CLS 2027 | This Year's Theme
Finding Common Ground: Trade, Technology, and Trust in U.S.-China Relations
March 19-21, 2027

The United States and China are increasingly defined by a relationship in which competition and interdependence coexist. Trade ties bind the two economies even as tariffs, supply-chain shifts, and economic security concerns create new points of friction. Rapid advances in artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies have opened another arena for strategic competition while simultaneously offering an opportunity for shared regulation. In this environment, the futures of the United States and China remain deeply intertwined; decisions made by either country create externalities affecting both the other country and for the broader international system.

The 2027 Duke–UNC China Leadership Summit will examine how the two countries can navigate this increasingly complex relationship through the interconnected lenses of trade, technology, and trust. Where does competition end and cooperation begin? How can economic and technological rivalry be managed without allowing disagreement to foreclose opportunities for collaboration? And what forms of trust, communication, and institutional engagement are necessary for two major powers to coexist amid profound differences in interests and outlook?

With those questions in mind, Finding Common Ground: Trade, Technology, and Trust in U.S.-China Relations will explore how the next generation can help shape a relationship that is neither defined solely by rivalry nor dependent on unrealistic expectations of consensus, but capable of balancing competition with cooperation in the years ahead.

Application will open soon

What is CLS?

The Duke-UNC China Leadership Summit (CLS) invites leading experts to speak on topics of importance to the U.S.-China relations and create a platform for students from across the United States and all over the world to exchange perspectives on these issues, connect with speakers, and network with one another. CLS hosted students for the first time in the spring of 2011. Since then, our annual conference has more than tripled in size from 40 students in 2011 to 150 students in 2026.

16 Annual Summits​

57 Represented Universities

1759 Student Delegates

CLS 2026 Summit Speakers 

Our past speakers have been experts on U.S.-China relations and China studies, ranging from diplomats, senior officials, government advisors, retired senior military officers, and leaders of international organizations to scientists, professors, research fellows, journalists, activists, and artists. They come from both China and the United States as well as other parts of the world, represent a diverse set of opinions and perspectives, and bring meaningful insights to our summit. Our 2026 summit speakers were no different:

David J. Firestein is the inaugural president and CEO of the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations (Bush-China Foundation). A decorated career U.S. diplomat from 1992–2010, Firestein specialized primarily in U.S.-China relations. Among the honors he garnered during his diplomatic career were the Secretary of State’s Award for Public Outreach (2006) and the Linguist of the Year Award (1997). Prior to joining the Bush China Foundation, Firestein was the founding executive director of The University of Texas at Austin’s (UT) China Public Policy Center (CPPC) and a clinical professor at UT’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. Firestein also previously served as senior vice president and Perot Fellow at the New York City-based EastWest Institute (EWI).

Shu-chin Tsui is a Professor of Asian Studies and Cinema Studies at Bowdoin College. Her scholarly work extends across film studies, cultural studies, and visual art studies with a focus on gender politics. She most recently published the book Ecological and Environmental Turns: (Re)mapping China’s Sociocultural Landscape through Ecocinema (Cambria Press, 2025), which addresses critical issues related to the eco-environmental crisis. Tsui's first book, Women Through the Lens: Gender and Nation in a Century of Chinese Cinema, considers the role of women as visual image and discursive element in twentieth-century China. Her second book, Gendered Bodies: Toward A Women’s Visual Art in Contemporary China, examines how female artists employ the body as a mode of self-expression and respond to socio-political issues. She also spearheaded an art exhibition named Break Through: Women Artists and Works in Contemporary China at Bowdoin in 2013.

Ryan McElveen serves as managing director of the U.S.-China Education Trust (USCET) and a member of the Fairfax County School Board, to which he was first elected in 2011. Prior to joining USCET, he served for 13 years as associate director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution, where he oversaw U.S.-China track II dialogues and institutional partnerships. McElveen's work on the U.S.-China Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence and National Security laid the groundwork for the November 2024 agreement between Presidents Xi Jinping and Joe Biden to maintain human control over the decision to use nuclear weapons and the creation of a U.S.-China glossary of AI terms to serve as a basis for future negotiations and agreements. He is also the founder and managing director of the Global Leaders of Fairfax County program, which prepares high school seniors to be global citizens and change agents in their community and the world. He holds a M.I.A. in human rights from Columbia University and a B.A. in Anthropology and East Asian Studies from the University of Virginia.

Clara Park is a Senior Research Scientist at Duke University. Her scholarly work examines international trade and finance, climate change, and US foreign economic policy in the Asia-Pacific region. Her most recent book, Making Financial Globalization (Oxford University Press, 2024), examines the interaction of institutions and interest groups in financial globalization. Her forthcoming books focus on the Geopolitics of the Critical Minerals Supply Chain and the Political Economy of Climate Change.

Dr. Andy Rodekohr is an Associate Professor and Chair of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Wake Forest University. His scholarly work focuses on Chinese and East Asian film, literature, and popular culture. His current book project, Crowd Spectacular: Conjuring the Masses in Modern China, foregrounds the imagination, representation, and circulation of crowd images in China as a mode of cultural production pivotal to the ideological construction of the political masses. Rodekohr's other research interests include the development of cinematic new waves in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China, the musical, cultural and technological legacies of the pop singer Teresa Teng, and the globalization of Chinese martial arts through narrative.

Min Jiang is a Professor of Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and a Secretariat member of the annual international Chinese Internet Research Conference. Her scholarly work examines the intersection between digital technology, geopolitics, and policy with a focus on China and the Global South. Jiang recently co-edited the book Digital Sovereignty in the BRICS Countries, which was published by Cambridge University Press in 2024. She also edits several flagship academic journals in Communication Studies, including International Journal of Communication, Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, Global Perspectives and Communication & the Public.

