Co-sponsored by the Southeast Asia Program, Shorenstein Asia Pacific Research Center, Stanford University, with the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan

Shocking events obliterate context.  The coup in Myanmar on 1 February 2021 is a case in point.  Who could imagine the cruelty of the Burmese generals who on February 1^st 2021 grabbed power and proceeded to retain it by arresting thousands and murdering hundreds of its local opponents?  Who expected that on February 2^nd the country’s youth would launch a nonviolent Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) and keep it going and growing against such massively intimidating odds?  In this webinar, two experts will provide the essential but all too often missing contexts—current and historical, domestic and foreign, political and socioeconomic—within which the crisis can be understood, its future projected, and its implications assessed.  To those ends, the on-the-ground knowledge, personal experience, and close observer’s insights of Burmese scholar Moe Thuzar will interact with the insights of American professor David Steinberg based on his Burmese experiences and scholarship dating back into the 20^th century.

The webinar will consider in particular what the coup and its aftermath may imply for Southeast Asia and its relations with China.  Relevant in that regard is the involvement of all four panel members in a recent collection, The Deer and the Dragon: Southeast Asia and China in the 21^st Century—Steinberg and Ciorciari as authors, Emmerson as editor, and ­­Thuzar as an analyst who is using the book in her own research. 

David I. Steinberg is Distinguished Professor of Asian Studies Emeritus, Georgetown University, where he directed its Asian studies program (1997-2007). Other positions he has held include the presidency of the Mansfield Center for Pacific Affairs and Southeast Asia-related US foreign-policy posts as a member of the Senior Foreign Service. He has also represented The Asia Foundation in South Korea, Burma, Hong Kong, and Washington, D.C.  His 15 books and monographs include one translation, more than 150 articles, and several hundred op-eds.. Among these books are: Myanmar: The Dynamics of an Evolving Polity (ed., 2015); Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone Needs to Know (2013, 2^nd edition); Modern China-Myanmar Relations: Dilemmas of Mutual Dependence (with Fan Hongwei, 2012); Turmoil in Burma: Contested Legitimacies in Myanmar (2006); Burma: The State of Myanmar (2001); and Burma’s Road to Development (1981). His expertise includes the two Koreas, about which he has written widely. Professor Steinberg was educated at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, Harvard University, Darmouth College, and Lingnan University in Canton (now Guangzhou), China.

Moe Thuzar joined the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore in 2008. Her responsibilities there have included managing or co-managing its Myanmar Studies Programme, serving as a lead researcher in its ASEAN Studies Centre, and helping the Centre engage with Myanmar regarding its turn to chair ASEAN in 2014. She spent the 2019-2020 academic year as a Fox International Fellow at Yale University's MacMillan Center researching the socio-cultural underpinnings of Burma’s Cold War foreign policy for her National University of Singapore PhD. Earlier she worked for a decade at the ASEAN Secretariat, where she headed its Human Development Unit. Her many publications include, as co-author, the 2020 and 2019 editions of ISEAS’s widely read State of Southeast Asia: Survey Report. Other recent writing includes chapters and articles in ASEAN-EU Partnerships: The Untold Story (ed., 2020); the Journal of Southeast Asian Economies (2019); Southeast Asian Affairs (ed., 2019); Human Security Norms in East Asia (ed., 2019); and, as co-author, ASEAN’s Myanmar Dilemma (with Lex Rieffel, 2018). Earlier works include Myanmar: Life After Nargis (with Pavin Chachavalpongpun, 2009).

Co-moderated by John Ciorciari, Director, Weiser Diplomacy Center, University of Michigan, and Donald K. Emmerson, Director, Southeast Asia Program, Stanford University

Co-sponsored with the Bush China Foundation

This event is part of Shorenstein APARC's spring webinar series "The United States in the Biden Era: Views from Asia."

