International Relations

FSI researchers strive to understand how countries relate to one another, and what policies are needed to achieve global stability and prosperity. International relations experts focus on the challenging U.S.-Russian relationship, the alliance between the U.S. and Japan and the limitations of America’s counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan.

Foreign aid is also examined by scholars trying to understand whether money earmarked for health improvements reaches those who need it most. And FSI’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center has published on the need for strong South Korean leadership in dealing with its northern neighbor.

FSI researchers also look at the citizens who drive international relations, studying the effects of migration and how borders shape people’s lives. Meanwhile FSI students are very much involved in this area, working with the United Nations in Ethiopia to rethink refugee communities.

Trade is also a key component of international relations, with FSI approaching the topic from a slew of angles and states. The economy of trade is rife for study, with an APARC event on the implications of more open trade policies in Japan, and FSI researchers making sense of who would benefit from a free trade zone between the European Union and the United States.

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Big Data China logo

The event will be webcast live from this page.


In this event on December 9 at 7 a.m. PT / 10 a.m. ET, the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions (SCCEI) and the CSIS Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics present their latest Big Data China publication. The feature “Have U.S.-China Tensions Hurt American Innovation?” highlights the work of professors Ruixue Jia and Molly Roberts (University of California San Diego) and investigates the effects of U.S. policies toward China on academic collaboration between the two countries.

Trustee Chair Senior Fellow Ilaria Mazzocco will host the event, which will include an introduction by Professor Scott Rozelle of Stanford University. Professors Molly Roberts and Ruixue Jia of UC San Diego will discuss their research on the topic, followed by a discussion on the implications for U.S.-China relations and U.S. policy with distinguished panelists James Mulvenon of Peraton Labs, Deborah Seligsohn of Villanova University, and Abigail Coplin of Vassar College.  

FEATURING

Scott Rozelle 
Co-director at Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
Molly Roberts 
Associate Professor of Political Science, UC San Diego
Ruixue Jia 
Associate Professor of Economics, 
UC San Diego
Abigail Coplin 
Assistant Professor of Sociology and Science, Technology and Society, 
Vassar College
James Mulvenon 
Scientific Research and Analysis, Peraton Labs
Ilaria Mazzocco 
Senior Fellow, Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics
Deborah Seligsohn 
Senior Associate (Non-resident), Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics
 
  

EVENT PARTNERS
 

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SCCEI and CSIS logos

Virtual Livestream 

Abigail Coplin
Ruixue Jia
Ilaria Mazzocco
James Mulvenon
Molly Roberts
Scott Rozelle
Deborah Seligsohn
Panel Discussions
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Big Data China Annual Conference (Virtual)


The event will be broadcast live from this webpage.

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Big Data China logo

Tune in on December 13th to watch our annual conference! China experts in the policy and academic communities will discuss China’s economic policy, exit strategies for China’s Covid-19 policy, and potential pathways to improve the US-China relationship.

More details to come!


Agenda

8:00 - 8:30 am: Keynote Speech from Kenneth Lieberthal, Senior Fellow Emeritus in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings

8:30 - 9:25 am: Economic Policy in Today's China: Between Growth, Equity and Security

9:30 - 10:25 am: Covid-19 Policy: Impacts and Exit Strategies

10:30 - 11:30 am: US-China Relations: Are We Building Guardrails?


Featuring

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2022 keynote speaker: Kenneth Lieberthal, Senior Fellow Emeritus, Foreign Policy, Brookings

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Big Data China 2022 annual conference panelists.

Download the Conference Program
Download pdf

EVENT PARTNERS
 

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SCCEI and CSIS logos

Conferences
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Heather Rahimi
Heather Rahimi
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On September 28, 2022, Dr. Susan Shirk joined Stanford Libraries and the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions (SCCEI) as the featured speaker of the 2022 Dr. Sam-Chung Hsieh Memorial Lecture. “Dr. Shirk is one of the most experienced scholars studying China in the world”, moderator and SCCEI co-director Hongbin Li said in his opening remarks. She is a research professor and the founding chair of the 21st Century China Center, an academic research center and university-based policy think tank at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at UC San Diego, and easily “one of the top ten China scholars”. 

During the first in-person Hsieh Memorial Lecture in 3 years, Dr. Shirk spoke to an audience of over 100 Stanford faculty, students, researchers, and community members on the current state of U.S.–China relations and how we got to where we are. 

Shirk began her talk by acknowledging the deterioration of relations between China and the U.S. and outlined how the last decade of policy evolution has shaped the relationship. Shirk focused on two major themes in her talk: 1) China's pattern of overreach over the past decade and 2) the U.S.’s habitual overreaction to counter China’s overreach. 

