May 16th, 2013

Leading the way in contemporary China research

Within a few short years of its founding, the Stanford China Program has established a reputation as one of the top research programs in the country focusing on contemporary China. Read more »

April 30th, 2013

Oi appointed to new Schwarzman Scholars program in China

Jean Oi was appointed to the Academic Advisory Council of the newly founded Schwarzman Scholars international scholarship program. Read more »

November 29th, 2012

Limits of China's village democracy

Activists in Wukan, in Guangdong province, have discovered there are limits to grassroots democracy. New research by Jean C. Oi, showing a high percentage of upper-level government overseers in China's villages, highlights the boundaries of the power of local elected officials.

• » Wall Street Journal article (subscription required)

October 29th, 2012

Policy implications of China's view of the global order

Thomas Fingar, who leads the China and the World research initiative, examines the policy implications of China's view of the global order. He shares his thoughts in a new publication on security in Asia.

• » China and the World
• » China's Vision of World Order (publication)

Ballots and Beijing: November 6 from China's perspective

Thomas Fingar, FSI’s Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow, considers how the outcome of the election could impact U.S.-China relations, and how the United States could focus its priorities in Asia. Read more »

August 30th, 2012

Building confidence key toward a successful U.S.-China relationship

In a recent interview about the U.S.-China bilateral relationship, Thomas Fingar spoke of the need for the two countries to focus on building more confidence in one another for their future wellbeing.

• » China-US Focus interview (video)

May 29th, 2012

Stanford's Eikenberry discusses the future of China's national security strategy

On May 18, 2012, the Pentagon released its annual report about the People's Republic of China's recent military developments. During Stanford's annual Oksenberg lecture, Karl Eikenberry discussed China's military modernization and its overall national security strategy. Read more »

May 10th, 2012

Fingar on contemporary U.S.-China relations

Thomas Fingar, who has observed developments in U.S.-China relations since "ping-pong diplomacy" in the early 1970s, spoke with China-based Leaders Magazine about the significance of -- and hype surrounding -- the Obama administration's "Asia pivot." Read more »

May 8th, 2012

Bo Xilai affair a turning point for China's top leadership

A revelatory story emerged in China this spring: Bo Xilai, Chongqing’s Communist Party head, had fallen out with the party and was accused of shocking abuses of power. On May 2, the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center held a special seminar to make sense of what this unusual high-level scandal could mean for the future of China’s current political system. Read more »

May 2nd, 2012

China provides universal health insurance at a fraction of the cost

Chinese officials are developing a social security network to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing demographic landscape. Karen Eggleston discusses the success of China’s health care reforms and the long road ahead. Read more »

March 28th, 2012

Exploring China's formidable cigarette industry

How has the cigarette become so integrated into the fabric of everyday life across the People's Republic of China? To get to the heart of this question, a diverse group of experts met Mar. 26 and 27 in Beijing. In an interview, conference lead Matthew Kohrman spoke about the history of China's cigarette industry, cigarettes and society, and the growing tobacco-control movement. Read more »

March 26th, 2012

Stanford, Asia experts convene at Peking University

Stanford experts recently came together with colleagues from across Asia for two Shorenstein APARC conferences at the new Stanford Center at Peking University. China and the World examined China’s contemporary interactions with its neighbors, and Cigarette Production Before, During, and After Liberation explored China’s cigarette industry over the past 100 years. Read more »

China must invest more in rural children, say Stanford scholars

As China's economy grows so does the prevalence of social inequality. In a YaleGlobal Online article, a team of Shorenstein APARC China experts says the country must invest more now in education and public health programs for its rural children or it will face major growth challenges in the near future.

• » Comparative Policy Responses to Demographic Change in East Asia
• » YaleGlobal Online article

February 16th, 2012

Q&A: Fingar shares insight on Chinese vice president's U.S. visit

Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping recently visited the United States to meet with top officials and tour various cities. China experts followed the trip closely because Xi is anticipated to become China’s next president. Thomas Fingar spoke with the Shanghai Oriental Morning Post about the visit, and about the Obama administration's Asia policy. Read more »

February 13th, 2012

Understanding the complexities of China's global interactions

Since opening its doors to the world in 1978, China has pursued a sometimes erratic but reasonably steady course leading to increasing global economic and political interaction. Thomas Fingar is leading a new multiphase Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center initiative to explore the nuances and complexity of China’s foreign relations and domestic issues. The project kicks off with a Mar. 19-20 workshop at the new Stanford China Center at Peking University. Read more »

January 18th, 2012

Kohrman to speak about cigarette factory mapping and policy

At present, the tobacco industry annually produces some six trillion cigarettes worldwide. A third of all these sticks were produced in China last year. During a Jan. 30 seminar, Matthew Kohrman will introduce the Cigarette Citadels project, an innovative application of participatory GIS, and discuss its implications for public health policy and social theory about the state and the politics of life.

