The following article is a guest post written by Thea Louise Dai, an alumna of the Spring 2022 China Scholars Program. In April 2022, Thea met Wendy Wen, an alumna of the Spring 2022 Stanford e-China Program. Currently, Thea Louise is a junior at Castilleja School in Palo Alto, California, and Wendy Wen is a junior at Beijing National Day School in Beijing, China.

In April 2022, I met Wendy Wen through a collaboration between the China Scholars Program (CSP) and Stanford e-China. Five months later, we are working together to prepare the first synchronous Zoom discussion at Project 17—a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization we founded dedicated to initiating global dialogue through synchronous discussions about the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations.

The CSP and Stanford e-China collaboration was no doubt my most stimulating academic experience to date. The two programs held four joint discussions on various climate issues over the course of several weeks. With the rare opportunity to bridge geographical and cultural divides, I finally had a chance to apply everything I had learned about China’s history, policies, and current events throughout the program in conversation with actual Chinese students, from whom I learned new perspectives. Although we only had to participate in one of the synchronous discussions, I found myself looking forward to each meeting and rearranging my schedule to attend all four.

Wendy recalls that she had a similarly eye-opening experience during the meetings. She noted, “I have always believed that the world’s largest challenges can be solved through global collaboration. After every discussion with the CSP, I left feeling inspired to know that such collaboration is possible, even for high school students.”

After meeting each other through a breakout room conversation, we immediately connected on the need for a global discussion platform targeted towards youth perspectives. Essentially, we hoped to capture the value of our experience with SPICE, and we wanted to make it even more accessible and on a larger scale. We also wanted to clear a pathway for participants to take the next steps to create tangible change on the SDGs after our discussions.

As a result, we conceptualized Project 17 in part to partner with the chapter system of the United Nation Association of the USA (UNA-USA) so that high school and college students have the unique opportunity to connect with UNA-USA officials and members across the United States. Our vision is for all participants to be able to share their perspectives on the SDGs to inform the UNA-USA chapter system. We’re also working with Stanford e-China Instructor Carey Moncaster and CSP Instructor Tanya Lee of SPICE to publish the SDG-related research and reflections of participants on larger platforms.

Project 17 hosts four annual synchronous Zoom discussions, each focused on a particular group of SDGs: Planet, People, Prosperity, and Peace & Partnership. Our first discussion about the planet will take place in November 2022 and run for two hours. Interested students can complete the registration form on the Project 17 website to apply for an opportunity to hear from SDG advocates, learn from NGO leaders, and participate in breakout room discussions with youth leaders around the world. High school and college students based in any country are eligible to participate.

Project 17 discussion structure; photo courtesy Thea Louise Dai

In the span of four months, Project 17’s outreach efforts have reached 51 cities, 47 schools, and five different countries. Participants will build connections with students from different backgrounds and develop a global mindset by engaging with new perspectives. In addition, participants can contribute to asynchronous discussion boards and the Project 17 blog, receive bimonthly newsletters about the SDGs, and receive certified service hours eligible for the President’s Volunteer Service Award.

By incorporating these opportunities into our organization, we hope to create an experience similar to the invaluable experiences that Wendy and I had through the CSP and Stanford e-China. Inspired by SPICE’s impact, we are incredibly excited to start an initiative similarly promoting international and cross-cultural collaboration. Please note that Project 17 is not a Stanford SPICE program.

For more information, visit Project 17’s website (projectseventeen.org) or contact Project 17 at contact@projectseventeen.org.

Guam, the small island territory in the Pacific Ocean, plays a unique strategic role in the United States’ Indo-Pacific strategy. In a new article, part of a Hudson Institute collection of essays on the challenges and motivations of defending Guam, Center Fellow Oriana Skylar Mastro analyzes the island’s strategic importance to the United States, China’s threats to U.S. forces on the island, and the pathways to deterrence against Chinese encroachment in the region. 

