's students Jiwon Bang (MA '24, East Asian Studies) and Jong Beom "JB" Lim (MS '25 Computer Science; BAS '24 International Relations and Mathematical Computational Science) are the recipients of the 13th annual Korea Program Prize for Writing in Korean Studies for their thesis papers.
Professor Yu Tiejun joined the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) as China Policy Fellow for the 2024 fall quarter. He currently serves as President of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies (IISS) and Professor at the School of International Studies (SIS), all at Peking University (PKU). Previously, he studied at the University of Tokyo in 1998-2000. He served as visiting fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University in 2005, and also as visiting scholar at the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research at Harvard University in 2005-06.
Dr. Yu has co-edited The Sino-Japanese Security and Defense Exchange: Past, Present, and Prospect (Beijing: World Affairs Press, 2012, with Zhu Feng and Akiyama Masahiro). He is also the Chinese translator of Myths of Empire by Jack Snyder (2007) and Discord and Collaboration: Essays on International Politics by Arnold Wolfers (2006). His research interests include International Security, China-U.S.-Japan Relations, and China’s National Defense Policy. He won the Excellent Teaching Award of Peking University in 2010. Dr. Yu received his Ph.D., M.A. and B.A. from Peking University.
While at APARC, he conducted research on contemporary China affairs and U.S.-China policy.
Brandon Yoder joined the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) as Stanford Next Asia Policy Fellow for the 2024-2025 academic year. He currently serves as Senior Lecturer at Australian National University in the School of Politics and International Relations, Australian Centre on China in the World, as well as non-resident Research Fellow at National University of Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Centre on Asia and Globalisation. While at APARC, he worked with the Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab (SNAPL) on U.S.-Asia relations.
Matthew Dolbow joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) as visiting scholar from 2024 to 2026 from the U.S. Department of State. Before coming to APARC, Mr. Dolbow strengthened U.S. military deterrence capabilities in Asia as the U.S. Consul General in Okinawa, Japan. As Chief of Staff in the U.S. National Security Council’s international economics office during the first Trump administration, Mr. Dolbow helped compile the 2017 U.S. National Security Strategy, which declared for the first time that "economic security is national security," and thus helped to establish a new bipartisan U.S. consensus on innovative trade, investment screening, and energy policies that increased U.S. competitiveness and secured the U.S. defense industrial base. As head of economic strategy at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing from 2013 to 2016, Mr. Dolbow created a Department of State-wide training program that taught colleagues to track and assess China's Belt and Road Initiative projects. While at APARC, he will be conducting research on competition with China related to technology, innovation, human capital, and national security.
From tariff wars to torn-up trade agreements, Michael Beeman explores America's recent and dramatic turn away from support for freer, rules-based trade to instead go its own new way. Focusing on America's trade engagements in the Asia-Pacific, he contrasts the trade policy choices made by America's leaders over several generations with those of today–decisions that are now undermining the trading system America created and triggering new tensions between America and its trading partners, allies and adversaries alike.
With keen insight as a former senior U.S. trade official, Beeman argues that America's exceptionally deep political divisions are driving its policy reversals, giving rise to a new trade policy characterized by zero-sum beliefs about the kind of trade America wants with the world and about new rules for trade that it wants for itself. With enormous implications for the future of regional and global trade, this timely analysis unravels the implications of America's seismic shift in approach for the future of the rules-based trading order and America's role in it.
Walking Out is essential reading for anyone interested in the domestic and international political economy of trade, international relations, and the future of America's role in the global economy.
Michael L. Beeman is a visiting scholar at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and has taught international policy as a lecturer at Stanford University. From 2017–23, he was the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Japan, Korea, and APEC at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), where he led negotiations for the U.S.-Japan Trade Agreement and for the updated U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, among other initiatives. Prior to this, he served for over a decade in other positions at USTR, including as Deputy Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Japan. He holds a DPhil in politics (University of Oxford) and an MA in international relations (Johns Hopkins University).
"Beeman's timely volume Walking Out helps us understand how and why the US has retreated from this system. A practitioner who spent considerable time in the trenches negotiating US trade deals with several Asian partners during the first Trump and the Biden administrations, Michael Beeman brings to the topic of American trade policy the unique combination of scholarly analysis and policy-making experience. With this potent combination, he unpacks two core questions: why has the US retreated from the global free trade agenda, and what are the implications of this turn for US influence? In addition to helping the reader understand these two central issues, Beeman's scholar-practitioner experience shows itself to be invaluable in helping to demystify how rules, schedules, and side letters work in the world of trade negotiations, and why details like dispute settlement and rules of origin matter greatly."
