In March 2011, an earthquake and tsunami hit the eastern coast of Japan and caused one of the worst nuclear meltdowns ever seen. In the lead-up to that week, U.S. officials there were bracing themselves for a media firestorm following a controversial Wikileaks release, Japan’s new foreign minister was ushered into office, and an apology statement was delivered on behalf of the United States in Okinawa, explained the top U.S. diplomat who was posted there at the time.

“And that, was just a microcosm of all kinds of things going on during my tenure there,” said John Roos, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Japan from 2009 to 2013.

Speaking at Stanford, Ambassador Roos offered views on his tenure as ambassador at a seminar led by the Japan Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC). The diplomatic posting, underpinned by the strong U.S.-Japan alliance, proved an essential role for coordination of U.S. aid when the disaster struck.

Roos spoke in conversation with Ambassador Michael Armacost, his counterpart who served in the same position from 1989 to 1993, who is now a distinguished fellow at Shorenstein APARC.

“By far, [it was] the biggest crisis I had to deal with in my career,” said Roos, who has years of experience in business and law, and is now the CEO of the Roos Group.

Roos said he first took steps to open lines of communication between local staff, and the Japanese and U.S. military commands there. He went with his team on a dozen trips across the country. Fact-finding missions were necessary to assess the situation, as much as they were symbolic in showing a commitment to the people of Japan, he said.

Asked about his background, Roos said his academic training was valuable throughout his career. He is a graduate of Stanford University and Stanford Law School.

Leaders tasked to coordinate response crisis efforts, especially those concerned with nuclear issues, are often across many intergovernmental organizations and in turn, lead to a conflicting set of opinions. He said his ability to navigate tough situations harkens back to his training at Stanford, which emphasized building consensus and thinking critically.

Later, Armacost also underscored the role of people – who’s involved and their individual personalities – and their influence on policy decisions.

“Personal relationships are so important,” Roos said, “they drive everything.”

People-to-people connections were a similar theme mirrored in Roos’ perspectives on the future of the Japanese economy and the country’s relations with neighboring countries. As ambassador, Roos started the Tomodachi Initiative, an educational exchange program linking young leaders from the United States and Japan.

Following the crisis, in 2012, Japan ushered in Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) became the ruling majority party. One facet of Abe’s vision includes a stimulus package, commonly referred to as ‘Abenomics,’ intended to restore the country’s economy after more than a decade of slow growth.

Roos said most Japanese have a tepid attitude toward Abe’s policy ever since implementation of the final round of policies which are intensely focused on structural reforms. The reforms are necessary to restart growth, he said, but the average citizen will likely feel an impact due to a paring down of resources across public services.

But, entrepreneurism provides a credible direction for the country’s economic revival, and could help carve out a defined role for Japan in the global marketplace.  

In Japan, “there is incredible innovation going on,” he said. Individuals and universities are producing a myriad of cutting-edge technologies, and the ecosystem to support this is growing, but not yet fully adopted.

He said a key driver behind Silicon Valley’s success is the spirit of entrepreneurism widely shared there. People actively take risks, exchange ideas, and most importantly, embrace failure.

Roos said he carried that message with him wherever he went in Japan, often referencing the example of Mr. Abe who came back for a second term as prime minister. “That’s the culture of Silicon Valley, and that’s the culture that we want to promote in Japan.”

Asia-Pacific leaders recently met in Beijing at the annual APEC summit, and after two days of discussion, concluded with some significant pledges and remarkable moments. President Xi Jinping of China and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan held a landmark meeting, and the United States and China discussed two agreements that are both symbolic, and lay groundwork for regional progress, say Stanford scholars.

High-level intergovernmental meetings are often more theatre than substance, but this year the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the oldest trans-Pacific regional organization, delivered important messages and may spur actions by member governments.

“Any summit is a ‘hurry up, get this done’ motivator,” says Thomas Fingar, the Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. “The head of state goes to the meeting – and generally speaking – he doesn’t want to arrive and say ‘my guys were asleep for the last year.’”

Fingar says the APEC summit prodded countries to work on “deliverables,” particularly the goals and projects on the agenda from previous meetings. He recently returned from Beijing, and shared his perspectives with students in the Asia-Pacific Scholars Program.

