Concern about the safety of products imported from China has added a new source of tension to U.S.-China trade relations. In this off-the-record conference call with National Committee members, three specialists offered their analysis of how the current issue has developed over the course of the last several months, examined dynamics within China that contributed […]

National Public Radio correspondent Rob Gifford traveled along China’s Route 312, from the dynamic metropolis of Shanghai to the remote border region with Kazakhstan. In China Road, Mr. Gifford uses people and scenes from his three thousand-mile trip to illustrate how China’s booming economy has, among other things, generated new opportunities for citizens, prompted a […]

In April 2007, the Council on Foreign Relations published the report of the independent task force it had convened to consider to a range of critical issues in the U.S.-China relationship. This distinguished group of specialists recommended that U.S. strategy toward China be directed toward an “affirmative agenda of integrating China into the global community” […]

The National Committee sends three bipartisian delegations of congressional senior staff members to China each year for a study tour to learn first-hand about issues impacting China and the U.S.-China relationship. Delegation members travel to Beijing and other regions of China to meet with counterparts working for China's central, provincial, and municipal governments, as well as with NGO leaders, academics, business leaders, and members of the media.

The National Committee regularly sends members of Congress to China, having arranged and escorted eight delegations since 2006. The week-long study tours are designed to educate the congressmen and women about China through personal introductions to senior Chinese leaders and a range of informative site visits and meetings.

In his book, Rising Star: China’s New Security Diplomacy, 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.

At this program, Professor Wang Jisi, dean, School of International Studies, Peking University, reprised one of the themes raised in his 2005 Foreign Affairs article, “China’s Search for Stability with America,” (see the Sept/Oct 2005 Foreign Affairs issue) and focused on areas where Chinese and American interests converge and diverge in Asia.

Professor Lucian Pye and Professor Robert A. Scalapino, two distinguished scholars in the field of U.S.-China relations who have served as National Committee chairmen, discussed the founding of the National Committee, its work over the past 40 years and the role it might play in the future at a May 3 anniversary program in New York City. National Committee chair Carla Hills welcomed the many current and former directors, members and guests who attended the program.

In his remarks, Ambassador Hill underscored the essential role of multilateralism in the Six-Party process, as it provided the means for different countries with the same interests to bear on the challenge of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula.

As part of an overall strategic review, the Rockefeller Foundation asked the National Committee to help it look at how China’s emergence affects the foundation’s strategies and goals. The China Project is an ongoing series of seminars and discussions begun in 2005 with the aim of providing the Foundation staff an opportunity to examine the global and regional impacts of China’s rise and its implications for Foundation programming around the world. The focus is on issues the Foundation staff identified as important to their programmatic goals.