Shirk suggests that China has established a system that lacks checks and balance. Officials at every level compete to outdo one another while implementing leaders' directives, thus escalating the outcome to levels Xi Jinping may not have initially intended. This has led to a system of overreach that has provoked great global backlash. Shirk highlighted numerous examples of overreach, the most recent examples include the crackdown on the private sector in China, Beijing’s takeover of Hong Kong, and China's policy toward Russia. Shirk suggested that all of these acts characterize overreach and have prompted governments across the world to reduce their economic reliance on China and to lack confidence in the country. 

To counter China’s overreach, the worst mistake the rest of the world, and the United States in particular, can make is to overreact, says Shirk.  However, the U.S. has a pattern of overreacting to overreach with “anti-China policies that have become the bi-partisan axis of American politics.” These policies have become so ingrained in U.S. politics, that it has become difficult for American policy makers to think critically of their policies. Instead of overreacting with damaging policies, Shirk encourages a return to diplomacy between the two countries, noting that “understanding the domestic political drivers of foreign policy in both countries can help us stem the downward spiral in relations.” 


Listen to the recorded lecture here: 

 

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2022 Hsieh Memorial Lecture with Dr. Susan Shirk.

 

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US-China Business Council President Shares Insights on US-China Relations in Private Roundtable

SCCEI hosted a private roundtable discussion with the president of the US-China Business Council, Craig Allen, and a select group of Stanford faculty and business leaders, discussing technology competition and the shifting business environment between the US and China.
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U.S.-China Relations in the Age of Uncertainty, a Conversation with Yasheng Huang

MIT professor Yasheng Huang joined SCCEI for a conversation on the fundamentals of U.S.-China relations and shared his thoughts on how the U.S. can disrupt current bilateral tension and advocated for more data-based, factual, and analytical discussions on China.
U.S.-China Relations in the Age of Uncertainty, a Conversation with Yasheng Huang
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Dr. Susan Shirk joined Stanford Libraries and the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions as the featured speaker of the 2022 Dr. Sam-Chung Hsieh Memorial Lecture.

Authors
Heather Rahimi
Heather Rahimi
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News
Date
Paragraphs
Washington DC capitol buildings.

On September 16, 2022, SCCEI hosted a private roundtable discussion with the president of the US-China Business Council (USCBC), Craig Allen, and a select group of Stanford faculty and business leaders. 

Prior to becoming USCBC’s president, Allen had a long, distinguished career in US public service, most recently serving as the United States ambassador to Brunei Darussalam from 2014-2018. In his current role as president, Allen strives to further USCBC’s mission to expand the US-China commercial relationship to benefit its 270+ members and, more broadly, the US economy. From his current post in Washington, D.C., Allen regularly advises policy makers in efforts to reduce barriers for American companies doing business in China. 

During the roundtable, the discussion centered around technology competition and the shifting business environment between the US and China. Allen opened the discussion with an update on major regulatory and legislative developments in Washington, D.C. with the potential to directly impact US companies engaged in business in China. They included: (i) the expanding US export control regime; (ii) the Committee on Foreign investment in the United States (CFIUS) review of inbound investments from China; (iii) the proposed “National Critical Capabilities Defense Act of 2022” in Congress, which would advance screening of outbound U.S. investments into China; (iv) Biden administration’s retention of Section 301 tariffs on goods from China; and (iv) the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.

We are at an inflection point in the bilateral relationship – hopefully we can put a floor under the deterioration of the relationship and build on the collaboration.

Although much of Allen’s commentary alluded to the ongoing tensions in US-China relations, he opted to end on a positive note, stating that we are at “an inflection point in the bilateral relationship – hopefully we can put a floor under the deterioration of the relationship and build on the collaboration.” 

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Why "Big Data China" Is Needed Now More Than Ever: A Conversation

In this video short, Scott Rozelle, SCCEI Co-Director sits down with Scott Kennedy, CSIS Trustee Chair in Chinese Business, to discuss Big Data China, a new project aimed at bridging the gap between cutting-edge academic research on China and the Washington policy community.
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Scholars Gather for Roundtable to Analyze Causes, Prospects, and Challenges of China’s Common Prosperity Program

SCCEI joins forces with the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) to convene private roundtables comprised of social science experts who conduct data-intensive research into timely issues confronting China’s economy.
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Yasheng Huang joins SCCEI for an conversation on US-China relations in this spotlight speaker event.
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U.S.-China Relations in the Age of Uncertainty, a Conversation with Yasheng Huang

MIT professor Yasheng Huang joined SCCEI for a conversation on the fundamentals of U.S.-China relations and shared his thoughts on how the U.S. can disrupt current bilateral tension and advocated for more data-based, factual, and analytical discussions on China.
U.S.-China Relations in the Age of Uncertainty, a Conversation with Yasheng Huang
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Subtitle

SCCEI hosted a private roundtable discussion with the president of the US-China Business Council, Craig Allen, and a select group of Stanford faculty and business leaders, discussing technology competition and the shifting business environment between the US and China.

