President's Forum To Focus On U.S.-China Relations

Former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott will headline this fall's President's Forum on Wednesday, Oct. 23, on the Baylor University campus. Talbott's keynote address, which will focus on relations between the United States and China, will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Barfield Drawing Room of the Bill Daniel Student Center and is free and open to the public.
In addition to Talbott's lecture, some of the leading scholars on China will participate in two panel discussions earlier in the day. The panels will focus on "U.S.-China Relations in the 21st Century," a topic selected as a prelude to the scheduled meeting between President George W. Bush and Chinese President Jiang Zemin at Bush's Crawford ranch later that week.
"The landscape of international relations was fundamentally altered by the events of Sept. 11, 2001," said Dr. Christopher Marsh, associate professor of political science and director of Asian studies at Baylor. "Today, pronouncements of a coming conflict with China have become muted as both the United States and China face new and unanticipated challenges in the 21st century. As the presidents of both countries prepare to meet at the Western White House, the President's Forum brings together some of the most learned minds on Chinese affairs to help spark a conversation on the future of U.S.-China relations and to generate insights that will lead to well-informed policy."
Talbott became Deputy Secretary of State in early 1994 after serving for a year as ambassador-at-large and special adviser to the Secretary of State on the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union. He entered public service after 21 years as an award-winning journalist for Time magazine, where he was editor-at-large, foreign affairs columnist, Washington bureau chief, State Department correspondent and White House correspondent.
A former Rhodes Scholar, Talbott is the author of several books on diplomacy and U.S.-Soviet relations, including a series of three books on U.S.-Soviet arms control. Additionally, he translated and edited two volumes of Nikita Khrushchev's memoirs, published in 1970 and 1974.
He twice won the Edward Weintal Prize for Distinguished Reporting on Foreign Affairs and Diplomacy in 1980 and 1985. His contributions also were cited in three Overseas Press Club Awards to Time. Talbott has served as a trustee of Yale University and the Hotchkiss School and as a director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, The Council on Foreign Relations and The Aspen Strategy Group. This year he became president of the Brookings Institution, one of the nation's oldest public policy research organizations.
The forum will begin at 9:30 a.m. Oct. 23 in the Barfield Drawing Room with opening remarks given by Baylor President Robert B. Sloan Jr. The first panel, "National Security and Strategic Implications," will meet from 9:45 to 11:45 a.m. In addition to Marsh, participants include Dr. June Dreyer, professor and chair of the department of political science at the University of Miami; former Ambassador J. Stapleton Roy, who served as ambassador to the People's Republic of China from 1991 to 1995; and Dr. Suisheng Zhao, associate professor at the Graduate School of International Studies and executive director of the Center for China-U.S. Cooperation at the University of Denver.
The second panel, "Economic, Cultural and Civic Issues," will meet from 2 to 4 p.m. Taking part in the roundtable will be Dr. Andrew Nathan, the Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science at Columbia University; Dr. Minxin Pei, senior associate and co-director of the China Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Dr. Barry Naughton, the So Kwanlok Professor of Economics and Chinese Studies and associate dean of the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California at San Diego; and Carol Lee Hamrin, former senior China research specialist at the Department of State and currently research professor at George Mason University.
Both panel discussions are free and open to the public.
For more information about the President's Forum, contact the Baylor office of public affairs at (254) 710-1421.