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Join the International Relations Council, University of Kansas, and World Trade Center - Kansas City for the 2023 China Town Hall. Held annually, the event "connects leading China experts with Americans around the country for a national conversation on the implications of China's rise on U.S.-China relations and its impact on our towns, states, and nation". This year's national broadcast will feature a conversation with current U.S. Ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns. 

Prior to the start of the national broadcast we will hold a local program focused on China's demography, household registration, and urban-rural politics, featuring Steven Liao, Assistant Professor at the University of California - Riverside, and Madelyn Ross, President of the U.S.-China Education Trust. The discussion will be moderated by Jack Zhang, Assistant Professor at the University of Kansas. 

Following the national broadcast you are welcome to join the U.S. Heartland China Association for a conversation with Susan Thornton, former U.S. Diplomat to Eurasia and East Asia. Registration for this event is separate and can be accessed here. 

AGENDA
5:00 PM    Local Program Chinese in America Begins
                  Speakers: 
6:00 PM    National China Town Hall Broadcast Begins
                  Speaker:
7:00 PM    U.S. Heartland China Association Event Begins
                  Speaker:
                  Susan Thornton, Former U.S. Diplomat Eurasia and East Asia

7:30 PM    Program Concludes
 

LOCAL PROGRAM SPEAKERS
 

Steven Liao is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Riverside, and a Non-resident Scholar at the 21st Century China Center, University of California, San Diego. Before arriving at UCR, he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University. His research interests lie in the intersection of international political economy and methodology. Much of his research uses large-scale administrative data to improve our understanding of the politics of economic globalization. His recent projects have examined firms' influence on immigration policymaking, the politics of foreign real estate investments, big data and the evolution of international trade relationships, and the politics of Chinese Renminbi internationalization. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in the American Journal of Political Science, International Studies Quarterly, The Journal of Politics, Nature Human Behaviour, and The Review of International Organizations. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia and his B.A. from National Chengchi University (Taiwan).

 
Madelyn Ross has worked in China-related positions in higher education and non-profit organizations for 30 years. She became president of the US-China Education Trust in March 2022. Before coming to USCET she was executive director of SAIS China and associate director of China Studies at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, which included oversight of the Hopkins-Nanjing Center partnership in China and the SAIS dual degree program with Tsinghua University.  She worked at George Mason University from 2003 to 2015, becoming director of China Initiatives across the university. She also spent nine years at The US-China Business Council, as editor of The China Business Review and executive director of The China Business Forum.
Ross holds an M.A. in International Affairs from Columbia University and a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Princeton University, magna cum laude. She did graduate work in Chinese at Fudan University in Shanghai in 1979-1980, where she was one of the first American students to study in China following normalization of US-China relations. 

(Moderator) Jiakun Jack Zhang is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Kansas (KU). He received his Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science at UC San Diego. His dissertation examines when and why economically interdependent countries use military versus economic coercion in foreign policy disputes. From 2018-2019, he was a postdoctoral research fellow in the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University. 

BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

• International Relations Council
• University of Kansas
• World Trade Center - Kansas City
• U.S. Heartland China Association