Writing for the East Asia Forum, Donald Emmerson, director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, said many of the commitments declared at the APEC summit, and at the subsequent meetings of the G20 in Australia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Myanmar, will have implications for global governance, particularly as China holds a more influential role in the region.

APEC countries account for over 40 percent of the world’s population and nearly half of global trade – and true to form, the grand vision of the summit is to advance regional economic integration.

Yet, “the ancillary things – things that went on in the margins – are in many ways more important,” Fingar says, referring to areas outside of the summit’s obvious focus, and what’s discussed on the sidelines of the public talks.

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Key outcomes from the 2014 gathering include:

• The leaders of Japan and China met for the first time since coming into office, afterward acknowledging that the two countries have “disagreements” in their official statements. Of the Xi-Abe meeting, Fingar says, “it helps clear the way for lower level bureaucrats to go to work on real issues."

• The United States and China announced a proposal to extend visas for students and businesspeople on both sides. While the immediate effects would be helpful, the change is symbolically superior. “You don’t give 5-10 year visas to adversaries,” he says, it shows that “‘we’re in [the relationship] for the long-term.’”

• China proposed the development of a new “Silk Road,” pledging $40 billion in resources toward infrastructure projects shared with South and Central Asian neighbors. “It’s tying the region together and creating economy-of-scale possibilities for other countries,” he says. “A real win-win situation.”

• The United States and China, the world’s two largest energy consumers, announced bilateral plans to cut carbon emissions over the next two decades. “It’s significant because those two countries must be the ones to lead the world in this area. Unless we are seen to be in basic agreement, others will hold back.”

• China codified the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), a global financial institution intended as an alternative to institutions like the World Bank. “China has been frustrated with its role in existing international institutions,” Fingar says, explaining a likely motivation behind the AIIB’s creation.

Emmerson said the outcomes of the APEC summit from the U.S.-China standpoint were better than expected, speaking to McClatchy News. The visa and climate deals, as well as their commitment to lowering global tariffs on IT products, will lessen chances of conflict between the two countries. 

However, the summit did leave some areas unsolved. One of the most important is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade pact proposed by the United States that includes 11 others countries in the region, but does not yet include China.

Leaders “made positive noises” coming out of the TPP discussions, Fingar says, but nothing was passed. The gravity and complexity of trade-related issues, especially agriculture and intellectual property, is likely to blame for slow action.

The city of Cupertino, California, is only about 15km from Stanford University, where I teach and live. It is home to the headquarters of Apple, a global leader in the computer and smartphone industries. It is also home to many Indian and Chinese engineers who are essential to Silicon Valley's technological innovation. One can easily find a variety of Asian restaurants and shops along the palm tree-lined streets -- an interesting Californian scene with a distinctly Asian flavor.

Many Asians -- businesspeople, officials and experts -- visit Silicon Valley hoping to unlock its secrets, to learn why it is such a hotbed of innovation. One known "secret" here, often overlooked by Asian visitors, is the importance of cultural diversity. More than half of the area's startups, including Intel, Yahoo, eBay and Google, were established by immigrants, and these companies owe much of their success to the contributions of Chinese and Indian engineers. Cultural diversity can be found throughout the schools, stores and streets, as well as the enterprises, there.

In Israel, too

The circumstances are quite similar in Israel, another economy known for technological innovation. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Israel admitted about 850,000 immigrants. More than 40 percent of the new arrivals were college professors, scientists and engineers, many of whom had abundant experience in research and development. These people played a critical role in promoting economic development and scientific and technological innovation in Israel. Many languages besides Hebrew can be heard on the streets of Tel Aviv, one of the country's largest cities.

It is no accident that Silicon Valley and Israel have become global high-tech centers. They opened their doors to a wide range of talented immigrants. Above all, an atypical sociocultural ecosystem -- a culture that respects and promotes the value of diversity -- is alive in both places.

In the United States, diversity is a key criterion in college admissions and faculty recruitment. Although "affirmative action" has disappeared in many parts of the country, diversity has come to play a key role in American university policies. Most American colleges, including Stanford, have a "diversity office" to promote diversity among students, faculty and staff. At Stanford, white students constitute less than 40 percent of the student body, and almost a quarter of the faculty come from minority groups. Similarly, only five of the 16 staff members at our Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center are Caucasian, with the rest from ethnic and national minorities.

