CSCC Launch Event – CSCC | Duke Kunshan University

SINO-U.S. RELATIONS: SYNERGIES, OPPORTUNITIES, AND CHALLENGES
A Conversation with Experts from Beijing, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the United States

Saturday, January 12, 2019

Welcome to a timely conversation about the Sino-U.S. relationship, organized to celebrate the launch of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China at Duke Kunshan University! With this event, open to the public, the new center brings together leading experts from Beijing, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the United States. Each offers a unique perspective from a different vantage point, based on a career of deep research and insightful writing on features of the Sino-U.S. relationship

Zachary Fredman, an American historian from Duke Kunshan University, studies the U.S. military presence in China in works including his book, From Allied Friend to Mortal Enemy: The U.S. Military in China, 1941–1951. Richard Weixing Hu (胡伟星), a specialist in international relations from the University of Hong Kong, writes on Chinese foreign policy, policymaking in China, Sino-U.S. relations, East Asian international relations, Asian regional integration, and cross-strait relations issues. David M. Lampton, a political scientist from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC, is author of numerous works, including Same Bed, Different Dreams: Managing U.S.-China Relations, 1989-2000 and The Three Faces of Chinese Power: Might, Money, and Minds and editor of The Making of Chinese Foreign and Security Policy. Hsiao-chuan (Mandy) Liao (廖小娟), a specialist in international relations from National Taiwan University, writes on international relations theory, international conflict, Northeast Asian security and external relations, interactions among big powers, especially Sino-U.S. relations, and Chinese foreign policy. Wang Jisi (王缉思), from Peking University, is an expert on U.S. foreign policy, China’s foreign relations, Asian security, and global politics in general.

The Center for the Study of Contemporary China is the institutional and intellectual home for scholarly engagement with contemporary China at Duke Kunshan University. In geographic reach, the center comprehends the study not only of mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan, but also of the global Chinese diaspora. In historical span, its emphasis is the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, but particularly present-day China and legacies that have shaped it. The center promotes rigorous, systematic study of real-world questions relevant to society, politics, and the economy of contemporary China. Its chief mission is to advance world-class research and teaching on contemporary China at Duke Kunshan University—and, in so doing, to contribute to the international reputation of this unique global liberal arts university.

The January 12 conversation about the Sino-U.S. relationship reflects the center’s promise to bring together leading scholars from China and elsewhere around the world to freely exchange ideas about contemporary China. We welcome engagement of the audience in question-and-answer sessions. If time is insufficient for all questions, we will post them on bulletin boards outside the meeting room. We hope to encourage the continuation of stimulating discussion at break time and over lunch!</p> <p>The public event is preceded on January 11 with an event solely for Duke Kunshan University undergraduates: in a series of “lightning” speaking contests, students compete for the opportunity to present, in brief, their own perspective on the Sino-U.S. relationship as a response to readings provided by the invited experts from Beijing, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the United States. The Friday event reflects the center’s promise to create an undergraduate learning experience that connects ideas with systematic, evidence-based argumentation.

The January 12 program is moderated by Yu Wang (王宇) and Melanie Manion, who together direct and coordinate the center’s activities.

9:30

Welcome

Feng Youmei (冯友梅) and Denis Simon

9:40

Zachary Fredman

“Can China and the United States Get Along? The Burden of Chinese and American Nationalism”

10:00

Richard Weixing Hu

“Rising Power and Existing Power: Who’s More Revisionist to International Order? The Case of China and the United States”
Duke Kunshan University Student Perspective
Question-and-Answer Session

11:00

Coffee Break

11:20

Hsiao-chuan (Mandy) Liao (廖小娟)

“Outlets for Thucydides’s Trap: Conflicts without War?!”
Duke Kunshan University Student Perspective
Question-and-Answer Sessio

12:30

Lunch

1:15

Wang Jisi (王缉思)

“China-U.S.Relations in a New Stage of World Politics”
Duke Kunshan University Student Perspective
Question-and-Answer Session

2:15

David M. Lampton

“Lessons of the Past Serving the Future of U.S.-China Relations”
Duke Kunshan University Student Perspective
Question-and-Answer Session

3:15

Coffee Break

3:30

Panel DiscussionRichard Weixing Hu, Hsiao-chuan (Mandy) Liao, Wang Jisi, and David M. Lampton

