Global I.Q. Podcast

It’s no secret that China is in the midst of dynamic change. Through an incisive look at President Xi Jinping’s political and economic reforms, Elizabeth Economy analyzes that transformation as it’s occurring today.

One of the nation’s foremost experts on Chinese domestic and foreign policy, Economy writes with authority in her latest book, “The Third Revolution,” about the widespread implications of China’s actions on the rest of the world. In an attempt to regain its past glory, Economy argues that China has embarked on a mission to reimagine global norms to better fit the vast nation’s “ambitious geostrategic objectives.”

Elizabeth Economy was called by Politico Magazine one of the “10 Names That Matter on China Policy” in 2018. She is a senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. Her work is widely published and she is the author of several books on China. Economy holds a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, an M.A. from Stanford University, and a B.A. from Swarthmore College.

Moderator

Stephen Gardner is the Herman Brown professor of economics and director of the McBride Center for International Business at Baylor University who has been named “Outstanding Tenured Professor” and “Outstanding Professor for University Service.” He has authored three books. Gardner holds a B.A. in economics and Russian studies from the University of Texas at Austin and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

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Do you believe in the importance of international education and connections? The nonprofit World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth is supported by gifts from people like you, who share our passion for engaging in dialogue on global affairs and building bridges of understanding. While the Council is not currently charging admission for virtual events, we ask you to please consider making a one-time or recurring gift to help us keep the conversation going through informative public programs and targeted events for students and teachers.

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A decade after the Arab Spring began in 2011, where does the Middle East stand today? At the time, the uprisings stunned the world and appeared to ignite a flame of freedom across the Arab world. But what came of the movements?

From an ongoing civil war in Syria to the burgeoning democracy of Tunisia and reemerging protests in the region, the lasting effects of the Arab Spring span a wide range. In the western world, a debate continues as to whether the Arab Spring was a failure, a success, or if perhaps we are still in its midst. Scholar Steven Cook will delve into these questions and more, illuminating the reasons why this debate is important and what it means for U.S. policy.

Steven Cook is the Enri Enrico Mattei senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he is also director of the International Affairs Fellowship for Tenured International Relations Scholars. His work focuses on Arab and Turkish politics in addition to U.S.-Middle East policy, subjects about which he has written multiple books. Cook is also a columnist at Foreign Policy. He holds a B.A. from Vassar College and an M.A. from Johns Hopkins University, as well as an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.

Moderated by Joanne Held Cummings

Joanne Held Cummings is an adjunct professor at Baylor University, educating upper-level undergraduates about Middle East dynamics. Ms. Cummings was deputy chief of mission in the Federated States of Micronesia, pol/econ section chief, refugee coordinator, economic section chief, political officer, and consular officer. In the Department of State and in the private sector, she has worked in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Jerusalem, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Cyprus, Ethiopia, and Micronesia as well as nine years in the private sector working regionally from Morocco through Pakistan. She was was recently the foreign policy advisor to the counter-ISIS coalition based in Baghdad.

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Do you believe in the importance of international education and connections? The nonprofit World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth is supported by gifts from people like you, who share our passion for engaging in dialogue on global affairs and building bridges of understanding. While the Council is not currently charging admission for virtual events, we ask you to please consider making a one-time or recurring gift to help us keep the conversation going through informative public programs and targeted events for students and teachers.

Donate: https://www.dfwworld.org/donate

When so many of our home goods and clothing items are made in China, it may be a good idea to step back and understand how those goods actually get to us.

In 2012, an Oregon mother, Julie Keith, came face to face with the reality of cheap American consumerism when an SOS letter from China fell out of a box of $5 Halloween decorations. The writer’s name was Sun Yi, an engineer imprisoned in a Chinese labor camp, where he was forced to carve foam headstones and stitch clothing for more than 15 hours a day as part of his “reeducation” by the Chinese government.

