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Michael Breger
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How do multiracial societies like Singapore foster social integration? How successful are these efforts, and how do they affect the lived experiences of minority groups, especially in contexts governed by racial quotas? In what ways does enforced racial integration shape racial formations and race relations?

These are some of the questions guiding APARC Predoctoral Fellow Alisha Cherian’s academic journey, which is rooted in a deep curiosity about how race operates in everyday urban life, particularly within Southeast Asia.

Cherian, a Stanford PhD candidate in social and cultural anthropology, delves into the ways in which Indian Singaporeans navigate their identities and racial positioning in a public urban setting in a society where race is both a deeply ingrained social reality and an official category enforced by the state. Her research reflects a nuanced approach to race relations in a region that has long been at the crossroads of colonial legacies, multiculturalism, and state-led racial governance.

I’m interested in exploring how people live their lives within these larger structural conditions. I’m trying to get a deeper understanding of the grounded, empirical lived reality of the Singapore state’s explicit race craft.
Alisha Cherian
APARC Predoctoral Fellow

By focusing on the experiences of Indian Singaporeans, Cherian challenges traditional top-down narratives of racial governance that have dominated scholarship on Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. These countries, often studied together due to their shared historical, cultural, and political contexts, have long been the subject of analyses from disciplines such as history, political science, urban studies, and geography. Yet, as Cherian points out, much of this work has focused on macro-level structures such as policies and state narratives, leaving gaps in understanding how these policies manifest in the daily lives of individuals.

"I’m interested in exploring how people live their lives within these larger structural conditions," she explains. "I’m trying to get a deeper understanding of the grounded, empirical lived reality of the Singapore state’s explicit race craft."

The Struggles and Nuances of Studying Race in Singapore

Race relations in Singapore — central to the nation’s political and historical development — remain a subject fraught with tension. As Cherian describes, although race is an official category in Singapore, the discussion of racism is a highly sensitive one. Conversations around racial discrimination are often met with skepticism or outright denial, particularly by the Singapore government and the racial majority, which in the context of the state’s policies is predominantly Chinese.

This skepticism extends even into academic circles, where Cherian has encountered resistance from scholars unfamiliar with the region who question whether her work might be too heavily influenced by American ideas of race relations, especially in light of global conversations around privilege.

Race is not a monolith, it’s a lived reality, and that’s where the story lies.
Alisha Cherian
APARC Predoctoral Fellow

Indeed, the notion of "Chinese privilege," a term that Cherian uses in her research, has roots in the American concept of "white privilege," yet it takes on distinct meanings within the Singaporean context. "Chinese privilege" refers to the systemic advantages that ethnic Chinese enjoy in Singapore, something that Cherian’s research subjects, primarily Indian Singaporeans, use to explain their marginalized position within the city-state. For Cherian, these local terminologies and frameworks are essential to understanding the racial dynamics at play. "I make sure to study Singapore race relations on their own terms," she says, "which is at the heart of anthropological inquiry itself."

Navigating the sensitive nature of her subject matter, Cherian is aware that critiques of the state’s racial policies can be met with censorship, or worse, backlash. Yet, she sees these challenges as integral to capturing the complex dynamics of racial identity in a globalized world. "Race is not a monolith," she asserts. "It’s a lived reality, and that’s where the story lies."

Scholarship Shaped by Interdisciplinary Conversations

Cherian’s time as a predoctoral scholar has been pivotal in shaping her approach to research and its potential for broader societal impact. While her research at APARC has allowed her to refine her dissertation, titled "Discordant Harmonies: Everyday Life in the Racial City-State," the experience has also provided her with a unique opportunity to engage in interdisciplinary conversations with scholars and practitioners from across Asia and the world.

"It’s been inspiring to see how postdoctoral scholars and faculty at APARC have mobilized their findings in ways that have a broader impact," Cherian reflects. "It’s made me think about how I can channel my own work into productive change. Whether it’s through policy conferences or meetings with world leaders, the way scholars here have connected their research to real-world challenges has been really inspiring."

The collegial and intellectually stimulating environment at APARC has helped her envision new possibilities for her academic career. Cherian describes the APARC community as one that is both rigorous and warm. “I’ve had some great conversations with my deskmates and at lunch events,” she says. “I’ve received reading recommendations and heard fascinating stories about the varied professional trajectories of the people around me. It’s helped me imagine even more futures for myself.”

Looking Ahead: Turning Research into Action

With her dissertation nearing completion, Cherian plans to adapt her work into a book that will bring the complex, often discordant dynamics of race relations in Singapore to a broader audience. Through this book, she hopes to offer a new perspective on how race operates within the everyday lives of Singaporeans, ultimately providing a more grounded understanding of racial governance in the city-state.

