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Big Data China logo
The event will be webcast live from this page.


In this event on October 14 at 8 a.m. PT / 11 a.m. ET, the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions (SCCEI) and the CSIS Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics present their latest Big Data China publication. The feature provides an overview of what the latest data-driven research says about the impact of trade with China on employment trends in the United States. It also provides a comparative analysis with other countries. The analysis shows that there are various interpretations on the topic with important policy implications.

Trustee Chair Director Scott Kennedy will host the event, which will include an introduction by Professor Scott Rozelle of Stanford University. Professors André Kurmann of Drexel University and Zhi Wang of George Mason University will discuss their research on the topic, followed by a discussion on the implications for U.S.-China relations and U.S. policy with distinguished panelists Anna Ashton of the Eurasia Group and Jeremie Waterman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. 
 

WATCH THE RECORDING

FEATURING

Scott Rozelle 
Co-director at Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
Jeremie Waterman 
President, China Center, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
André Kurmann  
Professor of Economics, LeBow College of Business, Drexel University
Anna Ashton 
Director, China Corporate Affairs and U.S.-China, Eurasia Group
Zhi Wang 
Senior Policy Fellow, Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University
Scott Kennedy 
Senior Adviser and Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics
  

EVENT PARTNERS
 

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SCCEI and CSIS logos

Virtual Livestream 

Anna Ashton
Scott Kennedy
André Kurmann
Scott Rozelle
Jeremie Waterman
Zhi Wang
Panel Discussions
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Seminar Recording

About the Event: In this seminar, energy and natural resources sector policies of the three former communist countries in Asia - Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan - in close geographic proximity to Russia and China will be considered. There are similarities in the nature of transition from communist regime to democratic societies in these three states, although major differences in social and cultural issues exist. The reliance on energy in neighboring countries Russia and China as well as export of raw materials to these markets have major influence on specific policy agenda. Particular attention is given to energy minerals and trade balance and imbalance thereof. 

About the Speaker: Dr. Undraa Agvaanluvsan currently serves as the president of Mitchell Foundation for Arts and Sciences. She is also an Asia21 fellow of the Asia Society and co-chair of Mongolia chapter of the Women Corporate Directors, a global organization of women serving in public and private corporate boards. During 2021-22, she served on the WCD Global Committee on Diversity and Inclusion. Dr. Undraa Agvaanluvsan is a former Member of Parliament of Mongolia and the chair of the Parliamentary subcommittee on Sustainable Development Goals. Prior to being elected as a legislator, she served as an Ambassador-at-large in charge of nuclear security issues at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mongolia, where she worked on nuclear energy and fuel cycle, uranium and rareearth minerals development policy. She is a nuclear physicist by training, obtained her PhD at North Carolina State University, USA and diploma in High Energy Physics at the International Center for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy. She conducted research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, USA and taught energy policy at International Policy Studies Program at Stanford University, where she was a Science fellow and visiting professor at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation. She published more than 90 papers, conference proceedings, and articles on neutron and proton induced nuclear reactions, the nuclear level density and radiative strength functions, quantum chaos and the Random Matrix Theory, including its application to the modeling of electric-grid resilience.

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

William J. Perry Conference Room

Undraa Agvaanluvsan
Seminars
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SCCEI Fall Seminar Series 


Tuesday, December 6, 2022      11:00 am -12:15 pm Pacific Time

Goldman Room E401, Encina Hall, 616 Jane Stanford Way | Zoom Meeting 


Gaslighting: How Comment Section Controls on Social Media Shapes Public Opinion in China

Existing literature on information manipulation in authoritarian regimes has examined government strategies for censorship and propaganda separately. This project seeks to bridge the gap by focusing on the intersection of propaganda and censorship in China, where government-affiliated accounts post propaganda content on social media and moderate comments under these posts. To do so, we collect a massive amount of high-frequency user engagement data of top government-affiliated accounts on Sina Weibo, followed by three online survey experiments to investigate effect mechanisms. We show that comment section controls effectively shift public opinion in favor of the government by changing the public’s second-order beliefs of the government or government policies. 


About the Speaker 
 

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Headshot of Dr. Yiqing Xu.