In Made in China, Amelia Pang follows Sun Yi’s story, as well as those of others like him, tracking down China’s “falsified supply chains,” that start with gulag-like labor camps and end in American homes.

Amelia Pang is an award-winning investigative journalist of Uyghur descent. She is an editor at EdTech Magazine. Her book, Made in China, to be released in February 2021, was shortlisted for the 2019 J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award by the Columbia Journalism School and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Pang holds a BA in Literary Studies from the New School.

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Do you believe in the importance of international education and connections? The nonprofit World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth is supported by gifts from people like you, who share our passion for engaging in dialogue on global affairs and building bridges of understanding. While the Council is not currently charging admission for virtual events, we ask you to please consider making a one-time or recurring gift to help us keep the conversation going through informative public programs and targeted events for students and teachers.

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Our virtual conversation with former Secretary of Defense General Jim Mattis will be moderated by Council President Emeritus Jim Falk. General Mattis served as the 26th secretary of defense from January 2017 through December 2018 after retiring from his 43-year career as an infantry marine in 2013. Through his decades of experience, General Mattis has developed an acute understanding of American foreign policy and the United States’ role on the global stage and is a fierce advocate for education.

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Do you believe in the importance of international education and connections? The nonprofit World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth is supported by gifts from people like you, who share our passion for engaging in dialogue on global affairs and building bridges of understanding. While the Council is not currently charging admission for virtual events, we ask you to please consider making a one-time or recurring gift to help us keep the conversation going through informative public programs and targeted events for students and teachers.

Donate: https://www.dfwworld.org/donate

Paul Haenle will discuss the factors driving the downturn in the U.S.-China relations in recent years and the outlook for the relationship under the Biden administration. He will share his perspective on how Washington and Beijing can chart a more constructive path forward for the relationship, analyzing areas of confrontation, competition, problem-solving, and cooperation.

About Haenle: Taken from https://carnegietsinghua.org/experts/490

Paul Haenle holds the Maurice R. Greenberg Director’s Chair at the Carnegie–Tsinghua Center based at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. In addition to running the Carnegie–Tsinghua Center, Haenle is also an adjunct professor at Tsinghua, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate-level courses to Chinese and international students on international relations and global governance. Haenle also sits on the board of directors of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.

Prior to joining Carnegie, he served from June 2007 to June 2009 as the director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia Affairs on the National Security Council staffs of former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. From June 2007 to January 2009, Haenle also played a key role as the White House representative to the U.S. negotiating team at the six-party-talks nuclear negotiations. From May 2004 to June 2007, he served as the executive assistant to the U.S. national security adviser.

Trained as a China foreign area officer in the U.S. Army, Haenle has been assigned twice to the U.S. embassy in Beijing, served as a U.S. Army company commander during a two-year tour to the Republic of Korea, and worked in the Pentagon as an adviser on China, Taiwan, and Mongolia Affairs on the staff of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Early assignments in the U.S. Army included postings in Germany, Desert Storm, Korea, and Kuwait. He retired from the U.S. Army as a lieutenant colonel in October 2009.

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Do you believe in the importance of international education and connections? The nonprofit World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth is supported by gifts from people like you, who share our passion for engaging in dialogue on global affairs and building bridges of understanding. While the Council is not currently charging admission for virtual events, we ask you to please consider making a one-time or recurring gift to help us keep the conversation going through informative public programs and targeted events for students and teachers.

Donate: https://www.dfwworld.org/donate

Former military officers and award-winning authors Admiral James Stavridis and Elliot Ackerman have written a geopolitical thriller about an imagined naval clash between the U.S. and China in the South China Sea in 2034. Based upon “actual decisions already made,” the novel imagines how “a single technological leap forward” enables China to blind and bind our military. Jim Mattis’ review of the novel said, “…Jim Stavridis and Elliot Ackerman’s chilling novel presents a realistic series of miscalculations leading to the worst consequences. A sobering, cautionary tale for our time.”