To aspiring scholars in race and ethnicity studies, Cherian offers this advice: "Center your research subjects," she says, emphasizing the importance of grounding scholarly work in the lived experiences of people. "Take seriously how they understand their world, and don’t be afraid to confront the gaps in the existing literature."

Driven by a commitment to rigorous scholarship and its social impact, Cherian’s work challenges us to reconsider how race is not just a structural concept, but a lived experience that shapes the very fabric of urban life in Singapore and beyond.
 

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Huixia Wang
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Breaking Cycles of Disadvantage: Visiting Scholar Huixia Wang on the Dynamics of Intergenerational Health Disparities

Economist Huixia Wang, a visiting scholar at APARC, discusses her research into healthcare economics and the reverberating effects of poor healthcare access on health outcomes across generations.
cover link Breaking Cycles of Disadvantage: Visiting Scholar Huixia Wang on the Dynamics of Intergenerational Health Disparities
Gi-Wook Shin receiving the Korean American Achievement Award.
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Gi-Wook Shin Honored with Korean American Achievement Award

The award recognizes Shin’s contributions to advancing Korean studies and strengthening U.S.-Korea relations through scholarship and bridge-building.
cover link Gi-Wook Shin Honored with Korean American Achievement Award
APARC Senior Fellow Michel Oksenberg meets with Chinese paramount leader Deng Xiaoping
Q&As

Honoring Jimmy Carter: When Chinese Students Arrived in the US After the Cultural Revolution — with Thomas Fingar

It became clear, certainly by 1978, that educational exchanges, access to training, and export controls — these were going to be litmus tests of U.S.-China relations.
cover link Honoring Jimmy Carter: When Chinese Students Arrived in the US After the Cultural Revolution — with Thomas Fingar
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APARC 2024-25 Predoctoral Fellow Alisha Cherian studies race relations in Southeast Asia, focusing on the lived experience of Indian Singaporeans and their interactions with state-defined racial categories.

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Shorenstein APARC's annual report for the academic year 2023-24 is now available.

Learn about the research, publications, and events produced by the Center and its programs over the last academic year. Read the feature sections, which look at the historic meeting at Stanford between the leaders of Korea and Japan and the launch of the Center's new Taiwan Program; learn about the research our faculty and postdoctoral fellows engaged in, including a study on China's integration of urban-rural health insurance and the policy work done by the Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab (SNAPL); and catch up on the Center's policy work, education initiatives, publications, and policy outreach. Download your copy or read it online below.

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APARC Predoctoral Fellow, 2024-2025
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Alisha Elizabeth Cherian joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) as APARC Predoctoral Fellow for the 2024-2025 academic year. She is a PhD candidate in Social and Cultural Anthropology at Stanford University. She received her BA from Vassar College in Anthropology and Drama with a correlate in Asian Studies, and her MA in the Social Sciences from the University of Chicago.

Her dissertation, entitled "Beyond Integration: Indian Singaporean Public Urban Life", investigates how enforced racial integration shapes racial formations and race relations in Singapore. Her project explores everyday encounters and interactions that are structured, but not overdetermined, by the state's multiracial policies as well as colonial histories and regional legacies of Indian indentured and convict labour. With her research, she seeks to contribute to a more ethnographic understanding of how plural societies are approached both scholarly and practically.

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Noa Ronkin
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As nations grapple with an increasingly competitive global talent landscape, a new study, published in the journal World Development, suggests that countries should rethink their approach to developing, attracting, and retaining talent. To address the need for a more complete understanding of cross-national variation in talent development strategy, the study proposes Talent Portfolio Theory (TPT), a novel approach to studying and improving human resource development.

The researchers, Stanford sociologist Gi-Wook Shin, the William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea and the director of APARC and the Korea Program, and Haley Gordon, a PhD candidate at Stanford’s Department of Sociology, draw on the principles of Modern Portfolio Theory, a well-established framework in financial investment literature, to propose a new framework for talent development.

The new framework, TPT, views a nation’s talent strategy much like an investment portfolio, emphasizing the importance of diversification, risk management, and rebalancing. Shin and Grodon examine Japan and Singapore as case studies to illustrate how the TPT approach can help scholars, policymakers, and businesses better understand and optimize talent development strategies.

The study is part of the Talent Flows and Development research track of the Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab (SNAPL). Housed at APARC and directed by Shin, SNAPL is a new initiative committed to addressing emergent social, cultural, economic, and political challenges in Asia-Pacific nations through interdisciplinary, policy-relevant, and comparative research.

