Dr. Haifeng Li Boyd joined the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) as visiting scholar from spring 2019 through spring 2020. She is a Professor of International Economics at Yamaguchi University, where she teaches courses on East Asian and Chinese Economics and conducts research on consumption society and consumer behavior of China. Dr. Li has published extensively in areas of consumer behavior and economics, including books such as The Mass Consumer Society in China, Market Economics and the Consumer Behavior. She served as the President of Asian Consumer and Family Economics Association (ACFEA), among others, and has presented her research to diverse audiences in the U. S., Japan, China, Malaysia, South Korea, and England.
Haifeng Li received her B.S. from the University of International Business and Economics in China, and M.S. and Ph.D. in Economics from Hokkaido University in Japan. She was previously a visiting scholar at Stanford University from 2009-2011.
Nan Jia joined the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) during the 2019-2020 academic year as a visiting scholar, from the University of Southern California, where she serves as Associate Professor of Strategic Management at the Marshall School of Business. She obtained her Ph.D. in Strategic Management from the University of Toronto's Joseph L. Rotman School of Management.
The Bay Area Council Economic Institute and the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center Japan Program invite you to a forum on the critical transformations underway in Japan’s economy and the unique synergies that connect it to the Bay Area. The program will include a discussion of the high-level findings of a new report by the Bay Area Council Economic Institute on Japan’s economic engagement in the San Francisco/Silicon Valley Bay Area, and the role the region is playing as California and Japan look to expand trade and investment and accelerate innovation. Leading experts and practitioners from both Japan and the Bay Area will join us for this discussion.
This event is brought to you by the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center Japan Program and the Bay Area Council Economic Institute, in cooperation with the Japan Society of Northern California.
Agenda
1:00pm Welcome
Jim Wunderman, President & CEO, Bay Area Council
Hon. Tomochika Uyama, Consul General of Japan
Takeo Hoshi, Director, Shorenstein APARC Japan Program
1:10pm Introduction of Bay Area Council Economic Institute Report: High-Level Findings
Sean Randolph, Senior Director, Bay Area Council Economic Institute
1:30pm Observations and Silicon Valley Overview
Kenji Kushida, Research Scholar, Stanford University
1:45pm Panel 1: The Emerging New Japan
Kanetaka Maki, Associate Professor, Waseda Business School
Mio Takaoka, CFO, Medical Note and Partner, Arbor Ventures
Takeshi Ebihara, Founding GP, Rebright Partners
Emre Yuasa, Principal, Globis Capital Partners
Sean Randolph, Senior Director, Bay Area Council Economic Institute (Moderator)
2:45pm Panel 2: Japanese Companies in Silicon Valley Creating Value in New Ways
Hiroshi Menjo, Managing Partner, Net Service Ventures
Since its establishment, DNX Ventures (formerly Draper Nexus Ventures) has acted as a bridge between growing Silicon Valley businesses and large Japanese firms. Since 2011, DNX Ventures has created more than 100 partnerships between its portfolio companies and its over 25 large Japanese corporate LPs. During this seminar, Managing Director of DNX Ventures Hiro Rio Maeda will extrapolate from his over 15 years of experience in both corporate venture capital and venture capital and extensive experience working with both startups and large Japanese corporations to discuss the basics of venture capital, and how Japanese corporations leverage venture capital to push forward open innovation initiatives. From a VC perspective: how are decisions about strategic investments made? How does money flow? What ratio of successful investments to non-successful investments do VCs aim for? From a large Japanese corporate perspective: how do large Japanese firms use VC to achieve open innovation goals? What are some of the obstacles to Japanese large firm-startup partnerships, and what are some of the ways to overcome these challenges? Maeda will answer these questions and more, as well as share examples of successful partnerships and large Japanese firms that are successfully harnessing Silicon Valley to further open innovation efforts.
SPEAKER:
Hiro Rio Maeda, Managing Director, DNX Ventures (formerly Draper Nexus)
BIO:
Hiro Rio Maeda is a Managing Director at venture capital firm DNX Ventures (formerly Draper Nexus). Rio focuses on investing in innovative companies in Cyber Security, mobile, storage, and retail tech area that could work on a global scale. His portfolio companies include Cylance, SafeBreach, JASK, vArmour, AppDome, Ayasdi, Remotium, Klout, Fyde, JoyMode, and Hom.ma.