Yiqing Xu is an Assistant Professor at Department of Political Science, Stanford University. His primary research covers methodology and comparative politics, focusing on China. He received a PhD in Political Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2016), an MA in Economics from China Center for Economic Research at Peking University (2010) and a BA in Economics (2007) from Fudan University.

His work has appeared in American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Political Analysis, Political Science Research and Methods, among other peer-reviewed journals. He has won several professional awards, including the best article award from American Journal of Political Science in 2016 and the Miller Prize (2018, 2020) for the best work appearing in Political Analysis the preceding year.


Seminar Series Moderators

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Headshot of Dr. Scott Rozelle

Scott Rozelle is the Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow and the co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research at Stanford University.  For the past 30 years, he has worked on the economics of poverty reduction. Currently, his work on poverty has its full focus on human capital, including issues of rural health, nutrition and education. For the past 20 year, Rozelle has been the chair of the International Advisory Board of the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Most recently, Rozelle's research focuses on the economics of poverty and inequality, with an emphasis on rural education, health and nutrition in China. In recognition of this work, Dr. Rozelle has received numerous honors and awards. Among them, he became a Yangtse Scholar (Changjiang Xuezhe) in Renmin University of China in 2008. In 2008 he also was awarded the Friendship Award by Premiere Wen Jiabao, the highest honor that can be bestowed on a foreigner. 

 

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hongbin li headshot

Hongbin Li is the Co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions, and a Senior Fellow of Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). Hongbin obtained his Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University in 2001 and joined the economics department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), where he became full professor in 2007. He was also one of the two founding directors of the Institute of Economics and Finance at the CUHK. He taught at Tsinghua University in Beijing 2007-2016 and was C.V. Starr Chair Professor of Economics in the School of Economics and Management. He founded the Chinese College Student Survey (CCSS) in 2009 and the China Employer-Employee Survey (CEES) in 2014.

Hongbin’s research has been focused on the transition and development of the Chinese economy, and the evidence-based research results have been both widely covered by media outlets and well read by policy makers around the world. He is currently the co-editor of the Journal of Comparative Economics.


A NOTE ON LOCATION

This seminar is a hybrid event. Please join us in person in the Goldman Conference Room located within Encina Hall on the 4th floor of the East wing, or join remotely via Zoom.

Questions? Contact Heather Rahimi at hrahimi@stanford.edu


 

Scott Rozelle
Hongbin Li

Hybrid Event: Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall | Zoom Meeting

Seminars
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SCCEI Fall Seminar Series 


Tuesday, November 15, 2022      11:00 am -12:15 pm Pacific Time

Goldman Room E401, Encina Hall, 616 Jane Stanford Way | Zoom Meeting 


Inequality by Design: China’s Distinctive Political Economy

With modest income differences and virtually no private wealth four decades ago, China’s inequalities of income and wealth are now almost as extreme as in the United States and Russia. This development is more puzzling than commonly recognized, and analyses of the determinants of household income do not address its institutional origins. Widening inequality is a byproduct of China’s highly distinctive political economy, which is designed to preserve communist party control and enforce the priorities of the central state. These include an enduringly large capital-intensive state sector supported by a financial system unusually reliant on state-owned banks; a tax base highly dependent on business volume rather than profits; a distorted fiscal system that drives local governments into property development; and political constraints on documenting and taxing private assets. These structures create large concentrations of capital and favor those with access to it, transferring incomes from households to corporations while crippling the state’s capacity to remediate resulting inequalities.


About the Speaker 
 

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Andrew G. Walder

Andrew Walder is the Denise O'Leary and Kent Thiry Professor at Stanford University, where he is also a senior fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute. Previously, he served as chair of the department of sociology, and as director of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and of the Division of International, Comparative and Area Studies.

A political sociologist, Walder has long specialized on the sources of conflict, stability, and change in communist regimes and their successor states. His publications on China have ranged from the political and economic organization of the Mao era to changing patterns of stratification, social mobility, and political conflict in the post-Mao era. His current research focuses on popular political mobilization in late-1960s China and the subsequent collapse and rebuilding of the Chinese party-state. He holds an AB from Johns Hopkins University and a PhD from the University of Michigan.


