About the Speaker 
 

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In 2018, Craig Allen began his tenure as the president of the US-China Business Council (USCBC), a private, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization representing over 270 American companies doing business with China. Prior to joining USCBC, Allen had a career in US public service. Allen began his government career in 1985 at the Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration (ITA) where he served as an international economist in ITA’s China Office. He served as the Senior Commercial Officer at the US Embassy in Beijing in 2002 where he was later promoted to the rank of Minister Counselor of the Senior Foreign Service. Allen then became Deputy Assistant Secretary for Asia at the US Department of Commerce’s ITA and later became Deputy Assistant Secretary for China. Allen was sworn in as the United States Ambassador to Brunei Darussalam in 2014. He served there until 2018, when he transitioned to President of the US-China Business Council. Allen received a B.A. from the University of Michigan in Political Science and Asian Studies in 1979. He received a Master of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University in 1985.

In an era marked by rapid shifts in global power dynamics, the ascent of China as a formidable force on the world stage poses one of the most critical challenges to the international order of the 21st century. The prevailing notion that China is a revisionist power, intent on establishing a parallel international order to rival that of the United States and the West, raises pivotal questions. Is there truth to this belief? How did China and the United States lose their consensus over the desirable international order? Which elements are we satisfied or dissatisfied with? Towards what kind of order or orders are we moving?

Our upcoming webinar, "China, the US, and the International Order: Are We Moving Towards Parallel Systems?" aims to dissect the narrative of China's emergence as a power intent on sculpting a new world order—a vision that starkly contrasts with the U.S.-led system that has dominated global affairs for nearly a century. Join us on April 3 for an in-depth discussion of this critical issue with Wei Da, director of the Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS) at Tsinghua University.

Wei Da is the director of the Center for International Security and Strategy  (CISS) at Tsinghua University and a professor in the Department of International Relations, School of Social Science, Tsinghua University. Dr. Da’s research expertise covers China-US relations and US security & foreign policy. He has worked in China’s academic and policy community for more than two decades. Before his current positions, Dr. Da was the assistant president of University International Relations (2017-2020) and director of the Institute of American Studies, China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (2013-2017). He has written hundreds of policy papers for the Chinese government and published dozens of academic papers in journals in China, the US, and other countries. He earned his BA and MA from UIR and his Ph.D. from CICIR. He was a visiting senior fellow at the Atlantic Council of the United States from 2006 to 2007, and a visiting senior associate at SAIS, Johns Hopkins University from 2008 to 2009.

About the Speaker 
 

Mr. Bo Li assumed the role of Deputy Managing Director at the IMF on August 23, 2021. He is responsible for the IMF’s work on about 90 countries as well as on a wide range of policy issues.

Before joining the IMF, Mr. Li worked for many years at the People’s Bank of China, most recently as Deputy Governor. He earlier headed the Monetary Policy, Monetary Policy II, and Legal and Regulation Departments, where he played an important role in the reform of state-owned banks, the drafting of China’s anti-money-laundering law, the internationalization of the renminbi, and the establishment of China’s macroprudential policy framework.

Outside of the PBoC, Mr. Li served as Vice Mayor of Chongqing—China’s largest municipality, with a population of over 30 million—where he oversaw the city’s financial-sector development, international trade, and foreign direct investment. Mr. Li was also Vice Chairman of the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese. He started his career at the New York law firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell, where he was a practicing attorney for five years.

Mr. Li holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University and an M.A. from Boston University, both in economics, as well as a J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School. He received his undergraduate education from Renmin University of China in Beijing.

The family of Dr. Sam-Chung Hsieh donated his personal archive to the Stanford Libraries' Special Collections and endowed the Dr. Sam-Chung Hsieh Memorial Lecture series to honor his legacy and to inspire future generations. Dr. Sam-Chung Hsieh (1919-2004) was former Governor of the Central Bank in Taiwan. During his tenure, he was responsible for the world's largest foreign exchange reserves, and was widely recognized for achieving stability and economic growth. In his long and distinguished career as economist and development specialist, he held key positions in multilateral institutions including the Asian Development Bank, where as founding Director, he was instrumental in advancing the green revolution and in the transformation of rural Asia. Read more about Dr. Hsieh.

