The following article is a guest post written by Thea Louise Dai, an alumna of the Spring 2022 China Scholars Program. In April 2022, Thea met Wendy Wen, an alumna of the Spring 2022 Stanford e-China Program. Currently, Thea Louise is a junior at Castilleja School in Palo Alto, California, and Wendy Wen is a junior at Beijing National Day School in Beijing, China.

In April 2022, I met Wendy Wen through a collaboration between the China Scholars Program (CSP) and Stanford e-China. Five months later, we are working together to prepare the first synchronous Zoom discussion at Project 17—a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization we founded dedicated to initiating global dialogue through synchronous discussions about the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations.

The CSP and Stanford e-China collaboration was no doubt my most stimulating academic experience to date. The two programs held four joint discussions on various climate issues over the course of several weeks. With the rare opportunity to bridge geographical and cultural divides, I finally had a chance to apply everything I had learned about China’s history, policies, and current events throughout the program in conversation with actual Chinese students, from whom I learned new perspectives. Although we only had to participate in one of the synchronous discussions, I found myself looking forward to each meeting and rearranging my schedule to attend all four.

Wendy recalls that she had a similarly eye-opening experience during the meetings. She noted, “I have always believed that the world’s largest challenges can be solved through global collaboration. After every discussion with the CSP, I left feeling inspired to know that such collaboration is possible, even for high school students.”

After meeting each other through a breakout room conversation, we immediately connected on the need for a global discussion platform targeted towards youth perspectives. Essentially, we hoped to capture the value of our experience with SPICE, and we wanted to make it even more accessible and on a larger scale. We also wanted to clear a pathway for participants to take the next steps to create tangible change on the SDGs after our discussions.

As a result, we conceptualized Project 17 in part to partner with the chapter system of the United Nation Association of the USA (UNA-USA) so that high school and college students have the unique opportunity to connect with UNA-USA officials and members across the United States. Our vision is for all participants to be able to share their perspectives on the SDGs to inform the UNA-USA chapter system. We’re also working with Stanford e-China Instructor Carey Moncaster and CSP Instructor Tanya Lee of SPICE to publish the SDG-related research and reflections of participants on larger platforms.

Project 17 hosts four annual synchronous Zoom discussions, each focused on a particular group of SDGs: Planet, People, Prosperity, and Peace & Partnership. Our first discussion about the planet will take place in November 2022 and run for two hours. Interested students can complete the registration form on the Project 17 website to apply for an opportunity to hear from SDG advocates, learn from NGO leaders, and participate in breakout room discussions with youth leaders around the world. High school and college students based in any country are eligible to participate.

In the span of four months, Project 17’s outreach efforts have reached 51 cities, 47 schools, and five different countries. Participants will build connections with students from different backgrounds and develop a global mindset by engaging with new perspectives. In addition, participants can contribute to asynchronous discussion boards and the Project 17 blog, receive bimonthly newsletters about the SDGs, and receive certified service hours eligible for the President’s Volunteer Service Award.

By incorporating these opportunities into our organization, we hope to create an experience similar to the invaluable experiences that Wendy and I had through the CSP and Stanford e-China. Inspired by SPICE’s impact, we are incredibly excited to start an initiative similarly promoting international and cross-cultural collaboration. Please note that Project 17 is not a Stanford SPICE program.

For more information, visit Project 17’s website (projectseventeen.org) or contact Project 17 at contact@projectseventeen.org.

Changing and Humanizing the USSR

Steven Pifer, a former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, shared on Twitter some of the milestone accomplishments in nuclear arms control that came about during Gorbachev's administration. Having worked extensively in the U.S. Foreign Service and State Department for over 25 years in Ukraine, Warsaw, Moscow, and London, Pifer saw firsthand the impacts of Gorbachev's "glasnost’” policy — or the "opening up" of Russian society, government, and media — on the people of Russia and Eastern Europe.

"He gave Central Europeans freedom to make their own choices," Pifer wrote on Twitter. And while acknowledging that the Soviet collapse was not free of violence, Pifer also believes that it was "far more peaceful than it could have been," because of Gorbachev's leadership through such a monumental inflection point in geopolitical history.

Freedom and Honesty for Russia and Eastern Europe

Similarly, eminent political scientist Francis Fukuyama says that a hallmark of Gorbachev's legacy will be his desire for peace and his willingness to set aside the norms of the Soviet Era in order to allow people greater freedom.

