NCUSCR Events

In a globalized world where millions of people travel between east and west each year and formerly separate cultural zones now overlap, it has never been more important to understand the values and perspectives that inform cross-cultural relations. Two new works of cultural observation and commentary put the differences in education, identity, and politics in the United States and China in perspective:

Lenora Chu’s Little Soldiers: An American Boy, a Chinese School, and the Global Race to Achieve, examines the benefits and drawbacks of China’s famously rigorous education system through the lens of her son’s experience attending an elite public school in Shanghai. The book then expands to consider what Americans can learn from Chinese pedagogy, and, more broadly, what the purpose of education is.

Gish Jen’s The Girl at the Baggage Claim: Explaining the East-West Culture Gap, is a wide-ranging investigation of how differing conceptions of the self in Asia and the western world can explain the incongruous expectations and assumptions that can produce awkward or confusing cross-cultural encounters. Gish Jen explores how emphasis on the individual or on context in western and eastern cultures respectively anchor very different understandings of the same events and behavior, which is ultimately reflected in distinctive educational, business, and governing institutions.  

On September 18, 2017, both authors joined the National Committee for a conversation about their books, contemporary east-west exchange, and how people on both sides of the cultural divide can better understand and learn from one another, in a conversation moderated by NCUSCR Senior Director for Educational Programs Margot Landman.

A former TV correspondent with Thomson Reuters and a contributing writer with CNNMoney.com, Lenora Chu is an award-winning journalist. Her freelance work has appeared in The New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, APM’s Marketplace and PRI’s The World. She has lived in Shanghai since 2010. Ms. Chu holds degrees from Stanford University and Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, and she speaks Mandarin.

The author of six previous books, both fiction and non-fiction, renowned writer Gish Jen has published short pieces in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, and dozens of other periodicals and anthologies. Her work has appeared in The Best American Short Stories four times, including The Best American Short Stories of the Century, edited by John Updike. 

Ms. Jen is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has been awarded the Lannan Literary Award for Fiction, a Guggenheim fellowship, a Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study fellowship, and numerous other awards. An American Academy of Arts and Letters jury granted her a five-year Mildred and Harold Strauss Living award. Ms. Jen delivered the William E. Massey, Sr. Lectures in the History of American Civilization at Harvard University in 2012.  She is a graduate of Harvard University and the Iowa Writers Workshop.

A call to action by President Xi Jinping has led to significant resources being devoted to the development and expansion of China’s think tanks. While some critics have derided them as “tanks without thinkers,” China’s think tanks play a growing part in the crafting of domestic and foreign policies. In addition, their connections to party leadership make them an invaluable window through which foreign scholars and officials can observe both the Chinese intellectual discourse and policymaking process. 

In a pioneering new study, The Power of Ideas: The Rising Influence of Thinkers and Think Tanks in China, Dr. Cheng Li of the Brookings Institution examines the complicated relationship between the Chinese government and think tanks and the prospects for China’s efforts to promote new types of think tanks. On September 6, 2017, Dr. Li joined the National Committee for a discussion of his book with NCUSCR President Stephen Orlins.

Cheng Li is director and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s John L. Thornton China Center. Dr. Li is also a director of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, a member of the Academic Advisory Team of the Congressional U.S.-China Working Group, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of the Committee of 100. He is the author/editor of numerous books, including Rediscovering China: Dynamics and Dilemmas of Reform (1997), China’s Leaders: The New Generation (2001), Bridging Minds Across the Pacific: The Sino-US Educational Exchange (2005), China’s Changing Political Landscape: Prospects for Democracy (2008), China’s Emerging Middle Class: Beyond Economic Transformation (2010), The Road to Zhongnanhai: High-Level Leadership Groups on the Eve of the 18th Party Congress (2012, in Chinese), China’s Political Development: Chinese and American Perspectives (2014), Chinese Politics in the Xi Jinping Era: Reassessing Collective Leadership (2016) and The Power of Ideas: The Rising Influence of Thinkers and Think Tanks in China (2017). He is the principal editor of the Thornton Center Chinese Thinkers Series published by the Brookings Institution Press. 

Dr. Li has advised a wide range of U.S. government, education, research, business and not-for-profit organizations on work in China, and is frequently called upon to share his perspectives and insights as an expert on China. He recently appeared on BBC, CCTV, CNN, C-SPAN, ABC World News with Diane Sawyer, NPR Diane Rehm Show, and the PBS Charlie Rose Show. Dr. Li grew up in Shanghai during the Cultural Revolution. In 1985, he came to the United States where he later received an M.A. in Asian studies from the University of California and a Ph.D. in political science from Princeton University.