Talent Portfolio Theory enables a holistic understanding of a nation’s talent development. TPT also allows us to see the evolution of talent development strategy in terms of rebalancing a talent portfolio over time.
Gi-Wook Shin and Haley Gordon

A Fresh Perspective on Talent Development

Talent development has long been a priority for nations aiming to boost economic growth and compete globally. Traditionally, countries have focused on building human capital — developing skills and education among citizens — and social capital — strengthening networks and relationships that facilitate cooperation and innovation. Existing strategies, however, often overlook the interconnected nature of various talent flows, including the movement of domestic talent, international talent, and diaspora engagement.

Just like financial theory evaluates a given investment (and its risk and return qualities) by how it impacts a portfolio’s overall performance rather than in isolation, TPT treats talent as a portfolio composed of four key elements, known as the “four Bs”: brain train (domestic talent development), brain gain (attracting foreign talent), brain circulation (movement of talent between home and abroad), and brain linkage (engagement with diaspora communities).

“In the study of national talent development, it is imperative to consider both the human and social capital facets of talent, as a country has multiple layers of talent available for use – domestic, diasporic, and foreign – each with different human and social capital potentials,” write Shin and Gordon. They propose TPT as “a better framework for illustrating and comparing different experiences and impacts of talent development at the national level, which is also key in offering policy prescriptions for human resource strategies.”

Talent Portfolio Theory allows for a comparison between Singapore and Japan, [...] explaining how timely rebalancing to maintain diversification enabled the former to sustain success while the latter stagnated, succumbing to risk.
Gi-Wook Shin and Haley Gordon

Insights from Japan and Singapore

Using Japan and Singapore as case studies, the authors demonstrate how countries can apply TPT to manage their talent portfolios. Japan's economic growth relied on two tiers of human capital: top-level scientists and engineers who adapted and integrated foreign technologies for domestic use, and skilled workers who grasped the fundamentals of these adapted technologies and carried out the manufacturing processes. With limited prospects for brain gain, circulation, or linkage, Japan developed these two layers of its workforce by relying on brain train, cultivating domestic talent for its industrial development.

In the early 1990s, however, Japan’s economy ran into trouble. Its system of brain train was well-suited for driving incremental innovation, but it became restrictive in the rapidly evolving landscape of the early 21st century, which demanded more disruptive innovation. “The Japanese model of human resource development necessitated a robust supply of domestic manpower which now became increasingly difficult to sustain, and a shrinking working-age population also meant labor shortage and reduced productivity,” say Shin and Gordon. “In the language of TPT, Japan urgently needed to diversify its talent portfolio beyond its reliance on brain train to address new risks.”

Recognizing the risks of a skewed talent portfolio, Japan began to rebalance its talent portfolio in the 2010s but has struggled with demographic decline and a slow pivot toward international talent. Despite efforts to internationalize higher education and attract foreign talent, Japan’s diversification of its talent portfolio has been stagnant and was hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In contrast, Singapore’s approach showcases the benefits of a well-balanced talent portfolio. The city-state’s aggressive pursuit of foreign talent (brain gain) and robust engagement with its diaspora (brain linkage) have made it a leader in global talent strategy. Singapore’s government has continually adjusted its policies, actively rebalancing its talent portfolio to maintain a competitive edge.

Singapore started rebalancing its talent portfolio in the 1990s, not only enhancing its efforts toward brain train but also expanding brain gain by internationalizing higher education and actively promoting a “work-migration” path. In tandem with its brain gain initiatives, Singapore also turned to its diaspora, fostering brain circulation and establishing stronger brain linkages. Through concerted efforts by the government and industry, Singapore has successfully produced and attracted creative talent that allowed it to remain globally competitive.

“Talent Portfolio Theory enables a holistic understanding of the various components of Singapore’s talent strategy and its evolution over time, from the country’s focus on brain train during its catch-up phase to its rebalancing with a successful brain gain, in addition to more recent forays into brain circulation and brain linkage,” Shin and Gordon explain.

Countries must enact sociocultural policies that ensure global competitiveness in the new talent market by emphasizing openness, tolerance, and diversity in order to gain the best and brightest brains.
Gi-Wook Shin and Haley Gordon

Toward Fostering Cultural Diversity

TPT offers a powerful framework for crafting more resilient and adaptive talent strategies. As the global competition for skilled workers intensifies, understanding the dynamics of talent portfolios can help countries mitigate risks, capitalize on opportunities, and avoid the pitfalls of overly narrow approaches to human resource development. For instance, countries experiencing demographic decline, like Japan, can look to Singapore’s model of timely rebalancing as a guide for policy adjustment. Businesses also stand to benefit from TPT. The framework encourages companies to look beyond the availability of local talent and consider the broader talent ecosystem, including international talent flows and diaspora engagement.

