International Relations

FSI researchers strive to understand how countries relate to one another, and what policies are needed to achieve global stability and prosperity. International relations experts focus on the challenging U.S.-Russian relationship, the alliance between the U.S. and Japan and the limitations of America’s counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan.

Foreign aid is also examined by scholars trying to understand whether money earmarked for health improvements reaches those who need it most. And FSI’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center has published on the need for strong South Korean leadership in dealing with its northern neighbor.

FSI researchers also look at the citizens who drive international relations, studying the effects of migration and how borders shape people’s lives. Meanwhile FSI students are very much involved in this area, working with the United Nations in Ethiopia to rethink refugee communities.

Trade is also a key component of international relations, with FSI approaching the topic from a slew of angles and states. The economy of trade is rife for study, with an APARC event on the implications of more open trade policies in Japan, and FSI researchers making sense of who would benefit from a free trade zone between the European Union and the United States.

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Heather Rahimi
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The United States cannot match China's scale alone and pretending otherwise is a strategic mistake. That was the central message Rush Doshi delivered as keynote speaker at the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions' 2026 annual China Conference, where he called on the U.S. to reimagine its alliance system as a platform for building shared capacity across military, economic, and technological domains.

Rush Doshi, the C.V. Starr Senior Fellow for Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and an assistant professor at Georgetown's Walsh School of Foreign Service, previously served as Deputy Senior Director for China and Taiwan on the National Security Council (2021-24), where, for a portion of his tenure, he was the U.S. government’s lead action officer coordinating the negotiations that launched AUKUS, a trilateral security partnership for the Indo-Pacific region between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. He is also the author of The Long Game: China's Grand Strategy to Displace American Order (Oxford University Press, 2021).

Doshi grounded his address in a historical argument: scale, which Doshi defined as “the ability to generate efficiency and productivity and thereby outcompete rivals,” has been the decisive factor in the rise and fall of great powers. Great Britain's eclipse by larger industrializing rivals in the late nineteenth century, he argued, offers a cautionary parallel for the U.S. today. "Today, that sense of daunting scale belongs to China," Doshi said, "and the United States appears to be in the position that Great Britain was in a century ago."

China's Scale Is Not Abstract
China's economy, measured in purchasing power, is now roughly 30 percent larger than that of the United States, and its share of global manufacturing quintupled in the two decades after joining the WTO, while the U.S. share fell by half. China has two to three times U.S. industrial capacity, 13 times U.S. steel production, and roughly 500 times U.S. shipbuilding capacity. It produces two-thirds of the world's electric vehicles, three-quarters of its batteries, and 90 percent of its solar panels and refined rare earths, and is at the leading edge of six of the ten industries expected to define the next industrial revolution.
That industrial strength is now translating into direct geopolitical leverage. Doshi pointed to China's weaponization of its rare earths dominance in 2025, which effectively forced the U.S. to walk back elements of its own trade and export control policies. "That marked the first time that an export control was used to force open market access," he said. "That's a massive moment in the history of trade.

The Case for Allied Scale
The answer, Doshi argued, is not to retreat into fortress America, a sphere-of-influence arrangement, or a China-led order, but to build what he calls "allied scale." A coalition of the U.S. and its key allies and partners would represent three times China's nominal GDP, twice its defense spending, and one and a half times its share of global manufacturing.

That advantage is entirely theoretical, unlocking its potential, though, is the central task of American statecraft in this century."
Rush Doshi

"That advantage is entirely theoretical," Doshi conceded. "Unlocking its potential, though, is the central task of American statecraft in this century." In practice, that might mean Japan and South Korea investing in American shipbuilding; Taiwan building semiconductor plants in the U.S.; allies co-producing advanced weapons systems; and all parties maintaining a shared tariff or regulatory wall against China's excess industrial capacity. On the economic side, Doshi called for common investment screening, coordinated industrial policy, and an "economic Article 5" ensuring that when China uses economic coercion against one ally, all respond together.

Addressing the Skeptics
Doshi acknowledged "the new pessimism," the view that Trump-era damage to U.S. alliances has made allied scale impossible. The strain is real, he said, but not terminal, for three reasons:

  1. The alternatives are worse. Spheres of influence, unrestrained multipolarity, and a China-led order all leave the U.S. and its partners poorer and less secure. 
  2. Alliances have absorbed serious shocks before and survived. For example, France's withdrawal from NATO's unified command, Nixon's opening to China, the Plaza Accord. 
  3. The underlying logic of interdependence persists. Allied economies are growing more dependent on U.S. markets as China buys less from them, allies are purchasing record numbers of American weapons, and even the Trump administration has not escaped the pull of allied scale, with Vice President Vance publicly calling for a trading bloc among allies to break China's chokehold on critical minerals.
Allied scale can't just be about balancing China, it has to be about building the kind of world that we want to see and live in.
Rush Doshi

Eight Principles to Achieve Allied Scale
Doshi closed with a practical blueprint — eight principles for building allied scale.