The coronavirus pandemic has reinforced the importance of investing in population health domestically and globally, and of public-private collaboration in innovation for health goals--from technology for healthy aging to poverty alleviation and addressing other social determinants of health disparities. China, as the first health system to experience the devastation of COVID-19 and to rebound from pandemic control, offers lessons relevant beyond its borders. What can we draw from China's progress on healthcare development and its aims for innovation and public-private collaboration? In this webinar, Chinese practitioners and experts from academia and government will share their views on post-pandemic health policy and draw lessons for cooperation in global health. Scholars who have worked in and studied both the PRC and US health systems will discuss the challenges facing both—from strengthening risk protection and aligning incentives for quality improvement, to promoting goals articulated in the US’ 5th iteration of population health ‘ten-year plans’ (“Healthy People 2030”) and the PRC’s more recent “Healthy China 2030” and broader 14th Five Year Plan. What will it take to implement these ambitious goals? What is the linkage between health and China's foreign policy objectives and its place in the world? PRC experts share their views in this webinar co-hosted by Stanford’s Asia Health Policy Program and the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations.

Panelists:

Ying Cao is the China country director at Vital Strategies, where she leads the team to strengthen local public health systems through Vital Strategies’ Resolve to Save Lives’ global cardiovascular health initiative, tobacco control program, road safety program and evidence-based communication and policy advocacy. Dr. Cao brings over 15 years of experience in designing, leading, implementing and monitoring projects in the field of health and nutrition. She has extensive experience managing complex programs in China, with a specific focus on government and community-based programs to address unbalanced resource allocations to underprivileged areas.  Prior to joining Vital Strategies, Dr. Cao served as the director of Program Operations in Save the Children in China. Prior to Save the Children, she spent six years working in health and development within the non-profit sector and five years as a senior physician specializing in diagnostic ultrasound at Shanghai Ruijin Hospital.  Dr. Cao holds a master’s degree in public health nutrition from Wageningen University in the Netherlands and a bachelor’s degree in medicine from Shanghai Second Medical University.

Gordon Liu is a leading expert on health and development economics, health policy reform, and pharmaceutical economics in China. He is a key figure in Chinese health care reform efforts and sits on the China State Council Health Reform Advisory Commission. Dr. Liu currently serves as an associate editor for Health Economics and China Economic Quarterly (CEQ) journals and was a coeditor of Value in Health, the official journal of ISPOR, and the editor-in-chief of the China Journal of Pharmaceutical Economics. He is president of the Chinese Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research and served as president of the Chinese Economists Society (CES). Prior to joining Peking University, Dr. Liu was a tenured associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an assistant professor at the University of Southern California.

 Dr. Xiaofeng Liang received his medical degree at Shanxi Medical University in 1984 and a Master's degree in Public Health from the College of Public Health of Peking University of Medicine in 1995. From 1996 to 1998, he worked as a visiting scholar at the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, College of Medicine, University of Miami, Florida, USA.  After his return to China, he held the positions of Vice-Director of Epidemic Prevention Station of Gansu Province (1999-2000), Vice-Director of Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, CAPM (2000-2001), and the Director of Immunization Program (NIP) of China CDC (2001-2011), and deputy director of China CDC.  He is the winner of the 2013 Wu Jieping-Paul Janson Medicine and Pharmacy award and has been recognized as an outstanding contribution expert of the Ministry of Health China 2011-2012. He received the special allowance subsided by the State Council of China in 2010.  Since 2008, he has been a member of the Global Strategy Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Immunization of the WHO. He served as the Vice Secretary-general of the Chinese Foundation of Hepatitis Prevention (2005). He was a member of the Chinese Committee Advisory of Immunization Practice, the Chinese Association of Community Health and the Branch of Biological Products, and the Chinese Association of Prevention Medicine. He was a member of the National Polio Eradication Certification Committee and a member of the National Measles Elimination Verification Committee.  His research in public health led to advances in immunization and vaccine-preventable disease control in China. As the principal investigator on the Key Programs for Science and Technology Development of China since 2004, his main scientific research has focused on the epidemiology regularity and prevention and control countermeasures of Hepatitis B. His current research is focused on non-communicable disease control and nutrition and tobacco control. He is the author of more than 30 articles in national and international journals, such as The Lancet and, The New England Journal of Medicine.