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Senior Research Scholar, Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
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PhD

Guoguang Wu is a Senior Research Scholar at the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions, Stanford University. His research specializes in Chinese politics and comparative political economy, including, in China studies, elite politics, national political institutions and policy making mechanisms, transition from communism, the politics of development, and China’s search for its position in the world, and, in comparative political economy, transition of capitalism with globalization, the birth of capitalism in comparative perspectives, the worldwide rise of the economic state, and the emergence of human security on global agenda.

He is the author of four books, including China’s Party Congress: Power, Legitimacy, and Institutional Manipulation (Cambridge University Press, 2015) and Globalization against Democracy: A Political Economy of Capitalism After its Global Triumph (Cambridge University Press, 2017), editor or coeditor of six English-language volumes, and author or editor of more than a dozen of Chinese-language books. His academic articles have appeared in journals such as Asian Survey, China Information, China Perspectives, China Quarterly, Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Contemporary China, Pacific Review, Social Research, and Third World Quarterly. He also frequently contributes to The China Leadership Monitor. Some of his works have been translated and published in the languages of French, Japanese, and Korean.

Guoguang received a Ph.D. and a MA in politics from Princeton University (1995; 1993), a MA in journalism/political commentary from the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (1984), and a BA in journalism from Peking University (1981). During the late 1970s, he was among the sent-down youth in Mao's China, and a textile factory worker following the death of Mao. In the late 1980s, he worked in Beijing as an editorialist and a political commentator in Renmin ribao (The People's Daily) and, concurrently, a policy adviser on political reform and a speechwriter to the Zhao Ziyang leadership. His later appointments include: a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University (1989-1990), a Luce Fellow at the East Asian Institute of Columbia University (1990-91), and an An Wang Post-doctoral Fellow at the John King Fairbank Center of Harvard University (1995-96). Before joining Stanford in 2022, he taught at the University of Victoria in Canada and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Currently he is also a Senior Fellow at the Center for China Analysis of the Asia Society Policy Institute.

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Assistant Professor of Political Science, Stanford University
Faculty Affiliate at the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
Yiqing Xu New High Res.png
PhD

Yiqing Xu is an Assistant Professor at Department of Political Science, Stanford University. His primary research covers methodology and comparative politics, focusing on China. He received a PhD in Political Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2016), an MA in Economics from China Center for Economic Research at Peking University (2010) and a BA in Economics (2007) from Fudan University.

His work has appeared in American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Political Analysis, Political Science Research and Methods, among other peer-reviewed journals. He has won several professional awards, including the best article award from American Journal of Political Science in 2016 and the Miller Prize (2018, 2020) for the best work appearing in Political Analysis the preceding year.

Date Label
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2022 Sam Dr. Sam-Chung Hsieh Memorial Lecture
Date & Time: Wednesday, September 28, 2022     |    4:30 - 6:00 PM PT 
Location: Green Library, Bing Wing, 5th floor, Bender Room


Overreach and Overreaction: The Downward Spiral in the U.S.-China Relations 

Stanford Libraries and the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions are pleased to present the 2022 Dr. Sam-Chung Hsieh Memorial Lecture featuring Professor Susan Shirk who will be speaking on Overreach and Overreaction: The Downward Spiral in the U.S.-China Relations.  This is an in-person event.

Why did China abandon its successful foreign policy of restraint and shift toward confrontation and unchecked control over its own society? Surprisingly the shift began under Hu Jintao’s collective leadership (2002-12). Under the personalistic leadership of Xi Jinping the trend has intensified. Those who implement Xi's directives compete to outdo one another, provoking an even greater global backlash. To counter China’s overreach, the worst mistake the rest of the world, and the United States in particular, can make is to overreact. Understanding the domestic political drivers of foreign policy in both countries can help us stem the downward spiral in relations.


About the Speaker

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Susan Shirk

Susan Shirk is Chair of the 21st Century China Center and research professor at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy. Shirk’s book, China:  Fragile Superpower helped frame the policy debate on China in the U.S. and other countries. Her articles have appeared in leading academic publications in political science, international relations, and China studies. She previously served as deputy assistant secretary of state (1997-2000) responsible for U.S. policy toward China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mongolia. She is director emeritus of the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation and founded the Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue, an unofficial forum for discussion of security issues. Shirk is a graduate of Mt. Holyoke College and received her PhD from M.I.T.


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.