Creating Across Cultures is a collection of stories about visionary women in China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan who defied cultural and social expectations to become leaders in the arts. Working in the literary, visual and performing arts, these women journeyed outside their cultures, engaging with the international artistic community. Their personal histories open windows onto the larger, historical trajectory of China over three generations, while their artwork delves into social realities and challenges of the day. The stories, based on personal interviews and professional archives, were written by a team of arts specialists, journalists, and academics who have made these accounts available in English for the first time. In bringing these 16 women’s stories together in one book, editor Michelle Vosper illuminates the value of the exchange of arts and ideas across borders and cultures, while offering inspiring role models for women aspiring to careers in the arts. Ms. Vosper joined the National Committee on June 26, 2017, to discuss her book, the women whose stories it details, and her own experience fostering cross-cultural artistic exchanges, in a conversation moderated by National Committee Vice President Jan Berris.

For more information about Creating Across Cultures and profiles of the artists: https://www.ncuscr.org/sites/default/....

Michelle Vosper served as the first director of the Asian Cultural Council’s (ACC) program in Hong Kong for twenty-five years (1986-2012), supporting and organizing exchanges of artists from the United States and Asia. Ms. Vosper’s career began in 1978 when she became the first assistant director of the Center for US-China Arts Exchange established at Columbia University. During the early period that followed normalization of diplomatic relations, she worked with prominent artists on programs such as Isaac Stern’s film From Mao to Mozart and Arthur Miller’s Chinese-language production of Death of a Salesman in Beijing. She also travelled frequently in China as interpreter and coordinator for cultural figures including Susan Sontag, Howard Gardner, Alwin Nikolais and Jacques d’Amboise. In 1980 Michelle co-translated Cao Yu’s play Peking Man for its New York premiere.

Strong cooperation between the United States and China has the potential to address the most pressing global issues of the 21st century. However, engagement between the two countries is influenced by a range of flash points and historic differences. The Honorable Wendy R. Sherman identified these key areas driving cooperation and addressed the current challenges facing the U.S.-China relationship in the keynote address of the 2017 U.S. Foreign Policy Colloquium in Washington, D.C., on June 1, 2017.

The annual U.S. Foreign Policy Colloquium (FPC) is an exclusive four-day program designed to provide 75 Chinese graduate students from universities across the United States with a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the complex forces that shape American foreign policy and inform the U.S.-China relationship. The program is run annually by the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and gives participants rare access into some of the capital's most important foreign policy-making institutions, such as the Department of State and the National Security Council, where they meet with individuals responsible for crafting and influencing policy.

Wendy R. Sherman is Senior Counselor at Albright Stonebridge Group, where she brings decades of experience in business, government, international affairs, and politics to help ASG clients gain understanding of geopolitical developments, navigate international markets, and constructively address policy challenges around the world.  Ambassador Sherman is also Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

Ambassador Sherman rejoined ASG after her distinguished service as Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. In this global role, she oversaw the bureaus for Africa, East Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Eurasia, the Near East, South and Central Asia, the Western Hemisphere, and International Organizations. She also led the U.S. negotiating team and was a central player in reaching a successful conclusion of the Iran nuclear agreement. In recognition of her diplomatic accomplishments, she was awarded the National Security Medal by President Barack Obama.

Prior to her most recent service at the State Department, Ambassador Sherman was Vice Chair of the Albright Stonebridge Group, having helped to found and grow the firm for a decade.

Last month China held a major international forum on its Belt and Road Initiative, the first of its kind since Beijing announced the project in 2013. Drawing official delegations, scholars, entrepreneurs, as well as representatives from financial institutions and media organizations from 130 nations, the forum was an important step in China’s drive to develop infrastructure and connectivity along the “Belt and Road Corridors” from China to Africa, Europe, South and Southeast Asia. Though many important details about the initiative remain unclear, foreign businesses are already vying for opportunities to join the initiative, and their excitement was primed by President’s Xi Jinping’s promise at the Forum to raise tens of billions of dollars in new financing. The event generated some concern about whether actual profits and benefits will match expectations. From the perspectives both of recipient countries and investors, the Belt and Road Initiative represents huge potential and significant risk. Amid the enthusiasm and apprehension surrounding the project, a robust dialogue and accurate information are critical. In support of this, the National Committee and the India China Institute of the New School hosted a delegation of financial and economic scholars led by the director general of the International Finance Department of the China Development Bank, Mr. Liang Huijiang, to discuss the May 2017 Belt and Road Forum on June 20, 2017 with moderator Mark Frazier, professor of politics and director of the New School’s India-China Institute.