"He wasn't willing to use force to hold the old Soviet Union together," Fukuyama told Radio Free Europe in an interview. "That was really critical in allowing the countries of Eastern Europe to become free of Soviet influence and for Soviet republics like Urkaine, Moldova, and Belarus to become independent nations. That is a contribution to freedom that is really unparallelled by any other leader at that time."

While Gorbachev is not a popular figure in Russia today, Fukuyama believes his time in leadership still made an important difference to the long-term development of the country and its former territories.

'History Will Be Kind to Him'

Today, Russia's trajectory looks very different from the path Gorbachev tried to set the country on in the 1990s. Speaking to Leila Fadel on NPR's Morning Edition, FSI Director Michael McFaul highlighted the difference between Gorbachev's ambitions and Putin's regime.

"It's definitely a reversal. It is a return to confrontation. And again, it did not have to be that way," he said. "Russia was a democracy in the 1990s, and Gorbachev helped to introduce those political reforms. That has been completely reversed by Vladimir Putin."

McFaul agrees that Gorbachev is a complex figure, both in Russia and in the West. While the collapse of the Soviet Union was largely bloodless, Gorbachev sent special forces to the Baltic republics in 1991, a decision which resulted in military and civilian casualites.

In light of the brutality of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Gorbachev's early confidence in Vladimir Putin feels like a similar miscalculation, as Professor McFaul discussed with Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC. Even still, because of his proactive work to move arms control forward and for choosing not to intervene with force against the collapse of the Soviet Union and break away of Eastern Europe, McFaul considers the former president one of the most important figures of the 21st century. 

"On a personal level, Gorbachev and I didn't always agree. We argued," says McFaul. "But he was a very engaging intellectual, and I always learned from every conversation I had with him. I think history will be kind to him."

For McFaul, the recognition is a tremendous honor, both personally and professionally. A long-time scholar of both Russia and Ukraine, he is unequivocal about the importance of Ukraine in the current state of geopolitics.

“President Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s warriors, and all Ukrainians are leading the fight for democracy, freedom, and sovereignty against tyranny, repression, and imperialism,” he says. “They are heroes. Not just for Ukraine, not just for Europe, but for the entire world.”

As the director of FSI, Professor McFaul has overseen a purposeful expansion of Ukraine-focused programming and fellowships offered by the Freeman Spogli Institute.

In 2005, McFaul was a leading proponent to bring Ukrainian professionals and mid-career civic leaders to Stanford to participate in what was then known as the Summer Fellows program, now the Draper Hills Summer Fellows, which offers training and education for professionals from emerging democracies.

“We made a big bet way back in 2005 on Ukraine’s cause,” he acknowledges. “Then and now, we view Ukraine as a frontline country in the global struggle for democracy,”

That institutional commitment to support Ukraine and other emerging democracies has continued to expand. In 2016, the Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law launched the Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program (UELP), which sponsors cohorts of young Ukrainian civic leaders for a yearly fellowship of academic courses, faculty mentorship and community engagement. In the six years since its inception, many alumni of the program have gone on to work in prominent roles in the Ukrainian government.

“When you see pictures today of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his bunker in Kyiv, Serhiy Leshchenko is right next to him. He’s one of our graduates,” Francis Fukuyama, an academic advisor for the Draper Hills Summer Fellows and UELP, recently told the Stanford Daily.

Engagement with and support of Ukraine’s civic sector culminated in a visit to Stanford by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in September 2021. The first Ukrainian president to visit California, Zelenskyy spoke to an eager crowd at a packed outdoor event in the Bechtel Courtyard about the potential he saw for Ukraine’s future, and how partnerships with institutions like Stanford can help support that future.

In May 2022, FSI was honored to host President Zelenskyy for a second address and Q&A, this time via a live video feed from Kyiv to Stanford students watching in the CEMEX auditorium.

Since the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, the FSI community and its faculty have continued to offer ongoing analysis and commentary about the conflict, participating in student-led events, and meeting with the highest levels of government officials in the U.S. and beyond.

Alongside co-coordinator Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to President Zelenskyy, Professor McFaul has been instrumental in organizing the International Working Group on Russian Sanctions, which is a nonpartisan, independent network of experts who are actively researching how governments and private companies can sanction supporters of Putin’s war and oppressive regime. Recommendations from the group have been adopted by the Ukrainian government and heard as testimony before the United States Senate.

In his speech to the award recipients, President Zelenskyy told the audience he felt assured that such commitment exists amongst Ukrainians and their allies.

“We will preserve Ukraine's independence forever,” he said. “We will preserve it, because we have such unity. We will preserve it, because we all have an understanding of what and whom we are fighting for.”