Mastro enumerates a number of reasons behind Guam’s strategic importance. First, “the Chinese missile threat to U.S. regional bases, especially those located in the first island chain, enhances the operational role of those bases sufficiently distant from China to partially mitigate the threat it poses, yet also close enough to be operationally impactful.” Guam’s geostrategic potential is rooted in its proximity to China, and represents “the westernmost location from which the U.S. can project power, manage logistics, and establish command and control.” 

In a Taiwan contingency, Mastro argues that Guam would play an important role as a logistics hub and jumping-off point for combat forces headed toward the Taiwan Strait, with the caveat that U.S. forces could maintain roughly half the sortie rate from Guam as that from Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan. Another reason behind Guam’s strategic utility comes from reliable base access, which is more reliable than in other Asian host countries.

Despite the U.S. force posture and the island’s protective distance from China, Guam remains vulnerable to Chinese intermediate-range ballistic missile attack. According to Mastro, the U.S. has systems on the island to protect against missile threats, such as a THAAD battery, but “U.S. military commanders want much more of a guarantee that the U.S. would be able to continue operations out of Guam even under Chinese missile attack.”

Given China’s ability to threaten U.S. bases on the island, Mastro proposes an “unappreciated and underutilized” pathway to deterrence: deterrence by resiliency. Similar to deterrence by punishment, which seeks to prevent adversary attacks by employing the threat of severe penalties should the adversary do so, deterrence by resiliency is based primarily on shaping adversaries’ perceptions of one’s own capabilities. “However, unlike deterrence by punishment, the goal is not to create fear of retaliation but rather to encourage the perception that disruptive events would have little effect on an adversary.” Mastro uses the term resiliency to refer to a state’s ability to both absorb and deflect costs at a given level of violence.

Mastro argues that resilience is about signaling to China that “the benefits it would derive from a particular action would actually be less than it believes them to be. Improving defenses can enhance deterrence through this mechanism, but, given its limitations, other avenues—in particular, pursuing viable alternatives and creating redundancy—should also be pursued to ensure that an attack on Guam would not cripple a U.S. war effort.”

Guam, frequently cited as the U.S.’s viable alternative to bases within the first island chain, represents a critical strategic waypoint, but as long as the U.S. is reliant on the island to fight and win a war, “China will ensure that it can effectively target the island, thus making messaging associated with Guam’s defense key.” Mastro proposes that the language about defending Guam must expand to accomodate resilience contingencies for the island’s planned defenses, which, “once in place and even under attack […] would ensure that the US could continue operations there to the degree necessary to, for example, maintain air superiority over the Taiwan Strait.” 

Whether China would accept deterrence by resilience remains to be seen, but policymakers must employ new thinking about Guam’s defense to meet the new security challenges posed by China.

Stanford e-China has been an incredible academic experience from day one.

My journey with the program started with the interview, which was an enjoyable and memorable experience. I was greeted by a warm smile the moment I entered the Zoom room, and Ms. Carey Moncaster showed genuine interest in learning about me as a person. Rather than focusing on my experiences or achievements, she wanted to know more about my personality, interests, and dreams. Ms. Moncaster and the director of SPICE, Dr. Gary Mukai, have remained passionate advisors and generous mentors to many students even after the course, including me. Over the last year and a half, they were always there when I needed advice on how to proceed with a project or wisdom on dealing with a difficult situation.

The sense of community permeated the course itself, which was designed to be highly interactive. The expert speakers gave insightful lectures, followed by long sessions of Q&A. I can still remember my excitement at being able to ask Mr. Roy Ng, our fintech speaker, three questions after his seminar, where he explained how blockchain could help us reach the unbanked. In fact, my current obsession almost perfectly mirrors that topic—exploring how Central Bank Digital Currencies can help facilitate financial inclusion to mitigate inequality. That session made me realize that social entrepreneurship and tech-based solutions will be key players in upholding justice.

