October 5-6, 2023
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Keynote Speech | China's Global Ambitions: Getting Assessments Balanced
David M. Lampton is Professor Emeritus of China Studies at Johns Hopkins University and former Hyman Professor and Director of SAIS-China and China Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and Senior Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute. Lampton also served as the Dean of Faculty from 2004-2012. His publications have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The American Political Science Review, The China Quarterly, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.
Panel 1 | International Science and Technology Collaboration in an Era of Geopolitical Competition
Dan Wang is the Technology Analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics, the Beijing-based economics research firm. His work at Gavekal has covered China's technology capabilities, U.S. regulatory actions on export controls, as well as multinational investment activities in China. Wang is currently on a research leave, working on a monograph on China's vision of the technological future at the Paul Tsai China Center at Yale Law School.
Victoria Chonn Ching (B.A. Political Science/Asian Studies ’07, M.A. Chinese Studies ’09), is a Postdoctoral Scholar / Teaching Fellow at the Department of Political Science and International Relations at University of Southern California. She is also a Non-Resident Fellow at the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center at the Atlantic Council. Ching’s areas of expertise are economic policy-making and agency, development and growth, Chinese politics and foreign economy policy, Latin America's political economy, and China-Latin America-U.S. relations.
Margaret Lewis is a research expert focusing on law in mainland China and Taiwan with an emphasis on criminal justice. She currently serves at the Associate Dean For Faculty Development And Institutional Operations and Professor Of Law at Seton Hall Law School. Lewis has been a Fulbright Senior Scholar at National Taiwan University, in addition to a visiting professor at Academia Sinica, a Public Intellectuals Program Fellow with the National Committee on United States-China Relations, and a delegate to the US-Japan Foundation's US-Japan Leadership Program. Lewis’ publications have appeared in a number of prestigious academic journals.
Martin Chorzempa is a Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Prior to joining PIIE, Chorzempa was a Fulbright Scholar in Germany as well as a Luce Scholar at Peking University's China Center for Economic Research. His research focuses on financial technology and digital currency, as well as technology and national security issues like export controls and foreign investment screening. He has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, MIT Technology Review, and Foreign Affairs.
Moderator: Ann Lin is Kenneth G. Lieberthal and Richard H. Rogel Professor of Chinese Studies; Director of the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies; and Associate Professor of Public Policy and Political Science at the University of Michigan. Lin studies policy implementation and the reactions of those who are targeted by policy. Notably, she worked as a consultant to the ACLU on Freeman v. Pitts, a landmark desegregation case from DeKalb County, Georgia.
Panel 2 | The Reckoning Project at WCEE
Geneviève Zubrzycki, Principal Investigator of The Reckoning Project, is William H. Sewell Jr. Collegiate Professor of Sociology and Director of the Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia at the University of Michigan. She specializes in nationalism and religion, collective memory and national mythology, and aesthetics and politics. Zubrzycki’s books and articles have received numerous awards and she is a recent recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship.
Arina Bustillos (M.A. International and Regional Studies–Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies ’22) is the Research Project Coordinator for The Reckoning Project at the U-M Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia. Her background in sociology includes working as a research assistant for projects dedicated to education and public health in Eastern Europe. Vlasova also serves as a volunteer translator for a pro-bono refugee translation collective.
Kristin Foringer is the Data Analysis Team Supervisor for The Reckoning Project and a Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology at the University of Michigan. She is a U.S. Institute of Peace Scholar and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow with interests in comparative-historical methods and political and cultural sociology. Her research focuses on transitional justice policy in Colombia, especially related to ideas about victimhood, collective memory, and symbolic reparations.
Sophia Grant is a Research Assistant for The Reckoning Project, and a rising senior in the Honors Program at the University of Michigan. She is pursing a double major in International Studies and History with a minor in Law, Justice, and Social Change. Sophia is co-president of the Michigan Running Club (MRun) and a member of the Blue Model United Nations (BlueMUN) and Model United Nations at the University of Michigan (MUNUM).
Keynote Speech | Russia's War Against Ukraine: Regional Context, Global Consequences
Eugene Fishel is the Distinguished Fellow at the Center for Security Policy Studies, George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government, and a prominent specialist on Ukraine. He has been honored with the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council Distinguished Service Award for his public service. An Analyst at the U.S. Department of State, Fishel previously served as Director for Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council; as Special Advisor to the Vice President (National Security Affairs); and Assistant National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council.