This event is part of the Asia Health Policy Program (AHPP) 2020-21 Colloquium series "Health, medicine, and longevity: Exploring public and private roles"

We will hear from distinguished speakers on public-private collaborations in accelerating improvements in palliative care in Singapore and parts of South Asia, as well as informal care and technology-enabled self-management of chronic illness among Asian-Americans. Joining us from Singapore is Mr. Laurence Lian, Chairman of the Lien Foundation, sharing evidence about the impact of the Foundation’s work on end of life care, collaborating with the public sector in palliative care training, improving access to pain medication, and other initiatives. Dr. Ranak Trivedi of Stanford will discuss her work to address the stress management needs of patients and their families and to improve culturally concordant care for South Asian women with breast cancer and their caregivers.

Speakers:

Laurence Lien is Co-Chair and CEO of the Asia Philanthropy Circle (APC), a membership-based platform for Asian philanthropists to exchange, learn and collaborate.  Laurence is also the Chairman of Lien Foundation, a family foundation that has become well-regarded for its forward-thinking and radical approach in the fields of education, eldercare and the environment, as well as the Chairman of Lien AID, the foundation humanitarian arm for enabling sustainable access to clean water and sanitation for Asia’s rural poor.

Laurence was the CEO of the National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre in Singapore from 2008-2014, and was the Chairman of the Community Foundation of Singapore from 2013-2019.  Prior to his work in the non-profit sector, Laurence served in the Singapore Government.  Laurence holds degrees from Oxford University, the National University of Singapore, and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.  He was also a Nominated Member of Parliament in Singapore from 2012-2014. 

Dr. Ranak Trivedi is a clinical health psychologist, assistant professor in the Dept. of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University and an investigator at the Center for Innovation to Implementation at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System. She completed her PhD in clinical health psychology at Duke University. Her NIH, VA and foundation-funded studies are focused on improving outcomes for Veterans with mental health conditions, and improving the self-management of serious illnesses by enhancing the collaboration and coping of patients and their caregivers. Her studies have provided insights into how caregivers and chronically and seriously patients collaborate around their mutual health, understanding the impact of their interpersonal relationship on chronic illness self-management, and the individual, dyadic, and systems-level barriers that they encounter. These insights have been used to develop two technology-enabled dyadic self-management programs to address the stress management needs of both patients and their framily. Dr. Trivedi is a Sojourns Scholars Leader, and she is using this platform to improving culturally concordant care for South Asian women with breast cancer and their caregivers. Dr. Trivedi was selected for the year long Leadership Institute for Women in Psychology hosted by American Psychological Association in 2020. Dr. Trivedi serves as the Director of Training and Education at the Center for Innovation to Implementation at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System, site PI and Training Director for the Elizabeth Dole National Center of Excellence for Veteran and Caregiver Research, and the Director of Caregiving and Family Systems at the Stanford Center for Asian Health Research and Education (CARE).

 

About this Event:  American political observers express increasing concern about affective polarization (i.e., partisans’ resentment toward political opponents). We advance debates about America’s partisan divisions by comparing affective polarization in the USA over the past twenty-five years with affective polarization in nineteen other Western publics. We conclude that American affective polarization is not extreme in comparative perspective, although Americans’ dislike of partisan opponents has increased more rapidly since the mid 1990s than in most other Western publics. We then show that affective polarization is more intense when unemployment and inequality are high; when political elites clash over cultural issues such as immigration and national identity; and in countries with majoritarian electoral institutions. Our findings situate American partisan resentment and hostility in comparative perspective and illuminate correlates of affective polarization that are difficult to detect when examining the American case in isolation.

 

About the Speaker: 

Noam Gidron is an assistant professor (lecturer) at the Department of Political Science and the Joint Program in Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.  His research interests lie at the intersection of political behavior and political economy. 

The REDI Task Force invites you to the next event in our "Critical Conversations: Race in Global Affairs" series, featuring a panel moderated by Professor Gabrielle Hecht on inequality in nuclear regimes. This event will be recorded and uploaded to the REDI website.