The Q&A was also a chance for my cohort to learn from each other. We bonded over our productive, collaborative, and enthusiastic discussions, and many of us stayed in touch after the course. Over the last year and a half, I have grown to be close friends with my fellow honoree, Jason Li. After meeting in person when he visited Shanghai, we decided to co-found a platform to connect students across the globe. Inspired by the diverse community of brilliant students we saw at Stanford e-China, we developed SPOT. The acronym stands for Student Projects Organized Together, and we hope to bring together an international network of passionate youth. We believe that together, we undertake global initiatives that make tangible impacts. Our website is www.spotaproject.com.

Last but not least, e-China has helped me with my work in social justice. Design Thinking has not only aided in my endeavors with SPOT but also in my other initiatives, including the Law Association for Crimes Across History (LACAH) mock trial, where we put perpetrators of atrocities on the stand (lacah.net). Dora Gan from my e-China cohort is actually a member of our Youth Council! Design Thinking’s methodical approach helped us scale up rapidly, and we were recently honored by the EARCOS Global Citizen Grant.

Throughout high school, I have learned a lot from a wide range of outstanding programs. I have also met many other fabulous peers through them. However, it is not every day that a course leaves such a significant impact, continuing to play a role in my life long after its conclusion. Stanford e-China is truly an exceptional experience. I am very thankful to have been a part of the first cohort.

SPICE is currently accepting applications for the Fall 2022 term of the China Scholars Program, an intensive, college-level online course on contemporary China for U.S. high school students. The China Scholars Program (CSP) is open to rising 10th, 11th, and 12th graders across the United States.

Stanford University China Scholars Program for high school students
Fall 2022 session (late August through December)
Application period: April 25 to June 15, 2022

Designed to provide high-achieving high school students a rich and comprehensive online learning experience, the CSP offers college-level instruction provided by scholars from Stanford University and other top-tier colleges and universities that is unparalleled in other distance-learning courses for high school students. During the synchronous virtual classroom sessions, students engage in live discourse with Stanford professors, leading scholars from other universities and organizations, and former diplomats. This unique opportunity to learn directly from noted scholars at the cutting edge of their fields is a distinctive element of the China Scholars Program. Students who complete the course will be equipped with a rare degree of expertise about China and international relations that may have a significant impact on their choice of study and future career.

“This program has been one of the most enriching and fun ones I’ve gotten the chance to participate in,” said Sana Pandey, a recent alum of the program. “I’m beyond grateful to have had the opportunity. Especially during the chaos of COVID and the initial phases of quarantine, CSP was an amazing anchor and a way to make sure I was intellectually engaged while the rest of the world seemed to stagnate. I honestly loved every second.”

More information on the China Scholars Program is available at http://chinascholars.org. Interested high school students should apply now at https://spicestanford.smapply.io/prog/china_scholars_program/. The deadline to apply is June 15, 2022.

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The China Scholars Program is one of several online courses offered by SPICE, Stanford University.

This commentary was first published in The Hill.

The future sustainability of the Earth cannot do without the coordinated actions of its two largest carbon polluters — the United States and China.

The most recent highlight in that realm is the U.S.-China Joint Glasgow Declaration on Enhancing Climate Action in the 2020s at the UN climate change conference COP26 in November 2021. The joint statement, which came during a turbulent time in U.S.-China relations, was both surprising and valued. The declaration reaffirms both nations’ commitment to “tackling [climate change] through their respective accelerated actions in the critical decade of the 2020s, as well as through cooperation in multilateral processes.”

The declaration also calls for “concrete actions in the 2020s to reduce emissions aimed at keeping the Paris Agreement-aligned temperature limit within reach,” including in the areas of methane reduction, decarbonization and forest protection. 

While the declaration represents a promising step forward and offers reassurances about new momentum for sustained future cooperation, it offers few details regarding concrete plans, nor the opportunities and challenges to enact and implement those plans.

Last fall, we at Stanford University partnered with Peking University to convene a series of discussions on a broad range of themes around U.S.-China collaboration on climate change, such as global sustainable finance, corporate climate pledges, as well as opportunities and challenges for the acceleration of decarbonization in both countries in general — both nationally and by sector — with particular emphasis on power, transportation and industry. The outcomes and insights were synthesized in a report on how to accelerate decarbonization in China and the United States, in which we highlight two urgent recommendations to facilitate constructive cooperation between both nations as they tackle growing environmental challenges.

