Indonesia has seen no respite from its turbulent politics, faltering economy, and simmering conflicts since mass pressure forced President Soeharto from office in 1998 after decades of authoritarian rule. The International Crisis Group (ICG) has focused its Indonesian research on separatist conflicts in Aceh and Papua, communal violence in Maluku and Kalimantan, and the ongoing economic crisis, and has recommended specific military and judicial reforms. In Burma, which has known near-constant conflict since its independence in 1948, the Group has focused on ethnic antagonisms, regime policies, and needed reforms. ICG has also assessed the efficacy of foreign sanctions and engagements as alternative ways of inducing change, and suggested how the international community might help lower the potential for violent strife in a future political transition. Gareth Evans, during his long tenure as Australia's foreign minister (1988-1996), played key roles in bringing peace to Cambodia, founding the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, and promoting forms of regionalism reflecting his country's proximity to Asia. For his Cambodian work he was awarded the ANZAC Peace Prize in 1994. Writing of Evans' record as foreign minister, ex-Hong Kong Governor Chris Patten has observed: "High intelligence and principle added to a razor-sharp wit ensured that he was a controversial figure, but one who left the world better than he found it." Foreign affairs, human rights, and legal reform are among the topics explored by Evans in his many publications. Most recently he co-chaired the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. A long-time former member of Australia's parliament (1978-1999), Evans holds degrees in law from Melbourne University and in politics, economics, and philosophy from Oxford University.

Professor Wang Jisi is director and a senior researcher of the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) in Beijing. He is concurrently director of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies at the Party School of the Central Committee, the Communist Party of China, a guest professor of Peking University and Tsinghua University, and president of the Chinese Association for American Studies. He is also a member and advisor to many prestigious research institutions in the United States. He is now teaching a course on "China Under Reform" for the fall semester, 2001, as a Freeman Professor of Asian Studies at Claremont McKenna College in California. Wang Jisi's formal education was interrupted by the Cultural Revolution. In the ten years between 1968 and 1978 he did various sorts of labor as a herdsman, peasant, and factory worker in Inner Mongolia and central China. He entered Peking University in 1978 and obtained his MA degree in 1983. Professor Wang's scholarly interests cover international relations theory, U.S. foreign policy, Chinese foreign policy, and China-U.S. relations. He has published numerous works in these fields, including a recent volume in Chinese entitled "Lonely at the Top: U.S. Global Strategy and Position in the Post-Cold War World." His articles in English include "Building a Constructive Relationship between the United States, China, and Japan" (1998), "China's New Identity and Peace in Northeast Asia" (2000), "The Internet in China: A New Fantasy?" (2000), and "Hot Peace - Not a New Cold War - between China and the United States" (2001).

The emergence of global information society changes the nature of the relationship between society, knowledge, and technology. This affects in a fundamental way the role of ICTs (Information and Communication Technology) for the distribution of knowledge, the development of network economies, networks of social innovation and networks of co-development. Knowledge networking is seen here in terms of creating cross-cultural alliances among the university, enterprise, and the media, through creating symbiotic relationships between local and global knowledge resources. The focus is on promoting a culture of shared communication, values and knowledge, seeking cooperation through valorization of diversity, social cohesion and subsidiarity. This focus is informed by the human centered vision of Information Society, which moves the digital divide discourse beyond the technocentric agenda toward a human centered agenda that recognizes the purpose of ICT as promoter of social cohesion in which shared communication and shared knowledge drive cohesion, and cohesion generates shared communication and an increase in shared knowledge. The discussion will be illustrated by an example of the European - India Cross Cultural Innovation Network, a unique project of the European Commission that promotes cross-cultural cooperation, action research and knowledge networking.

The East and the West have very different ideas of cultural traditions, values, and ways to maintain their traditions. Chinese women living in the Eastern tradition are increasingly exposed to the culture of the West. Because of this exposure, they often find themselves at a crossroads of the two competing value systems. Chinese women strive to maintain their traditional culture and seek to guard their values from outside influence. Yet they admire the ideas and images of freedom and individualism produced by Western culture. More and more Chinese women find themselves longing to enjoy the freedom and individualism promised by these powerful images and ideas. Professor Ma's research and talk will examine the differences that developed from these two different cultures, and attempt to draw out the significance of the influence from Western culture on Chinese women today.

