SPICE’s Stanford e-Japan Manager and Instructor Waka Takahashi Brown has won the 2019 Elgin Heinz Outstanding Teacher Award for her teaching excellence with Stanford e-Japan, an online course that introduces U.S. society and culture and U.S.–Japan relations to high school students in Japan. Stanford e-Japan is currently supported by the Yanai Tadashi Foundation. Initial funding for Stanford e-Japan was provided by the U.S.-Japan Foundation. Brown will formally accept the award at a ceremony at Stanford University on December 5, 2019.

“Waka walks in the footsteps of Elgin Heinz as a key leader in educating the next generation about the U.S.–Japan relationship,” stated David Janes, Chair of the Board, EngageAsia. Janes has overseen the Elgin Heinz Outstanding Teacher Award since its inception in 2001.

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EngageAsia administers the Elgin Heinz Outstanding Teacher Award, which is funded by the United States-Japan Foundation. The Award recognizes exceptional teachers who further mutual understanding between Americans and Japanese. The 2019 Award focused on the humanities and the 2020 Award is expected to focus on Japanese language. It is named in honor of Elgin Heinz for his commitment to educating students about Asia as well as for the inspiration he has provided to the field of pre-collegiate education.

Related articles:

• Spring session of Stanford e-Japan online course begins
• Yanai Tadashi Foundation and SPICE/Stanford University
• Winners announced for the Fall 2018 Stanford e-Japan Award

If America frames its response to Russia and China as one of “civilizational struggle,” Diamond says, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping will only get stronger. Listen and read here. 

The Korea Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center is pleased to welcome Robert R. King and Victor Cha as Koret fellows in Korean studies during the 2019-20 academic year. Supported by the Koret Foundation, the Koret Fellowship brings leading professionals to Stanford to conduct research on contemporary Korean affairs with the broad aim of strengthening ties between the United States and Korea.​

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Robert R. King will join the Korea Program as Koret Fellow during the fall quarter of 2019. King served as special envoy for North Korean human rights Issues, an ambassadorial ranked position at the Department of State (2009-2017). The role was established by Congress in the North Korea Human Rights Act with a mandate to “coordinate and promote efforts to improve respect for the fundamental human rights of the people of North Korea.” Since leaving the Department of State, Ambassador King has been senior advisor to the Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a senior fellow at the Korea Economic Institute (KEI), and a board member of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK).

Earlier, Ambassador King served for 25 years (1983-2008) on Capitol Hill as chief of staff to Congressman Tom Lantos (D-California), and as staff director and minority staff director of the House Foreign Affairs Committee (2001-2008). King received a Ph.D. in International Relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University and a B.A. from Brigham Young University.

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Victor Cha, professor of government and international affairs at Georgetown University, will join the Korea Program as the Koret Fellow through the winter quarter of 2020. He is the author of five books, including The Impossible State: North Korea, Past and Future (Haper Collins, 2012) and Powerplay: Origins of the American Alliance System in Asia (Princeton University Press, 2016). He holds Georgetown's Dean's Award for teaching for 2010, the Distinguished Research Award for 2011, and a Distinguished Principal Investigator Award for 2016.

Professor Cha left the White House in 2007 after serving since 2004 as Director for Asian Affairs at the National Security Council, where he was responsible for Japan, the Korean peninsula, Australia/New Zealand, and Pacific Island affairs. He serves as Senior Advisor at CSIS, and is a non-resident Fellow in Human Freedom at the George W. Bush Institute in Dallas, Texas. He received a Ph.D. from Columbia University, M.A. from the University of Oxford, and MIA and B.A. from Columbia University.

Every summer, the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program brings together international leaders who are pioneering new approaches to advance social and political change in some of the most challenging global contexts. The fellows spend three weeks living and taking classes on the Stanford campus, visiting Silicon Valley tech companies and building a network.

Representing business, government and the nonprofit sector, fellows are working on the frontlines of democratic change to combat the global rise of authoritarianism and populism. The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies spoke to five of the fellows about the impact of the Draper Hills program on their work and activism. These are their stories.