Shin and Gordon emphasize that structural and sociocultural factors often limit policy options for building and rebalancing talent portfolios. Japan and Singapore illustrate that developed countries with abundant domestic opportunities are better positioned to retain talent and attract brain gain, whereas developing countries often experience talent outflows, favoring brain circulation or linkage (as seen in China and India). Additionally, while ethnically homogenous countries like Japan may prefer to rely on domestic and diasporic talent, multiethnic countries like Singapore can better attract foreign talent and engage in brain gain.

The contrasting experiences of Japan and Singapore underscore the critical importance of fostering cultural diversity to attract foreign talent. Singapore’s success with brain gain, compared to Japan’s more mixed outcomes, largely stems from its multicultural environment, shaped by policies that protect minority rights and actively promote respect for diverse ethnic groups. To remain competitive in the global talent market, countries must prioritize sociocultural policies that cultivate openness, tolerance, and diversity. By embracing these values, nations can attract the best and brightest minds, ensuring their place in a rapidly evolving global economy.

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Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab Receives Grants to Advance Policy Engagement and Research Collaboration

New grants to inform U.S. Asia policy and fuel cross-disciplinary research on Asia’s role in the global system of the 21st century.
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New Study Reveals Geopolitical Rivalries Shape Attitudes Toward Immigrants

Researchers including Stanford sociologist Kiyoteru Tsutsui, the deputy director of APARC and director of the Japan Program at APARC, find that geopolitical rivalries and alliances significantly shape citizen perceptions of immigrants.
cover link New Study Reveals Geopolitical Rivalries Shape Attitudes Toward Immigrants
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Stanford’s Asia-Pacific Research Center Invites Applications for Fall 2025 Asia Studies Fellowships

The Center offers multiple fellowships for Asia researchers to begin in Autumn quarter 2025. These include postdoctoral fellowships on Asia-focused health policy, contemporary Japan, and the Asia-Pacific region, postdoctoral fellowships and visiting scholar positions with the Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab, a visiting scholar position on contemporary Taiwan, and fellowships for experts on Southeast Asia.
cover link Stanford’s Asia-Pacific Research Center Invites Applications for Fall 2025 Asia Studies Fellowships
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Stanford researchers Gi-Wook Shin and Haley Gordon propose a novel framework for cross-national understanding of human resource development and a roadmap for countries to improve their talent development strategies.

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Highlights 

  • Talent Portfolio Theory is a new framework for studying human resource development.
  • Talent portfolios use brain train, brain gain, brain circulation, and brain linkage.
  • National talent strategies involve portfolio diversification and rebalancing.
  • Talent Portfolio Theory allows cross-national comparison of talent strategy over time.
  •  While Japan stagnated, Singapore sustained growth by rebalancing its talent portfolio.


In this article, the researchers propose Talent Portfolio Theory (TPT) as a new framework for studying human resource development. Drawing insights from Modern Portfolio Theory in financial investment, TPT views a nation’s talent development as creating a “talent portfolio” composed of four “B”s: brain train, brain gain, brain circulation, and brain linkage. TPT attends to how a talent portfolio, like a financial one, is diversified to minimize risk, and how diversification can be maintained via rebalancing. As such, TPT provides a framework that captures the overall picture of a country’s talent strategy and offers a lens through which to understand how a country changes or “rebalances” its talent portfolio over time. It also provides a tool for examining cross-national variation in talent development strategy.

The authors illustrate the utility of TPT with the cases of Japan and Singapore. While human resource development was crucial to the economic rise of both countries, TPT demonstrates that Japan’s and Singapore’s approaches to constructing and rebalancing their talent portfolios took different routes with diverging outcomes. They conclude with discussions of theoretical and policy implications of this new approach for the study and implementation of talent development.

This study is part of the Talent Flows and Development research track of the Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab.

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Insights from Financial Theory, Illustrations from the Asia-Pacific

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World Development
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Gi-Wook Shin
Haley Gordon
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Michael Breger
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For Kate Imy, APARC’s 2021-22 Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Fellow on Contemporary Southeast Asia, writing feminist military history means not only “finding” or “adding” women to the stories of war, even though that is, in itself, a necessary intervention. It also means recognizing how gender shapes almost everything we know, understand, praise, or condemn about wars and militaries more broadly. Writing military history with a feminist-lens shapes Imy's understanding of how militaries are formed, who serves in them, and why they matter.

