Motoshige Itoh, Professor, Graduate School of Economics, University of Tokyo. He has served as President of the National Institute for Research Advancement since February 2006, and held the post of Dean at the Gradual School of Economics from 2007 to 2009. He was professor of the Graduate School of Economics and the Faculty of Economics since 1993, and Assistant Professor in Economics since 1982. He has served in various government committees, including the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, Ministry of Finance, Economic Planning Agency, Fair Trade Commission, and others and was a member of Economic Strategy Council in 1998-1999. He has been an advisor to the Statistical Division at the Bank of Japan, and a visiting scholar at various institutions, including the Department of Economics at Harvard University, the Australia-Japan Research Centre, Australian National University, and Research Institute at the Bank of Japan. He has published numerous books and papers on Japan’s economy and finance. He received his BA from Tokyo University and PhD from University of Rochester, both in Economics.

Hideaki Miyajima, Director, Waseda Institute for Advanced Study(WIAS), Professor of Japanese Economy, Graduate School of Commerce, Waseda University. He teaches Japanese Economy, and Corporate Governance in Japan.  He stayed at Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, Harvard University as a visiting scholar for 1992-94 and 2004-05. He was asked to consult by several institutions such as the World Bank, Hawaii University, Hebrew University, and Korean Development Institute. He was also appointed to numerous positions: Faculty Fellow, Research Institute of Economy, Trade & Industry, a Special Research Fellow of Policy Research Institute (Ministry of Finance), Research Fellow of EHESS (Paris), and an Adjunct Professor of Chung-Ang University (Seoul). He wrote several books and numerous papers including: Corporate Governance in Japan, Oxford University Press, 2007 (co-edited), Changes and Continuity in Japan, Curzon Press, 2002 (co-edited), Policies for Competitiveness, Oxford University Press, 1999 (co-edited), He received his Ph.D in Economics from the University of Tokyo.

Takeo Hoshi, Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Senior Fellow at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, and professor of finance (by courtesy), Stanford Graduate School of Business. Prior to joining S/APARC, he was Pacific Economic Cooperation Professor in International Economic Relations at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS) at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Hoshi also serves on the Board of Directors at Union BanCal Corporation. He is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and at the Tokyo Center for Economic Research (TCER). His main research interests include the study of the financial aspects of the Japanese economy, especially corporate finance, banking, and monetary policy. He received numerous awards for his publications including Corporate Financing and Governance in Japan: The Road to the Future (MIT Press, 2001), co-authored with Anil Kashyap (Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago), and his other publications include, “Japanese Government Debt and Sustainability of Fiscal Policy” (with Takero Doi and Tatsuyoshi Okimoto), Journal of the Japanese and International Economies,2011; “Corporate Restructuring in Japan during the Lost Decade” (with Satoshi Koibuchi and Ulrike Schaede), Japan’s Bubble, Deflation, and Long-term Stagnation, MIT Press, 2011 (Koichi Hamada, Anil K Kashyap, and David E. Weinstein, eds.) He has been the editor-in-chief of the Journal of the Japanese and International Economies since 1999. Hoshi received his BA in social sciences from the University of Tokyo in 1983, and a PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1988.

This event is co-sponsored by the Arab Studies Table

Abstract:

Ahmed Benchemsi, a Stanford visiting scholar and award-winning Moroccan journalist, will introduce "FreeArabs.com". The new media outlet aims to provide the Arab Spring secular generation with a global platform, a digital haven for speaking out, building ties and developing a strong network. Under the editorial line "Democracy, Secularism, Fun" and with a newsy and arty activist tone, Free Arabs will expose corruption and authoritarianism in the Middle East, invoke genuine democracy as a challenge to Islamists, and fight to restore the real meaning of secularism (ie, freedom of choice) in a region where this word has long been demonized by both oppressive governments and religious zealots.

Speaker Bio:

Ahmed Benchemsi is a visiting scholar at Stanford University's Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. His focus is on "The seeds of secularism in the post-Spring Arab world".

Before joining Stanford, Ahmed was the publisher and editor of Morocco's two best-selling newsweeklies TelQuel (French) and Nishan (Arabic), which he founded in 2001 and 2006, respectively. Covering politics, business, society and the arts, Ahmed's magazines were repeatedly cited by major media such as CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera and more, as strong advocates of democracy and secularism in the Middle East and North Africa.

Ahmed received awards from the European Union and Lebanon's Samir Kassir Foundation, notably for his work on the "Cult of personality" surrounding Morocco's King. He also published op-eds in Le Monde and Newsweek where he completed fellowships.

Ahmed received his M.Phil in Political Science in 1998 from Paris' Institut d'Etudes Politiques (aka "Sciences Po"), his M.A in Development Economics in 1995 from La Sorbonne, and his B.A in Finance in 1994 from Paris VIII University.

 

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In China Goes Global, eminent China scholar David Shambaugh delivers the book many have been waiting for—a sweeping account of China's growing prominence on the international stage. Thirty years ago, China's role in global affairs beyond its immediate
East Asian periphery was decidedly minor and it had little geostrategic power. As Shambaugh charts, though, China's expanding economic power has allowed it to extend its reach virtually everywhere—from mineral mines in Africa, to currency markets in the West, to oilfields in the Middle East, to agribusiness in Latin America, to the factories of East Asia. Shambaugh offers an enlightening look into the manifestations of China's global presence: its extensive commercial footprint, its growing military power, its increasing cultural influence or "soft power," its diplomatic activity, and its new prominence in global governance institutions. But Shambaugh is no alarmist. In this balanced and well-researched volume, he argues that China's global presence is more broad than deep and that China still lacks the influence befitting a major world power—what he terms a "partial power."