The nuclear order is rife with inequalities. This panel will contextualize the state of the nuclear order as it stands today  with our ongoing conversation about race, diversity, and inclusion. The panelists will explore how non-proliferation, arms control, and disarmament, intersect and the exclusion that was/remains written into the system. The panel will discuss who in the nuclear world speaks about what, and more importantly, who in the nuclear world can speak about certain things and who cannot. By discussing debates about ‘haves and ‘have nots’ among nuclear states, the role of African-Americans in the disarmament movement, the disproportionate humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons, and inequal effect of the presence of nuclear weapons on marginalized communities, this panel will discuss whether it is even possible to have an equitable framework in a nuclear order that was built to structurally discriminate. There will be time for a Q&A following the discussion.

About the Speakers:

Gabrielle Hecht is the Frank Stanton Foundation Professor of Nuclear Security at CISAC, Senior Fellow at FSI, Professor of History, and REDI Task Force Chair. She is Vice-President/President-Elect of the Society for the History of Technology. Her current research explores radioactive residues, mine waste, air pollution, and the Anthropocene in Africa. Essays based on this research have appeared in Cultural Anthropology, Aeon, Somatosphere, the LA Review of Books, and e-fluxArchitecture. Hecht's graduate courses include colloquia on "Infrastructure and Power in the Global South," "Technopolitics," and "Materiality and Power." She teaches a community-engaged undergraduate research seminar on "Racial Justice in the Nuclear Age," in partnership with the Bayview Hunters Point Community Advocates (BVHPCA). She is currently working with BVHPCA and other partners to develop knowledge infrastructures to underpin community-driven public history that supports racial equity and environmental justice.

 

About the Event: 

Political violence is rising in the United States, alarming citizens and leaders alike. How many Americans endorse partisan violence and other forms of extreme hostility? What are its deep social, political, historical, and psychological roots? What can be done about it? And what does it mean for democracy? 

In this talk, Drs. Mason and Kalmoe make sense of our contentious politics with a groundbreaking study of radicalism among ordinary American partisans. Their individual-level studies utilize more than a dozen new nationally representative surveys and experiments to trace recent trends since 2017, reactions to elections and violent events, broader conditions that spur support for violence, links from violence attitudes to aggressive behavior, and the role of leaders in enflaming or pacifying their followers.

The results reshape the study of modern American political behavior by showing that ordinary partisanship is far more volatile than scholars have recognized in the past century of study.  

 

About the Speaker(s)

Dr. Nathan P. Kalmoe is an associate professor of political communication at Louisiana State University in the Manship School of Mass Communication and Department of Political Science. He is the author of With Ballots & Bullets: Partisanship & Violence in the American Civil War and co-author of Neither Liberal nor Conservative: Ideological Innocence in the American Public. He has also written essays for The Washington Post and Politico, and his work has been featured in The New York Times, The Atlantic, and Vox, among other popular outlets.

 

 

 

 

Lilliana Mason is associate professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park, and author of Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity (University of Chicago Press). Her research on partisan identity, partisan bias, social sorting, and American social polarization has been published in journals such as American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Public Opinion Quarterly, and Political Behavior, and featured in media outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and National Public Radio.

 

 

This event is co-sponsored with the generous support of the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), the Japan Society of Northern California, and the Japanese Chamber of Commerce of Northern California.

Simultaneous interpretation (English <=> Japanese) will be offered. 同時通訳があります。

Ten years have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake devastated Japan’s northeast. As a country that has experienced a variety of natural disasters throughout its history, Japan has developed various preventive and remedial technologies and social mechanisms, especially since the 1995 Hanshin Earthquake and the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. California has had similar experiences with natural disasters, particularly earthquakes, and it has developed its own preventive measures. On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake, this conference features two keynote speakers who have directly dealt with the aftermaths of recent earthquakes in Japan – Makoto Iokibe, who was the Chairman of the Reconstruction Design Council in Response to the Great East Japan Earthquake and is the author of The Era of Great Disasters, and Ikuo Kabashima, who as the Governor of Kumamoto led the recovery efforts from a major earthquake in 2016 and flooding in 2020. The conference will also provide a forum for speakers from Japan and California to learn from each other the cutting-edge approaches toward reducing the damages of natural disasters. 