— Joseph Chinyong Liow, Dean and Wang Gungwu Professor of East Asian Affairs, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore
"In Walking Out, Beeman discusses how the two administrations have bucked traditional U.S. trade policy in myriad ways. This shift in policy has undermined the international trading system and stoked trade tensions between the U.S., its allies and adversaries, he contends." —Jason Asenso
"Politics is pushing the U.S. toward increasingly 'retrograde' trade policies, former Assistant U.S. Trade Representative Michael Beeman tells Inside U.S. Trade [...]
Beeman said he takes Trump’s tariff threat seriously — and contends it should not be seen simply as a negotiating tactic for the U.S. to use to win more favorable trade arrangements, but as a complete rewrite of the U.S.’ post-WWII trade policy.
'I think the last time around when there was a Trump administration, there was a lot of coloring outside the lines, and the tearing out of a couple pages of the coloring book that had been in place since the end of World War II,' he said. 'But I think what they're talking about now is kind of a different coloring book, and I think it is pretty serious.'" —Jason Asenso
"Michael Beeman, former assistant U.S. trade representative for Japan, Korea and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, says a Donald Trump presidency risks accelerating a shift away from the United States’ decades-old free trade consensus.
But he added that Harris is just as unlikely to restore U.S. trade engagement with the Asia-Pacific and developing countries and suspects she won’t resume Trump-era negotiations with the United Kingdom and Japan." —Ari Hawkins
Trump Administration to "Reset Relations on the Assumption of Tariffs," Former USTR Official Says Nikkei, November 15, 2024 (interview) English version/ Japanese version
Why do authoritarian regimes charge political opponents with non-political crimes when they can levy charges directly related to opponents' political activism? Using experimental and observational data from China, we find that disguising repression by charging opponents with non-political crimes undermines the moral authority of opponents, minimizing backlash and mobilization while increasing public support for repression.
Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions (SCCEI) is pleased to present a lecture by Jennifer Pan, Sir Robert Ho Tung Professor of Chinese Studies, Professor of Communication and (by courtesy) Political Science, and a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute, who will be speaking on Disguised Repression: Targeting Opponents with Non-Political Crimes to Undermine Dissent. The event opens with a welcome reception at 4:00 pm, followed by the lecture and discussion with Jennifer Pan and Hongbin Li, SCCEI Co-director and James Liang Endowed Chair, beginning at 4:45 pm.
Watch the Recorded Lecture
About the Speaker
Jennifer Pan is a political scientist whose research focuses on political communication, digital media, and authoritarian politics. She is the Sir Robert Ho Tung Professor of Chinese Studies, Professor of Communication and (by courtesy) Political Science, and a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute. Pan's research uses experimental and computational methods with large-scale datasets on political activity to answer questions about the role of digital media in authoritarian and democratic politics, including how political censorship, propaganda, and information manipulation work in the digital age and how preferences and behaviors are shaped as a result. Her papers have appeared in peer reviewed publications such as the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Political Communication, and Science. She graduated from Princeton University, summa cum laude, and received her Ph.D. from Harvard University’s Department of Government.
Parking meters are enforced Monday - Friday 8 AM to 4 PM, unless otherwise posted.
The event will take place in the Koret-Taube Conference Center located within the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Building. The closest visitor parking to the Gunn-SIEPR building is:
Many of us go to law school interested in public policy as well as in law, but it is a rare opportunity when students get to do legal research, write a policy report—and present that report to decision-makers in Washington, D.C. For those of us enrolled in Policy Practicum: Regulating Legal Enablers of Russia’s War on Ukraine, our experience went beyond learning theory and skills. The research class provided a platform to support the fight for justice globally and to reiterate the importance of lawyers in safeguarding democracy. And for one of us, it was also the opportunity to aid his own country, Ukraine, and its people in an existential war and to ensure that the voices of people from afar are heard and considered.
As Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine dragged into its third year, we were part of a group of Stanford Law School students researching how U.S.-based policy solutions could contribute to Ukraine’s war effort. In the policy lab, Professor Erik Jensen led students through two quarters of work to develop a policy report on the problem of legal professionals helping to evade sanctions (lawyer-enablers) in the context of the war in Ukraine. The policy lab’s client was the International Working Group on Russian Sanctions at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, led by Professor Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador to Russia.
Bryce Tuttle, JD ’26 (BA ’20), Kyrylo Korol, JD ’25, Sarah Manney, JD ’24 (BA ’18), Erik Jensen, and Max (Tengqin) Han, JD ’24 in Washington, DC. | Sarah Manney
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Stanford Law School students research and advocate for stronger regulation of lawyer-enablers of Russian sanctions evasion, led by professor Erik Jensen.
![[Left to right]: Michael McFaul, Marshall Burke, Steven Pifer, Oriana Skylar Mastro, Didi Kuo, and Amichai Magen on stage.](https://fsi9-prod.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/styles/895x498_x2/public/2024-10/fsi_reunion_2024_panel_hero.png?h=c4d9845d&itok=NhnRqc23)