 The same can be said of leading American corporations, many of which have institutionalized "diversity management" to capitalize on the range of individual differences and talents to increase organizational effectiveness. Of course, basic knowledge and skills are prerequisites. But Americans seem to firmly believe that having a variety of backgrounds and experiences can help hatch new ideas and innovative technologies. Perhaps this is why they say that culture accounts for 90 percent of the innovation in products from Silicon Valley, with technology claiming only 10 percent.

The power of diversity

Scott E. Page, professor of complex systems, political science and economics at the University of Michigan, shows in his book "The Difference" how "the power of diversity creates better groups, firms, schools, and societies." In his view, collections of people with diverse perspectives and heuristics outperform collections of people who rely on homogeneous ones, and the key to optimizing efficiency in a group is diversity. In this work, Page pays particular attention to the importance of "identity diversity," that is, differences in race, ethnicity, gender, social status and the like.

To be sure, Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea are different from settler societies such as the U.S. With the influx of foreigners, however, even such ethnically homogeneous Asian societies are becoming multiethnic. In addition to unskilled labor and foreign brides, the number of overseas students and professors is rising at Japanese and South Korean universities, while Japanese and South Korean companies are actively hiring foreign professionals. Both countries are opening their doors to foreigners, though in limited numbers, and have made multiculturalism a key policy objective.

Still, they fall far short of recognizing the value of diversity. While Japanese and South Korean institutes of higher learning have been trying to attract more foreign students, they have been doing so mainly to make up for the declining student population at home and because university ranking agencies use the ratio of foreign students and professors as a key yardstick for measuring internationalization. The approaches of these two countries to multiculturalism are also largely focused on assimilating foreigners into their own cultures and systems. People from abroad are seldom accepted as "permanent" members of their societies or regarded as valuable assets. Japan and South Korea may have become multiethnic, but they are not multicultural.

One of the biggest challenges facing foreign residents in Japan and South Korea is the lack of understanding of their religious and cultural beliefs. Indian engineers working in South Korea complain of the poor acceptance of Indians by the local population, and of an especially poor understanding of their religion and culture. Foreign professors teaching at Japanese universities tell me they live as "foreigners," never accepted into the "inner" circles. It is unlikely that these talented people would like to work long term for universities and enterprises that are unable to embrace differences in skin color and culture. Under these circumstances, even if some foreign professionals happen to be hired, they may not be able to realize the full potential of their abilities, let alone bring about innovation.

All these people with different ethnic and national backgrounds should no longer be regarded simply as "temporary" residents to fill particular needs. Rather, by promoting the cultural diversity of Japanese and South Korean society, they should be viewed as important assets and potential sources of innovation. It is an urgent but difficult task to institutionalize the value of diversity in societies long accustomed to the notion of a single-race nation.

Born on campuses

A country's global competitiveness can hardly be improved if its society is reluctant to respect differences and understand other groups. Universities, in particular, should help their students experience diversity through the regular curriculum and extracurricular activities. Foreign students can serve as excellent resources for promoting diversity. Universities are ideal settings for various groups of students to meet, generate new ideas and interact with one another. It is no accident that many of the innovative ideas associated with Microsoft, Yahoo, Google and Facebook were all born on American university campuses, where diversity is embraced.

Empirical research should be carried out to examine how cultural diversity can bring about technological innovation in Japanese and South Korean society. Based on such studies, governments and private enterprises should take into account diversity in personnel hiring, training, management and evaluation. These same institutions should also systematically work to create and support an organizational culture that values diversity.

Could those Indian and Chinese engineers working in Silicon Valley have brought about the same kind of technological innovation if they had remained in their own countries? Could they accomplish the same feat in Japan and South Korea? How can Asian countries create the kind of ecosystem necessary for promoting a flexible culture of accommodating a broad spectrum of talents? We first need to reflect deeply on these questions before trying to emulate the success of Silicon Valley.

Shin recently coauthored the paper, "Embracing Diversity in Higher Education: Comparing Discourses in the U.S., Europe, and Asia" with Yonsei University Professor Rennie J. Moon. It is one outcome of their research project, Diversity and Tolerance in Korea and Asia. This Nikkei Asian Review article was originally carried on Nov. 20 and reposted with permission.