4:00

Concluding Remarks

Yu Wang and Melanie Manion

Feng Youmei (冯友梅) is Chancellor of Duke Kunshan University. She graduated from Tongji Medical University in medicine in 1982 and earned her MS in Biochemistry in 1987. She was a visiting researcher at Ohio State University from 1987 to 1989. She participated in the Chinese University Leaders Training Programs held by Ministry of Education in France and Germany in 2004, and in the United States in 2011. From 2000 to 2012, she has successively served as a key member of university senior leadership team of Tongji Medical University and Huazhong University of Science and Technology. She was appointed Executive Vice President of Wuhan University in May 2012 and Chancellor of Duke Kunshan University in 2018. She has long been engaged in the administration of higher education and has extensive experience in faculty hiring and faculty development as well as management and reform on education and teaching. She has successively served as the Vice Chairwoman for Medical Education Committee of the China Association of Higher Education, Honorary Vice Chairwoman for Compensation Management Research Branch of the China Association of Higher Education, Chairwoman for Medical Education Society of the Hubei Medical Association, Chairwoman for Hubei Provincial Association for the Study of Teachers, Deputy Director for Basic Medical Education Steering Committee of the Ministry of Education, Founding Editor in Chief for Global Health Research and Policy Journal, member of the Expert Panel for the Evaluation of Undergraduate Education and member of the Expert Panel for the Accreditation of Medical Education under the Ministry of Education, and Deputy Director for the Seventh National Assessment Committee of 5-year Undergraduate Clinical Medicine Education in Higher Education Institutions. She has led more than twenty projects at the national, provincial, and ministerial levels and has won three provincial and ministerial teaching and research awards, as well as a first prize in Teaching Achievement Award of Hubei Higher Education Institutions.

Denis Simon is Executive Vice Chancellor of Duke Kunshan University. He joined the university from Arizona State University, where he served as senior adviser to the president for China-related strategic initiatives, executive director of the University Design Institute, and Foundation Professor of Contemporary Chinese Affairs in the School of Politics and Global Studies. An expert on the role of science and technology in international relations, he also has extensive private sector experience, having held China-based leadership roles at both Monitor Consulting Group and Andersen Consulting (now Accenture). He has written and lectured widely regarding innovation, high technology development, foreign investment and corporate strategy in the Pacific-Rim and is frequently quoted in the Western and Asian business press regarding commercial and technology trends in China, Hong Kong and the Asia-Pacific region. He received his BA in Asian Studies from the State University of New York and his MA in Asian Studies and PhD in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley in 1980.

Zachary Fredman is an Assistant Professor of Humanities at Duke Kunshan University. He received his BA in history from the University of Arizona and his MA and PhD in history from Boston University. His research focuses on U.S.-China relations. His book, From Allied Friend to Mortal Enemy: The U.S. Military in China, 1941–1951 (forthcoming, University of North Carolina Press), examines the U.S. military presence in China during the 1940s. He has carried out extensive archival research in China, and his work has been published in Frontiers of History in China, Diplomatic History, Diplomacy and Statecraft, and The Washington Post. In 2017, he received the Edward M. Coffman First Book Manuscript Prize from the Society for Military History and the Betty M. Unterberger Dissertation Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. Prior to joining Duke Kunshan University, he held postdoctoral fellowships at Dartmouth College (2017–2018) and Nanyang Technological University (2016–2017).

Richard Weixing Hu (胡偉星) is Professor and Head of Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Hong Kong. He was educated in both China and the United States. He received a Bachelor of Law in international politics at Peking University in 1983 and then went to the United States for postgraduate studies. He completed an MA in international relations at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a PhD in political science at the University of Maryland, College Park. He has had a distinguished teaching and research career in both the United States and Hong Kong. He was a John M. Olin Fellow at Harvard University, an IGCC Fellow at University of California, San Diego, and a CNAPS Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. He has taught at the University of California, San Diego, Monterey Institute of International Studies, and the University of Hong Kong, where he has taught since 1997. He has published widely in academic journals on Chinese foreign policy, policymaking in China, Sino-U.S. relations, East Asian international relations, Asian regional integration, and cross-strait relations issues. He was a consultant to the Hong Kong SAR Government on the Pearl River Delta cooperation and the President of the Hong Kong Political Science Association in 20122014.