Seminar Series Moderators

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Headshot of Dr. Scott Rozelle

Scott Rozelle is the Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow and the co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research at Stanford University.  For the past 30 years, he has worked on the economics of poverty reduction. Currently, his work on poverty has its full focus on human capital, including issues of rural health, nutrition and education. For the past 20 year, Rozelle has been the chair of the International Advisory Board of the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Most recently, Rozelle's research focuses on the economics of poverty and inequality, with an emphasis on rural education, health and nutrition in China. In recognition of this work, Dr. Rozelle has received numerous honors and awards. Among them, he became a Yangtse Scholar (Changjiang Xuezhe) in Renmin University of China in 2008. In 2008 he also was awarded the Friendship Award by Premiere Wen Jiabao, the highest honor that can be bestowed on a foreigner. 

 

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hongbin li headshot

Hongbin Li is the Co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions, and a Senior Fellow of Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). Hongbin obtained his Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University in 2001 and joined the economics department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), where he became full professor in 2007. He was also one of the two founding directors of the Institute of Economics and Finance at the CUHK. He taught at Tsinghua University in Beijing 2007-2016 and was C.V. Starr Chair Professor of Economics in the School of Economics and Management. He founded the Chinese College Student Survey (CCSS) in 2009 and the China Employer-Employee Survey (CEES) in 2014.

Hongbin’s research has been focused on the transition and development of the Chinese economy, and the evidence-based research results have been both widely covered by media outlets and well read by policy makers around the world. He is currently the co-editor of the Journal of Comparative Economics.


A NOTE ON LOCATION

This seminar is a hybrid event. Please join us in person in the Goldman Conference Room located within Encina Hall on the 4th floor of the East wing, or join remotely via Zoom.

Questions? Contact Heather Rahimi at hrahimi@stanford.edu


 

Scott Rozelle
Hongbin Li

Hybrid Event: Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall | Zoom Meeting

Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University
Encina Hall E301
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 723-4560 (650) 723-6530
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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Denise O'Leary and Kent Thiry Professor
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PhD

Andrew G. Walder is the Denise O'Leary and Kent Thiry Professor at Stanford University, where he is also a senior fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Previously, he served as Chair of the Department of Sociology, Director of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, and Head of the Division of International, Comparative and Area Studies in the School of Humanities and Sciences.

Walder has long specialized in the sources of conflict, stability, and change in communist regimes and their successor states. His publications on Mao-era China have ranged from the social and economic organization of that early period to the popular political mobilization of the late 1960s and the subsequent collapse and rebuilding of the Chinese party-state. His publications on post-Mao China have focused on the evolving pattern of stratification, social mobility, and inequality, with an emphasis on variation in the trajectories of post-state socialist systems. His current research is on the growth and evolution of China’s large modern corporations, both state and private, after the shift away from the Soviet-inspired command economy.

Walder joined the Stanford faculty in 1997. He received his Ph.D. in sociology at the University of Michigan in 1981 and taught at Columbia University before moving to Harvard in 1987. From 1995 to 1997, he headed the Division of Social Sciences at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Walder has received fellowships and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the National Academy of Sciences, the Henry Luce Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. His books and articles have won awards from the American Sociological Association, the Association for Asian Studies, and the Social Science History Association. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

His recent and forthcoming books include  Fractured Rebellion: The Beijing Red Guard Movement  (Harvard University Press, 2009);  China Under Mao: A Revolution Derailed  (Harvard University Press, 2015);  Agents of Disorder: Inside China’s Cultural Revolution  (Harvard University Press, 2019); and  A Decade of Upheaval: The Cultural Revolution in Feng County  (Princeton University Press, 2021) (with Dong Guoqiang); and Civil War in Guangxi: The Cultural Revolution on China’s Southern Periphery (Stanford University Press, 2023).  

His recent articles include “After State Socialism: Political Origins of Transitional Recessions.” American Sociological Review  80, 2 (April 2015) (with Andrew Isaacson and Qinglian Lu); “The Dynamics of Collapse in an Authoritarian Regime: China in 1967.”  American Journal of Sociology  122, 4 (January 2017) (with Qinglian Lu); “The Impact of Class Labels on Life Chances in China,”  American Journal of Sociology  124, 4 (January 2019) (with Donald J. Treiman); and “Generating a Violent Insurgency: China’s Factional Warfare of 1967-1968.” American Journal of Sociology 126, 1 (July 2020) (with James Chu).