Questions? Contact Sonia Lee from Stanford Libraries 

Green Library, Bing Wing, 5th floor, Bender Room

Susan Shirk University of California San Diego
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Earlier this year the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions (SCCEI) joined the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) to launch Big Data China, a new project aimed at bridging the gap between cutting-edge academic research on China and the Washington policy community. Since the launch of the collaboration, SCCEI and CSIS have hosted a number of featured events, organized briefing sessions for academics to speak directly with policy makers,  launched a new project website, and much more.

We just don’t understand China — if we understood China better, we could make better policy decisions.
Scott Rozelle

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Big Data China logo
The Big Data China website features regular multimedia analysis with high-quality data that explores important trends in China’s economy and society. In the newest video release, Scott Rozelle, SCCEI Co-Director, and Scott Kennedy, CSIS Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics, sit down to discuss why the Big Data China collaboration is needed now, more than ever. As Scott Rozelle puts it, "we just don’t understand China — if we understood China better, we could make better policy decisions." This collaboration aims to reduce the current gap between academia and Washington by identifying and highlighting the policy implications of cutting-edge scholarly work on China and presenting it directly to the policy community. 


Watch the video and visit the website for more from Big Data China!

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In this video short, Scott Rozelle, SCCEI Co-Director sits down with Scott Kennedy, CSIS Trustee Chair in Chinese Business, to discuss Big Data China, a new project aimed at bridging the gap between cutting-edge academic research on China and the Washington policy community.

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A SCCEI Spotlight Speaker Event


Friday, April 22, 2022          6 - 7 PM Pacific Time 
Saturday, April 23, 2022    9 - 10 AM Beijing Time


U.S.-China Relations in the Age of Uncertainty

The US-China relations are entering into an uncertain era. More than any other bilateral relations in the world, the US-China relations are characterized by complexities. The two countries compete in multiple arenas, but the competition takes place in a broad context of mutual dependency and collaborations. The Russian invasion of Ukraine may further unravel US-China relations. This talk will discuss and examine these issues.

This event features Yasheng Huang, Professor of Global Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is joined by Scott Rozelle, co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions, and Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), who will moderate a discussion about the major themes of the research. A question and answer session with the audience follows the discussion.


About the Speakers
 

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Yasheng Huang headshot.
Yasheng Huang is Epoch Foundation Professor of International Management, Professor of Global Economics and Management, and Faculty Director of Action Learning at Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is currently involved in research projects in three broad areas: 1) political economy of contemporary China, 2) historical technological and political developments in China, and 3) as a co-PI in “Food Safety in China: A Systematic Risk Management Approach” (supported by Walmart Foundation, 2016-). He has published numerous articles in academic journals and in media and 11 books in English and Chinese. His book, The Rise and the Fall of the EAST: Examination, Autocracy, Stability, and Technology in Chinese History and Today, will be published by Yale University Press in 2023.
 

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Headshot of Dr. Scott Rozelle
Scott Rozelle is the Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow and the co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research at Stanford University.  For the past 30 years, he has worked on the economics of poverty reduction. Currently, his work on poverty has its full focus on human capital, including issues of rural health, nutrition and education. For the past 20 year, Rozelle has been the chair of the International Advisory Board of the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Most recently, Rozelle's research focuses on the economics of poverty and inequality, with an emphasis on rural education, health and nutrition in China. In recognition of this work, Dr. Rozelle has received numerous honors and awards. Among them, he became a Yangtse Scholar (Changjiang Xuezhe) in Renmin University of China in 2008. In 2008 he also was awarded the Friendship Award by Premiere Wen Jiabao, the highest honor that can be bestowed on a foreigner.


Questions? Contact Debbie Aube at debbie.aube@stanford.edu


Watch the recording:

Scott Rozelle

Zoom Webinar

Yasheng Huang
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Scott Kennedy, CSIS Trustee Chair and SCCEI partner on the "Big Data China"  collaboration, joins Yiqing Xu, SCCEI Faculty Affiliate, on the podcast Politics+Media 101 where they discuss the war in Ukraine, Russia-China relations, and the possible implications the war may have on China-US relations.

Listen to the whole conversation starting starting at the 27:10 time mark, the first half of the podcast features U.S. Marine Corps Colonel Mark Cancian of CSIS. 

Listen to the episode here or click below: 

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SCCEI Launches "Big Data China" in Collaboration with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)

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Data graph lines over cityscape in China.
News

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Conference Highlights Need for US-China Collaboration

Panel at Stanford China Economic Forum discusses climate change, financial technology as key areas of mutual interest.
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CSIS Trustee Chair and SCCEI Collaborator Scott Kennedy and SCCEI Faculty Affiliate Yiqing Xu join the podcast Politics+Media 101 to discuss Russia-China relations and the possible implications the war in Ukraine will have on China-US relations.

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