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First, we need open-science research and development (R&D) collaboration.

Second, we need to be explicitly cognizant of political and institutional constraints.

This is necessary in order to translate promises into progress while protecting social benefits and their equitable distribution amid the green energy transition. As noted in both the joint declaration and our report, bilateral dialogues so far remain very high-level. We need future discussions and workshops at the sectoral and local levels to develop concrete plans. In enacting and implementing concrete plans, political and institutional constraints can pose real obstacles, as demonstrated by China’s past and ongoing efforts to control air pollution.

Hence, strong support from both national and local governments will be critical. As a first step, we need to gain a good understanding of who the relevant actors are in both policymaking and implementation and the incentives they face.

In this period of transition when there are still regional mismatches between energy supply and demand, it is too easy to let short-term needs push climate mitigation goals to the bottom of the barrel to address regional energy shortages. In both countries policymakers and those charged with implementation face multiple and sometimes conflicting goals. The prioritization of goals is shaped by incentive structures. Fostering incentive structures conducive to decarbonization is particularly important during the transitional period when consensus around goals and priorities is less clear. 

Furthermore, it is time to standardize standards. A recurring theme across our discussions is the need for shared, clearly specified regulatory frameworks and standards across both nations. Harmonizing standards will expedite trade, validation, accounting, climate pledges and environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) evaluation.

Only if there is standardization can organizations be required to follow unified disclosure practices for making available important information like the amount of carbon emitted. We need to make and implement more legislation to encourage a faster pace of decarbonization, and having unified terminology and standards is conducive to both effective carbon legislation and policy implementation. Common terminology and standards will provide a basis for carbon legislation. Having clearly stipulated standards and procedures can also make implementation easier and more straightforward. 

Last but not least, we are hopeful about the future of U.S.-China cooperation on climate change and believe that universities can play a significant role in the global energy transition. Universities are often the birthplaces of innovative technology, training grounds for talent from across the globe, as well as conveners of bilateral and multilateral dialogues. We hope the governments on both sides of the Pacific will work together to hammer out the needed details to build the momentum and make a real impact in the fight against global climate change. 

Shiran Victoria Shen is the W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell national fellow at Stanford University’s  Hoover Institution, as well as an assistant professor of environmental politics at the University of Virginia. 

Jean C. Oi is the William Haas professor of Chinese politics, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies, as well as the director of Stanford University’s China Program. She is also the Lee Shau Kee director of the Stanford Center at Peking University. 

Yi Cui is the director of Stanford University’s Precourt Institute for Energy, as well as professor of materials science and engineering. He is a senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, and professor, by courtesy, of Chemistry, Stanford University. 

Liang Min is managing director of the Bits & Watts Initiative of the Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford University. 

This commentary first appeared in Foreign Policy.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been a double disaster for President Vladimir Putin, as he faces a poorly performing military combined with an inability to shield his country from economic punishment. Both of these possibilities historically have also been sources of apprehension for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). But China’s leadership turned its anxiety into action about 10 years ago, deliberately working to fix many of the problems and minimize the risks currently plaguing Russia in Ukraine.

One result is that the Chinese military is more likely to perform well even though it has not fought a war since 1979, when it lost thousands of troops in a punitive but brief invasion of Vietnam. Adding to that, China’s economy is both far larger and deliberately more diversified than Russia’s. A sanctions effort like the one presently aimed at Russia would be much harder to sustain against China. These two observations do not mean deterrence won’t hold, only that the unfolding events in Ukraine will likely do little to make Beijing more cautious.