Director Emeritus of the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Director Emeritus of the Division of International, Comparative and Area Studies
Faculty Affiliate at the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
Faculty Fellow at the Stanford Center at Peking University, July to November of 2013
Graduate Seminar Instructor at the Stanford Center at Peking University, August to September of 2017
Seminars
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Portraits of Myung Hwan Yu and Gi-Wook Shin with text about Oct 18 webinar on the implications of US-China competition for South Korea

This event is part of APARC’s 2022 Fall webinar seriesAsian Perspectives on the US-China Competition.

With rising Sino-U.S. tensions, South Korea has increasingly been in a difficult position to choose policy decisions that may tilt it towards one hegemon or the other. The new Yoon Administration signaled its strengthened alliance with the U.S. by attending the NATO summit and joining the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), but there are concerns that such actions run the risks of potential economic backlash from China. With increasing tensions between the U.S. and China, what diplomatic and economic options are left for South Korea? How does the domestic political environment such as the rise of anti-China sentiments and the return of pro-alliance conservatives back to power influence South Korea’s outlook on international affairs? Former South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung Hwan, in conversation with Professor Gi-Wook Shin, will discuss the South Korean perspective on the rising U.S.-China rivalry.

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Myung Hwan Yu, former foreign minister of South Korea

 Myung Hwan Yu, former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of South Korea, also served as Ambassador to Israel, Japan and Philippines, and as Minister of the Permanent Mission to UN. His experience extends across a broad range of issues in international relations including trade, security and nuclear negotiations with North Korea. After his retirement from the foreign ministry, Ambassador Yu was board chairman of the Sejong University in Seoul, visiting scholar in the Korea Program at APARC; and he is currently a senior advisor at Kim & Chang Law Office.

This event is made possible by generous support from the Korea Foundation and other friends of the Korea Program.

Gi-Wook Shin

Via Zoom: Register at https://bit.ly/3LjfeMW

Myung Hwan Yu <i>former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of South Korea</i>
Seminars
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SCCEI Fall Seminar Series 


Tuesday, October 18, 2022      11:00 am -12:15 pm Pacific Time

Goldman Room E401, Encina Hall, 616 Jane Stanford Way | Zoom Meeting 


Sovereign-Biopolitics and Tobacco’s Annihilation of China's Male State

This talk takes up a historical and theoretical puzzle: how has it come to be that nation states, which are run by men, are reputedly biopolitical in design yet facilitate their male citizens' exposure to the greatest cause of preventable death today. The analytical answer offered centers around a phenomenon long ago dubbed the pharmakon, something that simultaneously heals and poisons. The story told here is a smoky one, wafting across territorial boundaries, epochs, big business plays, and an uncanny cast of characters. 


About the Speaker

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Matthew Kohrman photo from Zoom.

 Matthew Kohrman is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and a SCCEI Faculty Affiliate. His research and writing bring anthropological methods to bear on the ways health, culture, and politics are interrelated. Focusing on the People's Republic of China, he engages various intellectual terrains such as governmentality, gender theory, political economy, critical science studies, narrativity, and embodiment. His first monograph, Bodies of Difference: Experiences of Disability and Institutional Advocacy in the Making of Modern China, raises questions about how embodied aspects of human existence, such as our gender, such as our ability to propel ourselves through space as walkers, cyclists and workers, become founts for the building of new state apparatuses of social provision, in particular, disability-advocacy organizations. Over the last decade, Prof. Kohrman has been involved in research aimed at analyzing and intervening in the biopolitics of cigarette smoking among Chinese citizens. This work, as seen in his recently edited volume--Poisonous Pandas: Chinese Cigarette Manufacturing in Critical Historical Perspectives--expands upon heuristic themes of his earlier disability research and engages in novel ways techniques of public health, political philosophy, and spatial history. More recently, he has begun projects linking ongoing interests at the intersection of phenomenology and political economy with questions regarding environmental attunement and the arts.