The Michigan War Studies Review (MiWSR), an online scholarly journal affiliated with the Michigan War Studies Group, reviewed Confronting Memories of World War II: European and Asian Legacies, a seminal book co-edited by Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) scholars Gi-Wook Shin and Daniel Sneider, and University of Washington’s Daniel Chirot.

“Confronting Memories of World War II is a forceful and timely warning about the dangers of leaving problematic memory legacies unresolved,” says Albert J. Schmidt from The George Washington University, writing for MiWSR.

Organized in four major parts, the book examines the consequences of historical memory of World War II and contemporary nationalistic rhetoric, looking at cases across Northeast Asia (China, Japan and South Korea) and Western and Eastern Europe, including Germany, Austria and France, among others.

Confronting Memories of World War II is part of an ongoing research project at Shorentein APARC that comparatively analyzes how wartime historical memory lives on through present-day national myths, and is furthered through educational material, media and popular culture.

The full review is attached below and may be also viewed on the MiWSR website.

A middle class is emerging in China, and simultaneously, its population is rapidly aging. These two phenomena are impacting the country’s traditional consumer habits, including spending on healthcare. Experts say private-sector services are one important part of the future of China’s healthcare system, and perhaps also a sign of what’s to come for other countries in the region. Entrepreneurs can provide innovative services that cater widely to consumers and support a shift toward integrated care for health promotion and long-term management of chronic disease, also supplementing resources available in traditional public facilities.

Three experts visited the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and shared perspectives on those trends at the panel discussion, “Healthcare Entrepreneurs in East Asia: Innovations in Primary Care and Beyond,” hosted by the Asia Health Policy Program.

Historically, healthcare services in China have been almost entirely government-run. A patient would go to a public clinic, stand in a queue, and receive treatment within a few hours – being referred elsewhere if additional treatment was required.

Now, the private sector is growing, based on the promise of improved care and an enhanced experience, both removing the waiting line and ushering in new technologies. The government has also issued several policies encouraging “social capital” investment in health and fitness services.

The private sector for preventative care services now holds around fifteen percent of the entire marketplace in China, and “is expected to get much bigger over the next five years,” said Lee Ligang Zhang, the founding chairman and chief executive officer of iKang, a healthcare group based in Beijing.

Zhang oversees the company’s operation of 50 self-owned healthcare centers and an extended network of 300 affiliates. iKang is one of many groups catering to a growing consumer base of corporate workers and senior managers seeking care outside of the public system.

Comparative view

Increased development of premium healthcare facilities is not only emerging in China, but also in neighboring Taiwan. Since 1995, Taiwan implemented a national health insurance system, and has been lauded for its success in service provision.

Taiwan transitioned its healthcare market to universal coverage. Under this system, a patient can essentially “shop around” and select where to go for services, most of which are covered under the country’s insurance collective system at public or private providers.

“On average, every Taiwanese goes to see a doctor 14 times a year, compared to five times a year in the United States, and two times [a year] in China,” said Dr. Fred Hun-Jean Yang, a physician and chairman of MissionCare, Inc.

Such numbers reflect the higher availability of services compared to China, he said. Even as a small island, Taiwan has over 15,000 clinics and the price for services is generally affordable for the average citizen. Despite this availability of public and private services, Taiwan’s newer healthcare entrepreneurs seek to fill a market demand shaped by similar factors as in China. Yang says technology and the efficiency of the private sector healthcare system is attracting new consumers.

Missioncare is headquartered in northern Taiwan’s Taoyuan City and consists of four community hospitals with a larger network of clinics across the country as well as coordinated long-term care services for the elderly and those with chronic disease. The group has already expanded into China, and plans to integrate healthcare innovations, such as wearable monitoring and mobile payment.

Patient-centric service

Chinese citizens, particularly those with greater expendable income, are more willing to pay out-of-pocket for an improved patient experience, the panelists said.

“The consumer psyche is important,” said Dr. Wei Siang Yu, the founder of the Borderless Healthcare Group (BHG), a group of companies based in Singapore that focuses largely on health telecommunications.