Mr. Liang Huijiang is director general of the International Finance Department of the China Development Bank (CDB). He oversees strategy and policy making of the bank’s international business operations as well as cooperation with national and multilateral development banks.  He also manages an overseas loan portfolio of over USD 300 billion, and is instrumental in expanding the bank’s global network.

From 2005 to 2009, Mr. Liang was deputy director general of the bank’s Treasury Department, playing a key role in building a professional team for the bank’s liquidity and investment portfolios as it reached several milestones in overseas bond offerings and underwritings. Between 1998 and 2003 Mr. Liang was special assistant to Mr. Chen Yuan, then president of the CDB. In that capacity, he was in charge of developing strategies as the CDB transformed itself from a semi-government agency into a market-oriented bank. Before joining CDB, Mr. Liang worked in the International Department of the People’s Bank of China, where he was involved in annual consultations between China and the IMF and reform of China’s exchange rate regime.

Mr. Liang holds a master’s degree in finance from the London Business School (2004), a master’s in economics from the PBC School of Finance, Tsinghua University (1996), and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Hangzhou University (1993).

Dr. Wang Wen is a professor and executive dean of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China. He also serves as a consultant fellow at the Counselors’ Office of the State Council of China, secretary general of the Green Finance Association of China, and standing director of World Socialism Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. As a leading think tank professional since 2013, Dr. Wang was named a “2014 Top Ten Figures of Chinese Think Tanks,” and a “2015 China Reform and Development Pioneer.”

Dr. Wang worked as chief op-ed editor and editorial writer at Global Times before 2012, and won a China News Awards in 2011. He has written and edited over 20 books including Think as a Tank; Anxiety of the U.S.; Visions of the Great Powers; 2016: G20 and China; Theories of World Governance: A Study in the History of Ideas; and The G20 and Global Governance.

Dr. Zha Daojiong is a professor of international political economy at the School of International Studies, Peking University, where he holds concurrent appointments in the University’s Institute of South-South Cooperation and International Development and Institute of Ocean Research. He specializes in studying non-traditional security issues in China’s foreign relations, including energy, food, public health, and transboundary water management. His recent research interests have expanded to political risk management for Chinese investments overseas.

Professor Zha has served as Arthur Ross Fellow at the Center on US-China Relations of the Asia Society in New York, as the inaugural Rio Tinto China Fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney, and as senior research fellow at the Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He is also a member of the China chapter of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific, and a senior advisor to the Chinese Association for International Understanding. He is an active participant in the National Committee’s longstanding track II economic dialogue.

Professor Zha has written and edited seven academic books, in addition to dozens of journal articles. He taught in Japan for six years and holds a doctoral degree in political science from the University of Hawaii at Manoa and the East-West Center.

Dr. Zhai Kun is a professor at the School of International Studies, Peking University, and director of the Center for Global Interconnectivity Studies, Peking University. 

Dr. Zhai was formerly director of the Institute of World Political Studies (2011-2014) and director of South and Southeast Asian and Oceania Studies (2007-2011) at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR). He is a council member of China People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs, a China expert and eminent person of the ASEAN Regional Forum, and deputy president of the China Association of Southeast Asian Studies. Dr. Zhai has published extensively on China’s diplomacy and strategic thinking. He frequently writes for the People’s Daily, China Daily, World Knowledge, and Oriental Morning Post.

Dr. Zhai received his Ph.D. in international relations from CICIR, and his M.A. in international relations and B.A. in international journalism from the University of International Relations.

For nearly three decades Mao’s China closed itself to the influence of non-Marxist thought as it established a rigid command economy. When Mao died in 1976, China’s leaders embarked on a large-scale process of learning from abroad. The intellectual breadth of Chinese reformers in those early years was remarkably broad as they sought input from Nobel Prize winning economists, World Bank officials, free market fundamentalists, and an unlikely array of other partners. Many who participated in these exchanges recall it as a “golden age” of intellectual openness.