Nearly a quarter-century has elapsed since the Khmer Rouge held power in Cambodia (1975-78). Yet Cambodians still are shadowed by that catastrophic experience, and by conflicting legacies from other parts of their country's past. Cambodians continue to struggle to come to terms with what the Pol Pot era meant, and with what has happened to them since. After centuries of relative isolation, they must also contend with changes in Cambodia's identity in what seems to be an ever faster moving world. Views of Cambodia's history and destiny, formed in colonial and Cold War times, no longer seem to fit. But new interpretations have not yet taken hold. Epitomizing this confusion is the issue of bringing surviving Khmer Rouge leaders to justice. Over the last decade or so, efforts toward this end have inched forward and bogged down, beset by clashing political priorities and notions of justice and culpability. Cambodians ask themselves: Should we insist on remembering, or allow forgetting? Why? And with what implications for the future? David Chandler is the leading English-language historian of Cambodia. He holds degrees from Harvard College, Yale University, and the University of Michigan. From l972 to l997 he taught Southeast Asian history at Monash University in Australia. Since then he has held appointments at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Oregon, and Cornell University. His books include A History of Cambodia (3rd ed., 2000), Brother Number One: A Political Biography of Pol Pot (2nd ed., 1999), and Voices from S 21: Terror and History in Pol Pot's Secret Prison (l999). His many other writings include coauthorship of the classic history text, In Search of Southeast Asia (1971), the 3rd revised edition of which should appear next year.

Dr. Nakai will talk about his research plan for the next year in China. A broad and open-ended question he has in mind is, "What is happening in the Chinese countryside these days?" He is interested in analyzing the roles of the county leaders in the pursuit of economic development. Despite its historical role as the most coherent subprovincial administrative unit, the county in China has not received much academic attention until recently. First, Dr. Nakai would like to add a case or two to the pioneering works by Jean Oi and Andrew Walder, and Marc Blecher and Vivienne Shue. Second, he would like to look into the county leaders' response to market economy. How do they respond to foreign trade, special economic zones, and private enterprises? Third, he hopes to bring some comparative perspectives to the study of the county. Would county leaders in Heilongjiang province, for example, behave like their colleagues in Guangdong or in Zhejiang? Are those county leaders different from local administrators in Japan? Dr. Nakai will discuss the implications of the preliminary analysis of a few counties in Heilongjiang province. Yoshi Nakai has been Senior Researcher at the Institute of Developing Economies since 1997. He graduated from Tohoku University (BL) and from Indiana University (MA). He studied Chinese language at Beijing University in 1981. He just completed his Ph.D. in comparative politics at the University of Michigan. His dissertation is about politics in Manchuria and is chaired by Mike Oksenberg. Dr. Nakai was lecturer at University of Michigan; researcher at the Japanese Consulate in Hong Kong from 1991 to1994; and senior researcher at the Japan Institute of International Affairs from 1994 to 1997. He is going to Beijing next year.

For three decades following its establishment in 1967, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) played an important role in managing regional conflicts and nurturing a sense of regional identity in Southeast Asia. Toward the end of the 1990s, however, transnational environmental and economic crises dealt heavy blows to the credibility of the Association. These crises exacerbated tensions and burdens that had already arisen inside ASEAN in the wake of its expansion to include all ten Southeast Asian countries and its involvement in building larger multilateral institutions for the Asia Pacific. Are ASEAN's best years behind it? Or will it recover, perhaps even exceed, its former ability to sustain regional security and strengthen regional identity in Southeast Asia? Why, or why not? Amitav Acharya is an internationally recognized authority on regionalism in Southeast Asia. His latest books are The Quest for Identity: International Relations of Southeast Asia (Oxford, 2000) and Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia (Routledge, 2000). He is on research leave at Harvard for the current academic year as a fellow of the Asia Center and the John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Author Liza Dalby will discuss the extraordinary life and times of Lady Murasaki Shikibu, the writer of the world's first novel, The Tale of Genji. Ms. Dalby, an anthropologist and renowned scholar of Japanese history, will apply "literary archaeology" to explore the life of Lady Murasaki Shikubu and the Japanese Imperial Court, and will introduce her new book, The Tale of Murasaki. Liza Dalby is an anthropologist specializing in Japanese culture. As the only Westerner to have become a geisha, Ms. Dalby was able to obtain previously undisclosed material for her Ph.D. and her books Geisha and Kimono. Presently, she is a consultant for Steven Spielberg's upcoming film adaptation of Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha. She lives in Berkeley, California, with her husband and three children.

Few will dispute that the essence of our times can be conveyed by two simple words: " Global" and "Change". Economies, technologies, information, media, culture, and indeed security issues have been vastly internationalized and transformed in the incredibly short period of the half century following World War II . The world is being consumed by the forces of change driven by the engines of technology and geoeconomics. Economic change and technological development, like wars or sports, are usually not beneficial to all. Progress only benefits those groups of nations that are able to take advantage of newer methods of science, just as they damage those that are less prepared technologically, culturally, and politically to respond to change. Only societies free of rigid doctrinal orthodoxy and possessing attributes such as the freedoms to inquire, dispute, and experiment; a belief in the possibilities of improvement; a concern for the practical rather than the abstract; and rationalism that defies mandarin codes, religious dogmas, and traditional folklore, are likely to prosper in the new millennium. In any case, we must look with caution into the future. History teaches us that the only thing we can be certain of is that we will be surprised; our vision may well turn out to be distorted and myopic, our best guesses will often be wrong and we are likely to be disappointed in our expectations. We can only be certain of continuing conflict on a technology-driven planet with concurrent dwindling resources and increasing population.