Dr. Paul Sheard will join Professor Bruce Aronson for a discussion about Japan’s economic growth strategy and corporate governance, with a particular focus on the Takaichi Cabinet’s growth agenda, sometimes called “Sanaenomics,” and how it compares with “Abenomics.” They will also discuss how Japan’s broader strategic priorities are evolving in response to shifting domestic and global economic conditions.
Please note that the location of this event has changed to Furman Hall 212
North Korea is one of the world’s poorest countries, but also one of the most challenging places to deliver humanitarian aid. For years at a time, its government has barred foreign aid workers, suspicious of their intentions. Swiss aid worker Kathi Zellweger, one of the very few Westerners to have lived in North Korea, and who visited the country seventy-five times over three decades, will share her experiences working with local medical experts, negotiating with suspicious government officials, and finding ways to help thousands of people, most of them children. She is joined by Mike Chinoy, a former CNN correspondent and repeat visitor to North Korea, with whom she wrote the book, Miss Kathi: Saving Lives in North Korea.
As the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) launched in 2016, many wondered how this new China-led multilateral development bank (MDB) would fare. Natalie Lichtenstein, AIIB’s founding lawyer takes a look at AIIB in context, surveying 100 years of MDB legal genealogy. What does AIIB’s first decade tell us about the combination of heritage and innovation in AIIB’s 21st century charter?
What happens when local governments that cannot make treaties enter into written commitments with foreign governments? To find out, Yuhei Matsuyama laboriously created a database of agreements entered into over a forty-year period between Japanese prefectures and foreign governments. He discovered a network of practical and constructive agreements, many with Japan’s neighbors, that serve the interests of local communities and also generally support national foreign policy.
China’s new Regulation on Countering Unjustified Extraterritorial Jurisdiction by Foreign States introduces a potentially significant conceptual shift in the global debate over jurisdictional conflicts. Rather than asking only whether a foreign state’s exercise of jurisdiction is lawful under international law, the Regulation creates a further requirement: that such jurisdiction be “justified.” Zheng (Sophia) Tang writes that the “justification” standard has the potential to influence the development of customary international law.
The deep partisan divisions rending Taiwan's government are no secret. Legislative push-back to President Lai Ching-te’s budgets has received international attention. Yinn-Ching Lu writes that much less attention has been paid both abroad and within Taiwan to a different manifestation of the power struggle between the branches: near-paralysis of the government appointment process. Critical institutions’ leadership ranks are being decapitated by the legislature’s refusal to approve presidential nominees, a phenomenon that Lu says may ultimately be more damaging to Taiwan’s democracy.
September 6 – September 12
China's Supreme People’s Court issues its first guidance on deciding artificial intelligence disputes; a Hong Kong court sentences three former organizers of Tiananmen candlelight vigils to prison for inciting subversion; Japan's consumer agency calls for regulation of website interfaces that steer online shoppers into choices against their own interests; South Korea's Interior Ministry nominates a former senior prosecutor to lead the new agency that will take over major crime investigations from prosecutors next month; Taiwan's president promulgates a law directing the government in principle to budget US$1.3 billion annually for the military to purchase domestically made drones.
August 30 – September 5
China amends its Lawyers Law to protect lawyers' right to practice while also requiring them to support Communist Party leadership; a Chinese court freezes up to US$300 million in assets held by Dutch chipmaker Nexperia in its long-running battle with Nexperia’s Chinese owner ; a Hong Kong appeals court upholds the convictions of Cardinal Joseph Zen and four others for failing to register the non-profit organization they led that aided anti-government protesters; Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi faces calls to push back harder against the US imposition of sanctions on the International Criminal Court and its Japanese president; South Korea's Supreme Court rules that movie theaters must accommodate moviegoers who have visual or hearing impairments; Taiwan's Cabinet sends a US$19 billion supplementary budget request to the legislature in an attempt to restore defense funds that the opposition-controlled legislature cut in May.
August 23 – August 29
China's top legislature begins reviewing a draft law that would codify Beijing's overseas pursuit of fugitive officials and their assets; Hong Kong invites Uber, Didi, and other ride-hailing platforms to apply for licenses under its first law regulating the industry; a Japanese Justice Ministry panel proposes to punish persons who solicit prostitutes; South Korea's Constitutional Court rules that every child born in the country has a constitutional right to birth registration, regardless of nationality or immigration status; Taiwan's opposition-controlled legislature passes a law to fund US$7.6 billion in attack drones and other unmanned systems through regular annual budgets rather than the special budget the government requested.
Program on International Law & Relations in Asia
Contemporary trends suggest a sea change in the international order as the US reverses its longstanding commitments to free trade and liberal democracy. Based on a forthcoming book titled Chinese Developmentalism in the Global Legal and Economic Order, co-edited with Jacques deLisle and Jaclyn Neo, our speaker, Matthew Erie, says that China promotes a novel ordering they call “Chinese developmentalism,” which favors state-led economic growth, industrial policy, technological innovation, and illiberal governance. Chinese developmentalism is complex and still evolving, but Erie says while its aspirations are far-reaching, the magnitude and direction of its impact are far from inevitable.