Even as China’s economic policy makers hastened to import ideas and expertise that could help them “cross the river by feeling for the stones,” the new openness did not go unchallenged. The Maoist legacy of suspicion towards the west remains powerful to this day, and the communist government is still reluctant to acknowledge fully its engagement with foreign ideas. In his new book, Unlikely Partners: Chinese Reformers, Western Economists, and the Making of Global China, historian Julian Gewirtz uncovers the real story of China’s reform project and sheds light on the partnerships that helped build the world’s second largest economy. On June 12, 2017, Mr. Gewirtz joined the National Committee for a discussion of his book, in a conversation with National Committee President Stephen Orlins.

Julian Baird Gewirtz is the author of Unlikely Partners: Chinese Reformers, Western Economists, and the Making of Global China (Harvard University Press, 2017), which The Economist called “a gripping read, highlighting what was little short of a revolution in China’s economic thought.” A Rhodes Scholar, he is currently completing his doctorate in modern Chinese history at Oxford University. He most recently worked as special advisor for international affairs at the U.S. Department of Energy and previously worked for Alibaba, Facebook, and Caijing magazine. Mr. Gewirtz has written on China for The Washington Post, the Financial Times, and Foreign Affairs. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College in 2013 and received a master’s degree in history from Oxford University in 2014. 

As China has become a global power, it has sought to build an exportable educational model that will influence international education, while at the same time supporting the interests of the Communist Party.  China has simultaneously in some ways strengthened its commitment to the Western university model and embraced its emphasis on the liberal arts and sciences as a way to drive innovation and economic progress. Chinese universities serve multiple constituencies: Chinese who will work in China upon graduation; Chinese who will seek employment outside of China, particularly in Belt and Road countries; non-Chinese who may hope to stay in China to work; and non-Chinese who will leave China upon graduation.  How will the universities address these competing demands?  They will draw on indigenous ideas in ways that are attractive both domestically and beyond its borders. Professor Gerard Postiglione of the University of Hong Kong has been observing this effort play out in the context of China’s push to become an international leader in the Belt and Road era. On June 19, Dr. Postiglione joined the National Committee for a conversation with National Committee Senior Director for Education Programs Margot Landman about higher education in Hong Kong and on the mainland, as well as the implications of China’s campaign to become a global leader in higher education.

Gerard A. Postiglione is Chair Professor in Higher Education in the University of Hong Kong, where he was associate dean for research and director of the Wah Ching Center of Research on Chinese Education. He received the Humanities and Social Science Prestigious Fellowship Award from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Research Grants Council in 2014. He received a Lifetime Contribution Award for studies in higher education by the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) in 2015. He was inducted as a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association in 2016. His autobiography was published in Leaders in the Sociology of Education in 2016. He received a second Best Book Award from the CIES in 2017. Routledge press will publish a collection of his research works in July 2017. His other book in press is entitled The Changing Academic Profession in Hong Kong.

China watchers have long predicted the imminent collapse of China’s banking system. Between increased reliance on unstable funding sources, and an expanding credit to GDP gap, experts’ concerns are not unwarranted. Yet the collapse has not happened. In China’s Banking Transformation: The Untold Story, former banking director James Stent looks at what the experts have been missing, and why their predictions have not materialized. On June 5, 2017, Mr. Stent joined National Committee President Stephen Orlins for a discussion of his book, his views on the Chinese banking sector, and what they mean for our understanding of China’s political economy overall.


Challenging the mainstream consensus on China’s banking system, Mr. Stent argues Chinese banks are hybrid organizations, which simultaneously respond to shareholder interests and the demands of party-defined economic goals. Understanding how Chinese banking has transformed since the early 1990s requires looking at China’s banks in the context of how the country’s political economy works, and at the continuing influence of China’s traditional culture on its contemporary institutions.

Drawing on his experience working inside two of China’s top banks, Mr. Stent examines some of the key strengths of China’s banking system, and explains the unique political and cultural factors that must be considered in assessing the success of Chinese banks.

Bio:

James Stent has pursued a career in financial services in Thailand and China. Beginning in 2006, he served for six years as an independent director and chairman of the audit committee of the China Everbright Bank, followed by four years as a member of the bank’s Board of Supervisors. From 2003 to 2006 he was an independent director on the board of the China Minsheng Bank in Beijing. He is presently an independent director and chairman of the audit committee of the XacBank of Mongolia.

Mr. Stent worked for 18 years in Bangkok at Bank of Asia, a Thai bank, serving as deputy president of the bank until his retirement in 2002, continuing thereafter as a director of the bank until 2004. Jim began his banking career with Citibank, working in New York, Manila, and Hong Kong. He then joined Crocker National Bank, working in San Francisco, Hong Kong and Bangkok, before moving to the Bank of Asia.