Looking to the future, Zelenskyy continued, “The day will surely come when we will congratulate each other on our most important goal, on this result — the victory gained by our historic struggle.”

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Scott Rozelle, co-director of SCCEI, added: "Jennifer is at the forefront of research in her field, conducting groundbreaking empirical research that uses the unique lens of communication to build understanding of China’s economy and its impact on the world. In the past year alone, Jennifer gave several lectures to our SCCEI community, all of which drew large audiences and sparked lively discussion. We are thrilled to have her officially join our team and I can’t wait to see where her research takes her next."

Pan’s book, “Welfare for Autocrats: How Social Assistance in China Cares for its Rulers,” shows how China’s pursuit of political order transformed the country’s main social assistance program, Dibao, for repressive purposes. Her work has appeared in peer-reviewed publications such as the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Politics, and Science.

“Jennifer Pan is one of the most exciting, creative and innovative scholars in the field of social media and network analysis,” said Nathaniel Persily, co-director of the Cyber Policy Center. “She has written foundational works relating to the internet in China and has very important research underway concerning the effect of social media on politics in the United States.”

Pan graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 2004 and obtained a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2015. Prior to Stanford, Pan was a consultant at McKinsey & Company. She was also a fellow at Stanford’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences from 2019 to 2020.

From July 25 through 28, 2022, 21 educators from across the United States and China gathered online for the 2022 East Asia Summer Institute for Middle School Teachers, a teacher professional development seminar offered by SPICE in partnership with the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia. NCTA is made possible by the Freeman Foundation. Over four days of rich content lectures, discussion, and experiential learning, institute participants deepened their background knowledge on Asia and the Asian American experience and began to rethink and revamp their curriculum plans for the 2022–23 school year.

This year’s participants were from many U.S. states, including Alabama, California, Hawaii, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Washington. For the first time, three teachers from China—from Jiangsu and Guangzhou provinces—also took part in the institute. The teachers represented a wide range of teaching subjects, from history, social studies, language arts, and literature, but all sought to strengthen their teaching through a clearer, more nuanced understanding of key episodes in the history of East Asia and the Asian American experience.

The institute’s guest speakers also came from diverse backgrounds, being university professors, curriculum specialists, and school educators with expertise on a specific aspect of Asia or the Asian American experience and/or pedagogy. Interwoven between the captivating content lectures were classroom-focused lesson demonstrations and pedagogy-focused discussions facilitated by SPICE curriculum designers. “We make sure we balance subject-matter content with pedagogical discussions in all of our teacher professional development seminars,” noted Jonas Edman, who managed the middle school institute. “We want to help middle school teachers integrate the knowledge gained from the scholars directly into the classroom.” To that end, summer institute participants each received complimentary literature and SPICE curriculum units to help them bring Asia and the Asian American experience alive for their students. The institute’s key topics and speakers were:

July 25: The Silk Road
Clayton Dube, Director, USC U.S.-China Institute, University of Southern California, “Silk Road—Goods, Ideas, and People on the Move”
Rylan Sekiguchi, SPICE, “Along the Silk Road” curriculum demonstration

July 26: Religions and Philosophies of East Asia
John Kieschnick, the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Professor of Buddhist Studies, Stanford University, “Buddhism: Ancestor Worship, Karma, and Vegetarianism”
Jonas Edman, SPICE, “Religions and Philosophies of China” curriculum demonstration

July 27: Tokugawa Japan
Uldis Kruze, Professor, College of Arts and Sciences, University of San Francisco, “Edo Japan 1600–1868”
Karen Tiegel, The Nueva School, “Japanese Art in the Edo Period” curriculum demonstration

July 28: Asian Voices and Asian American Experiences
Takami Nieda, English Department, Seattle Central College, “The Color of the Sky is the Shape of the Heart in the Classroom”
Gary Mukai, SPICE, “Early Japanese American History”
Jonas Edman, SPICE, “Angel Island,” “Chinese American Voices,” “What Does It Mean to Be an American?” curriculum demonstrations

The Big Data China website features regular multimedia analysis with high-quality data that explores important trends in China’s economy and society. In the newest video release, Scott Rozelle, SCCEI Co-Director, and Scott Kennedy, CSIS Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics, sit down to discuss why the Big Data China collaboration is needed now, more than ever. As Scott Rozelle puts it, "we just don’t understand China — if we understood China better, we could make better policy decisions." This collaboration aims to reduce the current gap between academia and Washington by identifying and highlighting the policy implications of cutting-edge scholarly work on China and presenting it directly to the policy community. 

