May 3rd, 2011

Volume promotes a deeper understanding of contemporary China's development

Recent reviews published in International Affairs and the China Quarterly hail Growing Pains: Tensions and Opportunity in China's Transformation, edited by Jean Oi, Scott Rozelle, and Xueguang Zhou, as successful in presenting a more balanced and thorough understanding of China's significant growth in the last three decades. International Affairs reviewer Kerry Brown highlights important chapters on wages, corruption, local elections, and family planning, while China Quarterly reviewer Scott Kennedy emphasizes, "Growing Pains deserves the attention of every scholar interested in contemporary China."

• » Growing Pains: Tensions and Opportunity in China's Transformation
• » Chatham House's International Affairs
• » The China Quarterly

Analyzing China's reform in a comparative context

The Stanford China Program (SCP) is pleased to announce the publication of Going Private in China: The Politics of Corporate Restructuring and System Reform in the PRC, which addresses many key reform questions faced over the past two decades by China, as well as by Japan and South Korea. Edited by SCP director Jean Oi, this volume demonstrates the commonalities between three seemingly disparate political economies. In addition, it sheds important new light on China's corporate restructuring and also offers new perspectives on how we think about the process of institutional change.

• » Going Private in China: The Politics of Corporate Restructuring and System Reform

April 18th, 2011

Examining China’s view on the April 2010 NPR report

Since 1994, the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) has established the official U.S. position on nuclear weapons. An extensive report outlining U.S. nuclear policy and strategy is published in conjunction with the review. Addressing China’s perspective on the most recent NPR report published in April 2010, Thomas Fingar contributed to a special issue of Nonproliferation Review and participated in a related breakfast briefing held on March 17, 2011, in Washington, DC.

• » Nonproliferation Review: Arms, disarmament, and influence: International reactions to the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review
• » Nonproliferation Review Breakfast Briefing: Arms, disarmament, and influence: International responses to the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review

April 5th, 2011

Jean Oi and Andrew Walder play key role in development of SCPKU

Scheduled to open in January 2012, construction is well underway for the Stanford Center at Peking University (SCPKU), a state-of-the art, multimillion dollar facility with research and event space available for the use of all Stanford departments. The center is anticipated to further develop the university's ties with and presence in Asia, and to increase the amount of Stanford activities taking place there. Jean Oi, director of the Stanford China Program, will also serve concurrently as the director of SCPKU. She and Andrew Walder, the Denise O'Leary and Kent Thiry Professor of Sociology, have played a key role in the development of SCPKU since originating the idea for the center in 2006.

• » Stanford News: Stanford puts focus on China with new center at Peking University
• » Stanford News: Faculty hear more details about new Peking University Center

March 28th, 2011

Government is key to understanding China's future

Over the past three decades, China's government, economy, and society have been undergoing a transformation, the momentum of which has intensified in recent years. Stanford sociologist Xueguang Zhou has been conducting a detailed ethnographic study in a rural township a few hours' drive from Beijing in order to understand these changes, especially in terms of China's political institutions. He is also beginning research about the behavior of urban government organizations and about the trajectory of personnel mobility in the Chinese bureaucracy. Read more »

March 23rd, 2011

Rozelle discusses China's human capital challenges

During the State of the Chinese Economy conference held recently at the University of Southern California (USC), Scott Rozelle, the Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, discussed current and future challenges to China's human capital in terms of education, health, and nutrition. A full video recording of Rozelle’s presentation is available on the USC website.

• » USC News: Experts weigh in on Chinese economy
• » USC U.S.-China Institute: Scott Rozelle, "Education, health and nutrition and China's human capital challenge in the 21st century"

February 14th, 2011

Thomas Fingar on China's new U.S. image campaign

China's government has launched a new public relations campaign to improve its image in the United States, which includes a promotional video aired in Times Square featuring celebrities such as basketball player Yao Ming, piano virtuoso Lang Lang, and astronaut Yang Liwei. The campaign is part of China's soft-power strategy and is intended to counter negative views about its perceived threat to the United States. Thomas Fingar, the Oksenberg/Rohlen Distinguished Fellow at FSI, spoke recently with CCTV’s World Insight about the campaign and about China's soft-power strategy, noting the link between concern about China and uncertainty about the U.S. economy.