Prior to joining DNX Ventures (formerly Draper Nexus), Rio spent six years at Globespan Capital Partners where he had put his resource on both investment and business development of Japan/US portfolio companies. Palo Alto Networks(NYSE: PANW) was a good example portfolio company that he took a lead on taking them to the Japanese market.
Prior to Globespan, Rio spent seven years at Sumitomo Corporation, a Japanese conglomerate trading company in which he had built expertise his international business skill in IT technologies and consumer web services in Tokyo and his capitalist career at Presidio Ventures (Sumitomo’s corporate venture capital arm) in Santa Clara.Japanese conglomerate trading company in which he had built expertise his international business skill in IT technologies and consumer web services in Tokyo and his capitalist career at Presidio Ventures (Sumitomo’s corporate venture capital arm) in Santa Clara.
AGENDA:
4:15pm: Doors open 4:30pm-5:30pm: Talk and Discussion 5:30pm-6:00pm: Networking
This is part 2 of a talk presenting how innovative large Japanese companies are harnessing Silicon Valley. It is a review of the fireside chats and panels presented at the Silicon Valley – New Japan Summit last November at Stanford, which was in Japanese. The talk adds some historical context, and introduces through many of the company cases from the summit, including Panasonic, Fuji Film, Itochu, Rakuten, Obayashi, Nomura Holdings, Sourcenext, Komatsu, SMBC, and Toyota Research Institute.
The current surge of large Japanese companies into Silicon Valley is focused on firms aiming to identify new opportunities to collaborate with the startup ecosystem in order to understand future technological and industry trajectories, to facilitate new forms of “open” innovation within the company, and in some cases to even redefine how to add value to their core offerings. However, given a vast differently economic context from their core operations in Japan, many of the large Japanese firms’ initial forays tend to fall into patterns of “worst practices” that are ineffective. Yet, a small but growing number of innovative Japanese companies are producing novel and valuable collaborations with a variety of Silicon Valley firms, investors, and ecosystem players. The talk will survey a range of strategic options available to Japanese companies, with implications for how to better adapt companies from Japan to Silicon Valley, and more broadly from different political economic systems.
SPEAKER:
Kenji Kushida, Research Scholar, Shorenstein APARC Japan Program and Stanford Silicon Valley-New Japan Project Leader
BIO:
Kenji E. Kushida is the Japan Program Research Scholar at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University (APARC), Project Leader of the Stanford Silicon Valley – New Japan Project (Stanford SV-NJ), research affiliate of the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy (BRIE), International Research Fellow at the Canon Institute for Global Studies (CIGS), and Visiting Researcher at National Institute for Research Advancement (NIRA). He holds a PhD in political science from the University of California, Berkeley, an MA in East Asian studies and BAs in economics and East Asian studies, all from Stanford University.
Kushida’s research streams include 1) Information Technology innovation, 2) Silicon Valley’s economic ecosystem, 3) Japan’s political economic transformation since the 1990s, and 4) the Fukushima nuclear disaster. He has published several books and numerous articles in each of these streams, including “The Politics of Commoditization in Global ICT Industries,” “Japan’s Startups Ecosystem,” “Cloud Computing: From Scarcity to Abundance,” and others. His latest business book in Japanese is “The Algorithmic Revolution’s Disruption: a Silicon Valley Vantage on IoT, Fintech, Cloud, and AI” (Asahi Shimbun Shuppan 2016).
He has appeared in media including The New York Times, Washington Post, Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Nikkei Business, NHK, PBS NewsHour, and NPR.
He is also a trustee of the Japan ICU Foundation, a fellow of the US-Japan Leadership Program, an alumni of the Trilateral Commission David Rockefeller Fellows, and a member of the Mansfield Foundation Network for the Future.
AGENDA:
4:15pm: Doors open 4:30pm-5:30pm: Talk and Discussion 5:30pm-6:00pm: Networking
Kenji E. Kushida was a research scholar with the Japan Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center from 2014 through January 2022. Prior to that at APARC, he was a Takahashi Research Associate in Japanese Studies (2011-14) and a Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow (2010-11).