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This event is open only to Stanford faculty, staff, fellows, and students.

Bio:

Allison Macfarlane is Professor and Director, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, Faculty of Arts, the University of British Columbia.  Dr. Macfarlane has held both academic and government positions in the field of energy and environmental policy, especially nuclear policy.  The first geologist (and the third woman) to chair the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 2012-2014, Dr. Macfarlane holds a doctorate in earth science from MIT and a bachelor's of science from the University of Rochester.  She has held fellowships at Radcliffe College, MIT, Stanford, and Harvard Universities, and she has been on the faculty at Georgia Tech in Earth Science and International Affairs, at George Mason University in Environmental Science and Policy, and in the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University.  From 2010 to 2012 Dr. Macfarlane served on the White House Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future. Dr. Macfarlane’s research has focused on technical, social, and policy aspects of nuclear energy production and nuclear waste management and disposal as well as regulation, nuclear nonproliferation, and energy policy.  

Abstract:

New nuclear reactors, including small modular reactors (SMRs) and advanced reactors, have been touted in the media recently as the best way to transition off fossil fuels. Reactor proponents claim that they will be cheaper, safer, and produce less waste than existing large light water reactors.   But are these claims realistic? This talk will examine the challenges facing these new nuclear technologies and will attempt to address whether new nuclear power will help us move quickly to a low-carbon future.

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

This event is open only to Stanford faculty, staff, fellows, and students.

Bio:

Tom Dannenbaum is Associate Professor of International Law at the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy, where he is Co-Director of the Center for International Law & Governance. Prior to joining the Fletcher School, he taught at University College London and Yale Law School. Dannenbaum writes on the law of armed conflict, the law governing the use of force, international criminal law, human rights, shared responsibility, and international judging. His articles have appeared in a range of leading journals and have received multiple awards, including the American Society of International Law’s (ASIL) International Legal Theory Scholarship Prize in 2022 for his work on siege starvation and ASIL’s Lieber Prize in 2017 for his work on the crime of aggression. His writing on peacekeeping has been cited by the Hague Court of Appeal and the International Law Commission. His book, The Crime of Aggression, Humanity, and the Soldier, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2018. Dannenbaum has testified or presented before U.S. congressional and U.N. bodies and has appeared or been quoted in leading media outlets, including the New York Times, the Economist, National Public Radio, PBS Frontline, the BBC World Service, MSNBC, Deutsche Welle, and Süddeutsche Zeitung, among others. He has received teaching awards at both the Fletcher School and UCL, as well as the faculty research award at Fletcher. He holds a PhD from Princeton, a JD from Yale, and a BA from Stanford.

Abstract:

A recent amendment to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court has drawn unprecedented attention to the war crime of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. It comes at a time when mass starvation in war is resurgent, devastating populations in Ethiopia, Nigeria, Palestine, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen, and elsewhere. The practice has also drawn the scrutiny of the United Nations Security Council. And yet, what precisely is criminally wrongful about starvation methods remains underspecified.

A common way of thinking about the criminal wrong is as a form of killing or harming civilians. Although its differentiating particularities matter, the basic wrongfulness of the crime inheres, on this view, in it being an attack on those who ought not be attacked. For some, this supports a broad interpretation of the starvation ban. However, for others, the graduality of starvation preserves the continuous possibility of the avoidance or minimization of civilian death or harm in a way that direct kinetic attacks do not. In combination with the method’s purported military utility, this distinctive incrementalism has underpinned arguments for the permissibility of certain forms of siege and other deprivation and a narrow interpretation of the starvation crime.

Drawing on the moral philosophy of torture, this Article offers a different normative theory of the crime. Starvation, like torture, is peculiarly wrongful in its distortion of victims’ biological imperatives against their capacities to formulate and act on higher-order desires, political commitments, and even love. This process does not merely raise the cost of fulfilling those commitments. Instead, starvation tears gradually at the very capacity of those affected to prioritize their most fundamental commitments, regardless of whether they would choose to do so under the conditions necessary to evaluate matters with a “contemplative attitude.” Rather than palliating, the slowness of starvation methods is at the crux of this torturous wrong. Recognizing this redefines the meaning and place of the crime in the framework of international criminal law.