Seminar Series Moderators

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Headshot of Dr. Scott Rozelle

Scott Rozelle is the Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow and the co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research at Stanford University.  For the past 30 years, he has worked on the economics of poverty reduction. Currently, his work on poverty has its full focus on human capital, including issues of rural health, nutrition and education. For the past 20 year, Rozelle has been the chair of the International Advisory Board of the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Most recently, Rozelle's research focuses on the economics of poverty and inequality, with an emphasis on rural education, health and nutrition in China. In recognition of this work, Dr. Rozelle has received numerous honors and awards. Among them, he became a Yangtse Scholar (Changjiang Xuezhe) in Renmin University of China in 2008. In 2008 he also was awarded the Friendship Award by Premiere Wen Jiabao, the highest honor that can be bestowed on a foreigner. 

 

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hongbin li headshot

Hongbin Li is the Co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions, and a Senior Fellow of Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). Hongbin obtained his Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University in 2001 and joined the economics department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), where he became full professor in 2007. He was also one of the two founding directors of the Institute of Economics and Finance at the CUHK. He taught at Tsinghua University in Beijing 2007-2016 and was C.V. Starr Chair Professor of Economics in the School of Economics and Management. He founded the Chinese College Student Survey (CCSS) in 2009 and the China Employer-Employee Survey (CEES) in 2014.

Hongbin’s research has been focused on the transition and development of the Chinese economy, and the evidence-based research results have been both widely covered by media outlets and well read by policy makers around the world. He is currently the co-editor of the Journal of Comparative Economics.


A NOTE ON LOCATION

This seminar is a hybrid event. Please join us in person in the Goldman Conference Room located within Encina Hall on the 4th floor of the East wing, or join remotely via Zoom.

Questions? Contact Heather Rahimi at hrahimi@stanford.edu


 

Scott Rozelle
Hongbin Li

Hybrid Event: Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall | Zoom Meeting

Stanford University
Department of Anthropology
Building 50, Central Quad
Stanford, California 94305-2034

(650) 723-3421 (650) 725-0605
0
Associate Professor of Anthropology
Senior Fellow, by courtesy, at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Faculty Affiliate at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Faculty Affiliate at the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
matthewkohrman-vert.jpeg

Matthew Kohrman joined Stanford’s faculty in 1999. His research and writing bring multiple methods to bear on the ways health, culture, and politics are interrelated. Focusing on the People's Republic of China, he engages various intellectual terrains such as governmentality, gender theory, political economy, critical science studies, and embodiment. His first monograph, Bodies of Difference: Experiences of Disability and Institutional Advocacy in the Making of Modern China, examines links between the emergence of a state-sponsored disability-advocacy organization and the lives of Chinese men who have trouble walking. In recent years, Kohrman has been conducting research projects aimed at analyzing and intervening in the biopolitics of cigarette smoking and production. These projects expand upon analytical themes of Kohrman’s disability research and engage in novel ways techniques of public health.

Date Label
Seminars
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Senior Research Scholar, Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
chenggang_xu.jpeg
PhD

Chenggang Xu is a Senior Research Scholar at the Stanford Center on China's Economic and Institutions, and a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and a Visiting Professor, Department of Finance, Imperial College London.

Chenggang received his PhD in Economics from Harvard University in 1991. He previously taught at the University of Hong Kong as Chung Hon-Dak Professor of Economics, at Tsinghua University as Special-term Professor of Economics, at Seoul National University as World-Class University Professor of Economics, and at LSE as Reader of Economics. He was the President of the Asian Law and Economics Association.  He was a first recipient of China Economics Prize (2016) and a recipient of the Sun Yefang Economics Prize (2013). 

Chenggang's research is in political economics, institutional economics, law and economics, development economics, transition economics and the Chinese political economy. His research and opinions have been covered widely in the Greater China area and in the world. He is currently a board member of the Ronald Coase Institute (RCI) and a research fellow of the CEPR.

Speaking Engagements

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Date Label
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Senior Research Scholar, Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
guoguang_wu_0410a.jpg
PhD

Guoguang Wu is a Senior Research Scholar at the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions, Stanford University. His research specializes in Chinese politics and comparative political economy, including, in China studies, elite politics, national political institutions and policy making mechanisms, transition from communism, the politics of development, and China’s search for its position in the world, and, in comparative political economy, transition of capitalism with globalization, the birth of capitalism in comparative perspectives, the worldwide rise of the economic state, and the emergence of human security on global agenda.