Kushida’s research and projects are focused on the following streams: 1) how politics and regulations shape the development and diffusion of Information Technology such as AI; 2) institutional underpinnings of the Silicon Valley ecosystem, 2) Japan's transforming political economy, 3) Japan's startup ecosystem, 4) the role of foreign multinational firms in Japan, 4) Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster. He spearheaded the Silicon Valley - New Japan project that brought together large Japanese firms and the Silicon Valley ecosystem.
He has published several books and numerous articles in each of these streams, including “The Politics of Commoditization in Global ICT Industries,” “Japan’s Startup Ecosystem,” "How Politics and Market Dynamics Trapped Innovations in Japan’s Domestic 'Galapagos' Telecommunications Sector," “Cloud Computing: From Scarcity to Abundance,” and others. His latest business book in Japanese is “The Algorithmic Revolution’s Disruption: a Silicon Valley Vantage on IoT, Fintech, Cloud, and AI” (Asahi Shimbun Shuppan 2016).
Kushida has appeared in media including The New York Times, Washington Post, Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Nikkei Business, Diamond Harvard Business Review, NHK, PBS NewsHour, and NPR. He is also a trustee of the Japan ICU Foundation, alumni of the Trilateral Commission David Rockefeller Fellows, and a member of the Mansfield Foundation Network for the Future. Kushida has written two general audience books in Japanese, entitled Biculturalism and the Japanese: Beyond English Linguistic Capabilities (Chuko Shinsho, 2006) and International Schools, an Introduction (Fusosha, 2008).
Kushida holds a PhD in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. He received his MA in East Asian Studies and BAs in economics and East Asian Studies with Honors, all from Stanford University.
Labor market duality refers to the coexistence of temporary workers with low dismissal costs and permanent workers with high dismissal costs within the same firms. The prevalence of temporary employment is a common feature in several countries, such as Continental European countries. Further, since the 1980s, the Japanese labor market has been experiencing a substantial increase in temporary jobs. The quality of temporary jobs tends to be lower than that of permanent jobs (e.g., the former includes lesser job security, lower wages, and fewer training opportunities compared to the latter). For this reason, the causes and consequences of widespread temporary employment have both policy and academic implications. To date, most of the research on this topic has focused on the supply side of labor markets (demographic changes in workforce), macroeconomic impacts (business cycles), and labor-market institutions. However, since the majority of temporary workers tends to be involuntary, the demand-side analysis is important, as well. It has rarely been examined how market competition would affect firms’ demand for temporary and permanent labor, particularly within the context of economic globalization.
Our study attempts to fill this gap. By proposing a heterogeneous-firm trade model with a dual labor market, we examine the relations between the demand for temporary and permanent workers and economic globalization. Our model highlights intensified product market competition as a driving force behind the shift in demand from permanent to temporary workers. In addition, our model demonstrates that international outsourcing effectively reduces labor adjustment costs, which decreases the demand for permanent workers. Using industry-level data from the Japanese manufacturing sector, we empirically test the relations between the demand for temporary and permanent workers and economic globalization and find that they support most of our theoretical predictions.
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Hitoshi Sato joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) during the 2018–2019 academic year from the Institute of Developing Economies (IDE-JETRO), a national research institute in Japan, where he currently serves as a senior chief research fellow. Sato’s field of study is international trade, and his current research interests include the relationships between internationalization of firms and labor markets. His research efforts have been published in journals, books, and policy reports, including theJournal of Japanese and International Economies. Further, Sato has been appointed as a consulting fellow by the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry since 2013. He received his PhD in economics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2006.
Dr. Hitoshi Sato joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) for the 2018 year from the Institute of Developing Economies (IDE-JETRO) in Japan, where he serves as Senior Chief Research Fellow. He will be working on the internationalization of firms, management practices, and development. Dr. Sato received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Yuhei is a Research Scholar (post-doc) at the Japan Program of the Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) at Stanford University for the academic year of 2018-2019. His broad research interest centers around understanding how firms and people interact over a social and geographic space, and how such interactions shape the socio-economic space in turn. Currently, he is working on projects that elucidate how Japanese firms form firm-to-firm trade linkages and what it implies for Japanese economies. Yuhei obtained his Ph.D in Economics from MIT in 2018. From 2019, Yuhei will join the Department of Economics at Boston University as an assistant professor.
