Monday, May 18, 2026 | 4:45 PM EDT - 6:00 PM EDT
Few bilateral relationships carry more consequence for the global order than that between the United States and China. As Presidents Trump and Xi convene for a high-stakes summit, questions about trade policy, technology competition, and long-term strategic rivalry take on renewed urgency — and the outcomes, or lack thereof, will shape the landscape for months to come.
The National Committee brings together three leading China experts — Dr. Kyle Chan, Dr. Elizabeth Economy, and Dr. Zongyuan Zoe Liu — alongside NCUSCR President Stephen Orlins to assess what the summit reveals about the trajectory of U.S.-China relations. Join us on May 18 at 4:45 p.m. for Trade Wars, Tech Rivalries, and the Long Game in U.S.-China Relations.
Speakers
Kyle Chan
Dr. Kyle Chan is a fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution. His research focuses on China’s technology development and industrial policy across a wide range of sectors, including AI, robotics, semiconductors, electric vehicles, and batteries. His work has been published in peer-reviewed academic journals, such as Asian Survey and Current Sociology, as well as major news outlets, such as The New York Times and Financial Times.
He has testified as an expert on China’s industrial policy before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. He also writes the High Capacity newsletter on the same topics and hosts the High Capacity podcast on technology in China. Dr. Chan has a Ph.D. in sociology from Princeton University.
Elizabeth Economy
Dr. Elizabeth Economy is the Hargrove Senior Fellow and co-director of the Program on the US, China, and the World at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. She is also a principal with WestExec Advisors. From 2021 to 2024, she served as the senior advisor for China to the Secretary of Commerce. Previously she was the C.V. Starr Senior Fellow and director, Asia studies, at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Dr. Economy is an award-winning author of four books and two edited volumes. Her most recent book is The World According to China (2021). Dr. Economy is a frequent guest on nationally broadcast television programs, including PBS NewsHour, Fareed Zakaria GPS, and Bloomberg Surveillance, and she has published op-eds in The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and The New York Times, as well as articles in Foreign Affairs and the Harvard Business Review. She is also the host of the popular podcast China Considered.
She serves on the boards of Swarthmore College, the National Endowment for Democracy, and the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. She is also a member of the Aspen Strategy Group and the Council on Foreign Relations.
Zongyuan “Zoe” Liu
Dr. Zongyuan “Zoe” Liu is the Maurice R. Greenberg Senior Fellow for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. She also teaches as an adjunct professor at Columbia University and serves as a senior research scholar at SIPA’s Institute of Global Politics. She is a Wilson China Fellow.
Dr. Liu’s work focuses on international finance and energy security, with particular emphasis on sovereign wealth funds, industrial policy, and the geoeconomics of the global energy transition. Her research examines how states deploy capital as a strategic instrument of power, with regional expertise spanning East Asia and the Middle East.
She is the author of Can BRICS De-dollarize the Global Financial System? (2022) and Sovereign Funds: How the Communist Party of China Finances its Global Ambitions (2023), which received the 2024 PROSE Award for Best Book in Business, Finance, and Management. She holds a PhD from Johns Hopkins University and is a CFA charterholder.
Dr. Liu is a columnist at Foreign Policy and contributes frequently to leading policy and media outlets, such as Foreign Affairs and Project Syndicate.