• » World Insight (CCTV): China's image abroad

January 19th, 2011

U.S.-China cooperation on global issues crucial

China's President Hu Jintao conducted a high-profile visit to the United States in late January 2011, during which he discussed economics, security, and climate change with President Barack Obama. Speaking with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Thomas Fingar stressed the importance of Washington and Beijing finding common ground for cooperation on crucial global issues.

• » Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: "A summit that won't be business as usual: Obama, Hu meet in Washington"

January 4th, 2011

Thomas Fingar analyzes China and the global system

China occupies a significant place in the world’s U.S.-led economic and political system. Will it continue to participate in the system that it has benefited from and contributed to, adapting its policies and practices in order to do so? Or, will it attempt to overturn the current system at some point in an effort to gain global dominance? Thomas Fingar, the Oksenberg/Rohlen Distinguished Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, addresses these core questions in a new research project, arguing that the situation is neither so polarized, nor so simplistic. Audio transcript available
Read more »

November 19th, 2010

SCP's Jean C. Oi speaks about China's new rural reorganizations

Shequ are new institutions in China's rural areas--reorganization of villages resulting in the movement and relocation of rural populations. Jean Oi, director of the Stanford China Program and an expert on rural politics in China, recently spoke at Harvard University's Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies about the implications of this phenomena for China's rural inhabitants and central-local government relations.

• » Harvard Crimson: "Oi talks on rural distress in China"

November 11th, 2010

Paying the price of China's bank reforms

While Shanghai and Hong Kong are often viewed as the financial centers of China, Beijing, the capital, is in reality where all financial decisions are made--decisions that affect the country's banking system and overall financial structure, which has implications on a global level. Carl Walter, a managing director of JPMorgan China, spoke at a Stanford China Program seminar on November 1 about the frequent changes in China's banking system since 1949 and the cost of these reforms within and outside of China. Read more »

October 27th, 2010

Fractured Rebellion by Andrew G. Walder featured in New York Review of Books

Fractured Rebellion: The Beijing Red Guard Movement, the acclaimed book by Andrew Walder, was featured in the November 11, 2010 issue of the New York Review of Books. Awarded the 2009 Barrington Moore Award by the American Sociological Association, Fractured Rebellion provides a new perspective of the Red Guard movement, focusing on its evolution between 1966-1968 in Beijing. China studies pioneer Jonathan Spence has praised the book, saying: "Better than anything else I have read, Andrew Walder's Fractured Rebellion explains how and why the Beijing students in the first two years of the Cultural Revolution became so sharply, bitterly, and fatally divided. An absorbing work of research and synthesis."

• » New York Review of Books: "How reds smashed reds"

October 13th, 2010

Carl Walter, managing director at JPMorgan China, to speak about China's banking system

In an emerging economy like China's, institutions are not yet institutions. They are often the playthings of politics and bureaucratic rivalries. China's banking system is a case in point. Since 1949, banks have bounced around China's institutional landscape as the government tried out first one then another banking model. This mattered little to the outside world until the last decade when reform brought banks to the international capital markets in search of massive amounts of new capital. This did not, however, stop institutional in-fighting. It spread so that today the domestic struggle over bank roles, responsibilities and ownership has expanded to involve international markets, investors, regulators and the reputations of market professionals at a growing cost to the Chinese government and to the banks themselves. Carl Walter, managing director at JPMorgan China, will offer insight into China's banking system at a public seminar on November 1, 2010, part of the China in the World series co-sponsored by the Stanford China Program and the Center for East Asian Studies. Read more »