Dr. Imy joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) as Visiting Scholar and 2021-22 Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Fellow on Contemporary Southeast Asia. Hosted jointly by APARC’s Southeast Asia Program and the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the National University of Singapore, the fellowship advances the visibility and quality of scholarship on contemporary Southeast Asia. Imy, who is currently an Assistant Professor of History at the University of North Texas, is using her residency at APARC during fall 2021 to research the colonial roots of winning "hearts and minds" in war, specifically focusing on Singapore and Malaya. 

On December 2 at 5 p.m. PT, Dr. Imy will present a public talk, Pregnant in the Jungle: Gendering Resistance in the Malayan Emergency, where she will discuss the reconfiguration of gender expectations in the Malayan Emergency (1948-1960), a period of unrest following the creation of the Federation of Malaya that is perhaps most famous for Sir Gerald Walter Robert Templer’s phrase about the need to win the “hearts and minds” of civilians to defeat a communist insurgency. Register now to join the webcast.

We caught up with Dr. Imy to discuss her work and experience at Stanford this quarter.


What has shaped your interest and research into questions of identity in British Imperial history?

I grew up in California and currently live in Texas — two influential, diverse border states where military service is prevalent. I also briefly attended the United States Air Force Academy, where I learned a lot about how race, gender, and faith shape the experience of military service. These animated my interest in the history of empires, war, race, and gender. While working on a PhD at Rutgers, I came across not one but two British officers who had an equal love for yoga and fascism — two things that I had previously considered to be rooted in opposing cultural impulses. Learning about how and why these linkages made sense have encouraged me to continue thinking critically about how war and empire shape culture.

In your current book project on the colonial origins of the "winning hearts and minds" idea of war, what is something surprising you’ve come to realize about that term?

My research in some ways is less interested in the novelty of the term than how reactionary it was to existing colonial policies. British leaders articulated the desire to “win hearts and minds” because previous generations of military and colonial leaders had failed to do so. The traumatic experiences of colonialism and war inspired civilian resistance to military occupation. In many ways, the idea of winning hearts and minds through militaries is an oxymoron because for civilians, “winning” would be an end to military occupation and violence. Most exciting to me is that many soldiers serving in the region during the colonial era — who were diverse subjects with roots in India, Nepal, East Africa, China, Australia, and New Zealand — tended to agree.

How has your time at APARC as the Lee Kong Chian Stanford-NUS Fellow aided your research project?

I have benefitted tremendously from my time at Stanford. I researched materials at the Hoover Institution related to communism in Singapore and Malaya, providing me with additional opportunities to reflect on a plurality of voices shaped by communism and anti-communism. I have had generative meetings with students and scholars that push me to think about these dynamics in new ways. My focus is currently consolidating my archival research and drafting new chapters, so having access to Stanford’s library has assisted greatly in this process. Finally, I met with a representative of an academic press in the area and am preparing a book proposal for submission by the end of my fellowship period.

Which connections made during your time at APARC have been particularly beneficial to you?

COVID has prevented some meetings but facilitated others, including through virtual events. I attended the talk by Sugata Bose on “Young Asia,” moderated by Stanford History faculty Partha Pratim Shil. I also attended the event on “Home, Land, Security” by Carla Power and moderated by Stanford anthropologist Sharika Thiranagama. I met with Stanford undergraduate student Chern Xun Gan to discuss my archival research, as he has an interest in the Malayan Emergency. At APARC, I’ve enjoyed meeting South Asia Research Scholar Arzan Tarapore, whose work on the military in South Asia overlaps with my own interest. I had a fantastic conversation with Stanford History Department Professor Priya Satia, whose expertise in British colonial histories of war has had a great impact on my research and writing. I have also benefitted from several conversations with Southeast Asia Program Director Donald Emmerson. Overall, Stanford and APARC have been welcoming and insightful places to work.

You traveled to Singapore for part of your fellowship. What did you accomplish there? Were there any special collections at NUS that you accessed?

I completed the first part of my fellowship in Singapore from March to June 2021. I spent some time in the NUS archives and meeting (remotely) with various scholars at NUS, including Maitrii Aung-Thwin and Seng Guo Quan. I also met several NTU faculty, including Jessica Hinchy, Tapsi Mathur, and Faizah Zakaria. However, the bulk of my time was spent in the National Archives. There I found immense resources related to each section of my book, including the Singapore Mutiny (1915), the Japanese occupation (1942-1945), and the Malayan Emergency (1948-1960). COVID limitations to library hours meant that I had to photograph a massive quantity of materials, which I am currently working through now. These have been especially valuable for strengthening Indian and Chinese perspectives of war in Singapore and Malaya, and I look forward to foregrounding these perspectives in my book.

What is on the horizon for you? What's next?

