2022 Sam Dr. Sam-Chung Hsieh Memorial Lecture
Date & Time: Wednesday, September 28, 2022     |    4:30 - 6:00 PM PT 
Location: Green Library, Bing Wing, 5th floor, Bender Room

Overreach and Overreaction: The Downward Spiral in the U.S.-China Relations 

Stanford Libraries and the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions are pleased to present the 2022 Dr. Sam-Chung Hsieh Memorial Lecture featuring Professor Susan Shirk who will be speaking on Overreach and Overreaction: The Downward Spiral in the U.S.-China Relations.  This is an in-person event.

Why did China abandon its successful foreign policy of restraint and shift toward confrontation and unchecked control over its own society? Surprisingly the shift began under Hu Jintao’s collective leadership (2002-12). Under the personalistic leadership of Xi Jinping the trend has intensified. Those who implement Xi's directives compete to outdo one another, provoking an even greater global backlash. To counter China’s overreach, the worst mistake the rest of the world, and the United States in particular, can make is to overreact. Understanding the domestic political drivers of foreign policy in both countries can help us stem the downward spiral in relations.

About the Speaker

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Susan Shirk is Chair of the 21st Century China Center and research professor at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy. Shirk’s book, China:  Fragile Superpower helped frame the policy debate on China in the U.S. and other countries. Her articles have appeared in leading academic publications in political science, international relations, and China studies. She previously served as deputy assistant secretary of state (1997-2000) responsible for U.S. policy toward China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mongolia. She is director emeritus of the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation and founded the Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue, an unofficial forum for discussion of security issues. Shirk is a graduate of Mt. Holyoke College and received her PhD from M.I.T.

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.

Questions? Contact Sonia Lee from Stanford Libraries 

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The event will be webcast live from this page.

The Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions (SCCEI) and the CSIS Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics launch the third feature of the new collaboration, Big Data China, on July 27 at 9 a.m. PDT / 12 p.m. EDT.  The feature, “The AI-Surveillance Symbiosis in China,” highlights the work of professors Noam Yuchtman (London School of Economics) and David Yang (Harvard University) and their colleagues. The feature shows how China‘s large-scale investments in surveillance technology is both enhancing the state‘s capacity to repress dissent and providing commercial advantage to Chinese AI companies operating in the facial recognition and surveillance space.

The event will feature a presentation of the key findings of the analysis and its implications for the Washington policy community by Noam Yuchtman of London School of Economics, David Yang of Harvard University, and Trustee Chair Fellow Ilaria Mazzocco. Trustee Chair Director Scott Kennedy will moderate a panel discussion which will include questions from the public and questions from the audience. The distinguished panelists for the event are: Emily Weinstein of CSET, Paul Mozur of the New York Times, and Trustee Chair non-resident senior associate Paul Triolo. 

WATCH THE RECORDING

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Following a presentation by Scott Rozelle of Stanford University on the key findings of the analysis and its implications for the Washington policy community, Trustee Chair Fellow Ilaria Mazzocco will moderate the panel discussion and questions from the audience. The distinguished panelists for the event include Mary Gallagher of the University of Michigan, Mary E. Lovely of the Peterson Institute and Syracuse University, and Martin K. Whyte of Harvard University.

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A SCCEI Spotlight Speaker Event

Friday, April 22, 2022          6 - 7 PM Pacific Time 
Saturday, April 23, 2022    9 - 10 AM Beijing Time

U.S.-China Relations in the Age of Uncertainty

The US-China relations are entering into an uncertain era. More than any other bilateral relations in the world, the US-China relations are characterized by complexities. The two countries compete in multiple arenas, but the competition takes place in a broad context of mutual dependency and collaborations. The Russian invasion of Ukraine may further unravel US-China relations. This talk will discuss and examine these issues.

This event features Yasheng Huang, Professor of Global Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is joined by Scott Rozelle, co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions, and Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), who will moderate a discussion about the major themes of the research. A question and answer session with the audience follows the discussion.

