The following is Part 1 of a two-article series. For Part 2, please go here.

Stanford e-Oita is an online course for high school students throughout Oita Prefecture in the southwestern island of Kyushu, Japan, that is sponsored by the Oita Prefectural Government. Launched in fall 2019, it is offered by the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE) in collaboration with the Oita Prefectural Board of Education. SPICE is grateful to Oita Prefectural Governor Katsusada Hirose whose vision made this course possible. 

Social media posts, video-conference invites, and webinar notifications flood our inboxes ever since COVID-19 drove traditional classroom instruction online. Distance learning has gone mainstream.

While distance learning may never replace traditional classroom instruction, it’s certainly transforming how we teach, learn, and behave. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, 30 Stanford e-Oita students in Japan—on the other end of my virtual classroom—showed me what distance learning can offer: a greater appreciation of where we live, renewed cross-cultural perspectives, and a chance to enhance one’s communication skills in a foreign language without a textbook, classroom, or a trip overseas.

Students from 15 high schools throughout Oita Prefecture—from the capital city of Oita to the tiny island of Hotojima—logged onto their laptops, tablets, and smart phones on Saturday mornings for my bi-weekly distance learning class. It’s a course offered to highly motivated students with a certain proficiency in English. They could attend a class as if they were in Palo Alto without ever having to leave their tatami-mat living rooms.

Stanford e-Oita focuses on three areas: U.S.–Japan relations, United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs), and entrepreneurship. These are the collective objectives of SPICE, the Oita Prefectural Board of Education, and Oita’s Governor Hirose. For six months, I explored their intersections with my students.

I designed a course curriculum that engages students to think critically about global issues, empowers them to take pride in their hometowns, and encourages them to give back to their communities. We took what’s happening in the world and made it relevant to their daily lives in Oita. Students took this a step further by exploring issues that were personally meaningful.

Students worked individually and collaboratively through guided group discussions, submitted written assignments, developed research projects, watched documentary films, and prepared multi-media slideshows as part of their final presentations—all in English. I also created virtual experiential learning opportunities for students by introducing them to guest speakers via Zoom. In the pre-COVID-19 days, I took students along with me on fieldtrips to National Historic Sites in Seattle’s International District and visited social activists on Vashon Island, Washington.

Stanford e-Oita is taught in English, but it is not an English language course. I offer my students a chance to become confident in English, competent in critical thinking, and fluent in accessing the technologies of a digital classroom. We use online platforms like Zoom and Canvas and take advantage of discussion boards, breakout sessions, and other digital tools which are not often used in Japanese schools.

In order to ensure access and equity, students who did not have access to a computer or Wifi were able to return to their schools on Saturday mornings to take the class in the computer labs. Most students worked on tablets (some used smartphones) and grew accustomed to the online format within a few weeks. For the most part, e-Oita students were excited and open to technology enabled learning. One student noted, “For me, using Zoom in this new style of class is really refreshing. Students are scattered all over Oita and you’re in America but we’re all communicating through my tablet. It’s so cool!”

Getting Japanese students on board Stanford’s rigorous distance learning program, in a foreign language, was a challenge at first. In fact, the learning curve was steep for all of us. I taught my students the word “troubleshoot” early on and walked them through online setting changes to video presentation uploads.
 

Here are some lessons learned:

Distance learning provides learning opportunities for students in less accessible communities—in rural towns or islands—where traditional classrooms are unable to serve.

Distance learning allows students to re-invent themselves with a new audience, with people you have never met.

Distance learning can create an informality that breaks down the wall between teachers and students and makes their relationship less hierarchical. This is a new experience for students from Japan.

Distance learning allows instructors to invite speakers whose participation is not limited by geography, departmental budgets, disabilities, or availability of a considerable amount of time. All they need is a quiet corner, a laptop with Wifi, and a time commitment of 30 minutes to an hour.   