  1. Turn the page on the Trump era. Persuade allies that the most damaging recent policies were products of individual leadership rather than durable features of the American political system.

  2. Begin with humility. Start with small, achievable projects: a joint shipbuilding effort, a critical minerals offtake agreement, a co-production line. Build from there.

  3. Build mutually beneficial bargains. Allies invest in America; America invests in allies. All extend each other more preferential terms than they do to non-market economies like China.

  4. Pay attention to domestic politics. “The danger of the ‘Trump Approach’ is alienation and polarization of allied politics that makes diplomacy impossible.” Any allied scale strategy must be first grounded in domestic politics.

  5. Build ad hoc coalitions. Allied scale does not mean doing everything with everyone. It means assembling the right groupings for specific challenges and opportunities.

  6. Bolster credibility through congressional legislation. Executive orders are too easily reversed. Durable commitments to allies require legislative backing that is harder to undo with a change in administration.

  7. Build on existing platforms. Frameworks like the Quad, AUKUS, the U.S.-Japan-South Korea trilateral, and the G7 already exist. Allied scale should strengthen what works, not start from scratch.

  8. Articulate an affirmative vision. "Allied scale can't just be about balancing China," Doshi said. "It has to be about building the kind of world that we want to see and live in."


“That work is hard,” Doshi concluded, but “it's not impossible. And the alternatives are far more concerning than the future that I’m outlining.” Doshi ended his address on a note of optimism: a call to action for the U.S. to reforge our alliances and rebalance the world order to create a better world for not just the U.S., but for nations across the globe.



A full recording of Dr. Rush Doshi’s talk is available on YouTube and below.

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SCCEI brought together leading China scholars this spring for its third annual China Conference under the theme “Understanding ‘DeepSeek Moments’ and China’s Innovation Ecosystem.” Conversation centered around the idea that the world’s prevailing frameworks for assessing China’s innovative capacity often underestimate it, and the consequences of that blind spot are growing.
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Sean Stein addresses the audience during a keynote speech.
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The High Cost of Miscalculation: Sean Stein on U.S.-China Trade Fallout

In a keynote address during the 2025 SCCEI China Conference, U.S.-China Business Council President Sean Stein cautioned that strategic miscalculations and trade tensions have left the U.S. economy with lasting setbacks—and few clear gains.
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Elizabeth Economy speaks during a Fireside Chat.
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Strategic Shifts: Understanding China’s Global Ambitions and U.S.-China Dynamics with Elizabeth Economy

At the 2025 SCCEI China Conference, Elizabeth Economy, Hargrove Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, outlined China’s ambitious bid to reshape the global order—and urged the U.S. to respond with vision, not just rivalry, during a Fireside Chat with Professor Hongbin Li, Senior Fellow and SCCEI Faculty Co-Director.
Strategic Shifts: Understanding China’s Global Ambitions and U.S.-China Dynamics with Elizabeth Economy
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Rush Doshi, keynote speaker at the 2026 SCCEI China Conference, laid out an eight-point blueprint for transforming U.S. alliances into an engine of shared economic and industrial capacity.

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The China Business Conundrum book cover by Kenneth Wilcox.

Headlines about foreign companies establishing a foothold in China only to fail years later no longer surprise anyone. But why does this keep happening? Kenneth Wilcox, former CEO of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) from 2001 to 2010 and author of The China Business Conundrum: Ensure that Win-Win Doesn't Mean Western Companies Lose Twice, argues that the answer comes down to mental models and preparation.

In a recent lecture hosted by the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions, Wilcox explained that we all develop mental models — internal frameworks that help us interpret and navigate the world around us. We carry these models with us wherever we go, applying them instinctively to new situations and environments. The trouble, Wilcox argues, is that a mental model only holds up if the new environment resembles the one it was built for. And American mental models, more often than not, simply don't hold up in China.