He is the author of four books, including China’s Party Congress: Power, Legitimacy, and Institutional Manipulation (Cambridge University Press, 2015) and Globalization against Democracy: A Political Economy of Capitalism After its Global Triumph (Cambridge University Press, 2017), editor or coeditor of six English-language volumes, and author or editor of more than a dozen of Chinese-language books. His academic articles have appeared in journals such as Asian Survey, China Information, China Perspectives, China Quarterly, Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Contemporary China, Pacific Review, Social Research, and Third World Quarterly. He also frequently contributes to The China Leadership Monitor. Some of his works have been translated and published in the languages of French, Japanese, and Korean.

Guoguang received a Ph.D. and a MA in politics from Princeton University (1995; 1993), a MA in journalism/political commentary from the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (1984), and a BA in journalism from Peking University (1981). During the late 1970s, he was among the sent-down youth in Mao's China, and a textile factory worker following the death of Mao. In the late 1980s, he worked in Beijing as an editorialist and a political commentator in Renmin ribao (The People's Daily) and, concurrently, a policy adviser on political reform and a speechwriter to the Zhao Ziyang leadership. His later appointments include: a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University (1989-1990), a Luce Fellow at the East Asian Institute of Columbia University (1990-91), and an An Wang Post-doctoral Fellow at the John King Fairbank Center of Harvard University (1995-96). Before joining Stanford in 2022, he taught at the University of Victoria in Canada and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Currently he is also a Senior Fellow at the Center for China Analysis of the Asia Society Policy Institute.

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Portraits of Sinderpal Singh and Arzan Tarapore with text about a webinar on the implications of the US-China competition for South Asia.

How is India posturing to manage strategic competition in the Indian Ocean? Thus far US-China security competition has been most acute in the western Pacific, but Chinese capability growth and strategic policies suggest that it also seeks a leading role in the northern Indian Ocean, in the not-too-distant future. India has traditionally considered itself the natural dominant power in the Indian Ocean region, but it has never faced the scale and types of competition that China will present. Does India have the wherewithal to maintain its leadership in the region? How will India work with the United States, bilaterally and through groupings such as the Quad, as they seek to maintain the status quo in the face of Chinese challenges? Is the Indian Ocean bound for militarized competition, or can India, the US, and China find a pathway to strategic coexistence?

Panelist

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Headshot photograph of Dr. Sinderpal Singh
Dr. Sinderpal Singh is Senior Fellow and Assistant Director, Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, and concurrently Coordinator of the South Asia Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. In the fall of 2022, he has been appointed as the McCain Fulbright Scholar in Residence at the United States Naval Academy. His research interests include the international relations of South Asia with a special focus on Indian foreign policy, the geopolitics of the Indian Ocean Region, and India-Southeast Asia relations. He is currently writing a book on India’s role in the Indian Ocean since 1992 and is the author of India in South Asia: Domestic Identity Politics and Foreign Policy from Nehru to the BJP (Routledge 2013). He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, his MA from the Australian National University, and his BA from the National University of Singapore.

Moderator

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Square headshot photograph of Arzan Tarapore
Dr. 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 Initiative. His research focuses on military strategy, Indian defense policy, and contemporary Indo-Pacific security issues. Prior to his scholarly career, he served as an analyst in the Australian Defence Department. Arzan holds a Ph.D. in war studies from King’s College London.

This webinar is co-sponsored by the Center for South Asia

Arzan Tarapore
Arzan Tarapore

Virtual via Zoom Webinar

Sinderpal Singh Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies, and South Asia Programme Senior Fellow, Assistant Director S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University
Authors
Michael Breger
News Type
Q&As
Date
Paragraphs

Each summer, Stanford students assist APARC faculty on a variety of projects as research assistants (RAs). In the case of Jerome He ‘24, working with Center Fellow Oriana Skylar Mastro provided an occasion to learn about the nuanced details of China’s foreign policy, as well as cultivate an interest in related topics such as deterrence, cybersecurity, and soft power competition.

He, a Political Science major who intends to pursue a legal career, describes the opportunity to work closely with Stanford faculty as priceless. His collaboration with Dr. Mastro on her research enhanced his own research abilities, especially when interrogating numerous source texts and streamlining arguments into concise memos.