Nearly everyone overestimated Russia’s military capabilities—including probably Putin himself. During its invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s air-ground coordination has been ineffective, and Russian forces have shown risk-adverse tendencies in the air. Russia has also struggled with logistics and keeping its military supplied. Notably, it appears that Russia acted on bad intelligence and therefore did not believe initial strikes that maxed out its firepower were necessary. Furthermore, many Russian weapons platforms are outdated (for example, its Cold War-era tanks), and modern Su-57 fighter jets and T-14 Armata tanks only exist in comparatively small numbers.

The Chinese military used to clearly exhibit the same deficiencies. But over the past decade, it has embraced significant reforms, creating a much more capable fighting force that should give even the United States pause.

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First, while Russia allowed its conventional capabilities to atrophy, Chinese military spending has exploded over the past three decades, increasing by 740 percent (in comparison to Russia’s 69 percent) from 1992 to 2017. According to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, China spent almost four times on its military in 2020 than Russia ($244.9 billion to $66.8 billion). In 1999, less than 2 percent of its fighter jets were fourth-generation, 4 percent of its attack submarines were modern, and none of its surface ships were. Twenty years later, not only did China have much more of everything, but the majority was the most advanced, modern versions available—with China exhibiting advantages over Russia, even in combat aircraft, a traditional area of weakness for China.

Indeed, People’s Liberation Army (PLA) commentators often refer to China’s economic might as one of the reasons their military would outperform Russia’s—Russia has been “stingy” with its military modernization and production of precision-guided munitions primarily because of a lack of resources. By contrast, China has more than 2,200 conventionally armed ballistic and cruise missiles, making the PLA Rocket Force the world’s largest ground-based missile force. Estimates place the number of missiles positioned against Taiwan alone at around 1,000.

Russia’s poor performance does remind us that it takes more than just a lot of fancy systems to win a war (though having more advanced systems and more of them surely would have helped). The human element of Russia’s failures is front and center. Putin probably did not have an open and honest communication channel with the military, which was fearful of providing unfavorable information to the erratic leader. Russian troops were largely considered incompetent, but Putin thought superior technology could overcome human deficiencies.

Chinese President Xi Jinping identified similar training and competency issues in the PLA 10 years ago. But under his command, the PLA has been proactively implementing significant reforms to avoid similar pitfalls. And unlike Putin, who apparently believed technology could overcome deficiencies in personnel, Xi came to the opposite conclusion. When he came to power, he took one look at the military and recognized that with all its fancy equipment, the PLA probably could not fight and win wars and perform the missions it had been assigned. Of particular importance, according to China’s national military strategy, was to fight local wars under informationalized conditions. This meant that the network between platforms and people—the ease of connectivity—was the main feature of modern warfare. China needed the best equipment; an advanced command, control, computers, communication, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) network; and tons of precision-guided munitions. But perhaps most importantly, it needed troops that could leverage these systems to conduct seamless operations across services and top-down through the chain of command.

What followed was a series of slogans—the two incompatibles, two inabilities, two big gaps, the five incapables—all designed to point out the organizational and personnel issues of the military and focus leadership attention and resources on fixing the issue. A massive military reorganization followed with moves such as reorganizing effective combat units to be smaller so that they can mobilize more quickly and can remain self-sufficient for long periods of time. This means, in contrast with the Russian military, the PLA will likely have less reliance on generals at the front lines. China also established theater commands to facilitate joint operations and prioritized realism in its military exercises to help it prepare for real combat. Part of all of this was Xi’s demand that the military communicate its failures and weaknesses so that they could be addressed. Moreover, to improve command and control, China has moved toward engaging in multidomain joint operations all while standing up a new joint operations center that will ensure that, unlike with the Russian military, orders will be communicated and understood at the lowest levels. Indeed, the main reason that Xi has not yet made a play for Taiwan is likely his desire to hone this command and control structure and practice joint operations in realistic conditions for a few more years—a cautious and pragmatic approach that the situation in Ukraine only encourages further.