Kenneth Wilcox headshot

Wilcox knows this firsthand. After a decade leading SVB, he and his wife moved to China in 2011 to open a Chinese branch of the bank. Things started smoothly enough — he secured a partnership with Shanghai Pudong Development Bank and obtained the necessary license — but it quickly became clear that the rules he'd spent his career following no longer applied. The license, for instance, permitted him to open the bank but barred him from conducting any business in renminbi, China's national currency, for the first three years. For a bank, this created an obvious problem: how do you pay staff, let alone operate, without access to local currency? The government's solution was a subsidy to cover operating costs during that period, along with an invitation to meet regularly with other banks and business leaders to share SVB's model and approach. After many such meetings, Wilcox's Chinese partners told him they had been so impressed with what they'd learned that they planned to open their own bank modeled on SVB's approach.

This, Wilcox explained, is a pattern that plays out with striking regularity in China. Foreign companies are lured in with the promise of a vast new market and eager local partners. They are then entangled in regulations and bureaucracy, kept afloat with subsidies while they wait for permission to operate more freely — all while their technology and intellectual property are quietly absorbed. Eventually, the foreign company is left with little choice but to close up and leave. Some companies see it happening but look the other way. Others don't recognize it until it's too late. Many never fully understand why they failed at all.

Wilcox traced all of this back to the limitations of mental models. American businesses tend to arrive in China assuming the environment will function more or less like home: keep your head down, stay out of politics, focus on the business, and you'll be fine. But that assumption doesn't hold in China, where the government and the Communist Party exert control over virtually every aspect of commercial life. The most powerful players routinely hold simultaneous roles — party member, bank executive, government official — all at once. It is precisely these unexamined assumptions, Wilcox concluded, that set so many Western ventures up to fail before they've even begun.

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What Two Decades of Data Reveal About China’s Industrial Policy

At a SCCEI Seminar economist Hanming Fang presented a sweeping new analysis of how China’s industrial policies have evolved over the past 20 years. Using LLMs, the researchers compiled, codified, and analyzed nearly 3 million documents to build one of the most detailed databases of industrial policymaking in China to date.
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Group photo of students, staff, and faculty in China during the 2025 SCCEI China Study Program.
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Stanford Students Gain Firsthand Insights into China’s Economy, Culture, and Global Role

Led by Stanford faculty members, 20 Stanford students traveled across China engaging in academic exchanges, site visits to leading companies and institutions, and rich cultural experiences to gain a deeper understanding of the country’s economy, culture, and international relations.
Stanford Students Gain Firsthand Insights into China’s Economy, Culture, and Global Role
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Former Silicon Valley Bank CEO Kenneth Wilcox draws on his own experience launching SVB in China to illustrate how Western companies repeatedly fail in China because they rely on mental models built for home — assumptions about business, government, and rule of law that simply don't apply in the Chinese market.

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Stanford University Libraries and the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions are pleased to present the 2026 Dr. Sam-Chung Hsieh Memorial Lecture featuring Professor Chang-Tai Hsieh who will be speaking on The Risks of Taiwan's Economic Boom.

To attend in person, please register here.
To attend online, please register here.



Professor Hsieh will discuss how Taiwan's Central Bank has had a longstanding unstated policy of keeping the exchange rate undervalued to boost exports. The rise of Taiwan as the center of the semiconductor industry, and more generally as the center of AI hardware, is making this policy untenable. The trade surplus reached 20% of GDP in 2025 and is likely reach an astronomical 35% of GDP this year. Furthermore, much of the surplus has been channeled into purchases of US treasury bonds by Taiwan's life insurance industry that face collapse when the Taiwan dollar appreciates.
 


About the Speaker 

 

Chang-Tai Hsieh headshot.

Professor Hsieh is the Phyllis and Irwin Winkelreid Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago. He is an elected member of Taiwan's Academia Sinica, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Econometric Society. He is also a two times recipient of the Sun Ye-Fang Award of China's Academy of Social Sciences.



The family of Dr. Sam-Chung Hsieh donated his personal archive to the Stanford Libraries' Special Collections and endowed the Dr. Sam-Chung Hsieh Memorial Lecture series to honor his legacy and to inspire future generations. Dr. Sam-Chung Hsieh (1919-2004) was former Governor of the Central Bank in Taiwan. During his tenure, he was responsible for the world's largest foreign exchange reserves, and was widely recognized for achieving stability and economic growth. In his long and distinguished career as economist and development specialist, he held key positions in multilateral institutions including the Asian Development Bank, where as founding Director, he was instrumental in advancing the green revolution and in the transformation of rural Asia. Read more about Dr. Hsieh.