Section Manager Hironori Sano and Teachers’ Consultant Keisuke Toyoda of the Global Education Acceleration Project Team (High School Education Division) of the Oita Prefectural Board of Education, reflected, “The most amazing thing is seeing how our students developed through the program. They have acquired five important skills: (1) the ability to cooperate with people around them; (2) the ability to state their ideas; (3) knowledge of Japan and Oita; (4) the confidence to communicate in English; and (5) the confidence to make a contribution in the world.”

Kasumi Yamashita

In part two of this series, I will focus on Stanford e-Oita’s priorities (United Nations Sustainable Development Goals), guest speakers, final student presentations, and assessment.

SPICE also offers online courses to U.S. high school students on Japan (Reischauer Scholars Program), China (China Scholars Program), and Korea (Sejong Korea Scholars Program), and online courses to Chinese high school students on the United States (Stanford e-China Program) and to Japanese high school students on the United States and U.S.–Japan relations (Stanford e-Japan). 

To stay informed of SPICE news, join our email list and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Related articles:

• Announcing Stanford e-Oita, a New Online Course for High School Students in Oita Prefecture, Japan
• SPICE/FSI Serves as Stanford University Host of the California-Japan Governors’ Symposium

APARC's China Program recently hosted Center Fellow Thomas Fingar for the webinar "Was America’s China Policy a Foolish Failure? The Logic and Achievements of Engagement." In this talk, Fingar examines the longtime U.S. strategy of engagement with China as well as the potential shift toward a strategy of decoupling. "Much recent commentary on U.S. 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," he says. "This narrative mocks the policies of eight U.S. administrations to justify calls for 'Decoupling' and 'Containment 2.0.'” Fingar argues that the policy of Engagement has been fruitful and that Decoupling is not only inadvisable but also unattainable. Watch:

In 2008, the U.S. National Intelligence Council (NIC) published the fourth installment in its effort to identify “megatrends” likely to shape world events a decade or more into the future. Shorenstein APARC Fellow and China expert Thomas Fingar, the then chairman of the NIC, oversaw that report, Global Trends 2025. The unclassified report uses scenarios to illustrate some of the ways in which the factors driving world events – from climate change to demographic decline to changing geopolitical powers – may interact to generate challenges and opportunities for future decisionmakers. One of these scenarios is the emergence of a global pandemic that bears a chilling resemblance to COVID-19.

We sat down with Fingar for an online conversation about the NIC report and its pandemic scenario, the government action it spurred, the United States’ failed initial response to the COVID-19 outbreak, and the implications of the current crisis for U.S.-China relations. Watch:

Twelve years after its publication, the NIC’s "Potential Emergence of a Global Pandemic" scenario (p. 75) has proven to be woefully accurate:

“The emergence of a novel, highly transmissible, and virulent human respiratory illness for which there are no adequate countermeasures could initiate a global pandemic. If a pandemic disease emerges by 2025, […] it probably will first occur in an area marked by high population density and close association between humans and animals, such as many areas of China and Southeast Asia […] Slow public health response would delay the realization that a highly transmissible pathogen had emerged […] Despite limits imposed on international travel, travelers with mild symptoms or who were asymptomatic could carry the disease to other continents. Waves of new cases would occur every few months. The absence of an effective vaccine and near-universal lack of immunity would render populations vulnerable to infection.”

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It was not a prediction, recalls Fingar, but rather an attempt to urge policymakers to think “beyond tomorrow,” past the end of their administration, and to stimulate strategic thinking about how to reinforce positive trends and change or ameliorate negative ones. If the report and its global pandemic scenario are precise, he notes, it is because the NIC’s effort involved the best specialists within the U.S. intelligence community and engaged numerous and varied groups of non-U.S. Government experts.

Yet the United States has been unprepared for the COVID-19 pandemic and the crisis is now worsening U.S.-China tensions. To address the crisis, however, argues Fingar, both countries must cooperate in the international fora. “Let that be the way that builds towards a better bilateral relationship.”