Friction points: colliding interests in U.S.-China relations

In the wake of the global financial crisis, some have dubbed China and the United States the G2, signifying their centrality in global economics and politics. Even so, the relationship between China and the United States is rife with new tensions. Trade and currency challenges persist, complicated by domestic politics and differing approaches to security issues. In its annual conference to honor the memory of eminent China scholar Michel Oksenberg, Stanford's Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center gathered distinguished policymakers and analysts to examine colliding--and overlapping--interests in U.S.-China relations. Read more »

September 15th, 2010

Competition in China's wheat market

Yihai Kerry Group, a Singapore-based agribusiness and food company, has drawn criticism for its presence in China’s wheat market. Among the accusations leveled at the company, Yihai Kerry has been blamed for causing price inflation. Scott Rozelle, Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, comments on the positive side of competition.

• » WSJ: China's wheat newbies attract glares

August 13th, 2010

Climate change and China's agricultural sector

A new issue brief by Scott Rozelle and fellow researchers Jinxia Wang and Jikun Huang concludes that climate change will have a significant effect on China's crop yields and impact its economy, including the grain trade. It concludes that China's government is responsible for responding in ways that will help the country adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change. The issue brief was jointly published by the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development and the International Food and Agricultural Trade Policy Council.
Read more »

May 17th, 2010

Xueguang Zhou discusses the political consequences of recent school killings in China

Xueguang Zhou: Details about the school attacks remain to be sorted out — whether they are isolated or copycat acts; whether they are triggered by mental illness or based on some malicious motives. But one thing is clear: these incidents reflect widespread and rapidly rising social anxieties, frustrations and tensions in the Chinese society today.

• » NY Times' Room for Debate: China's school killings and social despair

September 10th, 2009

Andrew Walder publishes new research on the Beijing Red Guard Movement

Due out in October 2009 from Harvard University Press, Andrew Walder's new book, Fractured Rebellion: The Beijing Red Guard Movement, is already garnering rave reviews.

• » Fractured Rebellion: The Beijing Red Guard Movement

March 10th, 2009

President Hennessy talks with Charlie Rose about Stanford's plans and priorities

In a wide ranging interview with Charlie Rose, Stanford President John Hennessy discusses the role of the modern university, research and funding priorities in the Obama stimulus package and Stanford's plans to internationalize. President Hennessy tells Charlie Rose that Stanford "is opening a center in Beijing on the Peking University campus that will be both a home for our students but also a place where our researchers who are working on collaborations and with faculty in China can actually have space and have a presence."

• » Conversation with Stanford President Hennessy on Charlie Rose

October 27th, 2008

Gender imbalance in China

Dr. Marcus Feldman of Stanford's Biology department discussed the sex-ratio imbalance and gender studies in China in the first of three colloquia on "The Implications of Demographic Change in China," co-sponsored by the Asia Health Policy Program and the Stanford China Program. presentation available
Read more »

March 21st, 2008

Bringing students to China helped demystify process of field research, Oi says

Stanford China Program Director Jean Oi is profiled in the Stanford Report for her role in the Center for Teaching and Learning's "Award-Winning Teachers on Teaching" lecture series. Oi, the William Haas Professor in Chinese Politics, began her March 6 talk titled "Cow Pies and Democracy: Teaching in the Field," by laughingly apologizing for her word choice. "I still can't believe I chose that title, but I think it aptly describes what I do with my students," she said. Read more »

October 26th, 2007

Jean Oi, director of Shorenstein APARC's Stanford China Program discusses Stanford's expansion into China

"We already have a strong BOSP program in Beijing at Peking University," Oi said in an email to The Daily. "We would like to have a center that could allow our faculty to hold seminars, workshops and do collaborative work with scholars in China." Read more »

October 19th, 2007

Stanford China Program inaugural event

Please join us on Thursday, November 1 for the launch of the Stanford China Program, a new program of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC). Read more »