Committee takes 10 staff members from the House and Senate to Beijing, Yunnan, and Shanghai for discussions on energy security and efforts to combat terrorism and narcotics trafficking.

Comprised of 20 young American China scholars, the Public Intellectuals Program expands and deepens the scholars' knowledge of aspects of China beyond their own specialties and encourages their active engagement as public intellectuals both within and beyond their professional and geographic communities.

Bates Gill, Freeman Chair in China Studies, Center for Strategic and International Studies, traces the shift in China’s security diplomacy to several factors, among them its concern with American primacy in the post-Cold War world, its vision for its own peaceful rise and the emergence of “new thinkers” in China who have provided the theoretical underpinnings for a more pragmatic approach.

While a few staff members accompanied their Senators and Congressmen on Congressional trips to China in the early 70s, it was not until 1976 that the first group made up entirely of Senate and House committee staff members visited China.

Twelve months before the Beijing Olympics, U.S.-China Working Group co-chairs Rick Larsen (D-WA) and Mark Kirk (R-IL) meet with high-level officials in Beijing, Xinjiang province, and Shanghai to discuss trade, product safety, border safety, counter-terrorism, and the Olympics themselves.

Participants bond over a nine-day training program in San Diego focusing on conflict management and resolution. Formal training is balanced with informal group bonding activities that established sense of camaraderie, trust, and friendship among all three groups.

Committee conducts a survey of programs addressing Sino-American relations and security issues.