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who signed the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with Barack Obama on April 8, 2010, called last week for the United States to agree to extend the treaty. On Friday, a Department of State spokesperson told the Russian news agency TASS in response:  “The President has directed us to think more broadly than New START…  We stand ready to engage with both Russia and China on arms control negotiations that meet our criteria.”

Unfortunately, nothing suggests President Trump will achieve anything on nuclear arms control.

Read full article at The Hill.

As scientists continue to study how the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in Wuhan, China, and around the world, the infection’s early pathways have proven fertile ground for speculation and conspiracy theories. Although COVID-19’s earliest origins may remain uncertain, the story of one volley in the ongoing U.S.-China blame game shows that misinformation about the disease can be traced to specific speculations, distortions, and amplifications. 

A hostile messaging war between U.S. and Chinese officials seeking to deflect blame for the pandemic’s harms has included the U.S. president labeling the pandemic a “Chinese virus” to a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson spreading unfounded speculation that the U.S. military had a hand in introducing the virus to Wuhan. That speculation fed off of widely debunked theories that the virus was human-engineered and the fact that U.S. military personnel took part in the Military World Games in Wuhan in October 2019.

On March 12, Zhao Lijian, a deputy director-general of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s Information Department, took to Twitter with a video clip in which U.S. Centers for Disease Control chief Robert Redfield said some patients who died from COVID-19 might not have been tested. Zhao added: “It might be US army [sic] who brought the epidemic to Wuhan.”

Lijian Zhao shares a tweet alleging U.S. military involvement in introducing the virus to Wuhan.
 

A few hours later, Zhao shared an article from a conspiracy site entitled “Further Evidence that the Virus Originated in the US.”

Another Tweet by Lijian Zhao claiming to have evidence for a U.S. origin of the virus.
 

Zhao’s implication that the United States and its military could be behind Wuhan’s outbreak, even inadvertently, sparked outrage. The U.S. government summoned Cui Tiankai, the Chinese ambassador to the United States, over the remarks. Cui later publicly disavowed the U.S. military conspiracy theory, and Chinese officials have not further amplified it.

Groundless speculation about the origins of the pandemic did not begin with Zhao, but the case of his eye-catching tweets reveals how China’s changing propaganda tactics have interacted with mangled news reporting, social media conspiracy theorizing, and underlying U.S.-China tensions—all resulting in high-profile misinformation about a public health crisis. 

An examination of social media posts across Weibo, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Reddit in English, Chinese, and Japanese reveals the context and pathways that brought this particular conspiracy theory to Chinese state media and diplomatic channels. Weeks of speculation and online conspiracy theorizing about military links to the virus’ origins or emergence, combined with a broadening uncertainty about the circumstances of Wuhan’s outbreak and increasingly brittle U.S.-China rhetoric, laid the groundwork for Zhao’s inflammatory tweets and the reaction that followed.

Theories Involving the U.S. Military Circulated on Social Media as Early as January

Speculation or conspiracy theory writings about a potential role for the U.S. military in Wuhan’s outbreak circulated weeks before Zhao, the Foreign Ministry spokesperson, amplified the idea on Twitter.

Since several platforms have pledged to remove disinformation related to the origin of the coronavirus, and our research started in mid-March, some materials could have been removed. Still, speculation about a U.S. role can be traced at least as far back as January. Though the earliest speculation did not necessarily catch on, some early references include:

• January 2: a Chinese-language YouTube channel had shared a video dismissing the idea that the pneumonia in Wuhan was the result of U.S. genetic warfare, which could imply at least some dissemination of the idea prior to this. 

• January 20: a Twitter user claimed the virus was 90% similar to one that had earlier been reported to a U.S. viral gene database.

• January 21: another Twitter account wrote plainly that the “pneumonia of unknown origin in Wuhan” was caused by a “biochemical weapon developed by the U.S. military.”

