This audacious and illuminating memoir by Richard Baum, a senior China scholar and sometime policy advisor, reflects on forty years of learning about and interacting with the People's Republic of China, from the height of Maoism during the author's UC Berkeley student days in the volatile 1960s through globalization. Anecdotes from Baum's professional life illustrate the alternately peculiar, frustrating, fascinating, and risky activity of China watching - the process by which outsiders gather and decipher official and unofficial information to figure out what's really going on behind China's veil of political secrecy and propaganda. Baum writes entertainingly, telling his narrative with witty stories about people, places, and eras.

Richard Baum is distinguished professor of political science at UCLA and director emeritus of the UCLA Center for Chinese Studies. He is the author of Burying Mao: Chinese Politics in the Age of Deng Xiaoping (Princeton U. Press) and the founder and list manager of Chinapol, an
electronic forum serving the international China-watching community. His 48-lecture video course, "The Fall and Rise of China," produced for The Teaching Company's Great Courses series, was released last month.

The United States and the Muslim World have been at loggerheads on various geopolitical issues over the course of the last century. In facing key global geopolitical and social challenges, the U.S. and global Muslim communities have common interests but the relationships have suffered, particularly since 9/11.

What is the impact of Palestine, Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan on these relationships? How has the nature of conflict shifted to complicate the dialogue? How should the U.S. government address these issues?

Henry Crumpton, a former career intelligence officer and diplomat, will address the United States' relationship with the Muslim world in a bid to answer the above questions.

This event is co-sponserd by FSI, the Stanford African Students Associated (SASA), Pakistanis at Stanford (PAS), Sanskriti, Coalition for Justice in the Middle East (CJME).

Bill Gates is the Co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where he shapes and approves foundation strategies, reviews results, advocates for the foundation’s issues and helps set overall direction of the organization. Gates is the founder and chairman of Microsoft Corporation, a worldwide leader in software, services, and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential. In Gates’ last full year with the company, 2007, Microsoft had revenues of $51 billion, employed more than 78,000 people in 105 countries and regions, and invested $7.1 billion in research and development, as part of its commitment to make it easier, more cost-effective and enjoyable for people to use computers.

In July 2008, Gates transitioned out of his day to day role in the company to spend more time on his work with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, the foundation focuses on improving people’s health and lifting them out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, the foundation seeks to ensure that all people, especially those with the fewest resources, have access to opportunities they need to succeed in school and life.

Through the foundation, Gates and his wife Melinda support philanthropic initiatives in the areas of global development, global health, and education, in the hope that in the 21st century, advances in these critical areas will be available for all people. With assets of some $34 billion, the Gates Foundation has made grant commitments of $21 billion since inception. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has committed more than $3.6 billion to organizations working in global health, with a focus on expanding childhood immunization ($1.5 billion), eradicating polio ($355 million), and combating malaria($287 million). In 2010, Gates pledged to spend more than $10 billion to develop and deliver new vaccines over the next decade. The foundation has also committed more than $2 billion to improving educational opportunities.

Zalmay Khalilzad is President and CEO of Khalilzad Associates LLC, an international advisory firm. He serves as a Counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and sits on the Boards of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), America Abroad Media (AAM), the RAND Corporation's Middle East Studies Center, the American University of Iraq in Suleymania (AUIS), and the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF).

Dr. Khalilzad served as U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 2007-2009, a post for which he was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Prior to that position, he spent more than two years in Baghdad as U.S. Ambassador to Iraq
(2005-2007).

He previously served as U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan (2003-2005), Special Presidential Envoy to Afghanistan (2001-2003), and Special Presidential Envoy and Ambassador at Large for Free Iraqis (2002-2003).

Dr. Khalilzad held a series of high level positions at the National Security Council and in the White House between 2001 and 2003, including Special Assistant to the President for Islamic Outreach and Southwest Asia Initiatives, and Special Assistant for Southwest Asia, Near East, and North African Affairs. He is the recipient of three Distinguished Public Service Medals, one each from three consecutive Secretaries of Defense.

Between 1993 and 1999, he was Director of the Strategy, Doctrine and Force Structure program for RAND's Project Air Force. At RAND, he also founded the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

Dr. Khalilzad previously served as Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning from 1990 to 1992. He served on the State Department's Policy Planning Staff and as Special Advisor to the Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs from 1985 to 1989.

Earlier in his career, he was an associate professor at the University of California at San Diego and an assistant professor of Political Science at Columbia University. Ambassador Khalilzad earned his Bachelor's and Master's degrees from the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, as well as a PhD from the University of Chicago. He regularly appears on U.S. and foreign media outlets to share his foreign policy expertise.