After leaving Stanford, I will look forward to revising my book manuscript and submitting it to a university press. This will occupy much of my focus throughout 2022, with a view to publishing the manuscript in 2023. Beyond that, I will look forward to continuing my research on war and empire in the Asia-Pacific — possibly even incorporating further research on my home state of California!

Kate Imy

Kate Imy

Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Fellow on Contemporary Southeast Asia, 2021-2022
Full Biography.

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Southeast Asia: China’s Long Shadow

Chinese foreign policy in Southeast Asia affects, and is affected by, the more despotic character of ASEAN’s mainland compared with its maritime member states. But the destiny of even the already undemocratic mainland portion of Southeast Asia is not—not yet at least—made in Beijing.
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[Left] Gerald Sim, [Right] the cover of 'Postcolonial Hangups in Southeast Asian Cinema'
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A New Look at Cinema in Southeast Asia from Former LKC Fellow Gerald Sim

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In this interview, Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Fellow on Southeast Asia Kate Imy discusses her research into identity in the twentieth-century British imperial world and her current book project on the colonial roots of winning "hearts and minds" in war, specifically focusing on Malaya and Singapore.

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Chaeri Park
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My summer internship experience at the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) was remote due to the pandemic. It was nonetheless a memorable experience as I got to explore cybersecurity issues around Southeast Asia. ASPI is a think-tank under the umbrella of the Asia Society family, which aims to explain the diversity of Asia to the United States and the complexity of the United States to Asia. It heightens understanding between the two regions and tackles major policy challenges confronting the Asia-Pacific in security, prosperity, and sustainability by providing solution-oriented recommendations and ideas for such challenges.

At Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI), I delved into policies and developments around the data privacy issue in Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Singapore. I learned how these countries bring up policies and collaborate bilaterally, regionally, and globally to tackle problems around cybersecurity. My summer internship experience also enriched my knowledge and understanding of the world.

 
I learned how these countries bring up policies and collaborate bilaterally, regionally, and globally to tackle problems around cybersecurity. My summer internship experience also enriched my knowledge and understanding of the world.

Working at ASPI

The internship started in June 2021, around the end of the spring quarter, and continued through the end of summer. There were a total of four interns in the Washington D.C. office. I mainly worked with a small team of three - Elina, my supervisor, Chris, my co-intern, and I - which focused on cybersecurity issues.

My supervisor, Elina Noor, an inspiring expert in cyberspace, especially in the Southeast Asia region, led the team with great insights and leadership. Along with my co-intern, Chris, we spent the entire three months working on a project that studies Ethical Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data for Inclusive Development in Southeast Asia. The project itself is expected to continue for a year, and we were in the early stages of the project. 

As a security research intern, I collected data and assisted the research. Additionally, I focused on building-up fundamental understanding of the project - determining the stages of development each country is in, how they respond to the global trend and issues, and what criteria need to be included in analyzing the different characteristics of each country, considering both the local context and the global trend. In the next nine months, the project will survey countries’ positions on these issues, assess the importance and impact of the topic, and highlight the significance of engaging in international developments. I am excited for the final product to come forth, a collaborative work of all people involved in this project.

Other responsibilities also came along the way. I had the opportunity to find the correlation between the South China Sea dispute and cyber incidents between the countries claiming sovereignty over the region. These incidents are ambiguous to identify, and the attribution is not always clear. It was also challenging to make a data set from scratch as it was a whole new experience. However, I managed to conclude that cyber incidents spiked around the time of the major disputes around the South China Sea. No secret that the Global Economy class taught by Professor Aturupane from Fall 2020-21 helped me make sense of the data set and read graphs!

The interns in the New York and Washington D.C. office took turns doing daily press scans, following up with news from the Northeast to the Middle East. It was amazing to learn how Asia, as one big continent, held such a diverse set of news and events occurring each day. I also accumulated lists of people in congress, embassies, and the government to share the op-eds from ASPI. Most of these administrative works were done as a team effort, and I met a larger ASPI family through the experience.

Ending My Internship

Working at ASPI was a rewarding way to spend my summer. I owe special thanks to Elina and Chris, who were incredibly supportive and made me feel like I was making a significant contribution to the institution. I was also rewarded with knowledge and insights into new topics in Asia and its relations with the world, mainly focusing on the U.S. It provided great insight into the developments of cybersecurity issues and data privacy around Southeast Asian countries. It was a fantastic opportunity to apply what I learned at Stanford to real-world policy problems. I thoroughly enjoyed my internship this summer and feel ready to embark on new challenges that will come forth in my career path.

 
Chaeri Park, Master's in International Policy ('22)

Chaeri Park

Master's in International Policy Class of 2022
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During her summer internship with the Asia Policy Institute, Chaeri Park (Master's in International Policy '22) focused on how nations in Southeast Asia are working bilaterally, regionally, and globally to tackle problems around cybersecurity.