• » Cigarette Citadels, Remapping Theory and Policy, Cigarette Factories in and Outside of China
  
• » Cigarette Citadels Project

Stanford's Fingar examines China's development issues

For the past two decades China has been a poster child of successful globalization. But its integration into the world economy and global trends drive and constrain Beijing's ability to manage growing social, economic and political challenges. In a YaleGlobal Online series article, Thomas Fingar looks at the global implications of China’s development challenges.

• » YaleGlobal Online: Global implications of China's challenges

January 11th, 2012

Stanford publications contextualize China's development

After 10 years of rapid growth, China will undergo a major leadership transition later this year. Two recent Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center edited volumes -- Going Private in China and Growing Pains -- put China’s development into context as the country prepares for the next decade of its future.

• » Going Private in China: The Politics of Corporate Restructuring and System Reform
• » Growing Pains: Tensions and Opportunity in China's Transformation

December 2nd, 2011

Fractured Rebellion a 'groundbreaking book,' says China Beat

Fractured Rebellion is the first full-length account of the evolution of China's Red Guard Movement in Beijing, the nation's capital, from its beginnings in 1966 to its forcible suppression in 1968. A recent China Beat review praised Andrew Walder's 2009 book as "groundbreaking" and as "[bringing] meaning to a whirlwind of events."

• » Fractured Rebellion: The Beijing Red Guard Movement
• » China Beat: Fractured Rebellion

October 6th, 2011

East Asia internships for students

The Shorenstein Asia Pacific Research Center and the Division of International, Comparative, and Area Studies are excited to offer highly qualified Stanford students an opportunity to extend classroom knowledge of East Asia to real-life working and cultural experiences through the East Asia Internship Program. Internship positions will cover a wide spectrum of business, non-profit, media, educational, medical, technology, and government activities.

• » East Asia Internship Program

August 9th, 2011

Kohrman's ground-breaking study of cigarette warning labels

What influence might graphic warning labels have on cigarette sales? Matthew Kohrman is studying that question with experimental methods in Southwest China. Kohrman’s research is generating much-needed data in support of the expansion of China’s warning label system. Among the countries increasingly adopting graphic labels, the United States will require visual warnings on all cigarette packages by next fall.

Stanford Cancer Center News: Smoking cessation in a land of two trillion cigarettes

July 13th, 2011

Andrew Walder discusses China's political "holding strategy"

China's Soviet-style political system has not kept pace with the dramatic changes taking place within the country's social and economic systems, suggests Andrew Walder in a recent Boston Review op-ed. Keeping the lessons of the former Soviet Union in mind, he says, China's government has instead utilized a "holding strategy" to maintain its political institutions over the past twenty years.

• » Boston Review: Holding strategy

July 7th, 2011

Farmers in rural China struggling to survive, Scott Rozelle comments

Two-hundred million farming households in China are struggling to capitalize on their nation's breathtaking economic development. While city dwellers are enjoying fast-rising living standards, much of rural China remains a hardscrabble landscape where average incomes of about $3,200 a year are less than a third of what they are in urban areas. "No one is going to get rich off farming," said Scott Rozelle, an expert on China's rural economy at Stanford University. "It's not going to happen until farm sizes get bigger. That's why millions of people are moving to the cities."

• » Los Angeles Times article - Farming in China: Amid China's economic transformation, many farmers struggle

May 12th, 2011

China's Food Inflation

Middle class appetites and rising affluence are driving up the price of food in China, home to 1.3 billion people. Growers are faced with rising demand for food just as the rural labor supply dwindles. Yet the changes in food and work preferences aren't all bad, as they reflect the human and economic development taking place in China, says Scott Rozelle, food economist and Helen Farnsworth Senior Fellow at FSI.

• » Boston.com - Middle class appetites drive China food inflation

May 11th, 2011

Give new smoking ban time, suggests China tobacco health expert Matthew Kohrman

Tobacco is the single greatest cause of preventable death in the world today, including in China where cigarette smoking is a popular pastime. "The [tobacco] industry in China is run by the Tobacco Monopoly Administration, a central government administrative body created in the 1980s, also known as China Tobacco Corp.," said Matthew Kohrman in a February 2011 interview with NPR's Morning Edition. China nonetheless issued a nationwide indoor smoking ban on May 1. Speaking with Al Jazeera English on the first day of the ban, Kohrman predicted that Chinese citizens will increasingly comply with the ban even if in fits and starts initially. "It all has to do with implementation," he suggested. "It all has to do with changing the culture of smoking and people’s thinking about it—that takes time."

• » NPR: China dependent on tobacco in more ways than one
• » Al Jazeera English: China starts national ban on indoor cigarette smoking