Hsiao-chuan (Mandy) Liao (廖小娟) is Assistant Professor of Political Science at National Taiwan University. She has taught at the Graduate Institute of China Studies, Tamkang University in Taipei, Taiwan, and has been a postdoctoral research fellow at National Taiwan University and National Chengchi University. She received her PhD in political science from the University of South Carolina. Her research interests are international relations theory, international conflict, Northeast Asian security and external relations, interactions among big powers, especially Sino-U.S. relations, and Chinese foreign policy. Her paper “The Choice of War or Peace: A Perspective from Prospect Theory Regarding to Interstate Power Transition” was listed on SSRN’s Top Ten download list for Political Science Network. Her articles have appeared in journals including Mainland China Studies, Chinese Political Science Review, Issues & Studies, Asian Politics and Policy, Taiwan Political Science Review, and China Study.

Wang Jisi (王缉思) is a Professor in the School of International Studies and President of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies, Peking University. He is Honorary President of the Chinese Association for American Studies and was a member of the Foreign Policy Advisory Committee of China’s Foreign Ministry in 20082016. After working as a laborer in the Chinese countryside in 19681978, he entered Peking University and obtained an MA degree there in 1983. He taught in Peking University’s Department of International Politics in 19831991 and then served as Director of the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences until 2005. From 2005 to 2013, he served as Dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University. He was concurrently Director of the Institute of International Strategic Studies of the Central Party School of the Communist Party of China from 2001 to 2009. He has been a visiting fellow or visiting professor at Oxford University (19821983), University of California at Berkeley (19841985), University of Michigan at Ann Arbor (19901991), and Claremont McKenna College in California (2001). He was invited as a Global Scholar by Princeton University in 20112015 and spent nine months at the university’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He has served as an adviser to a number of international institutions and journals, including the Asia Society Policy Institute, School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the American University in Cairo, and the journals The American Interest and Global Asia. His scholarly interests cover US foreign policy, China’s foreign relations, Asian security, and global politics in general. He has published numerous works in these fields.

David M. Lampton is Hyman Professor and Director of China Studies Emeritus at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, where he currently is Senior Fellow at SAIS’ Foreign Policy Institute. In 20192020, he will be Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow and Research Scholar at Stanford University’s Asia-Pacific Research Center. Having started his academic career at The Ohio State University, he is Chairman of the Asia Foundation, former president of the National Committee on United States-China Relations, and former Dean of Faculty at SAIS. He is the author of Same Bed, Different Dreams: Managing U.S.-China Relations, 19892000 (University of California Press, 2001), The Three Faces of Chinese Power: Might, Money, and Minds (University of California Press, 2008) and The Making of Chinese Foreign and Security Policy (editor, Stanford University Press, 2001). He received his BA, MA, and PhD from Stanford University where, as an undergraduate student, he was a fireman. He has an honorary doctorate from the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Far Eastern Studies. His newest book, Following the Leader: Ruling China, from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping (University of California Press, 2014), has been reissued in paperback with a new preface. His current field research focuses on Beijing’s effort to build high-speed and other rail lines to Singapore from South China and involves interview and field research in eight countries.

Yu Wang (王宇) is an Assistant Professor of Social Science at Duke Kunshan University. She received her BS and MS in sociology from Renmin University and her MS and PhD in sociology from the University of WisconsinMadison. Her research focuses on the role of intermarriage and individual achievement as pathways to social mobility in China during a period of rapid change, intergenerational mobility in China, and sexuality and reproductive behavior in the United States. She currently studies the interaction between demographic changes and assortative mating in contemporary China. Her articles have appeared in journals including Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, American Journal of Public Health, and Contraception.

Melanie Manion is Vor Broker Family Professor of Political Science at Duke University. She studied philosophy and political economy at Peking University in the late 1970s, was trained in Far Eastern studies at McGill University and the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, and earned her PhD in political science at the University of Michigan. Her research on contemporary China focuses on issues of governance, bureaucracy, transparency, and information. She is the recipient of numerous research awards, including awards from the National Science Foundation, Fulbright Foundation, Social Science Research Council, and American Council of Learned Societies. Her most recent book, Information for Autocrats (Cambridge University Press, 2015), examines representation in Chinese local congresses. Previous publications include Retirement of Revolutionaries in China (Princeton University Press, 1993), Corruption by Design (Harvard University Press, 2004), and Contemporary Chinese Politics: New Sources, Methods, and Field Strategies (co-edited, Cambridge University Press, 2010). Her articles have appeared in journals including American Political Science Review, Comparative Political Studies, and China Quarterly.