One perspective is that consumers desire a “high-end” environment made possible by tailored design aesthetics and effective branding. Guided by this trend, Yu, a business executive and physician by training, started the “smart cities, smart homes” initiative at BHG.

BHG is now launching an incubator model in Shanghai, which combines intelligent design aesthetics with patient care, and is planning to localize such centers across China. The model is referred to as an “experience center,” rather than a hospital or clinic, and healthcare services – examinations, operations and value-added activities like wellness and education activities – are all centralized in one location.

Looking ahead, Yu said healthcare is likely to move even further away from the traditional hospital setting, and more toward experiential and home-based care models.

Michael McFaul, a Stanford political scientist and former U.S. ambassador to Russia, has been selected as the next director of the university’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

The announcement was made Wednesday by Stanford Provost John Etchemendy and Ann Arvin, the university’s vice provost and dean of research. McFaul will succeed Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, who was nominated in July as an associate justice of the California Supreme Court and elected Tuesday.

McFaul takes the helm of FSI in January.

"Stanford has long been a home for scholars who connect academia to policy and public service, and Professor McFaul is the embodiment of that model," Etchemendy said. "We are grateful for Mike's service and confident he will be a strong leader for FSI."

Arvin said McFaul is a strong fit for the position.

“Professor McFaul’s background as an outstanding scholar and his service as an influential ambassador give him a vital perspective to lead FSI, which is Stanford’s hub for studying and understanding international policy issues,” she said. “His scholarship, experience and energy will keep FSI and Stanford at the forefront of international studies as well as some of the most pressing global policy debates."

McFaul has been a faculty member in the department of political science at Stanford since 1994.  He joined the Obama administration in January 2009, serving for three years as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House. He then served as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation from 2012 to 2014.

McFaul already has a deep affiliation with FSI. Before joining the government, he served as FSI deputy director from 2006 to 2009.  He also directed FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) from 2005 to 2009.

During his four years leading CDDRL, McFaul launched the Draper Hills Summer Fellowship program for mid-career lawyers, politicians, advocates and business leaders working to shore up democratic institutions in their home countries. He also established CDDRL’s senior honors program.  From 1992-1994, McFaul also worked as a Senior Research Fellow at FSI’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC).

“I am thrilled to be assuming a leadership role again at FSI,” McFaul said.  “FSI has become one of the premier institutions in the country for policy-relevant research on international affairs.  I look forward to using my recent government experience to deepen further FSI’s impact on policy debates in Washington and around the world.”

Arvin said McFaul’s previous positions at FSI and CDDRL will make for a smooth transition in the institute’s leadership.

“His familiarity with FSI’s history and infrastructure will allow him to start this new position with an immediate focus on the institute’s academic mission,” she said.

McFaul is also the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and plans to build on his long affiliations with both Hoover and FSI to deepen cooperation between these two premier public policy institutions on campus.

He has written and co-authored dozens of books including Advancing Democracy Abroad: Why We Should, How We Can; Transitions To Democracy: A Comparative Perspective (with Kathryn Stoner); Power and Purpose: American Policy toward Russia after the Cold War (with James Goldgeier); and Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin.

“In so many ways, Mike represents the best of FSI,” said Cuéllar, who has held leadership positions at FSI since 2004 and begins his term on the California Supreme Court in January. “He knows the worlds of academia and policy extremely well, and will bring unique experience and sound judgment to his new role at FSI.”

McFaul currently serves as a news analyst for NBC News, appearing frequently on NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC as a commentator on international affairs. He also appears frequently on The Charlie Rose Show and The Newshour, as well as PBS and BBC radio programs. He has recently published essays in Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, Politico, and Time. 

McFaul was one of the first U.S. ambassadors to actively use social media for public diplomacy. He still maintains an active presence on Facebook at amb.mcfaul and on Twitter at @McFaul.

McFaul received his B.A. in International Relations and Slavic Languages and his M.A. in Russian and East European Studies from Stanford University in 1986.  As a Rhodes Scholar, he completed his D. Phil. in International Relations at Oxford University in 1991.

“Since coming here in 1981 as 17-year-old kid from Montana, Stanford has provided me with tremendous opportunities to grow as a student, scholar, and policymaker,” McFaul said. “I now look forward to giving back to Stanford by contributing to the development of one of the most vital and innovative institutions on campus.”