China's Harmonious Society colloquium series

co-sponsored by the Stanford China Program and the Center for East Asian Studies

Since 2006, the official doctrine of China's Communist Party calls for the creation of a "harmonious society" (HeXieSheHui). This policy, identified with the Hu Jintao leadership, acknowledges the new problems that have emerged as China continues its amazing economic growth. The economy is booming but so are tensions from rising inequality, environmental damage, health problems, diverse ethnicities, and attempts to break the "iron rice bowl." In this series of colloquia, leading authorities will discuss the causes of these tensions, their seriousness, and China's ability to solve these challenges.

Nancy Shulman's talk topic will be posted soon.

Nancy Shulman conducts laboratory and clinical research in the area of HIV therapeutics, with focus on antiretroviral resistance and treatment strategies of experienced patients, the impact of antiretroviral treatment on HIV co-receptor utilization, and HIV in China. she received her MD from Kansas University Medical School and holds a BA in biochemistry from University of Texas, Austin. She is a doctor specializing in internal medicine, pediatrics, and infectious diseases.

"Healthcare Coverage for 1.3 Billion: China's Odyssey"

Karen Eggleston

Media coverage as well as the academic literature give conflicting appraisals of China's reality: Is China's healthcare system on the verge of collapse? Why is healthcare so expensive and difficult to access in contemporary China? Have reforms 'marketizing' healthcare drastically undermined progress in assuring affordable access for all? Or do hospitals and other providers constitute a last bastion of state control and bureaucratized monopoly in the name of equal access? Chinese analysts and policy advisers have engaged in a sometimes acrimonious debate; some champion a government-led, National Health Service-like model, while others passionately argue that market forces should play a greater role. In this talk, Karen Eggleston will present a brief overview of China's health system reforms and current developments.

Karen Eggleston focuses her research on comparative healthcare systems during economic development and transition from central planning to market-based economies. Her interests include the impact of payment incentives on healthcare insurer and provider behavior; chronic disease management; and incentives surrounding health behaviors such as the spread of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, overuse of antibiotics, and smoking. She earned her PhD in public policy from Harvard University and has MA degrees in economics and Asian studies from the University of Hawaii.

Dr. Lee currently holds the Edward G. and Nancy S. Jordan Endowed Chair in Economics and is a professor in the Department of Demography at University of California - Berkeley (Berkeley). He has taught courses in economic demography, population theory, population and economic development, demographic forecasting, population aging, indirect estimation, and research design, as well as a number of pro-seminars.

Professor Lee is also the director of the Center on the Economics and Demography of Aging at Berkeley, funded by the National Institute of Aging. His current research includes including modeling and forecasting demographic time series, the evolutionary theory of life histories, population aging, Social Security, and intergenerational transfers.

He has received several honors, including Presidency of the Population Association of America, the Mindel C. Sheps Award for research in mathematical demography, the PAA Irene B. Taeuber Award for outstanding contributions in the field of demography. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Corresponding member of the British Academy. He has chaired the population and social science study section for NIH and the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Population, and served on the National Advisory Committee on Aging (NIA Council).

Professor Lee holds an MA in demography from the University of California, Berkeley, and a PhD in economics from Harvard University.

Jeanne Mager Stellman (speaker) has just recently joined the Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health at SUNY-Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn N.Y as Professor and Director of the Division of Environmental Health Sciences. She had been a member of the faculty of the School of Public Health at Columbia University since 1981 and directed the General Public Health track. Stellman is actively engaged in research on herbicides in Vietnam and was director of a multimillion dollar study for the National Academy of Science to develop exposure methodologies for epidemiological studies of military herbicides. She and her husband, Steven D. Stellman, are collaborating on several follow-up studies and, with National Library of Medicine support, she is now creating a website on Vietnam that uses the geographic information system they developed to make it accessible to researchers around the world. The Stellmans are the recipient of The American Legion's Distinguished Service Medal because of their ongoing research and assistance to veterans. In addition, Stellman is now heavily engaged in research and policy in the aftermath of the World Trade Center terrorist attacks. She served on the EPA's Technical Advisory Panel for WTC Cleanup and is a consultant to the Mt. Sinai WTC Medical Monitoring program, where she is co-directing research on the mental health and well-being of the first responders. Stellman served as Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopedia of Occupational Health and Safety, 4th edition (1998). She is the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship and was named one of Ms. Magazine's "80 women to watch in the 80's." She has written several books, many monographs and chapters and peer-reviewed publications.

Lynn Eden (discussant) is associate director for research/senior research scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University. Eden received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan, held several pre- and post-doctoral fellowships, and taught in the history department at Carnegie Mellon before coming to Stanford. In the area of international security, Eden has focused on U.S. foreign and military policy, arms control, the social construction of science and technology, and organizational issues regarding nuclear policy and homeland security.

This presentation provides an overview of the history of US satellite-based reconnaissance as has been publicly revealed by the US Government to date. Extrapolating from there, it will transition to the evolutionary and revolutionary role that commercial satellite imagery is now playing on the international stage in proving a heretofore-unimaginable basis for greater global transparency and the way it has helped, and will continue to help, to detect and monitor undeclared unconventional weapons related facilities and activities. In addition, new geospatial tools, which draw heavily upon commercial satellite imagery as well as augmenting it, have also become available over the internet. Among those Geospatial tools, "Digital Virtual Globes" (i.e., Google Earth, Virtual Earth, etc.) not only provide a much improved mapping capability over previously used simple plan-view line drawings used by various international inspection organizations such as the IAEA, but the offer much improved visualization of known and inspected sites. Such digital globes also provide a new, essentially free means to conduct broad area baseline search for possible "clandestine" sites...either allege through open source leads; identified on internet blogs and wiki layers with input from a "free" cadre of global browsers and/or by knowledgeable local citizens that can include ground photos and maps; or by other initiatives based on existing country program knowledge. The digital globes also provide highly accurate terrain mapping for better overall geospatial context and allow detailed 3-D perspectives of all sites or areas of interest. 3-D modeling software, when used in conjunction with these digital globes can significantly enhance individual building characterization and visualization (including interiors), allowing for better international inspector training through pre-inspection walk-arounds or fly-around, and perhaps better IAEA safeguard decision making. In sum, these new geospatial visualization aids are ideal for international inspector training and orientation, as well as site characterization, monitoring and verification. But perhaps just as significantly, these new geospatial tools also now make it possible for anyone to conduct his or her own satellite-based reconnaissance for any application from the comfort of home, at a wi-fi enabled coffee shop, or even on the beach at a tropical island resort.

Frank Pabian is a Senior Nonproliferation Infrastructure Analyst at Los Alamos National Laboratory who has over 35 years experience in the nuclear nonproliferation field including six years with the Office of Imagery Analysis and 18 years with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's "Z" Division. Frank also served as a Chief Inspector for the IAEA during UN inspections in Iraq from 1996-1998 focusing on "Capable Sites." In December 2002, Frank served as one of the first US nuclear inspectors back in Iraq with UN/IAEA. While at Los Alamos, Frank has developed and presented commercial satellite imagery based briefings on foreign clandestine nuclear facilities to the International Nuclear Suppliers Group, the IAEA, NATO, and the Foreign Ministries of China and India on behalf of the NNSA and STATE.