José Zalaquett is a Chilean lawyer and legal scholar known for his work defending human rights in Chile during the regime of General Pinochet. During Chile's transition to democracy, he served on the National Truth and Reconciliation Commission where he investigated and prosecuted human rights violations committed by the military regime. He has served as President of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and as the head of the International Executive Committee of Amnesty International. He currently co-directs the Human Rights Centre at the University of Chile, serves on the board of the International Centre for Transitional Justice, and is a member of the International Commission of Jurists. He has been awarded UNESCO's Prize for Human Rights Education and Chile's National Prize for Humanities and Social Sciences.

Video recording of the event is available here.

Event co-sponsored by the Stanford International Law Society, Departments of English, History, and Comparative Literature; the Program in Modern Thought and Literature; the Center for African Studies; the Stanford Humanities Center; and the Center for South Asia

History, Memory, and Reconciliation futureofmemory.stanford.edu is sponsored by the Research Unit in the Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages at Stanford University.

PESD researcher Gang He will be guest lecturing in Stanford University's China Energy System course on China's coal and power conflict and its broad impacts on Chinese energy and climate policy.  He will discuss the most important feature in China's energy market - coal and power conflict, explain why there is a conflict and how it come into being, and analyze the broad impacts of the conflict on deploying CCS at scale and applying CDM in the Chinese power market.  Gang will also highlight some possible solutions to the coal and power conflict in China's energy market.

China Energy System(CEE 276F) is a directed readings course that studies the energy resources and policies in use and under development in the world's most populous nation.  As a country undergoing rapid and sustained economic growth, China's decisions as to how to meet its energy requirements will affect global energy markets and impact the global environment.  This course focuses on the areas of major impact that are forecast and will present a comparative analysis of China's energy management strategies.

This talk is part of the Defusing the Nuclear Threat lecture series.

Siegfried Hecker is Director Emeritus of Los Alamos National Laboratories and co-Director of Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). He describes his talk as follows: The exchange of hundreds of nuclear weapons which would threaten life on Earth as we know it has all but disappeared with the end of the Cold War. The potential of a limited nuclear exchange has increased with the spread of nuclear weapons to places like South Asia. Yet, the greatest nuclear risk stems from the potential of sub-national or terrorist groups obtaining fissile materials, building an improvised nuclear device, and exploding it in a major city somewhere in the world. I will present my list of the greatest threats, headed by Pakistan, and explore what we must do to manage these risks.

A map and parking information can be found here.

This talk is part of the Defusing the Nuclear Threat lecture series.

Joseph Martz is the inaugural William Perry CISAC Fellow at Stanford, on leave from Los Alamos, where he headed their RRW (Reliable Replacement Warhead) design team. This talk reviews US nuclear weapons development and its close linkage to deterrence during the Cold War. Looking forward, the shift in policy to a goal of further reductions in, and ultimate elimination of, nuclear weapons presents new challenges. It will be suggested how – contrary to popular thinking – redesigning our nuclear weapons and reconfiguring the nuclear weapons complex could contribute to further reductions, and potentially, the elimination of nuclear weapons.

A map and parking information can be found here.

Professor Yuan Ming was originally trained as a student of western language and literature at Peking University. Prior to her graduate work, she spent eight years in the rural areas in Northwest China. China's Reform and Open Door policy allowed her to do her graduate work in the Law Department of Peking University and then to visit these distinguished institutions abroad: She was a visiting scholar at U.C. Berkeley from 1983 to 1985 and a senior associate member at the St. Antony's College in Oxford University from 1989 to 1990. Since 1995, she was invited and did research at the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. She travels a lot and is a frequent speaker at many international gatherings such as the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Trilateral Commission, the Club of Rome, etc.

Professor Yuan Ming teaches the History of International Relations and Western Classics of International Relations at Peking University. She is also the vice-dean of the School of International Studies and the director of the Center for American Studies at the University. Her publications include Cross Century Assignment: the International Relations Studies in China and A History of International Relations ( 1648-1989), which is one of the leading publications and textbooks in China. She is also the co-editor of Sino-American Relations (1945-1955); the Golden Age of U.S.-China-Japan Relations.

Professor Yuan Ming has organized many international conferences in China, and has wide links in Asia, North America, Europe and Oceania.

Professor Yuan Ming is a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and a member of its Foreign Relations Committee. She sits on the boards of a number of institutions in China. She was also the trustee of the Asia Society in New York (1998-2004). In 2004, she joined the International Advisory Board of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Harri Englund is the Churchill Fellow and reader in social anthropology at the University of Cambridge. He is the author most recently of Prisoners of Freedom: Human Rights and the African Poor (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006) in which he investigates how ideas of freedom and human rights have impeded struggles against poverty and injustice in Africa's emerging democracies.

Event co-sponsored by the Departments of English, History, and Comparative Literature;
the Program in Modern Thought and Literature; the Center for African Studies;
the Stanford Humanities Center; and the Center for South Asia

History, Memory, and Reconciliation is sponsored by the Research Unit in the Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages at Stanford University.

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