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Cover of book "Drivers of Innovation"

Innovation and entrepreneurship rank highly on the strategic agenda of most countries today. As global economic competition intensifies, many national policymakers now recognize the central importance of entrepreneurship education and the building of financial institutions to promote long-term innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic growth. Drivers of Innovation brings together scholars from the United States and Asia to explore those education and finance policies that might be conducive to accelerating innovation and developing a more entrepreneurial workforce in East Asia. 

Some of the questions covered include: How do universities in China and Singapore experiment with new types of learning in their quest to promote innovation and entrepreneurship? Is there a need to transform the traditional university into an “entrepreneurial university”? What are the recent developments in and outstanding challenges to financing innovation in China and Japan? What is the government’s role in promoting innovative entrepreneurship under the shadow of big business in South Korea? What can we learn about the capacity of services to drive innovation-led growth in India? 

Drivers of Innovation will serve as a valuable reference for scholars and policymakers working to develop human capital for innovation in Asia.

Contents

  1. Educating Entrepreneurs and Financing Innovation in Asia 
    Fei Yan, Yong Suk Lee, Lin William Cong, Charles Eesley, and Charles Lee
  2. Fostering Entrepreneurship and Innovation: Education, Human Capital, and the Institutional Environment 
    Charles Eesley, Lijie Zhou, and You (Willow) Wu
  3. Entrepreneurial Scaling Strategy: Managerial and Policy Considerations 
    David H. Hsu
  4. Innovation Policy and Star Scientists in Japan 
    Tatsuo Sasaki, Hiromi S. Nagane, Yuta Fukudome, and Kanetaka Maki
  5. Financing Innovation in Japan: Challenges and Recent Progress 
    Takeo Hoshi and Kenji Kushida
  6. Promoting Entrepreneurship under the Shadow of Big Business in Korea: The Role of the Government 
    Hicheon Kim, Dohyeon Kim, and He Soung Ahn
  7. The Creativity and Labor Market Performance of Korean College Graduates: Implications for Human Capital Policy 
    Jin-Yeong Kim
  8. Financing Innovative Enterprises in China: A Public Policy Perspective 
    Lin William Cong, Charles M. C. Lee, Yuanyu Qu, and Tao She
  9. Forging Entrepreneurship in Asia: A Comparative Study of Tsinghua University and the National University of Singapore 
    Zhou Zhong, Fei Yan, and Chao Zhang
  10. Education and Human Capital for Innovation in India’s Service Sector 
    Rafiq Dossani
  11. In Need of a Big Bang: Toward a Merit-Based System for Government-Sponsored Research in India 
    Dinsha Mistree
  12. The Implications of AI for Business and Education, and Singapore’s Policy Response 
    Mohan Kankanhalli and Bernard Yeung

 

 

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Books
Publication Date
Subtitle

Entrepreneurship, Education, and Finance in Asia

Authors
Yong Suk Lee
Fei Yan
Fei Yan
Book Publisher
Shorenstein APARC
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The six Asian countries examined in the new book Shifting Gears in Innovation Policy — China, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan — have achieved high economic growth in many industrial sectors, but the catch-up phase of their growth is over or ending. These countries can no longer rely on importing or imitating new technologies from abroad. Rather, they must develop their own innovations to maintain growth. The traditional industrial policy tools they often used to advance “innovation” by selecting promising industries and diverting resources to them are no longer effective. Indeed, governments in Asia have recently put forward new policies, such as China’s push for mass entrepreneurship and innovation. It is at this juncture that the authors of Shifting Gears reassess Asia’s innovation and focus on national strategies and regional cluster policies that can promote indigenous entrepreneurship and innovation in the larger Asia-Pacific. In this virtual book launch, contributing chapter authors join Yong Suk Lee to discuss their findings.

SPEAKERS

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Edison Tse
Edison Tse is an Associate Professor in the Department of Management Science & Engineering at Stanford University. He is also the Director of Asia Center of Management Science and Engineering, which has the charter of conducting research on the growth of emerging economy in Asia, with a special focus in China, Korea and India. In 1973, he received the prestigious Donald Eckman Award from the American Automatic Control Council in recognition of his outstanding contribution in the field of Automatic Control. In 2003, he received the Golden Nugget Award from General Motors R & D and Planning. In 2008, he received the Dean’s Award for Industry Education Innovation from School of Engineering, Stanford University. He had served as an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions of Automatic Control, and a co-editor of the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, which he co-founded. Since 2003, he dedicated his research effort in dynamic entrepreneurial strategy and transformation of Chinese production economy to innovation economy. He wrote a book in Chinese entitled “源创新”on this theory and published in China in 2012. A second edition of this book, with new chapters incorporating some experiences of practicing the theory in China, was published in 2016 by China CITIC Press with a new title “重新定义创新(Redefine Innovation)”. He is now working on the extension of this theory to developing countries. His main thesis is that innovation is cultural dependent. Successful innovation in a developing country must be synergistic to its culture, its political, social and economic environment. Professor Edison Tse received his BS, MS, and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