Green Library, Bing Wing, 5th floor, Bender Room
459 Lasuen Mall, Stanford, CA 94305

Chang-Tai Hsieh, Professor of Economics, University of Chicago
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Stanford Center on Early Childhood (SCEC) and The Rural Education Action Program (REAP) are pleased to host Harvard University Professor Chunling Lu for a special seminar event.
 
Please register for the event to receive email reminders and add it to your calendar. Lunch will be provided.


 

Global, Regional, and Country Level Prevalence of Young Children Exposed to Risks of Poor Development in Low and Middle Income Countries: An Update

 

Quantifying the prevalence of young children exposed to risks of poor development is imperative for understanding the challenges of reducing those risks, developing and evaluating evidence-based early childhood development policy interventions, and assessing progress in eliminating the risks imposed upon young children during their most critical developmental period. We published estimates on the prevalence of young children exposed to stunting and extreme poverty at the global, regional, and country levels in 2017. Since new data have been released and a new definition of extreme poverty has been proposed, we updated our 2017 study with a focus on the progress in reducing the prevalence of risk exposure at different levels since 2000. For countries with other risk factors available in their micro-level data, we added them to the composite measure and assessed the levels and trends of sociodemographic disparities in young children’s risk exposure.  
 


About the Speaker 

 

Chunling Lu, Ph.D head shot

Chunling Lu studied international relations (BA) and political science (MA) at Fudan University in Shanghai, China, and sociology (MA) and applied statistics (MS) at Syracuse University, where she also received her PhD in economics. She received postdoctoral training on health care policy analysis at the Harvard Medical School’s Department of Health Care Policy, and joined the School’s Department of Global Health and Social Medicine in 2008 after three years as Senior Research Associate at the Harvard Institute for Global Health.


 

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Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall

Chunling Lu, Associate Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School
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2026 SCCEI China Conference will be held on May 7, 2026 and focus on Understanding “DeepSeek Moments” and China’s Innovation Ecosystem.

 

Governments, markets, and analysts in the United States and around the world frequently find themselves surprised by China’s capabilities in industries central to economic and national security—from artificial intelligence and robotics to pharmaceuticals, advanced manufacturing, and strategic supply chains. Episodes widely described as “DeepSeek moments” reflect more than isolated breakthroughs; they reveal a systematic failure to understand how China builds technological capacity and scales it with speed. Yet these cutting-edge advances are emerging against the backdrop of a sustained economic slowdown, raising new questions about whether China’s push for technological supremacy is occurring at the expense of broader economic health. 

The Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institution's (SCCEI) annual China Conference convenes leading experts to examine why prevailing frameworks consistently underestimate China’s industrial performance and assess how its technology ecosystem, industrial policies, and trade strategies function and interact to push many critical sectors to the frontier.



We are finalizing an outstanding lineup of speakers from academia, industry, and policy communities. Updates will be posted here as confirmed. 

*Schedule is subject to change  

Location: 
Bechtel Conference Center
Encina Hall
616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford University

*Topics, speakers, and timing will be confirmed soon. 



10:30 AM - 11:00 AM  Registration & Light Breakfast

11:00 AM - 11:15 AM  Welcome & Opening Remarks


Scott Rozelle 
Faculty Co-Director of the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions;
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
Stanford University


11:15 AM - 12:15 PM  Session 1 | What Distinguishes China's Innovation Ecosystem?


Session Panelists:
Barry Naughton
So Kwan Lok Chair of Chinese International Affairs
University of California, San Diego 

Philip Wong
Willard R. and Inez Kerr Bell Professor of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University
Chief Scientist Advisor, TSMC

Chenjian Li
Research Fellow, Hoover Institution
Stanford University

Moderator:
Joshua Rosenzweig
Senior Associate Director, Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions, Stanford University
 

12:15 PM - 1:30 PM  Lunch
 
1:30 PM - 2:30 PM  Session 2 | Industrial Policy at the Tech Frontier

 

Session Panelists:
Heiwai Tang
Victor and William Fung Professor in Economics; Associate Vice President (Global); 
Associate Dean for External Relations, Business School
University of Hong Kong 

Scott Kennedy
Senior Adviser and Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics 
Center for Strategic and International Studies

Ruixue Jia
Professor of Economics, School of Global Policy and Strategy
University of California, San Diego

Moderator:
Shanjun Li
Professor of Environmental Social Sciences, Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability; 
Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Stanford University 
 

2:30 PM - 3:00 PM  Break
 
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM  Session 3 | Trade War Meets Tech War: Trade Technology in a Fragmented World