“I learned long ago to never predict anything about North Korea.”
So began the keynote address by Anna Fifield, veteran journalist and winner of the 2018 Shorenstein Journalism Award. Speaking at the Award’s seventeenth annual panel discussion “How North Korea Is, and Isn’t, Changing under Kim Jong Un,” Fifield, the Beijing bureau chief for The Washington Post , shared some of the many observations she has made since she first began covering North Korea in 2004.
Two other North Korea experts joined Fifield at the panel: Barbara Demick, New York correspondent of the Los Angeles Times, formerly head of the bureaus in Beijing and Seoul, and the 2012 Shorenstein award winner; and Andray Abrahamian, the 2018-2019 Koret Fellow, whose previous role as executive director of Choson Exchange and other projects took him to the DPRK nearly 30 times. Yong Suk Lee, deputy director of the Korea Program at Shorenstein APARC, chaired the panel.
The presence of another person—the Dear Respected Comrade himself—was also very much felt in the room, if only in spirit.
Barbara Demick (center) speaks at 2018 Shorenstein Journalism Award.
Survival at any cost
At various points throughout its 70-year history, experts have predicted the demise of the "Hermit Kingdom." Fifield herself admitted to occasionally thinking along such terms.
And yet the country continues to prove them wrong.
“[D]uring my first stint covering North Korea, [I] just couldn’t envisage any way that this regime could survive the death of the second-generation leader and the transition to a third generation,” she said. “Kim Il Sung had created a myth of revolutionary heroism around himself, and a myth of divine selection around his son, Kim Jong Il. How could the North Korean people, who no longer live in a Hermit Kingdom, tolerate a third leader called Kim, let alone one who had no highly exaggerated or plain fictional back story?”
“Yet," Fifield continued, "here we are. Next month, Kim Jong Un will celebrate seven years in charge of North Korea.”
One prominent reason for the nation's recent survival, and an idea put forward by Fifield and supported by her co-panelists, was the development of markets in the communist state.
For decades, North Korea operated under the centrally-planned communist model. Even as China pursued reform and as the Soviet Union collapsed, the North Korean state maintained its central position in the economy.
However, following the famines of the 1990s, the state had no choice but to allow market activity to develop. Under the third Kim markets have continued to grow.
“There are now more than 400 established, state-sanctioned markets in North Korea,” said Fifield. “That’s more than double the number that existed when Kim Jong Un took over at the end of 2011.”
A side effect of this nascent market economy has been the emergence of new elites in the purported “classless” society. Fifield described the development of a capital within the capital—“Pyonghattan”—where newfound elites purchase clothes from western retailers and undergo plastic surgery for their eyelids.
Abrahamian concurred, noting that Kim Jong Un made sure to coddle this upper middle and upper class in Pyongyang. "The old way of doing that under Kim Jong Il and his father, Kim Il Sung, was very much through a loyalty and gift economy," Abrahamian said. "Money was not necessary in the old North Korea. Now it is. You do need it to get your daily necessities, and if you’re lucky enough, the products [from the “outside world”] help you to have a more pleasurable life through the market.”
At the other end of the spectrum, North Koreans turn to the markets not out of entrepreneurial zeal, but out of a need to survive. As an example, Fifield described meeting a mother and daughter living near the border with China. The mother took her daughter out of school in order to raise pigs and make tofu. Before dawn, they trekked into the mountains to tend crops of corn. It was a back-breaking existence. "If they were lucky, they made enough money each day to buy food for themselves," Fifield said. "Many days, they did all this to break even."
Andray Abrahamian responds to a question from the audience.
A smart tyrant not to be underestimated
The panel continued to focus on the man currently at the helm in North Korea.
“When I returned for my second go at covering the Koreas, I wanted to figure out how he’d done it," said Fifield. "How had this podgy young upstart with no qualifications other than being born into this family managed to take control of this regime…? How had he managed to keep intact this anachronistic system that should have died years, even decades, before?”