Shaili Chopra, India

Shaili Chopra, founder of SheThePeopleTv. Photo: Alice Wenner

Wiem Zarrouk, Tunisia

Wiem Zarrouk, senior advisor to the Minister of Development, Investment and International Cooperation in Tunisia. Photo: Alice Wenner

“I’ve been working for the Tunisian government for three years as an advisor to the Minister of Development, Investment and International Cooperation. I am leading the government reforms to improve Tunisia's ranking in the World Bank Competitiveness Report - Doing Business.

“In Tunisia, we’ve set up most of our democratic institutions, and now we want to improve the business environment to attract more investment in local businesses. Eight years ago, the people went into the streets demanding more jobs. The challenge in Tunisia right now is economic, that’s why economic reforms are important to our government.

“I think the impact of the Draper Hills program will be immediate. I’ve learned a lot here about the link between development and democracies, so it really covers the scope of my work. And it's been great to learn about the theoretical side — the professors are really speaking about things that impact our daily work.” 

Ujwal Thapa, Nepal

Ujwal Thapa, president of the BibekSheel Nepali youth movement. Photo: Alice Wenner

“Bibeksheel Nepali is basically a political startup. It’s a youth-led movement, and we’re focused on changing the norms and mindsets of the culture in Nepal. We work a lot with citizens to instill the values of transparency, empathy and humility because we think democracy needs to be more emotional instead of just logical. I think liberal democracy needs to be understood more in the context of humanity. So it’s an experiment that we're doing in Nepal.

“When we started with the experiment, we decided not to focus only on the state, but thought about a few more components: one is our citizens, another is the society and the third is the government. Nepal recently came out of a violent civil war, and we just built a new constitution that is much more tolerant. Transparency is another value that we want to instill, because of the long isolationist and autocratic dictatorship that has existed in the past.

“Draper Hills is bringing all of these practitioners together who are experimental and innovative. And the world needs better collaboration from people who really believe in the ideals of the 21st century, which are liberal, democratic and more humanistic. That’s one of the strongest aspects of the Draper Hills program.”

N.S. Nappinai, India

N.S. Nappinai, senior practitioner in the Supreme Court of India and Bombay High Court. Photo: Alice Wenner

“Some of the social media platforms had very good reporting mechanisms, whereas it was more hidden on other platforms. So we ensured that this issue was brought to the forefront so that people know that these are things that can be reported and some action can be taken. The whole idea was that as long as you identify such content at the earliest possible time, then you help the victim that much more.

“For me, balancing victims' rights with free speech is very important. This was a big dilemma that I faced, in terms of ‘How much of what I am doing is likely to stifle free speech?’ A lot of discussions at Draper Hills have helped formulate and structure my thoughts, and it's very nice to get the perspective from people from 26 other countries.”

Hinda Bouddane, Morocco

Hinda Bouddane, the first vice president of the elected provincial council of the city of Fez. Photo: Alice Wenner

“Education for girls is really important in fighting discrimination against women. Education empowers women to become financially independent, say no to violence, and to get engaged in the public sphere. Through that, women can be a part of the democratic process not only by voting, but also by taking part from within and running for office.

At Draper Hills, we're deepening our knowledge about topics like the rule of law, democracy and human rights, and hearing many different perspectives. And importantly, we are building a great network to connect many intelligent people from around the world, and we will work together to foster democratic values.”

James Green, former Minister Counselor for Trade Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, gave a talk titled “U.S.-China Diplomacy: 40 Years of What’s Worked and What has Not” before a Stanford China Program audience on May 6. Green is currently Senior Research Fellow at Georgetown University and is the creator of the new U.S.-China Dialogue Podcast, which features in-depth interviews with approximately two dozen former U.S. ambassadors, cabinet-level secretaries and other senior officials who were at the forefront of U.S.-China negotiations.