Jay Young is moderating this conversation. Contributors' Circle members will be able to spend an extra 15 minutes of Q&A time with Admiral Stavridis.

James Stavridis is a four-star admiral whose 30 years in the U.S. Navy included postings as Supreme Allied Commander at NATO and Commander of U.S. Southern Command, where he led all U.S. military operations in Latin America. Admiral Stavridis is the author of nine books on the military and leadership. This is his first novel. He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. from Tufts University, where he served as the dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy for five years.

Elliot Ackerman is an award-winning author and former marine who served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was awarded the Silver Star, Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart. He is former White House fellow and has written fiction and non-fiction books. His writing often appears in Esquire, The New Yorker and the New York Times, where he is a contributing opinion writer.

Jay T. Young began his career in the U.S. Government as a military analyst, serving on task forces for major military operations and authoring assessments on key issues in Latin America and the Persian Gulf. His long business career includes senior leadership positions in the management consulting, information technology services, and diversified manufacturing industries. He is currently the principal of Obsydian Consulting, LLC. Jay also served for 25 years in the U.S. Naval Reserve retiring as a Captain in 2018.

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Do you believe in the importance of international education and connections? The nonprofit World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth is supported by gifts from people like you, who share our passion for engaging in dialogue on global affairs and building bridges of understanding. While the Council is not currently charging admission for virtual events, we ask you to please consider making a one-time or recurring gift to help us keep the conversation going through informative public programs and targeted events for students and teachers.

Donate: https://www.dfwworld.org/donate

Ayman Safadi has served as Minister of Foreign Affairs & Expatriates for the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan since 2017 and has also served Deputy Prime Minister since October 2020. As you can see in his Twitter posts, he meets on a daily basis with foreign ministers and heads of state of countries in all regions of the world. In previous public appointments, he served as adviser to King Abdullah, Minister of State, spokesperson for the Jordanian government, and spokesperson for the United Nations Assistance Mission to Iraq.

Safadi began his professional career in journalism and communications. He has served as CEO of Abu Dhabi Media Company, Director General of Jordan Radio and Television Corporation, editor-in-chief and columnist for the Al-Ghad daily newspaper, and editor-in-chief of The Jordan Times.

Mr. Safadi holds a B.A. in English Language and Literature from Yarmouk University and a Masters of International Journalism from Baylor University. Taken from https://www.baylor.edu/business/globalbusinessforum/index.php?id=976054

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Do you believe in the importance of international education and connections? The nonprofit World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth is supported by gifts from people like you, who share our passion for engaging in dialogue on global affairs and building bridges of understanding. While the Council is not currently charging admission for virtual events, we ask you to please consider making a one-time or recurring gift to help us keep the conversation going through informative public programs and targeted events for students and teachers.

Donate: https://www.dfwworld.org/donate

Diplomacy’s equivalent of the military’s special forces is the “expeditionary diplomat,” a resourceful professional with specialized training from the Department of Defense and CIA who can take on the toughest diplomatic assignments in high threat, unstable or failed states.

Join diplomatic correspondent Paul Richter, author of the “The Ambassadors,” for a virtual conversation with three of America’s preeminent diplomats – Ryan Crocker, Robert Ford and Anne Patterson – whom he profiled in his book along with Christopher Stevens, who was killed in Libya in 2012.

Paul Richter covered the State Department and foreign policy as a Washington-based correspondent for the Los Angeles Times before leaving the publication in 2015. Throughout his three-decades-long career, Richter reported from 60 countries. He is a graduate of Clark University in Massachusetts.

Ambassador Ryan Crocker was a career Foreign Service Officer, who served as Ambassador to Afghanistan (2011-2012), Iraq (2007-2009), Pakistan (2004-2007), Syria (1998-2001), Kuwait (1994-1997), and Lebanon (1990-1993). He is a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2009) and currently serves as diplomat in residence at Princeton University. He holds a B.A. in English and an honorary Doctor of Laws from Whitman College.

