Managing the U.S. Relationship with China to Achieve Global Goals
By nearly every indicator, China is an important global power. It is home to over 1.4 billion people, making it the most populous country. By some measures, China is also the world’s largest economy and its chief exporter. It projects global power through trade and development projects, having invested hundreds of billions of dollars in global infrastructure projects through its Belt and Road Initiative. China is also a nuclear power with one of the largest and most well-resourced militaries in the world.
Pitt students identified foreign policy as one of their top concerns in the 2021 All Angles student survey. For the United States Government, it is hard to think of a more significant, and challenging, foreign policy topic than China. The United States has expressed deep concerns about China’s behavior within its borders and globally, including its human rights abuses in Xinxiang Province, its military maneuvers in the South China Sea, its support of rogue states like Russia and North Korea, its corporate espionage, and its unfair trade practices. At the same time, the U.S. and Chinese economies are deeply intertwined, and there are real benefits to cooperation between the two nations.
The 2022 U.S. National Security Strategy identifies maintaining a competitive edge over China as one of the Biden Administration’s top priorities. Foreign policy experts believe there is more than one way to manage the relationship with China to best advance U.S. global interests. Consistent with the All Angles format, Julia Santucci, senior lecturer in intelligence studies in the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, will moderate a discussion with two national leading experts. Joining us will be Dr. Susan Shirk, Research Professor and Chair, 21st Century China Center from the University of California San Diego and Dr. Aaron Friedberg, Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University.
Seats are limited, so early registration is encouraged. The session will be held April 3 from 3:30 – 5:30 p.m.
Featured Speakers
Dr. Susan Shirk
Research Professor
Chair, 21st Century China Center
University of California San Diego
Susan Shirk is research professor and chair of the 21st Century China Center. She is one of the most influential experts working on U.S.-China relations and Chinese politics. She is also director emeritus of the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC).
Susan Shirk first visited China in 1971 and has been teaching, researching and engaging China diplomatically ever since. From 1997-2000, Dr. Shirk served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs, with responsibility for China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mongolia.
Her current book is "Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise". Other books include "China: Fragile Superpower," hat helped frame the policy debate on China in the U.S. and other countries. Her other publications include "The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China"; "How China Opened its Door"; "Competitive Comrades: Career Incentives and Student Strategies in China"; and her edited book, "Changing Media, Changing China."
Her articles have appeared in leading academic publications in the fields of political science, international relations and China studies, and her views on a range of issues relating to modern Chinese politics are highly sought.
Shirk co-chairs a task force of China experts that issued its second report “Course Correction: Toward an Effective and Sustainable China Policy,” in February 2019. She is also co-chair of the UC San Diego Forum on U.S.-China Relations, the first ongoing high-level forum focused entirely on the U.S.-China relationship.
She was awarded the 2015 Roger Revelle Medal (video).
Dr. Aaron L. Friedberg
Professor of Politics and International Affairs
Co-Director Center for International Security Studies
Princeton University
Aaron L. Friedberg is Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1987, and co-director of Princeton’s Center for International Security Studies. He is also a counselor to the National Bureau of Asian Research. In January 2022 he was appointed to a two-year term on the Congressional US-China Economic and Security Review Commission. From 2003 to 2005 he served as a Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs in the office of the Vice President and he was subsequently appointed to the Defense Policy Board. In 2000-2001 he was a member of a panel tasked by Congress with reviewing the CIA’s analysis of China. He has conducted studies for a number of government agencies, including the Office of Net Assessment in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the National Security Council.
In 2001-2002 Friedberg was selected as the first occupant of the Henry A. Kissinger Chair at the Library of Congress. He has been a research fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, the Norwegian Nobel Institute, the Smithsonian Institution's Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., and Harvard University's Center for International Affairs. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
Friedberg is the author of several books and monographs, including The Weary Titan: Britain and the Experience of Relative Decline, 1895-1905 (1988), In the Shadow of the Garrison State: America’s Anti-Statism and Its Cold War Grand Strategy (2000), A Contest for Supremacy: China, America, and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia (2011), Beyond Air-Sea Battle: The Debate Over U.S. Military Strategy in Asia (2014), The Authoritarian Challenge: China, Russia and the Threat to the International Order (2017). He is the author (with Charles Bustany) of Partial Disengagement: A New U.S. Strategy for Economic Competition With China (2019). His most recent book is Getting China Wrong (2022).
Dr. Friedberg received his A.B., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University.
Moderator
Julia Santucci
Senior Lecturer in Intelligence Studies
Director, Johnson Institute for Responsible Leadership &
the Frances Hesselbein Leadership Forum
Julia M. Santucci is senior lecturer in intelligence studies and Director of the Johnson Institute for Responsible Leadership and the Frances Hesselbein Leadership Forum at the University of Pittsburgh. She teaches graduate-level courses and leads GSPIA's research and teaching efforts to develop leadership skills in the next generation of public officials. Santucci has over a decade of experience in national security and foreign policy positions, having served at the White House, State Department, and CIA.