In addition to his banking career, Mr. Stent also has experience in cultural heritage protection and tourism development. He is chairman of the steering committee of the Siamese Heritage Trust, and previously served as director of the Raks Thai Foundation and as a council member and honorary treasurer of the Siam Society. He also served for three years as the CEO of WildChina, a Chinese travel firm specializing in cultural and ecological tourism.

Mr. Stent grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and received a bachelor’s degree in history at the University of California, Berkeley, and a master’s of public affairs degree from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, where he focused on development economics. He speaks and reads Chinese and Thai.

In 2014, Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement grabbed international headlines, shut down the city’s largest commercial districts, and generated concern about Hong Kong’s political future. Images of city streets awash in yellow, and protesters clashing with police quickly spread around the world, and many observers believed the movement heralded significant changes to Hong Kong’s political structure. Three years after calm was restored, questions remain: what is the political mood on Hong Kong campuses? Are freedoms being gradually eroded? What is the future of One Country-Two Systems under the newly elected Chief Executive Carrie Lam?

 David Zweig, a long time Hong Kong resident, and a professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, has been watching the situation closely, and on May 15, 2017 he shared his insights with the National Committee in a conversation moderated by NCUSCR President Stephen Orlins. Dr. Zweig addressed a variety of issues including political resistance, academic freedom, reverse brain drain, and the current contradictions between the former British colony and Beijing. 

 David Zweig is chair professor for the Division of Social Science and director at the Center on China’s Transnational Relations at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He is also an adjunct professor at the National University of Defense Technology’s School of Social Sciences and Humanities in Changsha (Hunan), as well as vice-president of the Center on China’s Globalization in Beijing.

Even as the China’s economic reforms in the 1980s and 90s laid the foundation for it to become an economic powerhouse, increasingly wide gaps opened up between rich and poor, leaving behind those ill equipped to compete in a market economy. The massive changes taking place were also reflected in the uneven distribution of social welfare benefits, which tended to accrue to those best positioned to succeed under the new system. In 1993, Shanghai implemented a minimum livelihood guarantee or dibao, an anti-poverty safety net. Since then, the program has expanded throughout China and is centrally regulated. Today, it serves as the country’s primary social insurance program. Even though it is the largest welfare program in the world, there has been little English-language research evaluating the effectiveness of the dibao system. In her new book, Welfare, Work, and Poverty: Social Assistance in China, Columbia University professor and expert on low-income families in China Qin Gao attempts to rectify this deficiency by answering key questions about the program’s efficacy.

Dr. Gao examines how successful the dibao system has been at alleviating poverty, as well as patterns of behavior and the sense of well-being among dibao recipients. Her work not only deepens our understanding of entitlements in China, but also adds the Chinese case as a comparative example to the growing body of literature looking at welfare systems around the world. On May 10, 2017, Dr. Gao joined the National Committee in New York City for a discussion of her book, the development and expansion of the dibao system, as well as its policy implications for China and other countries. The conversation was moderated by Professor Mark Frazier, director of the India China Institute at The New School.

Qin Gao is professor of social policy and social work at the Columbia University School of Social Work and director of the newly established China Center for Social Policy at the school. She is a faculty affiliate of the Columbia Population Research Center and Weatherhead East Asian Institute. She is also an academic board member of the China Institute for Income Distribution at Beijing Normal University, and is a Public Intellectuals Program fellow of the National Committee on United States-China Relations. Dr. Gao’s research examines poverty, income inequality, and social welfare policies in China and their cross-national comparisons. Dr. Gao also studies gender inequality and social protection for rural-to-urban migrants in China. She has published widely in leading interdisciplinary journals such as The China Quarterly, Journal of Contemporary China, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Journal of Social Policy, Review of Income and Wealth, Social Service Review, and World Development.

Mark W. Frazier is professor of politics at the New School for Social Research, and academic director of the India China Institute at The New School. His recent research compares China and India in terms of how each has coped with development challenges related to inequality and urbanization, historically and in the present. He is the author of Socialist Insecurity: Pensions and the Politics of Uneven Development in China (Cornell University Press 2010) and The Making of the Chinese Industrial Workplace (Cambridge University Press 2002). He has authored op-ed pieces and essays for The New York Times, Daedalus, The Diplomat, and World Politics Review. Dr. Frazier is also a fellow of the National Committee's Public Intellectuals Program.