大災害の時代における防災の最前線：東日本大震災から10年を経て

東日本大震災が関東・東北地方に大被害をもたらしてからすでに10年が経とうとしている 。その歴史の中で、多くの自然災害を経験してきた日本は、特に1995年の阪神大震災と2011年の東日本大震災以来、様々な防災・減災のための技術やシステムの開発に取り組んできた。一方で、地震など同じような自然災害を多く経験してきたカリフォルニアでも、独自の災害対策が進められてきた。東日本大震災から10年の節目に当たって、このコンフェレンスでは、東日本大震災復興会議議長として、復興への道のりをリードしてきた五百旗頭真氏（近著「大災害の時代」）と、熊本県知事として、2016年の地震と2020年の水害という大きな災害からの復興を指揮してきた蒲島郁夫氏の二人に基調講演をお願いし、日本の災害と復興の歩みについてご報告いただく。さらには、日本とカリフォルニアそれぞれから防災・減災の最前線で活躍する識者を招き、双方の取り組みについての理解を深め、新たな災害対策の道筋を探ることを目指す。

AGENDA (Pacific Time)

4:00 – 4:15 PM Opening remarks and Greetings from Gi-Wook Shin (Director of Shorenstein APARC, Stanford University), Ambassador Eleni Kounalakis (Lieutenant Governor of California) and Toru Maeda (Consul General of Japan, San Francisco)

4:15 – 5:00 PM Presentation from Cal OES, Keidanren, Fujitsu Laboratories, Research Institute for Earth Science Visualization Technology and JETRO

5:00 – 6:30 PM Keynote speakers: Kumamoto Governor, Ikuo Kabashima

Talk title: Dreams in Adversity & Making the Impossible Possible: The Politics of Disaster Response. 逆境の中にこそ夢がある　～不可能を可能に　災害対応の政治～

Makoto Iokibe, Chairman of the Reconstruction Design Council in Response to the Great East Japan Earthquake

Talk title: On Reconstruction from the Great East Japan Earthquake. 東日本大震災の復興について

6:30 – 7:00 PM Q&A Session 

SPEAKERS

Ikuo Kabashima, previously a Professor of Law at the University of Tokyo, became the Governor of Kumamoto Prefecture in 2008 and is currently serving in his fourth term. He displayed his leadership and creative thinking skills when he led the recovery efforts following both the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake and the 2020 Kyushu Flooding disasters. After graduating from high school in Kumamoto he worked at a local agricultural cooperative. Ikuo Kabashima moved to the United States in 1968 as an agricultural research student and enrolled in the faculty of agriculture at the University of Nebraska in 1971, where he researched preservation techniques for pig semen. He entered a Master’s program at the University of Nebraska in 1974. Following this he pursued a Ph.D in Political Economy at Harvard University. After returning to Japan he became a professor at the Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences at Tsukuba University, and eventually became a Professor of Law at the University of Tokyo in 1997 where he specialized in political process theory and quantitative methods in political science. He was named a Professor Emeritus of the University of Tokyo in 2008. Kabashima has also served as the chairman of the Japanese Association of Electoral Studies and the vice-president of the International Political Science Association (IPSA). Under the guidance of Samuel P. Huntington, he is also credited with achievements for his empirical research on voting behavior and political development theory surrounding political participation in the United States. 

2008年4月、東京大学法学部教授から熊本県知事に就任し、現在4期目。2016年の熊本地震、2020年の豪雨災害などで、災害対応の陣頭指揮を執り、創造的復興に手腕を発揮。熊本県の高校を卒業後、地元農協に勤務。1968年に農業研究生として渡米し、1971年ネブラスカ大学農学部に入学。豚の精子の保存方法を研究し、1974年、ネブラスカ大学大学院修士課程に進学。その後、ハーバード大学大学院博士課程に入学。政治経済学を研究し、博士号を取得。帰国後、筑波大学社会工学系教授などを歴任した後、1997年から東京大学法学部教授に着任。専門は、政治過程論、計量政治学。2008年、東京大学名誉教授。日本選挙学会理事長、世界政治学会副会長などを歴任。アメリカではサミュエル・ハンチントンなどの指導を受け、投票行動の実証的研究や政治参加に関する政治発展理論において業績をあげる。