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

This event is open only to Stanford faculty, staff, fellows, and students.

Bio:

Marc Lipsitch is Professor of Epidemiology at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. He directs the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics and the Interdisciplinary Program on Infectious Disease Epidemiology. He is an honorary faculty member at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. He is currently on part-time secondment to the US CDC as Senior Advisor for the Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics, for which he was the founding co-director (though this talk is in his personal and academic capacity). His scientific research concerns the effect of naturally acquired host immunity, vaccine-induced immunity, and other public health interventions on the population biology of pathogens and the consequences for human health. In the area of  biosafety and biosecurity, he co-founded the Cambridge Working Group, whose efforts led to the US government funding pause on gain-of-function research to enhance potential pandemic pathogens, and he has been writing and speaking on policy issues in this area in both popular and peer-reviewed forums for over a decade. He has authored 400 peer-reviewed publications on antimicrobial resistance, epidemiologic methods, mathematical modeling of infectious disease transmission, pathogen population genomics, research ethics, biosafety/security, and immunoepidemiology of Streptococcus pneumoniae. Dr. Lipsitch is a leader in research and scientific communication on COVID-19. Dr. Lipsitch received his BA in philosophy from Yale and his DPhil in zoology from Oxford. He did postdoctoral work at Emory University and CDC. He is a member of the American Academy of Microbiology and the National Academy of Medicine.

Abstract:

The growing ability of researchers to enhance potential pandemic pathogens' transmissibility or virulence has raised concerns about the risk that such research could lead to a pandemic through accidental or inadvertent release, or that the products of the research, including the knowledge it creates, could facilitate deliberate acts of bioterrorism. An incipient policy process to address these concerns in the mid-late 2010s was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and attention has recently returned to the topic especially in the US but also internationally. While the White House has been constructing guidance (not released as of this writing in January 2024), the scientific and wider community have reached a state of polarization, with many calling for an outright ban, and others claiming that scientific self-regulation is sufficient. This talk will describe the components of a middle way that acknowledges a legitimate public interest in restricting experiments that could heighten pandemic risks, in the absence of compelling and offsetting public health benefits. It will begin with a historical overview of the issue, consider informative and misleading parallels to the notion of restricting research with pandemic risks, and suggest ways forward to break this deadlock. 

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions is pleased to present a special conversation featuring Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Mark Lambert, who oversees the Office of China Policy Coordination at the US State Department. Lambert will be speaking on US-China Relations in an Era of Strategic Competition. This event is in-person only and will be off the record.

Mark Lambert’s presentation begins at 4:30 pm on Friday, February 16th, followed by a Q&A moderated by Scott Kennedy, CSIS Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics. You are invited to a welcome reception at 4:00 pm.

Registration is required for admission. No walk-ins.

No audio, video recording or photography will be permitted.  Please note, this event is closed to the media. 

About the Speaker
 

Mark Lambert is State Department China Coordinator and Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs. He oversees the Office of China Coordination and the Office of Taiwan Coordination. Mark has extensive experience in China, cross-Strait, and Asia Pacific affairs. He most recently served as Deputy Assistant Secretary with responsibility for Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands.  Earlier he established the International Organizations Bureau’s office aimed at protecting UN integrity from authoritarianism. As Special Envoy for North Korean Affairs, he participated in negotiations with the DPRK and devised and implemented a global pressure campaign to enforce UN Security Council Resolutions. As Director of the Office of Korean Affairs he helped shape the response to ballistic missile launches and nuclear tests conducted by North Korea. While Political Counselor in Hanoi he helped to devise a South China Sea maritime strategy and led a team that won recognition for dramatically improving U.S. relations with Vietnam. He served twice in Beijing, most recently managing U.S. political military affairs with China. Previously, he was named the State Department’s human rights officer of the year for devising a strategy to release Chinese political prisoners and promote religious freedom. He has served as Political Military officer in Bangkok and Tokyo and as a science and technology officer on the State Department’s Japan Desk. He was a weapons inspector in Iraq. His first tour was in Bogota, Colombia, during the era of Pablo Escobar. He received a Meritorious Presidential Rank Award for helping to design and implement a plan to elect the leader of the World Intellectual Property Organization. He has been awarded for efforts bringing the United States and Vietnam closer together, for his voluntary efforts responding to the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, for helping to shape the U.S. response to the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, and for his work helping to resolve the 2001 EP-3 crisis involving a U.S. naval aircraft forced down on China’s Hainan Island. He has studied Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, and Spanish. He is married to Laura Stone, a senior State Department official. They have two daughters.