Fifield emphasized that her comments did not equate to admiration for Kim Jong Un. “He’s a tyrant,” she reminded the room. “But he’s a smart tyrant who’s been operating in a calculating way. To treat him as a joke or a madman is to underestimate the threat of him.”
“Kim Jong Un has not allowed these markets to flourish because he cares about the people and their wellbeing,” Fifield continued. “He has demonstrated time and time again that he doesn’t care at all about the people.”
“There’s only one thing he cares about and that is staying in power.”
Demick cautioned further against over-estimating the positive impact of market development on life in North Korea. “The people Anna interviewed for her groundbreaking series in 2017 in The Washington Post were disgusted with the system,” said Demick. “With the income inequality, with the corruption, with the controls.”
“For them, what’s the worst thing about North Korea? Simply being born there.”
The panelists participated in a lively audience Q & A.
A celebration of journalism
The Shorenstein Journalism Award, which carries a cash prize of $10,000, recognizes accomplished journalists committed to critical reporting on and exploring the complexities of Asia through their writing. It alternates between honoring recipients from the West, who mainly address American audiences, and recipients from Asia, who pave the way for freedom of the press in their countries. Established in 2002, the award honors the legacy of APARC benefactor Mr. Walter H. Shorenstein. A visionary businessman, philanthropist, and champion of Asian-American relations, Shorenstein was dedicated to promoting excellence in journalism and a deeper understanding of Asia.
While the reporting of each year's recipient focuses on different regions and areas of interest, the award consistently recognizes quality journalism. In his welcome remarks, panel chair Yong Suk Lee stated, “In the face of current attacks on journalists and on the truth in the United States and the world, [Shorenstein APARC is] even more committed to excellence in journalism, and to defending independent and free media."
Fifield’s co-panelists spoke at length about how deserving she was of the award. Before their first meeting in Seoul, Abrahamian confessed to harboring skepticism about Fifield. “I had read some of her work before and knew she had analytical chops, but thought to myself that journalists are always fighting for the next scoop.” However, after talking to Fifield for only a few minutes, Abrahamian readily dropped his guard. “I told myself, 'This is a special journalist; she's got something.’"
A previous recipient of the Shorenstein Journalism Award herself, Demick was equally enthusiastic in her praise of Fifield. “For the last four years, [Anna] had owned the North Korea story like no other journalist I’ve met, including myself.”
Fifield was presented with the Shorenstein award and prize at a private evening ceremony.
Watch Fifield’s keynote speech below. An audio version is availalbe on our SoundCloud channel.
Hiroaki Yasutake has had a front row seat in the development of Japan’s startup ecosystem for the past 20 years as he joined Rakuten as one of its earliest employees, spending many years at its CTO. In this talk, he will share various insights gained from being an integral part of the rise of Rakuten as it grew rapidly by introducing new services, buying much larger and established companies, and the process by which it made itself a reputable, established company in Japan. He also experienced Rakuten’s famed “English-nization” and the company’s aggressive global push. More broadly, many of his friends, associates and acquaintances fanned out to drive the growth of Japan’s startup ecosystem, which has transformed dramatically in the past two decades, and he will share many of their experiences, along with challenges facing Japan’s stage of the startup ecosystem. Yasutake also co-founded Junify, and he will introduce the business itself, his motivations for moving to Silicon Valley, and his observations of specific efforts by Japanese entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley.
SPEAKER:
Hiroaki Yasutake, Co-founder and CSO, Junify, and former CTO, Rakuten
BIO:
Hiroaki Yasutake joined Rakuten (founded 1997) in its infancy in 1998 as an engineer after briefly working at NTT. At Rakuten, he was in charge of creating various services and served as CTO before departing in 2016. He moved to Silicon Valley and co-founded a new startup, Junify, and currently also assists various large and small Japanese companies about their technology and innovation strategies as external board member and advisor. He graduated from Waseda University’s Graduate School of science research, mathematical sciences, and in 2015, attended the Stanford Executive Program (SEP) at the Graduate School of Business.
AGENDA:
4:15pm: Doors open 4:30pm-5:30pm: Talk and Discussion 5:30pm-6:00pm: Networking
Please note there is significant construction taking place on campus, which is greatly affecting parking availability and traffic patterns at the university. Please plan accordingly.