Makoto Iokibe is Chancellor of the University of Hyogo and President of the Hyogo Earthquake Memorial 21st Century Research Institute. He is also Professor Emeritus of Japanese political and diplomatic history, Kobe University and Former President of the National Defense Academy of Japan. After the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, Professor Iokibe was appointed Chairperson of the Reconstruction Design Council in Response to the Great East Japan Earthquake, a government-established advisory panel of scholars and experts for formulating governmental reconstruction guidelines. Following the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake, he served as Chairperson of the Expert Group for Reconstruction and Recovery from the Kumamoto Earthquake. Among his many publications, his volume Nichibeikankeishi (Yuhikaku, 2008) has recently been translated by the Japan Library and published as “The History of US-Japan Relations: From Perry to the Present” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). His most recent book is “The Era of Great Disasters: Japan and Its Three Major Earthquakes” (University of Michigan Press 2020), a translation of Daisaigai no Jidai(Mainichi Shinbun Shuppan 2016).

1943年兵庫県西宮市生まれ。京都大学法学部卒業。同大学院法学研究科修士課程修了。法学博士。専門は日本政治外交史。神戸大学法学部教授、防衛大学校長、熊本県立大学理事長などを経て、現在（公財）ひょうご震災記念21世紀研究機構理事長、兵庫県立大学理事長。この間、日本政治学会理事長、政府の東日本大震災復興構想会議議長、くまもと復旧・復興有識者会議座長なども歴任。文化功労者。主な著書に「米国の日本占領政策」上下（中央公論社、サントリー学芸賞受賞）、「日米戦争と戦後日本」（講談社学術文庫、吉田茂賞受賞）、「大災害の時代」（毎日新聞出版）ほか多数。

PRESENTERS 

Gi-Wook Shin, (Stanford University), is the William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea in Sociology and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.  He established Stanford’s Korea Program in 2001 and has been directing the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford since 2005.  His research concentrates on social movements, nationalism, development, and international relations, with focus on Korea and broader Asia. Shin is the author/editor of over 20 books and numerous articles, including Divergent Memories: Opinion Leaders and the Asia-Pacific War; One Alliance, Two Lenses: U.S.-Korea Relations in a New Era; Cross Currents: Regionalism and Nationalism in Northeast Asia; and Ethnic Nationalism in Korea.  Shin’s current research initiatives include Global Talent Flows and Rise of Populism and Nationalism. Before coming to Stanford, Shin taught at the University of Iowa and the University of California, Los Angeles. He holds a B.A from Yonsei University in Korea and M.A and Ph.D from the University of Washington.

Ambassador Eleni Kounalakis, (Lieutenant Governor of California) was sworn in as the 50th Lieutenant Governor of California by Governor Gavin Newsom on January 7th, 2019. She is the first woman elected to the post. From 2010 to 2013, Kounalakis served as US Ambassador to the Republic of Hungary and in 2015 published her acclaimed memoir, “Madam Ambassador, Three Years of Diplomacy, Dinner Parties and Democracy in Budapest” (The New Press). Prior to her service, Kounalakis spent 18 years as an executive at one of California’s most respected housing development firms, AKT Development. Throughout her career, she served on numerous boards and commissions including California’s First 5 Commission, the San Francisco War Memorial, San Francisco Port Commission and the Association of American Ambassadors. Eleni Kounalakis graduated from Dartmouth College in 1989, earned her MBA from U.C. Berkeley’s Haas School of Business in 1992 and holds an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from the American College of Greece. She is married to Dr. Markos Kounalakis and the couple has two teenage sons, Neo and Eon.

