How stable is politics in today's China? Many observers inside and outside the country were stunned by the sudden dismissal in December of Miao Hua, the head of the powerful political work department of the PLA and a member of the Central Military Commission. Takahara will discuss the state of Chinese politics and look into what we can expect of China's response to the 2nd Trump Administration.

This webinar event is co-hosted by the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center Japan Program and the Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco

Speaker:

Akio Takahara is Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Tokyo Woman’s Christian University and former Professor of Contemporary Chinese Politics at the Graduate School of Law and Politics at The University of Tokyo. From April to July 2024, he is also serving as Senior Fellow of the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS). He received his DPhil in 1988 from Sussex University, and later spent several years as Visiting Scholar at the Consulate-General of Japan in Hong Kong, the Japanese Embassy in Beijing, Harvard University, Peking University, the Mercator Institute for China Studies, and the Australian National University. Before joining The University of Tokyo, he taught at J. F. Oberlin University and Rikkyo University. He served as President of the Japan Association for Asian Studies, and as Secretary General of the New Japan-China Friendship 21st Century Committee. Akio was Dean of the Graduate School of Public Policy at The University of Tokyo from 2018 to 2020, and Director of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development from 2020 to 2023. He currently serves as Senior Adjunct Fellow of the Japan Institute of International Affairs, Distinguished Research Fellow of the Japan Forum on International Relations, Senior Research Adviser of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development, and Trustee of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation. His publications in English include The Politics of Wage Policy in Post-Revolutionary China, (Macmillan, 1992), Japan-China Relations in the Modern Era, (co-authored, Routledge, 2017), and “How do smaller countries in the Indo-Pacific region proactively interact with China? An introduction”, Journal of Contemporary East Asia Studies, DOI: 10.1080/24761028.2024.2309439, 26 January 2024.

Discussant:

Thomas Fingar is a Shorenstein APARC Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He was the inaugural Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow from 2010 through 2015 and the Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford in 2009.

From 2005 through 2008, he served as the first deputy director of national intelligence for analysis and, concurrently, as chairman of the National Intelligence Council. Fingar served previously as assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (2000-01 and 2004-05), principal deputy assistant secretary (2001-03), deputy assistant secretary for analysis (1994-2000), director of the Office of Analysis for East Asia and the Pacific (1989-94), and chief of the China Division (1986-89). Between 1975 and 1986 he held a number of positions at Stanford University, including senior research associate in the Center for International Security and Arms Control.

Moderator:

Kiyoteru Tsutsui is the Henri H. and Tomoye Takahashi Professor and Senior Fellow in Japanese Studies at Shorenstein APARC, the Director of the Japan Program and Deputy Director at APARC, a senior fellow of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and Professor of Sociology, all at Stanford University. Tsutsui received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Kyoto University and earned an additional master’s degree and Ph.D. from Stanford’s sociology department in 2002. Tsutsui’s research interests lie in political/comparative sociology, social movements, globalization, human rights, and Japanese society. His most recent publication, Human Rights and the State: The Power of Ideas and the Realities of International Politics (Iwanami Shinsho, 2022), was awarded the 2022 Ishibashi Tanzan Award and the 44th Suntory Prize for Arts and Sciences.

This spring, we saw the collapses of Silicon Valley Bank, Credit Suisse, etc., and now we are observing collapses of Chinese real estate giants: Evergrande, and Country Garden. Would be there another financial crisis? 
Now, it is highly worthy to review the ‘lessons' of historically recent financial crises with significant seriousness, which happened in the two largest economies, the United States and Japan.

During the 1990s-2000s, Japan and the United States each experienced the same type of financial crisis, notably triggered by the collapse of major financial institutions, stemming from the real estate bubble burst. Namely, the Heisei Financial Crisis and the Lehman Brothers Collapse.

Both were under the political-economic conditions of one of the largest economies in the world, as well as of an advanced democracy. Enormous shock happened politically, economically, and historically, due to these two financial crises.

Then, as the research question, what were the ‘lessons’ of the United States and Japan's financial crises, concerning crisis response through public money injection, from the viewpoint of political economy? Where is the ‘learning’ between Japan and the United States?
Also, as the related research ‘puzzle’, why the difference in speed between these countries to respond and recover?

Based on his Ph.D. thesis, Senator Takinami, an alumnus of Stanford APARC, will elaborate on these issues by covering up and amending Hoshi & Kashyap(2010), thus establishing ‘7 lessons’ throughout the Japan and the United States financial crises on government bailout from the political economy viewpoint.

Speaker

Hirofumi Takinami (Ph.D.) is an Upper House Member of the Japanese Parliament, corresponding to a Senator in the U.S. He is a former Vice-Minister of Economy, Trade, and Industry, and also a former Vising Scholar, APARC, Stanford University. 

Dr. Takinami covers a wide range of policies, including not only energy, environment, and finance, but also innovation, infrastructure, welfare for the disabled, etc. He has been the Director of the Fisheries Division of LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) from last year.

Before starting his political career 10 years ago, he was a Director of the Ministry of Finance. During his about 20 years of service as a Japanese government official, he held management positions including Public Relations Director, and Deputy Budget Examiner at the Ministry of Finance. He also worked internationally, in charge of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM) etc. 

He graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1994, earning a Bachelor of Law. He received a Master of Public Policy (MPP) from the University of Chicago in 1998. While in office as an upper house member, he obtained a Ph.D. in 2021 from Waseda University for the study on financial crises, which he started when he held research positions at Stanford University as a Visiting Fellow in 2009-2011 and as a Visiting Scholar in 2016. 

Webinar Description:
The Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE) and Stanford Global Studies (SGS) are excited to offer a professional development workshop for community college instructors who wish to internationalize their curriculum. The workshop will feature a talk by Stanford historian Dr. Bertrand Patenaude on the major famines of modern history, the controversies surrounding them, and the reasons that famine persists in our increasingly globalized world. Workshop participants will receive a copy of Dr. Patenaude’s book Bread + Medicine: American Famine Relief in Soviet Russia, 1921–1923 (Hoover Institution Press, 2023). Published in June, the book recounts how medical intervention, including a large-scale vaccination drive, by the American Relief Administration saved millions of lives in Soviet Russia during the famine of 1921–23.

Register at https: http://bit.ly/474cpK2.

Featured Speaker:

Dr. Bertrand M. Patenaude

Dr. Bertrand M. Patenaude teaches history, international relations, and human rights at Stanford, where he is a Lecturer for the International Relations Program, a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and a Faculty Fellow at the Center for Innovation in Global Health (CIGH). Patenaude teaches courses at the Stanford School of Medicine as a Lecturer at the Center for Biomedical Ethics (SCBE). His seminars range across topics such as United Nations peacekeeping, genocide, famine in the modern world, humanitarian aid, and global health.