• January 31: a video appearing to be an old TV segment on alleged U.S. biological warfare during the Korean war was shared to YouTube with a title asking, “Were SARS, MERS, and COVID-19 U.S. Plots?”

By February 1, Twitter activity included speculation that the virus was linked to U.S. attendance at the Military World Games, which took place in Wuhan in October 2019—an idea that featured in the conspiracy theory article Zhao shared almost six weeks later. One account posted messages in response to CNN and BBC reporting claiming that the virus emerged near the hotel where U.S. participants stayed.

A Tweet posted verbatim several times suggesting a link between the Wuhan Military World Games, the U.S. military, and the coronavirus outbreak; here in a reply to a Tweet by CNN
 

The earliest instance of allegations of U.S. involvement that we found on Facebook was a Chinese-language post on February 6 linking to a now-removed YouTube video with the title, “The United States Made the Wuhan Virus 5 Years Ago? Causes Human Infection With Infectious Pneumonia. Situation Out of Control.” The YouTube channel behind the removed video, however, is still active and has posted another video on the conspiracy theory to its 246,000 followers. 

A post on 新聞世界 (“News World”) alleges U.S. involvement in the COVID-19 outbreak and links to a video titled “美国5年前制造了武汉病毒？可致人感染传染性肺炎。局面失控。” (“The United States Made the Wuhan Virus 5 Years Ago? Causes Human Infection With Infectious Pneumonia. Situation Out of Control.”)
 

On February 21st, a now-deleted Japanese TV report suggested that COVID-19 had been active in the United States in 2019. This report was shared in various posts on Facebook and Chinese social media, which used the report as evidence to speculate that U.S. military participants in the Military World Games might have carried the virus with them.

A Facebook page sharing Chinese social media posts and an image from a Japanese TV report that had suggested COVID-19 was active in the United States in 2019. The post raises conspiracy theories.
 

From Unknown Animal Origin to Unknown Geographical Origin

Chinese state media has carried a variety of narratives about the pandemic over time, and indeed it has carried competing theories as expressed by different sources. In general, however, over the period from January leading up to the attention-getting Foreign Ministry tweets in March, reporting shifted from suspicions of animal origin to questions about whether the virus could have been carried to Wuhan by humans from another location.

• January 29: The foreign-facing state broadcaster CGTN noted that although “the exact origins of this virus are still unknown, medical researchers believe it originated from an animal.”

• February 10: CGTN shared a video on its Facebook page labeled “Facts Tell” and dismissing “bogus claims” in coronavirus-related conspiracy theories. It stated that the coronavirus is not man-made and argued against a Washington Times article speculating that the virus might have escaped from a Wuhan laboratory.

Chinese broadcaster CGTN’s February 10 video states that the novel coronavirus is not man-made
 

• February 22: The Global Times — a provocative and often nationalistic tabloid published by the Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily — cast doubt on the geographic origin of the virus, citing a Chinese study claiming that the coronavirus did not originate in the Huanan Seafood market as originally believed. 

• February 23: A Global Times article published by People’s Daily Online referenced the now-deleted Japanese TV report speculating that COVID-19 might have been active and misidentified as influenza in the United States in 2019. The article quoted social media speculation that U.S. participants in the Military World Games in October might have carried the virus to Wuhan

• February 27: The prominent Chinese doctor Zhong Nanshan remarked at a press conference that the geographic origin of the virus was still unknown and that it could have come from outside of China. His comments were carried widely, including by CGTN.

• In Facebook posts on March 5 and March 6, the official Chinese newswire Xinhua proclaimed the origin of the virus “undetermined” and suggested it may have originated outside China

• March 11: The People’s Daily on Facebook mentioned the Huanan Seafood Market as the “potential origin” of the virus.

Over a period of six weeks, official Chinese media references broadened uncertainty about COVID-19’s origins from an unknown animal to an unknown place.