In the following Q&A, He discusses his research assistant experience this summer. The interview was slightly edited for length and clarity.


Sign up for APARC newsletters to receive research and commentary updates from our scholars


Tell us a bit about yourself and your academic interests and extracurriculars.  

I am an international student from China, embarking on my third year at Stanford. I love studying political theories and I am a huge soccer fan and a fervent reader of German philosophy. I pay close attention to China’s domestic governance and international politics. 

Why did you choose to work with Dr. Mastro? 

In the past winter quarter, I talked to Vivian Zhu 23’ about her work with Dr. Mastro. From Vivian, I caught a glimpse of her work experience — challenging, engaging, and knowledge-intensive. I loved the fact that much of the work is task-oriented and is categorized by various topics. On top of that, I had immense respect for Dr. Mastro when I took PoliSci 114S last winter. Working with Dr. Mastro seemed a perfect opportunity to enrich my research experience.  

Can you describe the research you are working on? 

Dr. Mastro is writing a book on China’s foreign policy. The general idea is to explain how and why China competed differently from the United States in the international arena. RAs who understand Chinese are mainly responsible for going through Chinese sources and extracting valuable information related to a set of different topics. Sometimes we compile memos on a specific topic (such as China’s aircraft carrier development) and carry out literature reviews. 

How would you describe this research to someone unfamiliar with international security and geopolitics? 

I think the starting point is to realize that countries do not “intuitively” make decisions on how to compete and how to establish security. Foreign policies are shaped by both voluntary decisions driven by sophisticated calculations and arbitrary factors that are beyond anyone’s control. Over the course of time, we witness an array of different competing strategies that define the current international landscape. Chinese citizens could find the idea of military alliances and delivering large troops to foreign lands absurd while American people might feel weird to see China using infrastructure and militias for its military struggle in the South China Sea. Part of our research is to explain the differences, summarize the patterns, and hopefully, shed light on the future development of great power competition in all domains. 

What did you learn over the course of your research assistantship and how do you think it will help you in your career? 

Working on Dr. Mastro’s team enhances my ability to collect sources, extract information from an enormous number of texts, and streamline my arguments in a concise memo. I was also able to capture an understanding of how top scholars manage to complete complicated academic projects. Working on China’s foreign policy and military strategies opens up a world of fascinating topics like deterrence, cybersecurity, and soft power competition that paints a clearer picture of future courses I will take and future plans I can make.  

What's next for you? 

I will continue to work with Dr. Mastro in the coming fall and plan to contribute more to her team. I am interested in a legal career, so I aim to shift to some more law-related work after my experience in political science.  

Any advice for Stanford students considering a summer RA position? 

An opportunity to work with Stanford professors is priceless. With respect to finding the most suitable RA position, it always helps to talk to students who previously worked on the team or professors who are familiar with their colleagues. These conversations can give you a vivid understanding beyond the job description and lead to better CVs.   

Learn more about APARC’s summer research assistant internships and other training opportunities for Stanford undergraduate and graduate students >

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Chinese soldier in Beijing
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Assessing China’s Conventional and Unconventional Challenges to U.S. National Security

Providing a focused analysis of the challenges China poses to U.S. interests, Center Fellow Oriana Skylar Mastro offers readers a means to identify and understand the various strategic threats presented by the superpower on the rise.
Assessing China’s Conventional and Unconventional Challenges to U.S. National Security
Tongtong Zhang
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Predoctoral Fellow Spotlight: Tongtong Zhang Examines Channels for Public Deliberation in China

Political Scientist and APARC Predoctoral Fellow Tongtong Zhang explores how the Chinese Communist Party maintains control through various forms of political communication.
Predoctoral Fellow Spotlight: Tongtong Zhang Examines Channels for Public Deliberation in China
Yvonne Lee, Summer Intern at Carnegie-Tsinghua Center
News

Student Explores Opportunities in China through Internship Supported by APARC

Student Explores Opportunities in China through Internship Supported by APARC
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Political Science major Jerome He ‘24, spent the summer assisting APARC Center Fellow Oriana Skylar Mastro. He leveraged the opportunity to expand his knowledge of Chinese security issues and refine his research acumen. We spoke with He about his experience as a research assistant and his time working for Dr. Mastro.

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