The PLA itself acknowledges that it still has some distance to go with training, particularly with regard to joint operations, but it looks as if the hard work is paying off. The complexity and scale of China’s national military exercises are eye-opening. It takes a great deal of planning, synchronization, and coordination to take service-level operations to the joint level. China appears to have made great strides in this area. The United States has observed, for example, China executing deep-attack air operations in its exercises that have combined intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) with multi-domain strike; lift for rapid mobility and advanced fighter manuevers. Russia has relied heavily on artillery and tanks, now and historically, while the PLA is showing a more balanced approach to combined arms operations.

For all these reasons, we should not expect the Chinese military to perform as poorly in its first real military operation since 1979. The PLA is structurally superior to the Russian military. And the Chinese know it. Granted, it’s hard to know whether some of the outlandish claims in the Chinese media are true—that the PLA Air Force would actually “be able to take out the Ukrainian air force in one hour.” But one thing is for certain—the Chinese military is learning lessons from Ukraine, whether it is to stockpile more precision-guided munitions, ensure solid command and control, or cut off internet access to prevent the leaking of information to the West, which will only serve to improve its warfighting capability in the future.

U.S.-based donors and international organizations have long dominated the development sector, but their Asian peers are increasingly challenging Western hegemony in the field, argues APARC Postdoctoral Fellow in Contemporary Asia Mary-Collier Wilks.

Wilks is currently at work on a book project that examines variation in ‘aid chains,’ or the links through which programs travel from donors to international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), and finally to implementing partners. Her ethnographic research examines two aid chains focused on the delivery of women’s health services in Cambodia. After completing her residency at APARC this summer, she will head to the University of North Carolina Wilmington to start a tenure track position at the Department of Sociology.

In the following Q&A, Wilks discusses her research and fellowship experience at Stanford. The interview was slightly edited for length and clarity.

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Your research centers on meaning-making and power dynamics in international organizations. What drew you to this topic?

Before going to graduate school, I worked at a Cambodian NGO, Social Services of Cambodia, that implemented social welfare programs for women and children. While there, I observed conversations between the foreign director, local staff, donors, and beneficiaries, and noticed how these interactions shaped SSC’s work. I was particularly struck by how differently donors from various nations defined gender empowerment. These questions evolved into a desire to go to graduate school and study how donor differences impact international development programs in Southeast Asia.

You are working on your first book. Can you tell us a bit about what to expect from it?

During my postdoctoral fellowship at APARC, I’m focusing on transforming my dissertation into a book. Learning to write a book is a difficult, unique, and rewarding process in and of itself! It’s still a work in progress, but the book argues that the global development sector is shifting. Donors and international organizations based in the United States, Europe, and Australia have long been dominant actors, producing prevailing global norms around “good development.” However, East Asian nations are increasingly vying for influence and offering new, alternative models for development. As a case study of these transformations, I conduct a multi-sited ethnography of two INGOs, one from the United States and the other from Japan, that implement development programs in Cambodia.

I see Cambodian practitioners render the above geopolitical transformations meaningful in their own lives by discussing two “development imaginaries” or narratives about the best way for society to develop, one “Asian” and the other “Western.” Consequently, I contend Cambodia is a case of a larger phenomenon in which Asian donors and development organizations are playing a more prominent role, challenging Western hegemony in the development sector and producing new development norms. This book is therefore trying to tell a dual story about the macro-level geopolitical transformations taking place in the development space in Cambodia, and Asia more generally, and the micro-level meanings, practices, and contradictions that these changes create in the lives of the people living through them.

You have mentioned your interest in how people encounter international development and foreign aid in their everyday lives. What are some aspects of those encounters that you find revealing about the dynamics of global development?

Cambodia is a nation where international donors have a lot of power. But, that’s never the whole story. Development is never just donor-driven. In my work, I try to center the ways Cambodian practitioners make sense of, adapt, or resist donor visions of their nation’s development.