Under Pressure, China’s Foreign Ministry Sows Doubt About the Outbreak’s Origins

By March 4, uncertainty about the geographic origin of the virus had made it to the Foreign Ministry spokesperson’s podium, where Zhao Lijian argued against the idea that the pandemic was a “China virus” and referenced Zhong Nanshan in saying that the outbreak first appeared in China but it may not originate there. The Chinese Embassy in South Africa amplified that point on Twitter on March 8. 

Zhao was not only expressing uncertainty about origins; he was pushing back against persistent efforts to label SARS-CoV-2 a “Chinese virus” weeks after the World Health Organization had designated the disease “COVID-19” in part to avoid stigma related to geographically-linked names like “Wuhan Coronavirus.”

The criticism aimed at China’s government over its handling of the outbreak had been wide-ranging, and U.S. officials had also engaged in some conspiracy theorizing of their own. Senator Tom Cotton, for instance, had advanced a number of unfounded or speculative theories about the virus’ origin in late January and February. A conspiracy theorist talk radio website had also claimed “proof” that the virus was a Chinese military bioweapon in an article rated “false” by Politifact. 

By the time Zhao was pushing the U.S. military import theory and his Foreign Ministry colleagues were questioning whether the virus came from China at all, therefore, the U.S.–China blame game dynamic over the virus had already incorporated unsupported theories.

Still, Zhao’s March 12 speculation on Twitter that “It might be US army [sic] who brought the epidemic to Wuhan” drew widespread public attention, as Chinese government spokespeople had long made even their more inflammatory claims from the podium, as opposed to on Twitter. 

Zhao’s tweet was in part based on testimony by U.S. CDC Director Robert Redfield that it was possible some U.S. deaths assumed to be caused by influenza were actually COVID-19 cases—a message Zhao’s boss Hua Chunying, the ministry’s top spokesperson, also leveraged to argue “It is absolutely WRONG and INAPPROPRIATE to call this the Chinese coronavirus.”

This louder, more assertive online behavior from Chinese diplomats could well be the new normal. Reuters reported that Chinese leader Xi Jinping issued handwritten instructions last year to show a “fighting spirit.”

False Narratives on COVID-19’s Origins Remain Widespread

Ultimately, Zhao’s attention-grabbing tweets and statements from the Foreign Ministry podium may or may not set the tone for future Chinese government messaging. The international reaction, and Chinese Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai’s repudiation of the most blatant misinformation, may have changed the landscape for now.

Outside the halls of officialdom, however, social media remains a fertile and shifting ground for speculation and conspiracy theories. When searching for “新冠病毒” (“novel coronavirus”) on YouTube on March 22, 2020, the second autocomplete search suggestion was “The novel coronavirus is an American genetic weapon” (““新冠病毒是美国基因武器”). Trying the term again today, on March 31, however only yields the top result from the March 22 search Li Yongle, a popular YouTube channel various educational videos on various topics. This suggests Google-owned YouTube is still, as promised, taking measures to restrict disinformation related to the origin of COVID-19.

Screenshot from March 22, 2020:  “The novel coronavirus is an American genetic weapon” (““新冠病毒是美国基因武器”) is now the second autocomplete suggestion in YouTube if one searches for “novel coronavirus” in Chinese (“新冠病毒”). Suggestions have since been restricted.
 

On Chinese video sharing platform Watermelon Video (西瓜视频), the first suggestion when searching for “U.S. Army” (“美军“) on March 23 was “What did the U.S. Army do in Wuhan” (“美军到武汉干什么”). Today it is the fourth suggestion.

Screenshot from March 23, 2020: On Chinese video sharing platform Watermelon Video (西瓜视频), the first suggestion when searching for “U.S. Army” (“美军“) is “What did the U.S. Army do in Wuhan” (“美军到武汉干什么”). Today (March 31) it comes fourth.
 