Scott Kennedy is senior adviser and Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). A leading authority on Chinese economic policy, Kennedy has been traveling to China for over 30 years. His specific areas of expertise include industrial policy, technology innovation, business lobbying, U.S.-China commercial relations, and global governance. From 2000 to 2014, Kennedy was a professor at Indiana University (IU), where he established the Research Center for Chinese Politics & Business and was the founding academic director of IU’s China Office. Kennedy received his PhD in political science from George Washington University, his MA in China studies from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and his BA from the University of Virginia.

Parking & Directions

Parking meters are enforced Monday - Friday 8 AM to 4 PM, unless otherwise posted.

The event will take place in the Koret-Taube Conference Center located within the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Building. The closest visitor parking to the Gunn-SIEPR building is:

• Galvez Lot, located across from the Stadium lot
• Track House Visitor Lot at the corner of Galvez Street and Campus Drive
• Knight Management Parking structure on Campus Drive East (this is an underground option)

Please visit the this website for more detailed parking options and directions to the venue.

Questions? Contact Heather Rahimi at hrahimi@stanford.edu

Join the Visiting Fellows in Israel Studies Program for a discussion about the roots and causes of misinformation, disinformation, and fake news in times of war. Learn more about the informational contents of foreign and domestic actors when addressing the informational threats. How it must be faced for the future of democracy, and is at stake when protecting media freedoms and civil liberties in Israel.

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Omer Benjakob is an investigative journalist for Haaretz, Israel's sole newspaper of record, focused on the intersection of politics and technology. He covers disinformation, cyber, and surveillance and has participated in several international investigations, including the Project Pegasus — the misuse of spyware made by the NSO Group — and “Team Jorge,” a groundbreaking undercover investigation into the private disinformation market and digital mercenaries offering election interference as a service. His investigation into the sale of spyware to a militia in Sudan was shortlisted for the EU's European Press Prize for investigative journalism (2023).

He is also a researcher and his writing on Wikipedia has been published in Wired UK, the Columbia Journalism Review and MIT Press, as well as academic journals. Born in New York and raised in Tel Aviv, he lives in Jaffa with his wife and teaches in a local college in Israel. He is also an associate research fellow at the Center for Research and Interdisciplinarity (LPI) in Paris, a research institute affiliated with the Université Paris Cité focused on open science.
 

Tomer Naor is a father, educator, lawyer, and a well-known social activist in Israel. Tomer holds an LLB in Law from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and an LLM graduate degree in Public Law from Northwestern University and Tel Aviv University. For the past ten years Tomer has been working for The Movement for Quality Government in Israel, one of Israel’s leading grass roots organizations, fighting corruption and promoting the values of democracy, transparency, good governance and civic participation and volunteerism in Israeli society.

Tomer has led multiple legal cases discussed in the Supreme Court that are pertinent to the core issues of preserving democracy in Israel, and has frequently appeared before the Supreme Court to argue constitutional and administrative petitions as well as before Knesset committees on various issues. In 2020, Marker magazine named Tomer as one of their "40 Under 40" influencers, and he continues to feature as a regular guest in the Israeli and international media. In addition to his legal work, Tomer is involved in a variety of social initiatives in Israel and won the Civil Society Award in 2015.