About the Speakers
 

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Questions? Contact Debbie Aube at debbie.aube@stanford.edu

Watch the recording:

In the ever-growing gulf between the U.S. and Chinese governments, what can often be lost are the citizens of the two superpowers. More difficult to sum up in a news article than the platform of a politician, public opinion is a nevertheless immensely important barometer of the U.S.-China relationship.

From an American perspective, gaining an understanding of what people in China really think can be a difficult task; with a completely different system of governance, a complex ideological history, and a social media and information ecosystem largely separate from that of the U.S., public opinion in China cannot necessarily be grafted neatly onto American perceptions of right and left.

Join the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions (SCCEI) for a conversation on understanding the Chinese ideological spectrum with leading scholars in the field of contemporary Chinese politics and political communication, the first in a series of collaborations with Asia Society Southern California.

Joining us for the first feature, “Charting the Ideological Spectrum and Public Opinion in China,” is Jennifer Pan, Assistant Professor of Communication and, by courtesy, of Political Science and of Sociology, at Stanford University, and Rory Truex, Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. Senior Adviser and Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies Scott Kennedy will moderate.

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SPEAKERS

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Jennifer Pan is an Associate Professor of Communication at Stanford University. Her research focuses on political communication and authoritarian politics. Pan uses experimental and computational methods with large-scale datasets on political activity in China and other authoritarian regimes to answer questions about how autocrats perpetuate their rule; how political censorship, propaganda, and information manipulation work in the digital age; and how preferences and behaviors are shaped as a result.

Her book, Welfare for Autocrats: How Social Assistance in China Cares for its Rulers (Oxford, 2020) shows how China's pursuit of political order transformed the country’s main social assistance program, Dibao, for repressive purposes. Her work has appeared in peer reviewed publications such as the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Politics, and Science.

She graduated from Princeton University, summa cum laude, and received her Ph.D. from Harvard University’s Department of Government.

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Rory Truex is Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. His research focuses on Chinese politics and authoritarian systems. His work has been published in the American Political Science Review, British Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Perspectives on Politics, and The China Quarterly, and featured in the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. In 2021 he received the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching, the highest teaching honor at Princeton. He currently resides in Philadelphia.

MODERATOR

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Scott Kennedy is senior adviser and Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). A leading authority on Chinese economic policy, Kennedy has been traveling to China for over 30 years. His specific areas of expertise include industrial policy, technology innovation, business lobbying, U.S.-China commercial relations, and global governance. He is the editor of China’s Uneven High-Tech Drive: Implications for the United States (CSIS, February 2020) and the author of The State and the State of the Art on Philanthropy in China (Voluntas, August 2019), China’s Risky Drive into New-Energy Vehicles (CSIS, November 2018), The Fat Tech Dragon: Benchmarking China’s Innovation Drive (CSIS, August 2017), and The Business of Lobbying in China (Harvard University Press, 2005). He has edited three books, including Global Governance and China: The Dragon’s Learning Curve (Routledge, 2018). His articles have appeared in a wide array of policy, popular, and academic venues, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and China Quarterly. He is currently writing a report tentatively titled, Beyond Decoupling: Winning the Hi-Tech Competition Against China.

From 2000 to 2014, Kennedy was a professor at Indiana University (IU), where he established the Research Center for Chinese Politics & Business and was the founding academic director of IU’s China Office. Kennedy received his Ph.D. in political science from George Washington University, his M.A. in China Studies from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and his B.A. from the University of Virginia.

IN PARTNERNSHIP WITH:

Asia Society Southern California

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Please join the CSIS Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics for the launch of the inaugural feature, “Public Opinion in China: A Liberal Silent Majority?” which highlights the work of Stanford professors Jennifer Pan and Yiqing Xu on recent trends in Chinese public opinion. CSIS Trustee Chair Scott Kennedy and SCCEI co-director Scott Rozelle will offer opening remarks and moderate the panel discussion. Jennifer Pan and Yiqing Xu will present the main findings of their research. Panelists include Carla Freeman of the U.S. Institute of Peace, Suisheng Zhao of University of Denver, Bruce Dickson of George Washington University, and Jessica Chen Weiss of Cornell University and the U.S. Department of State.

Watch the recorded event:

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