Watch the video and visit the website for more from Big Data China!

After the end of World War II, more than 45,000 young Japanese women married American GIs and came to the United States to embark upon new lives among strangers. The mother of Kathryn Tolbert, a former long-time journalist with The Washington Post, was one of them.

Kathryn noted, “I knew there was a story in my mother’s journey from war-time Japan to an upstate New York poultry farm. In order to tell it, I teamed up with journalists Lucy Craft and Karen Kasmauski, whose mothers were also Japanese war brides, to make a short documentary film through a mother-daughter lens. Fall Seven Times, Get Up Eight: The Japanese War Brides was released in August 2015 and premiered on BBC World Television. To show the experiences of many more women like our mothers, I spent a year traveling the country to record interviews, funded by a Time Out grant from Vassar College, my alma mater.”

The Japanese War Brides Oral History Archive is the result of her interviews. The Oral History Archive documents an important chapter of U.S. immigration history that is largely unknown and usually left out of the broader Japanese American experience. In these oral histories, Japanese immigrant women reflect on their lives in postwar Japan, their journeys across the Pacific, and their experiences living in the United States.

SPICE developed five lessons for the Japanese War Brides Oral History Archive that suggest ways for teachers to engage their students with the broad themes that emerge from the individual experiences of Japanese war brides. The lessons are: (1) Setting the Context; (2) Japanese Immigration to the United States; (3) The Transmission of Culture; (4) Notions of Identity; and (5) Conflict and Its Analysis. SPICE also developed a teacher’s guide for the film, Fall Seven Times, Get Up Eight: The Japanese War Brides, that helps teachers set the context for the film and provides guided viewing activities and debriefing activities. The lessons and teacher’s guide can be found at the webpage below.

When the Department of Homeland Security’s Advisory Council announces it plan next week for overhauling how the agency combats the spread of disinformation online, its focus will be on “how to achieve greater transparency across our disinformation related work” and how to “increase trust with the public,” according to council meeting minutes released Monday.

Read more at Cyberscoop.com

Stanford e-China has been an incredible academic experience from day one.

My journey with the program started with the interview, which was an enjoyable and memorable experience. I was greeted by a warm smile the moment I entered the Zoom room, and Ms. Carey Moncaster showed genuine interest in learning about me as a person. Rather than focusing on my experiences or achievements, she wanted to know more about my personality, interests, and dreams. Ms. Moncaster and the director of SPICE, Dr. Gary Mukai, have remained passionate advisors and generous mentors to many students even after the course, including me. Over the last year and a half, they were always there when I needed advice on how to proceed with a project or wisdom on dealing with a difficult situation.

The sense of community permeated the course itself, which was designed to be highly interactive. The expert speakers gave insightful lectures, followed by long sessions of Q&A. I can still remember my excitement at being able to ask Mr. Roy Ng, our fintech speaker, three questions after his seminar, where he explained how blockchain could help us reach the unbanked. In fact, my current obsession almost perfectly mirrors that topic—exploring how Central Bank Digital Currencies can help facilitate financial inclusion to mitigate inequality. That session made me realize that social entrepreneurship and tech-based solutions will be key players in upholding justice.

The Q&A was also a chance for my cohort to learn from each other. We bonded over our productive, collaborative, and enthusiastic discussions, and many of us stayed in touch after the course. Over the last year and a half, I have grown to be close friends with my fellow honoree, Jason Li. After meeting in person when he visited Shanghai, we decided to co-found a platform to connect students across the globe. Inspired by the diverse community of brilliant students we saw at Stanford e-China, we developed SPOT. The acronym stands for Student Projects Organized Together, and we hope to bring together an international network of passionate youth. We believe that together, we undertake global initiatives that make tangible impacts. Our website is www.spotaproject.com.

Last but not least, e-China has helped me with my work in social justice. Design Thinking has not only aided in my endeavors with SPOT but also in my other initiatives, including the Law Association for Crimes Across History (LACAH) mock trial, where we put perpetrators of atrocities on the stand (lacah.net). Dora Gan from my e-China cohort is actually a member of our Youth Council! Design Thinking’s methodical approach helped us scale up rapidly, and we were recently honored by the EARCOS Global Citizen Grant.

Throughout high school, I have learned a lot from a wide range of outstanding programs. I have also met many other fabulous peers through them. However, it is not every day that a course leaves such a significant impact, continuing to play a role in my life long after its conclusion. Stanford e-China is truly an exceptional experience. I am very thankful to have been a part of the first cohort.