Panel 3 | Press Freedom in Asia
Wa Lone is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist at Thomson Reuters and co-founder of Third Story Project, a charitable foundation that produces and distributes stories to promote tolerance between Myanmar's ethnic groups. He is also the author of two children’s books. Lone is known internationally for his coverage on the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in 2017. Originally from the Kin Pyit village in Myanmar, he is now based in Toronto.
Chitrangada Choudhury is an independent multimedia journalist. Over her career, Choudhury has worked with The Indian Express, The Hindustan Times, The Guardian US; and has written for Columbia Journalism Review, The Caravan, Economic & Political Weekly, The Hindu, and Mint. She was a 2017-2018 Knight Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan focusing on local rights and the role of informed consent in ecological justice and sustainability. She has been awarded the Sanskriti Award and the Lorenzo Natali Journalism Prize.
Orlando de Guzman is an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning documentary filmmaker. He has worked globally with many organizations including BBC, PBS, ITVS, Aljazeera English, Univision, and VICE News. de Guzman is also the founder of ILAYA FILMS LL, a production company for cinematic journalism and immersive short documentaries. His work focuses on conflict, human rights, the environment, sports, health and politics in the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America.
Moderator: Scott Tong is the co-host of Here & Now for WBUR, Boston’s NPR radio station. Prior to joining NPR, Tong was the Shanghai Bureau Chief and Senior Correspondent with Marketplace. Over his career, he has investigated China’s international adoption system, slave labor, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Tong was a Knight-Wallace journalism fellow at the University of Michigan in 2013-2014. His book A Village with My Name: A Family History of China’s Opening to the World? was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2017.
Panel 4 | Careers in International and Regional Studies
Jan Berris (B.A. Chinese Studies ’66, M.A. Japanese Studies ’67) is Vice President of the National Committee on United States-China Relations. As part of her work, Berris oversees the preparation and operations for visits both to the U.S. by Chinese delegations and to China by American delegations. She has developed ongoing flagship programs such as the Public Intellectuals Program, U.S. Foreign Policy Colloquium, Young Leaders Forum, and the Committee’s Track II projects. Prior to her work at the Committee, Berris was a Foreign Service Officer stationed at the American Consulate in Hong Kong and in Washington, D.C.
Courtney Henderson (M.A. Chinese Studies ’13) is a Partner at Due East Advisors, a consulting firm that serves dynamic organizations working between the U.S., Mainland China, and Taiwan. At Due East, she is the creative leader of strategy and operations. She previously served as Deputy Director of the Michigan-China Innovation Center (MCIC) and led the organization’s FDI attraction, market development, and bilingual digital marketing strategy. Now based in Detroit, she has lived and worked in Washington, D.C.; Shenzhen, China; and Taipei, Taiwan.
Atlee Chait (B.A. International Studies ’14) serves as the Economic Assistance Coordination and Evaluation Specialist with the Office of Global Women’s Issues in the U.S. Department of State. Prior to her current role she was contracted as the Senior Election Analyst Assistant with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe/Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR) Limited Election Observation Mission for the 2020 U.S. General Elections. She has worked on monitoring and evaluation, geopolitical risk and security, and development programming while living in Washington D.C., Uganda, and Israel.
Nessma Bashi (B.A. International Studies/Middle Eastern and North African Studies ’13, J.D. Law ’18) is an Attorney Advisor at the Military Commissions Defense Organization, ensuring fairness and independence of the legal system. Prior to joining the Military Commissions Defense Organization, Bashi was a Legal Officer and Fellow at the Syria Justice and Accountability Centre. In 2018 she was awarded the Bates Overseas Fellowship at the University of Michigan.
Moderator: Mary Elizabeth (Liz) Malinkin (M.A. Russian and East European Studies ’06) is the Academic Program Manager for the Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia at the University of Michigan. In this role, she administers the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies (CREES). Her Master's thesis focused on ethnic minorities in the Moscow labor market. Liz previously worked at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., where she oversaw the Kennan Institute’s fellowship programs and conducted research on migration in Eurasia.