Toru Maeda, (Consul General of Japan in San Francisco), began his career at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan in 1985 and has been in the foreign service for the last 35 years. Prior to his arrival in San Francisco in February 2020, he served as Minister / Deputy Chief of Mission of the Embassy of Japan in Myanmar. Over the past decade, he has held several senior positions in both overseas and domestic assignments, including Director General and subsequently Senior Vice President of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Minister / Head of Chancery of the Permanent Mission of Japan in Geneva, and Minister in charge of economic affairs of the Embassy of Japan in Indonesia. His other postings in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs include Director positions in the International Cooperation Bureau and Intelligence and Analysis Service. He received his B.A. in Law from the University of Tokyo and M.S. in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.

Ichiro Soné, (Executive Vice President, JETRO), was appointed Executive Vice President of the Japan External Trade Organization in October 2019. Previously, Mr. Soné served as Director-General of JETRO Osaka, overseeing the Kansai and Hokuriku regions. Before Osaka, he served as Chief Executive Director of JETRO Chicago, where he oversaw the office’s activities designed to facilitate trade and investment between Japan and 12 Midwestern states. Mr. Soné  joined JETRO in 1988 after graduating Doshisha University in Kyoto with a bachelor’s degree in art and aesthetics. He has a deep knowledge in international business through working in the Trade Fair Department and Invest Japan Department at JETRO Headquarters in Tokyo, and the North America Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His previous overseas postings were JETRO offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago.

Yasuhiro Uozumi, (Executive Director of Keidanren USA), 

has been Executive Director of Keidanren USA since June 2018. Mr. Uozumi joined Keidanren more than two decades ago. In the course of his career there, he is noted for his expertise on such issues as accounting, taxation, industrial policies, transportation and emerging markets, especially in Southeast Asia and Latin America. He also served as Secretary to the Keidanren Chairman. Mr. Uozumi earned his B.A. in Economics at the University of Tokyo and his MBA from Said Business School at the University of Oxford. He also conducted research on accounting at the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. He is a Certified Public Accountant. Keidanren is committed to the realization of Society 5.0 for SDGs. 

Lori Nezhura, (Cal OES Deputy Director of Planning, Preparedness, and Prevention), has worked for the State of California since 2006. She is currently the Deputy Director of Planning, Preparedness, and Prevention, a role which includes oversite of the agency’s seismic hazards branch, dam safety, radiological preparedness, and statewide all-hazards emergency and continuity planning efforts. Additionally, she oversees the California Specialized Training Institute, a statewide enterprise with responsibility for supporting training, exercises, and education in wide variety of areas including, but not limited to, emergency management, public safety, homeland security, hazardous materials, disaster recovery, and crisis communications. Prior to her current role, Lori spent almost six years as the Legislative Coordinator at the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services and nine years at the California Student Aid Commission as Legislative Director, Program Manager, and various Analyst roles. Lori received her baccalaureate degree from Arizona Christian University in Phoenix and her post-baccalaureate teacher certification at Arizona State University in Tempe. After receiving her teaching credential, she moved to Saitama Prefecture in Japan for two years to teach English as a Second Language. Upon her return to the United States, she taught elementary classes at Carden Christian Academy for ten years before going into state service.

Dr. Akihiko Shibahara, (CEO, Research Institute for Earth Science Visualization Technology Co.,), is a geologist, paleontologist, and 3D-CAM (computer-aided manufacturing) engineer. He received a Doctorate degree of Science from Tsukuba University, and he worked as a curator at the Geological Museum in AIST.  His recent research has focused on the visualization of earth science, such as underground data or hazard maps using 3D modeling techniques.  In 2016, he established the Institute for Earth Science Visualization Technology as an AIST Start-ups to implement his research activity. He is also working at the Institute of Dinosaur Research Investigation in Fukui Prefectural University as a Visiting Professor to visualize the spatial relationship between geology and paleontology. Earth Science Visualization Technology established several techniques of building up finely-detailed 3D miniatures to visualize geological information and hazard maps. 