Session Panelists:
Jiajun Wu
Assistant Professor of Computer Science
Stanford University

Graham Webster
Research Scholar, Program on Geopolitics, Technology, and Governance;
Editor-in-Chief, DigiChina Project, Stanford University

Hong Ma
Professor and Chair, Department of Economics
Tsinghua University

Moderator:
Jennifer Pan
Professor of Communication
Stanford University

 

4:00 PM - 4:15 PM  Break

4:15 PM - 5:30 PM  Keynote Address


Rush Doshi
C.V. Starr Senior Fellow for Asia Studies and Director of the China Strategy Initiative, Council on Foreign Relations
Assistant Professor of Security Studies, Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University 

Moderator:
Scott Rozelle 
Faculty Co-Director of the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions;
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
Stanford University



Questions? Contact scceichinaconference@stanford.edu 

 


Bechtel Conference Center
Encina Hall
616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford University

This event is by invitation only.

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Group photo of students, staff, and faculty in China during the 2025 SCCEI China Study Program.
Students visited the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.

In June 2025, twenty Stanford undergraduate and graduate students traveled across China on a two-week immersive program designed to deepen their understanding of the country’s economy, culture, and international relations. Led by Stanford faculty members, the program took students to eight cities across three regions in China—Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Dongguan, Guangzhou, Yiwu, Hangzhou, Shanghai, and Beijing—combining academic exchanges, site visits to leading companies and institutions, and rich cultural experiences.

The itinerary included more than a dozen in-depth site visits, giving students direct exposure to the technological, manufacturing, and financial sectors that shape China’s economy. Highlights included factory tours of OPPO and XPeng electric vehicle plant; conversations with senior executives at Tencent, Alibaba, ByteDance, and Goldman Sachs; as well as a discussion with Hong Kong’s finance under secretary. Students toured the world-famous electronics markets in Shenzhen and trade markets in Yiwu, where they spoke directly with small business owners, gaining insight into the entrepreneurial networks that fuel global supply chains. One of the program’s most impactful experiences came in Beijing, where participants visited the U.S. Embassy for a conversation with diplomatic officers about U.S.–China relations. 

Garry Piepenbrock, an economics and political science student, said that “seeing the variety of companies in China” was his favorite part of the program. He added, “there are a lot of big tech firms that we've had the privilege to visit, but also some of my favorite visits were the smaller manufacturers that had really interesting human stories behind them. The people working there and also the people running them. It's a difficult business. It's very competitive. And seeing that side of the Chinese economy was really cool.” 

There are a lot of big tech firms that we've had the privilege to visit, but also some of my favorite visits were the smaller manufacturers that had really interesting human stories behind them.
Garry Piepenbrock

Throughout the program AI emerged as a hot topic and focal area for China’s technological and economic advancement goals. Zane Sabbagh, a computer science and symbolic systems student, shared his insights on AI development in China, “given China's lag in the AI race, their model is to let one Chinese company win by open sourcing a lot of their models and then hosting other companies' models on their platform. So for example, Tencent’s chatbot and Alibaba chatbot both host DeepSeek’s models on their own app, which is super weird because ChatGPT would never host Anthropic or xAI on its own native iPhone app. That’s something I found super interesting.” 

Students also had the opportunity to compare their own academic experience through visits to multiple academic institutions in China. At the University of Hong Kong, students participated in a lecture given by Professor Zhiwu Chen on understanding Hong Kong’s history. At Peking University, students engaged with Vice Dean Li-An Zhou who gave a brief introduction on China’s economy. In addition to university exchanges, students also visited a migrant school in Beijing where they learned about the education system and connected with the young migrant students. Nazli Dakad, an earth systems student, reflected on the program and shared that, “one of my favorite parts of the trip was the migrant school. I thought that was super eye opening and contrasting to the tech focus that we've had, because it gave me a little more insight into the education system in China.”

Throughout the program students had the opportunity to engage with locals in various settings, from top executives, to factory workers, to locals out and about conducting their daily routines. Students also met with Stanford alumni based in China and learned about their career trajectories after graduation. Several students shared that building connections with people in China has been a highlight for them. Biology major Eva Shen shared, “being Chinese I feel like I've been very disconnected from China in the US, so being able to talk to all these people here [in Chinese] has been the best part for me…getting to hear their perspective, and actually getting to know them as people, has been my favorite part. When we did our interviews in the market back in Shenzhen, and we got to talk to older ladies, they reminded me of my own grandma.”

