From 18 to 20 November 2012 Phnom Penh in Cambodia will be the summit capital of the world. President Obama and the heads of nearly 20 other countries will gather there for a series of high-level meetings organized by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Events will include the ASEAN Summit, the ASEAN Plus Three Summit, and the East Asia Summit (EAS). Obama will attend the EAS and the US-ASEAN Leaders Summit as well.

Here at Stanford the issues at stake in these summits will be assessed in conversation among the ambassadors to the United States from five ASEAN member countries—Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Viet Nam—and the president of the US-ASEAN Business Council. How will the ASEAN Community planned for 2015 affect economy, security, and democracy in Southeast Asia? What are China’s intentions in East Asia?  How should ASEAN respond to Chinese behavior? Will a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea be announced in Phnom Penh? What can we expect from Indonesia’s leadership of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in 2013? Is protectionism in Southeast Asia on the rise? Has Europe’s recent experience discredited economic regionalism? Is the US-backed Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (TPP) good or bad for Southeast Asia? Should the controversial American “rebalance” toward Asia be rebalanced? How reversible are the reforms in Myanmar (Burma)? What changes inside ASEAN will make the organization more effective? What is the single change in US policy that each ambassador would most like to see?

Marvin Ammori heads a small law firm that advises Silicon Valley companies on public policy issues and is also a Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation and a Visiting Scholar at Stanford Law School's Center for Internet & Society, writing about the U.S. First Amendment. He was previously the head lawyer of an advocacy group, Free Press, where he worked primarily on network neutrality and open Internet issues and handled the Comcast/BitTorrent case. His work for several companies in their opposition to SOPA and PIPA earned him recognition by Fast Company magazine as one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business in 2012. 

***** NOTE: CHANGE OF LOCATION*****

Abstract
The mobile Internet — accessed through smartphones, tablets, and 4G technology — is now set to overtake the wired Net in usage and users. The implications of this shift are most obvious in Africa, where journalists have seized on mobile-driven innovations to transform newsgathering. But mobile networks also give repressive governments unprecedented powers to identify, locate, and harass journalists, their sources, and their audiences. The Committee to Protect Journalists invited a group of pioneering African journalists and entrepreneurs to Silicon Valley in October to talk about their work at the forefront of the media revolution. The group worked with executives and technologists from leading media and technology companies to find practical ways to protect free speech and privacy online. This panel will discuss their conclusions.

Erik Charas is an engineer, social entrepreneur, and founder of @Verdade, the largest-circulation newspaper in Mozambique. Hailing from northern Mozambique, Erik is passionate about his responsibility to work for his country. The inspiration to create @Verdade came from the realization that most people in Mozambique lacked access to quality information. He believes informing people about their government, country and the world is the first step toward engaging them as active participants in transforming the country. He is one of the most vocal advocates of anti-poverty activism in Africa today.Erik is also founder and CEO of Charas LDA, a company that invests in Mozambican entrepreneurs. Erik was voted a Hero of Africa in 2005 by media group MSN, named a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader in 2006, and served as an Archbishop Tutu African Leadership Initiative Fellow in 2007. He chairs several boards of companies and non-profit organizations in Mozambique and other countries. He has an engineering degree from the University of Cape Town. Follow him on Twitter @echaras.

Rafael Marques de Morais is an award-winning journalist, human rights activist, and founder of the anti-corruption watchdog website MakaAngola. The site is named for ‘maka,’ a Kimbundu world meaning "problem" or "trouble." Rafael’s writings on political economy, the diamond industry, and government corruption have earned him international acclaim, and have set the agenda for political debate in Angola by exposing the abuse of power. His most recent book, "Blood Diamonds: Corruption and Torture in Angola," published in September 2011, exposed hundreds of cases of torture and killings. Research for the book formed the basis of a criminal complaint Rafael filed against the shareholders of three private Angolan diamond mining companies for crimes against humanity. He now faces retaliatory legal action as company shareholders, including some of the country’s most influential generals, have countersued him in Portugal. Rafael was imprisoned for his work in 1999, and released after international advocacy efforts on his behalf. He was then charged with defaming the president and spent years in costly legal battles. His case was eventually taken up by the UN Human Rights Committee, which delivered a precedent-setting ruling in 2005 that Angola had violated the journalist’s fundamental rights. Born in Luanda, Rafael holds an MSc in African Studies from the University of Oxford and a BA Hons in Anthropology and Media from Goldsmiths, University of London.