In times of uncertainty, speculation, and political blame games, continued vigilance is key when it comes to assessing and sharing information—even, or sometimes especially, when it comes from state channels. Social media companies need to maintain their efforts to proactively remove unfounded speculation and disinformation on their own platforms, regardless of who posts it. Citizens and journalists should question the intentions an actor promoting online content may have before possibly amplifying misleading voices. The COVID-19 pandemic makes careful handling of information and fact-based decision-making even more crucial than usual.

On Feb. 12, White House National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien announced that the U.S. government has “evidence that Huawei has the capability secretly to access sensitive and personal information in systems it maintains and sells around the world.” This represents the latest attempt by the Trump administration to support an argument that allied governments—and the businesses they oversee—should purge certain telecommunications networks of Huawei equipment. The position reflects the preferred approach in the United States, which is to issue outright bans against select companies (including Huawei) that meet an as-yet-unknown threshold of risk to national security.

Read the rest at Lawfare Blog

In Summer 2020, three of the top students of the Fall 2019 Stanford e-Japan distance-learning course will be honored at an event at Stanford University. The three Stanford e-Japan Day honorees—Ayano Hirose (Okayama Sozan High School), Chisaki Sano (Gunma Kokusai Academy), and Natsumi Shindo (Keio Girls Senior High School)—will be recognized by Stanford e-Japan Instructor Meiko Kotani for their coursework and exceptional research essays that focused respectively on “Three Basic Ways to Promote Cross-Cultural Understanding in Japanese Education,” “U.S.–Japan Relations: Economic Interdependence Seen in 7-Eleven Operations,” and “The U.S.–Japan Security Alliance: Its Preservation and the Responsibilities of Both Countries.”

Yuta Myojo (Rikkyo Ikebukuro High School) received an Honorable Mention for his coursework and research paper on “How Could Japanese Society Achieve Increased Biculturalism: From the Aspects of Education Reform and Self-Awareness.”

In the Fall 2019 session of Stanford e-Japan, students from the following schools successfully completed the course: Aiko Gakuen (Ehime), Gunma Kokusai Academy (Gunma), Hiroshima High School (Hiroshima), Hiroshima Prefectural Hiroshima Junior/Senior High School (Hiroshima), Hitachi First Senior High School (Ibaraki), Ichikawa Junior and Senior High School (Chiba), Keio Girls Senior High School (Tokyo), Keio Senior High School (Kanagawa), Mita International High School (Tokyo), Nishiyamato Gakuen High School (Nara), Okayama Prefecture Asahi Senior High School (Okayama), Okayama Sozan High School (Okayama), Rikkyo Ikebukuro High School (Tokyo), Ritsumeikan Uji High School (Kyoto), Sendai Shirayuri Gakuen (Miyagi), Senior High School at Otsuka, University of Tsukuba (Tokyo), Senior High School at Kyoto University (Kyoto), Shibuya Kyouiku Gakuen Shibuya Senior High School (Tokyo), Shibuya Makuhari Senior High School (Chiba), Shirayuri Gakuen Senior High School (Tokyo), Takada High School (Mie), Takatsuki Senior High School (Osaka), Tokyo City University Senior High School (Tokyo), Waseda University Senior High School (Tokyo), Yokohama Science Frontier High School (Kanagawa), and Zushi Kaisei High School (Kanagawa).

For more information about the Stanford e-Japan Program, please visit stanfordejapan.org.

To stay informed of news about Stanford e-Japan and SPICE’s other programs, join our email list and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

SPICE offers separate online courses for U.S. high school students. For more information, please see the Reischauer Scholars Program (online course about Japan), Sejong Scholars Program (online course about Korea), and China Scholars Program (online course about China).

Related articles:

• Spring 2020 Session of Stanford e-Japan Online Course Begins
• Winners Announced for the Spring 2019 Stanford e-Japan Award
• SPICE’s Stanford e-Japan Instructor Waka Takahashi Brown Honored with the Elgin Heinz Outstanding Teacher Award
• Stanford e-Japan: My Window to the Wider World