Cultural immersion was also woven throughout the journey. Students tried their hand at traditional arts such as paper cutting, brush calligraphy, and tea pan-frying; dressed in historical attire for an opera performance in Yiwu and a palace banquet in Hangzhou; and learned crafts like umbrella-making and handmade paper production. These activities provided a tangible connection to China’s long cultural heritage alongside its modern economic dynamism.

The learnings from this trip will definitely be something that I carry with me in all the ways that I think about what I want to do in my work for the rest of my career.
Adeline Liao

By the end of the program, participants had gained a multifaceted perspective on China—its economic drivers, its cultural traditions, and its evolving role on the world stage. “This program was about more than just observation—it was about engagement,” said SCCEI Co-director Hongbin Li. “Our students came away with firsthand experiences and conversations that will shape how they think about China for years to come.”

Discover more on our program page including student reflection videos, program photos, and more.


Watch the Program Highlights Reel

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2025-25 sccei graduate student research fellowship awardees banner image with headshots of Alicia Chen and Matthew DeButts.
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Two Stanford Ph.D. Candidates Receive SCCEI Fellowships to Further Impactful Research on China

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2024 SCCEI Summer Study Program group photo at Peking University.
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Landscape aerial view of Haikou City, China.
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Led by Stanford faculty members, 20 Stanford students traveled across China engaging in academic exchanges, site visits to leading companies and institutions, and rich cultural experiences to gain a deeper understanding of the country’s economy, culture, and international relations.

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Stanford Libraries and the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions are pleased to present the 2025 Dr. Sam-Chung Hsieh Memorial Lecture featuring Professor Matteo Maggiori who will be speaking on Geoeconomics and the US-China Great Power Competition.

To attend in person, please register here.
To attend online, please register here.



Professor Maggiori will discuss how the U.S. and China apply economic pressure to achieve their political and economic goals, and the economic costs and benefits that this competition is imposing on the world. A discussion of economic security policies that other countries are implementing to shield their economies.
 


About the Speaker 

 

Headshot of Matteo Maggiori in dark collared shirt with light blue background

Professor Maggiori is the Moghadam Family Professor of Finance at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. His research focuses on international macroeconomics and finance. He is a co-founder and director of the Global Capital Allocation Project. His research topics have included the analysis of exchange rates under imperfect capital markets, capital flows, the international monetary system, reserve currencies, geoeconomics, tax havens, very long-run discount rates and climate change, and expectations and portfolio investment. His research combines theory and data with the aim of improving international economic policy. He is a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a research affiliate at the Center for Economic Policy Research. He received his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley.

Among a number of honors, he is the recipient of the Fischer Black Prize awarded to an outstanding financial economist under the age of 40, the Carnegie and Guggenheim fellowships, and the Bernacer Prize for outstanding contributions in macroeconomics and finance by a European economist under age 40.



The family of Dr. Sam-Chung Hsieh donated his personal archive to the Stanford Libraries' Special Collections and endowed the Dr. Sam-Chung Hsieh Memorial Lecture series to honor his legacy and to inspire future generations. Dr. Sam-Chung Hsieh (1919-2004) was former Governor of the Central Bank in Taiwan. During his tenure, he was responsible for the world's largest foreign exchange reserves, and was widely recognized for achieving stability and economic growth. In his long and distinguished career as economist and development specialist, he held key positions in multilateral institutions including the Asian Development Bank, where as founding Director, he was instrumental in advancing the green revolution and in the transformation of rural Asia. Read more about Dr. Hsieh.



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GSB Knight Management Center, Oberndorf Event Center 
657 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305

Matteo Maggiori, Professor of Finance, Stanford Graduate School of Business
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SCCEI China Conference 2025 on China and The Changing Global Economy on May 14, 2025.

 

The Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institution's (SCCEI) annual China Conference brings together leading voices from policy, business, and academia to examine key economic trends in China and their implications for the world.

This year's conference will examine China's role in a changing global economy. Panels of experts from Stanford and around the world will take a deep dive into China’s evolving economic ambitions and self-perception on the global stage, assess the roles of state and private enterprises in advancing China’s goals, and analyze the impacts on global trade, finance, and institutions.



We are finalizing an outstanding lineup of speakers from academia, industry, and policy communities. Updates will be posted here as confirmed. 