Mohamed Keita is the Africa advocacy coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, an international press freedom advocacy organization based in New York. Mohamed has written extensively on press freedom and social media for publications including The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, and Slate Afrique. He is regularly interviewed by international media including Al Jazeera, BBC, NPR, and Radio France Internationale. A native of Bamako, Mali, Mohamed also lived in Senegal before moving to New York. Prior to joining CPJ, Mohamed volunteered as a researcher with the nongovernmental World Federalist Movement-Institute of Global Policy, where he was responsible for a project on the structures and mechanisms of the African Union and helped organize outreach activities in West Africa for a project on the UN's "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine. Mohamed is a graduate of the City College of New York. Follow him on Twitter @africamedia_CPJ

Rebecca MacKinnon is a journalist and activist whose work focuses on the intersection of the Internet, human rights, and foreign policy. She serves on the board of directors of the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Global Network Initiative. As a Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation, she is developing new projects focused on holding technology companies accountable to universally recognized human rights standards on free expression and privacy. Her first book, Consent of the Networked, was published in January 2012 by Basic Books. In 2012 she was named Hearst Professional-in-residence by Columbia Journalism School and listed by the Columbia Journalism Review as one of “40 women who changed the media business in the past 40 years,” primarily due to her role as cofounder of Global Voices Online (globalvoicesonline.org) an international citizen media network. Fluent in Mandarin Chinese, MacKinnon worked as a journalist for CNN in China for nine years, including as CNN’s Beijing Bureau Chief and Correspondent from 1998-2001. MacKinnon received her AB magna cum laude from Harvard University and was a Fullbright scholar in Taiwan in 1991-92. Follow her on Twitter @rmack.

This seminar is being co-sponsored by the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships and in collaboration with the Committee to Protect Journalists https://www.cpj.org 

Reception to follow in Mendenhall Library, McClatchy Hall, Bldg 120

May 2013 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. Over the three decades of the Center’s existence, immense change has taken place in the Asia-Pacific.

The early 1980s were a time for tremendous, transformative ripples of social, political, and economic change in many Asian countries; many of those changes set in motion trends, institutions, and events that are prominent aspects of the Asian landscape today.

In Northeast Asia, China embraced market reforms and opened its doors to foreign investment and trade, setting the stage for its role as a contemporary global leader. Japan experienced the peak of its post-war boom, consolidating its role as a pioneer in technology and manufacturing. South Korea underwent a dramatic transformation that, paired with its rapid economic growth, created a regional powerhouse. Southeast Asia emerged from the shadow of war to become a region of economic tigers and emerging powers.

At Stanford, the Northeast Asia-United States Forum on International Policy and the Center for International Security and Arms Control (CISAC) were established in May 1983 as independent, but complementary, entities. The Northeast Asia-United States Forum later grew into the Asia/Pacific Research Center and, in 2005, was endowed as the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC). The two centers still closely collaborate on research and events. In the ensuing three decades, Shorenstein APARC expanded its reach beyond core expertise on Northeast Asia to the fast-developing region of Southeast Asia and to South Asia, which has emerged as a new center of power in the Asia-Pacific. The Center has focused increasingly on the crosscurrents of growing economic, cultural, and institutional integration in the region alongside a troubling rise of tensions driven by intensifying nationalism.

Today, Shorenstein APARC boasts five vibrant programs focusing on contemporary Asia and engaged in policy-oriented research, training, and publishing: the Asia Health Policy Program, Japan Studies Program, Korean Studies Program, Southeast Asia Forum, and the Stanford China Program. It also takes great pride in its unique Corporate Affiliates Program, whose alumni roster of over 300 Asian business, government, and media professionals continues to expand. Rounding out Shorenstein APARC’s Asia expertise, its South Asia Initiative has produced many important publications and events for over a decade.

On May 2, 2013, Shorenstein APARC will celebrate its anniversary with a special public symposium exploring Asia’s transformation over the past three decades, developments in U.S.-Asia relations, and the trajectory of Shorenstein APARC’s own history. You are invited to join us in marking this historic occasion.

Panel 1: Asia's Rise

Panel 2: Shorenstein APARC's History

 Panel 3: Developments in U.S.-Asia Relations