He recounts salient takeaways from these conversations regarding pivotal moments in U.S.-China relations, including normalization of relations, anti-Soviet cooperation in the 1980s, Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, Taiwan Strait crisis of 1995-1996, WTO accession in 2001, Belgrade bombing and EP-3 incident in 1999 and 2001, respectively; global financial crisis of 2008, the Beijing Olympics and the current U.S.-China trade tensions.  Among his many motivations for beginning this podcast series include his desire to question the notion circulating among U.S. foreign policy experts today that U.S. policy of engagement towards China had somehow failed. To Green, who has been active in U.S.-China relations since the mid-1990’s, U.S. policy had never been about transforming China from a one-Party, authoritarian system into a liberal democracy. In order to more accurately pinpoint what U.S. goals have been, Green stated, he undertook the project and interviewed those who had played key roles during pivotal moments in U.S.-China bilateral relations.

His interviewees have included, among others, such luminaries as Ambassador J. Stapleton Roy, who in 1978 participated in secret negotiations that led to the establishment of U.S.-P.R.C. diplomatic relations; John Negroponte, first director of national intelligence and deputy secretary of state in the late 2000s during China’s rise; and Ambassador Michael Froman, former U.S. Trade Representative under President Obama. His talk at the Stanford China Program includes key lessons he has derived from these interviews even as we enter into one of the most volatile times in U.S.-China bilateral relations.

The recording and transcript are available below.  

As the internet has increasingly been used to weaponize information, governments and technology companies have begun to grapple with new issues surrounding free expression and privacy.

Technology companies are being called upon to reshape their privacy and hate speech policies, and politicians are tackling the possibility  of  tech industry regulation.

Achieving both of those things, according to Eileen Donahoe, executive director of the Global Digital Policy Incubator (GDPI), is easier said than done.

“They all know that they need help,” Donahoe told Freeman Spogli Institute Director Michael McFaul on an episode of the World Class podcast. “Private-sector entities are looking for help from civil society and academics. And governments need help if for no other reason than they don’t always understand what’s going on in the platforms."

Free Speech Dilemma
Facebook and Google both have their own definitions of free speech, their own community values and their own terms of service, which they dictate to their billions of users. But their parameters of free expression are not always aligned with those of the U.S. government, Donahoe said.

“There’s an interplay between the rules of the platforms and the rules of the governments in which they operate, and that’s causing a lot of confusion,” she said. “We’re trying to help develop an appropriate metaphor for what these platforms are — some see themselves as a utility, some see them as editors and media. Whatever metaphor you pick, the rules and responsibilities that flow from it will be different. And we don’t have a metaphor yet.”

Over the last few years, tech companies have begun asking outsiders for help in developing norms for their platforms. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in 2018 that he was developing an “External Oversight Board” to help the company evaluate its community guidelines and for assistance with some of the content-based decisions on its platform.

Some companies are going as far as to call on the government for regulation, she said.

“They recognize that they’re not well suited to develop all of these norms for [their] platforms, which have such gigantic effects on society,” Donahoe said.

To Regulate or Not to Regulate
Several heads of technology companies have testified in front of the U.S. Senate this summer, including Zuckerberg, who answered questions about the company’s new cryptocurrency, and Karan Bhatia, Google's vice president for government affairs and public policy who testified on the question of whether Google’s search engine censors conservative media.

“Techlash” — the growing animosity toward large technology companies — has been on the rise, Donahoe said, and the government isn’t sure what their next steps are in handling these issues with the technology companies yet.

“So many congressional representatives and senators are a bit reticent to jump in,” she said. “They don’t want to undermine free expression, and they don’t want to destroy the American internet industry.”

Europe has already started  tackling this problem with the passage of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which standardizes data protection laws across all countries in the European Union.

Donahoe said that while she thinks the GDPR is a good move, there have been other laws passed in Europe, such as Germany’s Network Enforcement Act — which puts the liability on social media companies to censor the content on their respective platforms — that undermine free expression and democratic values.

“It shifts what we would normally consider democratic responsibility for assessing criminality to the private sector, and I find that problematic,” Donahoe said. “It’s a dangerous concept — a government is asking platforms to restrict content and be liable in a tort basis for content that is perceived to be harmful…it’s a very slippery slope.”

Related: Watch Eileen Donahoe’s interactive workshop on deep fakes at the June 2019 Copenhagen Democracy Summit

Eileen Donahoe served as the first U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. Follow her at @EileenDonahoe