*Schedule is subject to change  

Location: 

Bechtel Conference Center
Encina Hall
616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford University



9:00 AM - 9:30 AM  Registration & Light Breakfast

9:30 AM - 9:45 AM  Welcome & Opening Remarks


Scott Rozelle 
Faculty Co-director of the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
Helen F. Farnsworth Endowed Professorship; Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
Stanford University


9:45 AM - 10:30 AM  Morning Fireside Chat


Elizabeth Economy
Hargrove Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
Stanford University  

Moderator:
Hongbin Li 
Faculty Co-director of the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions 
The James Liang Endowed Chair; Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
Stanford University
 

10:30 AM - 11:00 AM  Break
 
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM  Session 1 | The View from Beijing: China's Economic Ambitions in a Changing World


Session Panelists:
Gangsheng Bao 
Professor of Political Science, Fudan University
Skyline Scholar, Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions

Jonathan Czin
Michael H. Armacost Chair in Foreign Policy Studies, John L. Thornton China Center
Brookings Institute

Stephen Kotkin
Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies; 
Kleinheinz Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
Stanford University

Moderator:
Ruixue Jia
Professor of Economics, School of Global Policy and Strategy
University of California San Diego
 

12:00 PM - 1:00 PM  Lunch
 
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM  Session 2 | China Inc.: The Role of State and Private Enterprises in Fulfilling China's Ambitions


Session Panelists:
Nan Jia
Professor of Management and Organization
University of Southern California

Arthur Kroeber
Founding Partner
Gavekal Dragonomics

Dan Wang
Research Fellow, Hoover Institution
Stanford University

Moderator:
Zhiguo He
James Irvin Miller Professor of Finance, Stanford Graduate School of Business; Faculty Affiliate, Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions, 
Stanford University
 

2:00 PM - 2:30 PM  Break

2:30 PM - 3:15 PM  Afternoon Keynote


Sean Stein
President, U.S.-China Business Council

Moderator: 
Scott Rozelle 
Faculty Co-director of the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
Stanford University
 

3:15 PM - 3:45 PM  Break

3:45 PM – 4:45 PM  Session 3 | China in the Global Economy: Disruptor, Competitor, Partner?


Session Panelists:
Deborah Brautigam
Director of the China Africa Research Initiative; Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of Political Economy Emerita
Johns Hopkins University

Kyle Chan
Postdoctoral Research Associate and Lecturer in Sociology
Princeton University

Ramin Toloui
Distinguished Policy Fellow, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
Stanford University

Moderator:
Shaoda Wang
Skyline Scholar, Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions, Stanford University; Assistant Professor, Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago

 

4:45 PM - 5:00 PM  Closing Remarks


Hongbin Li 
Faculty Co-director of the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions 
Stanford University


5:00 PM - 6:00 PM  Reception in the Courtyard



Questions? Contact scceichinaconference@stanford.edu 

 


Bechtel Conference Center
Encina Hall
616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford University

This event is by invitation only.

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Big Data China 3rd Annual Conference (Virtual)


The Turning Point? U.S.-China Relations, Economic Growth, and the Race for Technology Leadership


The event will be broadcast live from this webpage and YouTube.

Big Data China logo

Join the third annual conference of Big Data China, a collaborative project by CSIS Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics and Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions (SCCEI). China experts in the policy and academic communities will discuss the key challenges in U.S.-China relations, recent shifts in China's economic governance, and the global implications of technology competition with China.

 


AGENDA
 

8:00 - 8:30 am: Keynote Speech: Craig Allen, President, U.S.-China Business Council
 

8:45 - 9:45 am: Panel 1: Charting U.S.-China Relations: Key Challenges and Choices for the Incoming Administration


Moderator: Scott Kennedy, CSIS

Panelists:
Wendy Cutler, Asia Society Policy Institute
Bonnie S. Glaser, German Marshall Fund Indo-Pacific
Dennis Wilder, Georgetown University

10:00 - 11:00 am: Panel 2: China’s Economic Stimulus: A Short-Term Fix or Path to Sustainable Recovery?


Moderator: Scott Rozelle, Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions

Panelists:
Ling Chen, Johns Hopkins SAIS
Andrew Polk, Trivium China
Margit Molnar, OECD
Logan Wright, CSIS

11:15 - 12:15 pm: Panel 3: Decoupling vs. De-risking: The Competitive Dilemma in Tech Innovation


Moderator: Ilaria Mazzocco, CSIS

Panelists:
Greg Allen, CSIS
Rebecca Arcesati, MERICS
Samm Sacks, Yale Law School Paul Tsai China Center
Kevin Xu, Interconnected
 


FEATURING
 

Craig Allen keynote speaker Big Data China conference December 10, 2024 Big Data China Conference panelists for December 10, 2024.