Dr. Yusuke Oishi​, (Fujitsu Laboratories LTD.), is a project director of Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at Fujitsu Laboratories LTD. Since 2014 he has also been a specially appointed associate professor of International Research Institute of Disaster Science (IRIDeS), Tohoku University. He joined Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd. in 2007 and has been engaged in research on simulation, high performance computing, and artificial intelligence. From 2010 to 2014, he was a visiting researcher at Imperial College London, where he was engaged in tsunami research using 3D fluid simulation. In collaboration with Tohoku University, the University of Tokyo, and Kawasaki City, he and his collaborators started a joint project in 2017 for disaster mitigation utilizing cutting-edge ICT such as artificial intelligence and supercomputing. The project aims to realize effective disaster mitigation by repeatedly implementing technology development, technology evaluation by citizens, and technology improvement.

MODERATOR 

Kiyoteru Tsutsui, (Stanford University), is Henri H. and Tomoye Takahashi Professor and Senior Fellow in Japanese Studies at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, where he is also Director of the Japan Program, a Senior Fellow of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and a Professor of Sociology. He is the author of Rights Make Might: Global Human Rights and Minority Social Movements in Japan (Oxford University Press, 2018), co-editor of Corporate Responsibility in a Globalizing World (Oxford University Press, 2016) and co-editor of The Courteous Power: Japan and Southeast Asia in the Indo-Pacific Era (University of Michigan Press, forthcoming 2021). 

 

 

The Bay of Bengal, while split by national boundaries and even our concepts of distinct South and Southeast Asian regions, is re-emerging as a connected geographic and demographic space. Some of Asia’s most consequential transnational policy challenges will be most starkly presented here, across the borders of India, Bangladesh, and Burma – and traditional policy-making structures are already struggling to cope with environmental disasters, the mass movement of people, and the yawning need for economic connectivity. This webinar will examine these policy challenges, from the fragility of the Sundarbans ecosystem to the transnational implications of the Burma coup, and whether existing state and multilateral institutions are capable of addressing them.

SPEAKERS:

Kelley Eckels Currie served as U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues and the U.S. Representative at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.  Prior to her appointment, she led the Department of State’s Office of Global Criminal Justice (2019) and served under Ambassador Nikki Haley as the United States’ Representative to the UN Economic and Social Council and Alternative Representative to the UN General Assembly (2017-2018).  Throughout her career, Ambassador Currie has specialized in human rights, political reform, development and humanitarian issues, with a focus on the Asia-Pacific region. She has held senior policy positions with the Department of State, the U.S. Congress, the Project 2049 Institute, and several international and non-governmental human rights and humanitarian organizations.  Ambassador Currie holds a Juris Doctor from Georgetown University Law Center.

Tanaya Dutta Gupta is a PhD Candidate in Sociology at the University of California, Davis. Tanaya’s dissertation research focuses on climate change, (im)mobilities and borders in the Bengal delta region of Bangladesh and India. Her educational background includes MA in Sociology and Geography. As visiting researcher with the International Centre for Climate Change and Development and collaborator with the Observer Research Foundation, Tanaya participates in policy conversations through her research. Her research has been funded by the National Geographic Society and UC Davis Graduate Program Fellowships. 

Constantino Xavier is a Fellow in Foreign Policy and Security Studies at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress, in New Delhi, where he leads the Sambandh Initiative on regional connectivity. He is also a non-resident fellow in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution. His research and publications focus on India’s changing role as a regional power, and the challenges of security, connectivity and democracy across South Asia and the Indian Ocean. Dr. Xavier regularly lectures at various Indian, European and American universities, as well as at civilian and military training institutions in India. He holds a Ph.D. in South Asian studies from the Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies, and an M.A. and M.Phil. from Jawaharlal Nehru University.  

MODERATOR:

Arzan Tarapore is the South Asia research scholar at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, where he leads the newly-restarted South Asia research initiative. He is also a senior nonresident fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research. His research focuses on Indian military strategy and contemporary Indo-Pacific security issues. He previously held research positions at the RAND Corporation, the Observer Research Foundation, and the East-West Center in Washington. Prior to his scholarly career, he served as an analyst in the Australian Defence Department, which included operational deployments as well as a diplomatic posting to Washington, DC. Arzan holds a PhD in war studies from King’s College London.