For instance, during my fieldwork, I met an NGO director who I’ll call Rith and whose career trajectory can provide us with some insights. Rith was born in 1979, at the very end of the Khmer Rouge regime. In his twenties, he decided to become a monk to bring merit to his family. In the late 1990s, Rith started noticing the influx of foreign aid funding and the proliferating numbers of international and local NGOs in his country. In 2000, he decided to quit being a monk to open an NGO. He turned out to be a savvy fundraiser, securing funding for his NGO to implement multiple health, education, and economic empowerment projects. However, when I met him in 2019, Rith told me he thought “it might be time to change paths” because NGO funding from Western donors “is not like it was ten years ago.” Two years later, he became the co-CEO of a private construction and sourcing company that takes advantage of the numerous infrastructure development loans China provides to Cambodia.

You can therefore observe how the larger geopolitical changes Cambodia undergoes play out in a micro-way in Rith’s strategic career choices as he shifts from being a monk to an NGO director to a CEO.

What do you see as some of the biggest challenges to delivering aid via INGOs?

There are several answers to this question floating around in my data. One that immediately comes to mind is synchronization. Despite a shared aim of improving women’s health, INGOs from the United States and Japan implement very different kinds of programs in Cambodia. Japanese INGOs focus on strengthening government-provided maternal health services in Cambodia. In contrast, U.S. organizations are more likely to promote a diverse maternal and reproductive healthcare sector, including private providers and civil society advocacy. I’ve also found that INGOs that originate in the United States and Japan are unaware of each other’s distinctive projects. Often, U.S. INGO directors and donors don’t even know Japanese NGOs exist!

While they work with different stakeholders, I believe that projects that support a strong state and those that encourage the market and nonprofit actors could be synchronized for more effective aid. To start with, U.S.-based INGOs sometimes try to upgrade private clinics, provide education, and refer beneficiaries to women’s health services in the same regions where Japanese INGOs support public clinics. On a basic level, if you could just get the INGO directors from Japan and the U.S. organizations that are working in the same areas to sit down together, U.S. INGO health educators might be able to do things like referring to improved private and public clinics if they know which public clinics the Japanese INGO works with, or collaborate on healthcare provision training for private and public clinic doctors.  

Beyond your book project, what are you working on while at APARC? How has your time here advanced your research?

The main thing a postdoctoral fellowship affords is the privilege of time to read and write. Outside of the book project, I have been able to work on two other papers while here at Stanford. One article proposes to theorize the process of “script decoupling” and why INGOs might formally adopt the same global script but enact it very differently in implementation. The second paper investigates how the meanings of aid money in NGOs is shaped by the business cultures of donor and recipient nations. I plan to have both papers under review before I leave APARC at the end of July.

Being at APARC has provided me with numerous opportunities to discover insightful, new perspectives on my research projects and career prospects from my postdoctoral advisor, Kiyoteru Tsutsui, as well as various other faculty, fellows, and associates here. For instance, Kiyo is starting a Japanese studies lunch-and-learning session where fellows get to meet and discuss their research. I’m particularly interested in the policy-oriented lectures and learning how to articulate that side of my research since that’s something I wasn’t taught to do in graduate school. Overall, my time at Stanford has been invigorating for my research and writing process. I’ve enjoyed being part of the learning community at FSI and the university at large, and have greatly benefited from connecting with different scholars and working groups across campus.

Has the Covid-19 pandemic affected your ability to travel and do research? How have you adapted?

I was incredibly lucky because I completed my international fieldwork in the fall of 2019. So I was able to collect all the data I needed for my dissertation before the pandemic hit us hard. But, due to Covid, I was not able to do the follow-up field visits that I wanted to do in order to find out what happened when the two INGOs I studied completed their projects. Also, continuing connections in the field for new ideas and the next research project is important for an ethnographer. I have done what I could to catch up with Cambodian friends and practitioners over Zoom. Now that Cambodia has lifted its quarantine requirements, I may be able to return this summer. 

What is on the horizon for you? What's next?

As I have wanted to be a college professor since I was 19 (after I gave up my dream of being a pop singer), I’m extremely happy to share I was offered a tenure track position in the Department of Sociology at the University of North Carolina Wilmington! I’ll be starting there in the fall and continuing my research on international development and Southeast Asia.