EVENT PARTNERS
 

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2024 SCCEI Summer Study Program group photo at Peking University.

In 2024, SCCEI launched its inaugural Summer Study Program, marking the center’s first intensive field excursion in China with Stanford undergraduate students. To gain a deeper understanding of China, program participants traveled across urban and rural China, embarking on field visits focusing on a wide cross-section of issue areas, including education, healthcare, retail technology, and manufacturing.

Under the guidance of SCCEI’s faculty directors Hongbin Li and Scott Rozelle, program participants explored the key issues, challenges, and opportunities that China faces today. Sixteen students participated in this year’s program and hailed from multidisciplinary backgrounds, including economics, international relations, electrical engineering and computer science. Each student exhibited a passion for gaining a nuanced understanding of China and its role on the global stage as the world’s second largest economy.  

On June 24, the student cohort gathered in Shanghai for the program’s kickoff. While in Shanghai, students toured the store and warehouse of the innovative grocery chain model, Freshippo. Next, students learned about cutting-edge environmental initiatives and spoke directly with young professionals at Ant Finance. The Shanghai leg of the trip also featured a tour of the Luckin Coffee factory, which is the largest roastary in Asia, and a networking dinner with local Stanford alumni.

“It was incredible talking to people in very high positions of power in these digital companies that we took tours of, for example, the Ant group or even some of the manufacturing companies we went to...that the core thesis of their drive for profit, it's underpinned by, ‘we need to be environmentally friendly.’” Arshia Mehta, a management science and engineering major going into consulting, reflected on these visits. 

It was incredible talking to people in very high positions of power in these digital companies that we took tours of.
Arshia Mehta

From Shanghai, students traveled to Deqing, a prosperous rural county in the Yangtze river delta region, where they explored a local health clinic and a pearl farm responsible for a sizable portion of global pearl production. From Deqing, students traveled to the nearby township of Tongxiang, where they dove into China’s dynamic manufacturing sector through informative conversations with factory personnel and tours of a conveyor belt factory and fiber glass company. 

The program cohort then traveled to Xi’an, where they had the opportunity to marvel at the Terracotta Warriors and explore the city’s Muslim Quarter. From urban Xi’an, students rode a bus through tunnels and over mountains towards the rural county of Ningshan, where they visited a local parenting center, rural agricultural communities, and local hospitals. Students also visited local households where they conversed with villagers and families to learn more about rural life in Ningshan.

“Everybody wanted their children to go to college, everybody wanted to see a better future and how to help for that future,” said first year political science major Garrett Molloy, “that reminds me – no matter how distant we seem politically, people are actually very similar.”

Finally, after traveling overnight on a sleeper train, students arrived in Beijing. While in China’s capital, the cohort toured the newly operational Xiaomi EV factory, engaged with students from Tsinghua University High School and Peking University, and spoke directly with the country’s stock market regulators. Students also joined the 4th of July celebration hosted by the U.S. Embassy, where they were greeted by the U.S. Ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns.

Reflecting on her conversation with the Ambassador, Amaya Marion, a junior studying international relations, said, “This trip makes me more certain that I do want to do something in the future with U.S.-China relations.”

The student cohort also had ample opportunity to explore China’s culture and history throughout the program. They visited a paleolithic archaeological site, learned to make traditional Chinese rice cakes, practiced the art of Chinese calligraphy, and visited the Zhujiajiao Water Town. The cohort also explored traditional indigo tie-dyeing practices and cloisonné, an ancient technique for decorating metalwork with colored enamel material.

This is a really remarkable opportunity to see parts of China that otherwise wouldn't be accessible to me.
Stella Meier

Students not only gained new insights from the cultural and business visits, they also learned from one another. Stella Meier, Stanford junior studying international relations, remarked, “this is a really remarkable opportunity to see parts of China that otherwise wouldn't be accessible to me.”

This trip has altered my perception in a way that's constructive, in a way that's helping me think more critically about the information that's being fed to me.
Rahul Ajmera

Having experienced urban and rural China firsthand over the course of two weeks, students walked away with a deeper and more nuanced understanding of China’s economy and people that, according to one student, “fundamentally reshaped my global perspective.” To continue facilitating transformative student exchanges with China, planning for SCCEI’s second annual Summer Program is already well underway.
 



Watch the Program Highlights 



Visit the program page for more program details and future program announcements.


 

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Under the guidance of SCCEI’s faculty directors, 16 students traveled across urban and rural China, embarking on field visits including education, healthcare, retail technology, and manufacturing to gain a deeper understanding of China’s economy.

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