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Dinsha Mistree
Dinsha Mistree is a Lecturer and Research Fellow in the Rule of Law Program at Stanford Law School. In his research, he examines how formal legal systems sometimes can sometimes stimulate economic development, while at other times these same systems can hold back development. His work considers incentives for innovation and entrepreneurship, meritocracy in public administration and education, and drivers of economic development more broadly. Much of Dr. Mistree’s research focuses on India and other South Asian countries. His work has appeared or is forthcoming at Social Science and MedicineStanford Law Review, and Cambridge University Press. Dr. Mistree holds a PhD and an MA in Politics from Princeton University and an SM in Political Science from MIT.

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Michelle Hsieh
Michelle F. Hsieh is an Associate Research Fellow in the Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan. She received her PhD (in Sociology) from McGill University, Montreal, Canada, and was a Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University. Her research interests include economic sociology, sociology of development, comparative political economy, and East Asian societies. Her ongoing research explores the variations and consequences of industrial upgrading among the East Asian latecomers. She has done empirical analysis of the different configurations of the state-society linkages for innovation through comparative industry studies on Taiwan and South Korea. Her investigations focus on how technology learning and adaptation take place in a decentralized system of SME network production and the institutional arrangements that can facilitate or hinder coordination and collaboration. Other research interests are the origins of the East Asian developmental state and the connection between technological development and Cold War geopolitics in the latter half of the twentieth century. 

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WoonJoon Kim
Wonjoon Kim is the Head of the Graduate School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, a Professor at the School of Business and Technology Management, KAIST. He is also the Director of KAIST Center for Innovation Strategy and Policy. He has been conducting and publishing numerous researches on the strategic management of innovation of firms, industry, and governments centering on emerging innovation paradigms. His current research interest also covers the changing nature of innovation, including AI and industrial and social change, the convergence of technology as well as the changing nature of the process of entrepreneurship. Currently, he is the President of Asia Innovation and Entrepreneurship Association (AIEA), Organizing Committee Chair for the AIEA-NBER Conference and a Vice President of the Korean Society for Innovation Management and Economics. He is also serving as the Editor of the Journal of Technology Innovation, and an Editorial Board Member for several journals on innovation such as Technovation, Innovation Studies. Before he joined KAIST, he has been an Adjunct-Assistant Professor at the Department of Economics, NYU as and a Research Fellow at the Yale School of Management. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics of Innovation including Science and Technology Policy from Seoul National University. 

MODERATOR 

Yong Suk Lee, SK Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Deputy Director of the Korea Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University. 

This event is being held virtually via Zoom. Please register for the webinar via the following link: https://bit.ly/3axXNab

Edison Tse <br><i>Associate Professor in the Department of Management Science & Engineering at Stanford University</i><br><br>
Dinsha Mistree <br><i>Research Fellow and Lecturer at the Program in the Rule of Law at Stanford Law School</i><br><br>
Michelle Hsieh <br><i>Associate Research Fellow in the Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan</i><br><br>
Wonjoon Kim <br><i>Head of the Graduate School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Professor at the School of Business and Technology Management at KAIST</i><br><br>
Panel Discussions
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Even before the covid-19 pandemic, virtual consultations (also called telemedicine consultations) were on the rise, with many healthcare systems advocating a digital-first approach. At the start of the pandemic, many GPs and specialists turned to video consultations to reduce patient flow through healthcare facilities and limit infectious exposures. Video and telephone consultations also enable clinicians who are well but have to self-isolate, or who fall into high risk groups and require shielding, to continue providing medical care. The scope for video consultations for long term conditions is wide and includes management of diabetes, hypertension, asthma, stroke, psychiatric illnesses, cancers, and chronic pain. Video consultations can also be used for triage and management of a wide range of acute conditions, including, for example, emergency eye care triage. This practice pointer summarises the evidence on the use of video consultations in healthcare and offers practical recommendations for video consulting in primary care and outpatient settings.

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Journal Articles
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
The British Medical Journal
Authors
Josip Car
Gerald Choon-Huat Koh
Pin Sim Foong
C. Jason Wang
Number
2020
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