National Committee on U.S.-China Relations

Noted cultural historian and author (including of the second edition of China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know, due out in June) Jeffrey Wasserstrom discusses challenges facing contemporary Chinese society, including corruption, energy, politics and the environment, and ways they are being addressed by China's people and leadership. Dr. Wasserstrom, Chancellor's Professor of Histor...

Join National Committee President Stephen Orlins as he explores the perils of misperception between China and the United States with Zha Daojiong, professor of international political economy at the School of International Studies of Peking University and Arthur Ross Fellow at the Asia Society in New York for the summer of 2014.

Join National Committee President Stephen Orlins as he interviews David M. Lampton, George and Sadie Hyman Professor and Director of China Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, as they discuss Lampton's new book, Following the Leader: Ruling China, from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping. Dr. Lampton shares his insights on the Chinese leadership, the influence of Chinese...

When President Richard M. Nixon met with Chairman Mao Zedong in Beijing in February 1972, at his side was a young U.S. diplomat serving as his principal interpreter: Chas W. Freeman, Jr. had started studying Mandarin (and Taiwan's dialect, Minnan) in Taiwan three years earlier; and he spent much of his long diplomatic career specializing in China, including Taiwan. In Interesting Times, Ambassador...

Dr. David M. Finkelstein, vice president of the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), discusses U.S.-China security and military cooperation issues relevant to developments in the South China Sea, Taiwan Strait and the rebalancing of U.S. resources to the Asia-Pacific region. A retired U.S. Army officer, Dr. Finkelstein has held command and staff positions at the platoon, company, battalion and Major A...

Interviewed by National Committee President Steve Orlins, Damien Ma and William Adams discuss their new book, In Line Behind a Billion People: How Scarcity Will Define China's Ascent in the Next Decade. China will soon have the world's largest economy, but Ma and Adams argue that China's economic growth will constrain it, not empower it, as they believe that China will continue to be shaped by sca...

Professor He Weifang, preeminent legal scholar on the rule of law and judicial independence at Beijing University, discusses the status of the rule of law in China and provides his insights into the challenging path of legal reform over the last three decades. He points out the existing problems with the current Chinese legal system and recommends constructive measures to reform the system by loos...

Professor Alex Wang (UCLA) discusses how the Chinese Party-state has primarily used top-down bureaucratic targets, rather than laws and regulations, to pursue its environmental protection goals in the last few years. This approach has motivated local bureaucrats to take action, but not always in ways intended or desired. Read more in his recent paper in the Harvard Environmental Law Review: http:/...

Interviewed by National Committee President Steve Orlins, Professors Cohen and Lewis discuss the findings of their new book, Challenge to China: How Taiwan Abolished Its Version of Re-Education Through Labor.  Their work draws attention to an under-appreciated aspect of legal reforms in Taiwan and asks how Taiwan's experience might be relevant to its neighbor across the Taiwan Strait. (Note t...

Join National Committee Senior Director for Education Programs Margot Landman as she interviews Leta Hong Fincher, a former journalist who just completed her doctorate in sociology at Tsinghua University in Beijing, about her book, 'Leftover' Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China. Dr. Hong Fincher reflects on the campaign in place since 2007 to persuade young urban, educated Chinese...

Join National Committee Senior Director for Education Programs Margot Landman as she interviews James Carter, professor of history at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia, about his book, Heart of Buddha, Heart of China. Dr. Carter reflects on renowned monk Tanxu as an individual, a Buddhist, and a nationalist whose life spanned the tremendous upheavals in China from the late 19th century throu...

Professor Karla Simon, co-director of the Center for International Social Development at Catholic University of America and an affiliated scholar at the U.S.-Asia Law Institute at New York University School of Law, discusses her most recent book, Civil Society in China: The Legal Framework from Ancient Times to the New Reform Era.

In China 1945 Richard Bernstein tells the incredible story of that year's sea change, analyzing its many components, from ferocious infighting among U.S. diplomats, military leaders, and opinion makers to the complex relations between Mao and his patron, Stalin. Bernstein examines the first time that American power and good intentions came face-to-face with a powerful Asian revolutionary movement,...

Norton Wheeler, associate professor at Missouri Southern State University, is interviewed by National Committee Vice President Jan Berris about his new book, The Role of American NGOs in China's Modernization: Invited Influence. Dr. Wheeler explores the impact of American NGOs on education, environment, fiscal policy, and civil society in China, using three case studies: the Hopkins-Nanjing Center...

Dr. Nicholas Lardy, a leading expert on China's economy and the Anthony M. Solomon Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, discusses key points of his most recent book Markets Over Mao: The Rise of Private Business in China in an interview with National Committee President Stephen Orlins. Dr. Lardy addresses the misperception that state-owned entities are the driving f...

China formally announced its bid for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in January 2015. Dr. Susan Brownell, Renowned authority of Chinese sports and the Olympics, discusses China's Olympic aspirations, prospects for the 2022 bid and her experiences participating in and studying Chinese sports. Dr. Brownell is a professor of anthropology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and currently a visiting...

Author Eric Liu (A Chinaman's Chance), discusses the evolving identity of Chinese-Americans in light of their growing role in American society in the midst of America's engagement with a more prosperous China. Liu discusses the personal experiences reflected in the book's themes and the unique history and development of Chinese-American identity. Interviewed on February 20, 2015 by Jonathan Lowet,...

Join National Committee President Stephen Orlins as he interviews Dr. Stephen Roach on his new book, Unbalanced: The Codependency of America and China. They discuss tensions in the bilateral economic relationship and the potential for greater cooperation. Dr. Roach is a senior fellow at Yale University's Jackson Institute for Global Affairs and School of Management. He was formerly chairman of Mor...

Since the end of the Cold War, China and Japan have faced each other as powers of relatively equal strength for the first time in their long history. As the two great powers of East Asia, the way they both compete and cooperate with each other, and the way they conduct their relations in the new era, will play a big part in the evolution of the region as a whole. In Sino-Japanese Relations after t...

China is undergoing the largest migration in human history: Since the mid-1980s, roughly 300 million people have moved from China's countryside into its cities; between now and 2025, its expected that another 300 million Chinese will make their ways in. Without appropriate urban planning, design, and construction focused on sustainable development, the consequences of this massive urbanization cou...

Chinese in America endured abuse and discrimination in the late 19th century, but they had a leader and a fighter in Wong Chin Foo (1847-1898), whose story is a forgotten chapter in the struggle for equal rights in America. The first to use the term "Chinese American"--it was the name he gave to New York's first Chinese-language newspaper--Wong defended his compatriots against malicious scapegoati...

Christine Loh, Hong Kong undersecretary for the environment and former CEO of the public policy think tank Civic Exchange, discusses environmental developments in Hong Kong, regulatory interactions with neighboring Guangdong Province and prospects for ensuring environmental sustainability for Hong Kong's seven million residents.

Evan Osnos, a correspondent based in Beijing for eight years, discusses his views on China's rise and his new book, Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China, with National Committee President Stephen Orlins.

One of China's most influential economists, Huang Yiping, deputy dean and professor at Peking University's National School of Development, discusses his views of current downward pressures on the Chinese economy and whether reforms will improve growth by 2020. In a conversation with Stephen Orlins, president of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, Dr. Huang explains current efforts in C...

David Sandalow, the Inaugural Fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, and former Assistant Secretary of Energy, discusses why the world's energy future is being shaped in China. The interview with National Committee Senior Consultant David Youtz explores China's dramatic energy statistics, the importance of U.S.-China dialogue and cooperation, and the ripple effects of...