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New research by a team including Stanford health economist Karen Eggleston provides evidence about the positive impact of China’s urban-rural health insurance integration on mental well-being among rural seniors, offering insights for policymakers worldwide.
Building on the Trans-Pacific Sustainability Dialogue initiative launched by Shorenstein APARC and the Ban Ki-moon Foundation for a Better Future, the 2025 Sustainability Dialogue convenes policymakers, researchers, and practitioners to advance progress toward Sustainable Development Goal 13 – Climate Action – of the United Nations-adopted 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
As global audiences and digital platforms reshape cultural exchange, APARC’s Japan Program convened leading creators, producers, and scholars at Stanford to examine the creative ecosystems driving the international success of Japan’s content industries and their growing influence on innovation, fandom, and international collaboration.
South Koreans have elected Lee Jae-myung president. Will he be a pragmatic democratic reformer? Or will he continue the polarizing political warfare of recent South Korean leaders?
Shinichi Kitaoka, a visiting scholar at APARC and Japan Program fellow, teaches a spring quarter seminar that brings students and scholars together to examine Japanese political history from the Yedo period to the present through a global and comparative lens.
A comprehensive review of rapidly aging South Korea’s efforts to mitigate the social and economic costs of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, co-authored by Stanford health economist Karen Eggleston, provides insights for nations facing policy pressures of the demographic transition.
As he prepares to step down as APARC director, Professor Gi-Wook Shin reflects on two transformative decades at the center and the road ahead.
Despite the nation’s rapidly aging demographics, South Korea's economy has not adapted as well as the United States, a new study finds. The researchers, including Stanford health economist and director of the Asia Health Policy Program at APARC Karen Eggleston, show that age-friendly jobs attract a broad range of workers and that structural barriers in the labor market influence which groups can access these roles.
The Center’s new cohort of seven scholars pursues research spanning diverse topics across contemporary Asian studies.
A Stanford student and four recent alumni who served as research assistants at the Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab will begin doctoral studies at top institutions in fall 2025. At the lab, which is committed to rigorous, policy-relevant research and student mentorship, they gained hands-on experience and honed skills valuable for the next stage of their academic journeys.
A co-authored study by a team including Stanford political scientist Jean Oi traces how the Chinese central government’s shifting policies during the COVID pandemic exposed its fiscal fault lines and created a local government liquidity crisis.
As Asian economies grapple with aging populations, rising healthcare demands, and rapid technological change, APARC’s 2024-25 Asia Health Policy Program Postdoctoral Fellows Mai Nguyen and Jinseok Kim study large-scale health care structural and policy challenges from the lens of individual decision-making.
Bangladesh-Focused Investigative Media Outlet Netra News Wins 2025 Shorenstein Journalism Award
Sponsored by Stanford University’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, the 24th annual Shorenstein Journalism Award honors Netra News, Bangladesh's premier independent, non-partisan media outlet, for its unflinching reportage on human rights abuses and corruption in Bangladesh and its efforts to establish and uphold fundamental freedoms in the country.
As geopolitical uncertainty deepens and traditional alliances are tested, APARC’s Japan Program and the United States-Japan Foundation convened thought leaders at Stanford to explore the shifting bilateral cooperation across areas spanning global democracy, economic resilience, civil society and governance, and the unexpected power of baseball diplomacy.
Political Signaling in an Uncertain World: Brandon Yoder’s Empirical Lens on Chinese Foreign Policy
Brandon Yoder, APARC’s 2024–25 Stanford Next Asia Policy Fellow, focuses on a central challenge in international politics: how states can credibly signal their intentions and avoid war. His work investigates this question in high-stakes contexts, such as during power shifts, amid strategic uncertainty, and in multi-actor settings where traditional signaling models often fall short.
President Trump's tariff policy will serve no one's interests, says Thomas Fingar, a Shorenstein APARC Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.
US Research in Retreat?
Zealous measures to defend against foreign exploitation of university-based research would be inadequate to preserve US preeminence in science and technology without much greater effort to strengthen US capabilities.
At a fireside chat hosted by APARC's Southeast Asia Program, Kim Aris, the son of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, called for humanitarian aid to Myanmar, his mother’s release, and freedom for the Burmese people.
Tsutsui, whose research focuses on globalization, human rights, social movements, and political sociology, currently serves as deputy director of the center, and has been the director of the Japan Program since 2020.
At its first convening in Taiwan, APARC’s Taiwan Program gathered scholars and industry experts to consider policy measures and practices for tackling the technological, economic, social, and demographic forces shaping the island nation’s future and strategies for ensuring its continued growth and success.
In an interview with the Chinese newspaper The Paper, Gi-Wook Shin, the director of APARC and the Korea Program, discusses the risks posed by South Korea’s division and polarization following President Yoon’s impeachment, the global trend of democratic decline, and actionable reforms to advance and secure South Korea’s democratic future.
WATCH | Center Fellow Oriana Skylar Mastro testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
We are deeply saddened to share that our friend and colleague, Michael Armacost, passed away on Saturday, March 8, 2025. A former U.S. ambassador to the Philippines and Japan, Mike was a Shorenstein APARC fellow until his retirement in 2021.
APARC’s 2024-25 Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow on Contemporary Asia Shilin Jia researches the careers of high-level Chinese political elites during the economic reform period from 1978 to 2011. Using a quantitative approach, Jia explores how China's party-state orchestrated elite circulation as a governance tool during a time of significant economic and political transformation.
APARC's 2025 Oksenberg Symposium explored how shifting political, economic, and social conditions in China, Russia, India, and the United States are reshaping their strategies and relationships. The discussion highlighted key issues such as military and economic disparities, the shifting balance of power, and the implications of these changes for global stability, especially in the Indo-Pacific region.