Ambassador Robert S. Ford served as U.S. Ambassador to Syria (2011-2014) and Algeria (2006-2008) before retiring from the Foreign Service in 2014. He is a recipient of the U.S. Department of State’s Secretary’s Service Award (2014) and the John F. Kennedy Library’s Profile in Courage Award (2012), which he received for his work defending human rights in Syria. He is a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute.

Ambassador Anne Patterson spent more than four decades in the Foreign Service, serving as Ambassador to Egypt (2011-2013), Pakistan (2007-2010), Colombia (2000-2003), and El Salvador (1997-2000). She was appointed to the National Defense Strategy Commission by Congress in 2017, where she contributed to an independent review of U.S. national security needs. From 2017 to 2018, Patterson served as a senior fellow at the Yale Jackson Institute for Global Affairs.

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Do you believe in the importance of international education and connections? The nonprofit World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth is supported by gifts from people like you, who share our passion for engaging in dialogue on global affairs and building bridges of understanding. While the Council is not currently charging admission for virtual events, we ask you to please consider making a one-time or recurring gift to help us keep the conversation going through informative public programs and targeted events for students and teachers.

Donate: https://www.dfwworld.org/donate

Elizabeth Kolbert asks: “After doing so much damage, can we change nature, this time to save it?” In 2015, Kolbert won a Pulitzer Prize for her book chronicling humanity’s destructive behavior towards nature. She now turns her focus to the ways in which that very same human development may now be used to protect and save the planet. Meeting with scientists, engineers, and researchers, Kolbert shines a light on the environmental innovations in development worldwide and some of the world’s most unique ecosystems.

Moderated by Lee Cullum, host, CEO.

Elizabeth Kolbert is a staff writer at The New Yorker. Her three-part series on global warming, “The Climate of Man,” won the 2006 National Magazine Award for Public Interest. She has won numerous awards for her work on environmental topics. Before joining The New Yorker in 1999, Kolbert was a political reporter at the New York Times.

Lee Cullum is the host of CEO, a public television and radio program featuring a series of interviews with North Texas business leaders. She is also a commentator for Morning Edition on KERA and a contributor to the Dallas Morning News. Her long journalism career includes National Public Radio and the Dallas Times Herald. Cullum is a senior fellow at the Tower Center at Southern Methodist University. She is a member of the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth’s Mallon Circle.

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Do you believe in the importance of international education and connections? The nonprofit World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth is supported by gifts from people like you, who share our passion for engaging in dialogue on global affairs and building bridges of understanding. While the Council is not currently charging admission for virtual events, we ask you to please consider making a one-time or recurring gift to help us keep the conversation going through informative public programs and targeted events for students and teachers.

Donate: https://www.dfwworld.org/donate

How do we weigh the benefits of artificial intelligence with its potential harm? In Turning Point, Darrell West outlines a policy blueprint to maximize the benefits and minimize the downsides of AI.

As AI becomes increasingly an unavoidable part of our lives, West breaks down the uses of AI, how it actually works, and how “the transformative technology of our time” causes economic disruptions. Near-term policy decisions may be the deciding factor in where this revolutionary technology leads to utopia or dystopia.

Darrell West is the vice president and director of governance studies at Brookings Institution. He is the Co-Editor-In-Chief of TechTank and the director of the John Hazen White Manufacturing Initiative. His article “E-Government and the Transformation of Service Delivery and Citizen Attitudes” was named one of the 75 most influential articles since 1940 by the Public Administration Review in 2014.

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Do you believe in the importance of international education and connections? The nonprofit World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth is supported by gifts from people like you, who share our passion for engaging in dialogue on global affairs and building bridges of understanding. While the Council is not currently charging admission for virtual events, we ask you to please consider making a one-time or recurring gift to help us keep the conversation going through informative public programs and targeted events for students and teachers.

Donate: https://www.dfwworld.org/donate