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David Shambaugh is professor of political science and international affairs and director of the China Policy Program at George Washington University, as well as a nonresident senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. His most recent books include Tangled Titans: The United States and China; Charting China's Future: Domestic & International Challenges; and China's Communist Party: Atrophy & Adaptation.

**Books will be available for purchase at the talk.**

In this talk, Mayling Birney presents evidence that China uses a distinctive form of governing, what she calls a “rule of mandates” in contrast to a rule of law. Under a rule of mandates, standards for accountability are relative rather than absolute, as lower officials are effectively directed to adjust the local implementation of the center's own laws and policies in order to meet the center's highest priorities. In China, this governing system has helped promote stability and growth, yet curtailed the potential impact of rule of law and democratic reforms. Birney demonstrates this impact by drawing on evidence from original surveys, interviews, and archival work. Yet she also explains why this governing system is likely to become more problematic for China in the future, potentially jeopardizing even the economic growth and stability it has thus far supported.

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Dr. Mayling Birney (London School of Economics) is a comparative political scientist with a special expertise in China. She is currently finishing a book about China’s distinctive form of authoritarian governing, in which she highlights its consequences for stability, justice, rule of law, and political reform. Prior to arriving at LSE, Dr. Birney was jointly appointed as a fellow in the Princeton University Society of Fellows and a lecturer in the Woodrow Wilson School.  She has also served as a fellow at the Brookings Institution and as a Legislative Aide in the United States Senate. She holds a PhD in political science from Yale University, an MSc in economics from LSE, and a BA in government from Harvard University.

A broad scientific and technical consensus has emerged over the last several decades that deep geologic isolation can provide safe and secure disposal for nuclear high level waste and spent fuel. But given the stigma associated with nuclear waste disposal, credible scenarios exist where substantial inventories of high level waste and spent fuel will remain dispersed worldwide in interim surface storage at shut down and abandoned nuclear facilities, rendering these materials vulnerable to theft to recover fissile material and to accidental or intentional dispersion into the environment and transferring a large and unnecessary burden and risks onto future generations. With the detailed review of U.S. policy for managing nuclear waste completed by the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future last year, the U.S. is now poised to restart its nuclear waste program. Legislation introduced in the Senate in 2012 provides a framework for a path forward that can address these major issues. This talk will review recommendations made by the BRC, and the current status of the U.S. nuclear waste program including actions likely to occur in the coming year.

Per F. Peterson is the William and Jean McCallum Floyd Professor of Nuclear Engineering in the Department of Nuclear Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. He grew up in Reno, Nevada, graduating from UNR with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1982. From 1982 to 1985 he worked at Bechtel on high-level nuclear waste processing, and then spent three years to complete masters and doctoral degrees in mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the Tokyo Institute of Technology working on topics in heat and mass transfer, he joined the Department of Nuclear Engineering at UC Berkeley in 1990. There he served as a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator from 1990 to 1995; as chair of the Energy and Resources Group, an interdisciplinary graduate group, from 1998 to 2000; and as chair of Nuclear Engineering from 2000 to 2005 and from 2009 to 2012. Since 2002 he has co-chaired the Generation IV International Forum Proliferation Resistance and Physical Protection Working Group. He is a Fellow of the American Nuclear Society, is a Jason, and was appointed by the Obama Administration in February 2010 as a member of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future. His specific research interests focus on topics in heat and mass transfer, fluid dynamics, and phase change. He has worked on problems in energy and environmental systems, including advanced reactors, inertial fusion, high-level nuclear waste processing, and nuclear materials management and security.

Early returns suggest that it may not be business as usual in state-society relations, with the Party-state being compelled to respond to an increasingly discontented and vocal society, and that a partial loosening of the tight censorship in media and culture may also be forthcoming. Indicators include changes in CCTV programming—e.g., a more interesting evening news report and the broadcast of the previously banned film V for Vendetta—media coverage of sensitive issues ranging from air pollution to the work of rights lawyers, and the relatively “enlightened” resolution of the Southern Weekend crisis, among other recent developments. What are we to make of these changes and, more importantly, how have these changes been received within China, for example on the ubiquitous and increasingly important Chinese microblogs?

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Stanley Rosen is a professor of political science at USC specializing in Chinese politics and society and was the director of the East Asian Studies Center at USC’s Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences from 2005–2011. He studied Chinese in Taiwan and Hong Kong and has traveled to mainland China over 40 times over the last 30 years. His courses range from Chinese politics and Chinese film to political change in Asia, East Asian societies, comparative politics theory, and politics and film in comparative perspective. The author or editor of eight books and many articles, he has written on such topics as the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese legal system, public opinion, youth, gender, human rights, and film and the media. He is the co-editor of Chinese Education and Society and a frequent guest editor of other translation journals. His most recent books include Chinese Politics: State, Society and the Market [Routledge, 2010 (co-edited with Peter Hays Gries)] and Art, Politics and Commerce in Chinese Cinema [Hong Kong University Press, 2010 (co-edited with Ying Zhu)]. Other ongoing projects include a study of the changing attitudes and behavior of Chinese youth, and a study of Hollywood films in China and the prospects for Chinese films on the international market, particularly in the United States.

In addition to his academic activities at USC, Professor Rosen has escorted eleven delegations to China for the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations (including American university presidents, professional associations, and Fulbright groups), and consulted for the World Bank, the Ford Foundation, the United States Information Agency, the Los Angeles Public Defenders Office and a number of private corporations, film companies, law firms and U.S. government agencies.