Dr. Jackson Ewing is director of energy and climate policy at the Duke University Nicholas Institute of Energy, Environment & Sustainability. He is also an adjunct associate professor at the Nicholas School of the Environment and a faculty affiliate with the Duke Center for International Development at the Sanford School of Public Policy. Dr. Ewing’s current work focuses on international climate finance and just energy transition partnerships, environmental markets, US national energy transition policies, and US-China climate and energy relations. He also leads educational exchanges between Asia and the United States through a leadership role with Duke Kunshan University in greater Shanghai. Prior to joining Duke, Dr. Ewing was director of Asian Sustainability at the Asia Society Policy Institute under the leadership of the Hon. Kevin Rudd, where he led projects on Asian carbon market cooperation and sustainable resource development in the ASEAN Economic Community.

Ting Wang is an Assistant Professor of Sociology, Criminology & Justice at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro. As a passionate criminologist with a focus on gender issues, her scholarly work encompasses criminology, criminal justice, gender studies, social network analysis, Asian and Asian American Studies, and China Studies. Her debut book, The Lonely Generation: Unraveling China’s Population Crisis After the One-Child Policy, explores how the evolution or stagnation of China's cultural and structural norms influences women's lives and choices in contemporary China. Within a month of publication, The Lonely Generation won the Best Book Prize from the Asian Studies Association.

Klaus Larres is the Richard M. Krasno Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His scholarly work focuses on contemporary U.S. and German/EU foreign, economic, and security policies toward the transatlantic world, China, and Southeast Asia. He has authored, co-authored, and edited numerous books in the field of international relations. Larres' most recent book, Uncertain Allies: Nixon, Kissinger and the Threat of a United Europe (Yale UP, 2022), examines transatlantic tension and disputes during the Nixon/Kissinger era. He previously served as a Global Europe & Kissinger China Institute Fellow and then a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center, in addition to the Henry A Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Library of Congress. He also served as a Senior Policy Adviser at the German Embassy in Beijing, China. Larres writes a regular column 'Understanding America' and 'Impressions from China' for the German daily newspaper Koelner Stadtanzeiger.

Jeannette L. Chu is Vice President for National Security Policy at the National Foreign Trade Council. In this role, she leads efforts to advance the interests of U.S. business in safeguarding U.S. national security and promoting global security through export controls, sanctions regimes and policy initiatives. She previously served as a Senior Managing Director at PricewaterhouseCoopers, advising U.S. and multinational companies and co-leading the national security regulatory compliance practice. She has also served as a Senior Policy Advisor at the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) in the U.S. Department of Commerce, where she worked on export control reform, export licensing and foreign policy matters.

James Hudson is an Associate Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. His scholarly work focuses on the early 20th-century trade relationship between the United States and China, particularly through the lens of the Standard Oil Company of New York. His upcoming book project is entitled Under Siege: Standard Oil in Nationalist South China, 1915–1937. Hudson was recently named a minority-serving institutions faculty fellow by the Carolina Asia Center and Carolina Asia Center and the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at UNC–Chapel Hill.

Jean C. Oi is the William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics in the Department of Political Science and a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University. She is on academic leave 2025-2026 to be the Inaugural holder of the Goh Keng Swee Chair in Chinese Studies, East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore. Her scholarly work focuses on comparative politics, with special expertise on China’s political economy and institutions in the process of reform. Oi's first book, State and Peasant in Contemporary China: The Political Economy of Village Government, examined the interaction between peasant leaders and state officials, and in particular the relationship between power at the level of villages and higher regional powers. Her second book, Rural China Takes Off: Institutional Foundations of Economic Reform, studied the actions and incentives of government officials in China at local and regional levels. A 2019 study showed that Oi was among the top 40 most-cited female scholars in the field of political science.

Han Chen is a China researcher based in Washington, D.C. At work, he manages an open-source project, coordinates events, and conducts wide-ranging research related to China's domestic politics and foreign policy. Previously, he was an editorial fellow at Axios with a focus on U.S.-China relations and demographic trends. He also worked as a broadcaster with Radio Free Asia, where he reported on human rights in China and Beijing's influence abroad. His work has also appeared in Foreign Policy, The Diplomat, and Voice of America, among other outlets. He graduated from Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York with an M.A. in international reporting, and he holds a B.A. in journalism with a minor in Jewish studies from Pennsylvania State University. Han was born and raised in China, but he has now spent almost half of his life in the United States.

Dr. Wen Xiong is a Professor of Chinese Studies and the Sara Lee Endowed Chair Professor of the Department of World Languages and Cultures at Winston Salem State University, North Carolina. With over 35 years of experience in the field across three continents, her scholarly work focuses on teaching and learning Chinese as a second/foreign language. She most recently published the book The L2 Acquisition of the Chinese Modal Auxiliary Verbs, adding to her existing body of work, which includes seven textbooks for learners of Chinese by Beijing Language University Press and many journal articles and presentations at national and international level. She is the recipient of multiple teaching awards and the founder of Chinese programs at different universities.

Keren Zhu is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Davidson College. Her scholarly work examines global China, infrastructure development, US-China relations, and East Asian political economy, with a particular focus on China's Belt and Road Initiative. Zhu also hosts The Belt and Road podcast, which explores the changing faces of China’s global engagement, and her upcoming book project studies the impact of China-financed infrastructure projects on the Global South. Prior to joining Davidson College, Zhu taught at the University of Southern California and conducted research as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Boston University Global Development Policy Center and The New School India China Institute.

Penelope Prime is Founding Director of the China Research Center based in Atlanta. One of the first American graduate students to visit China for dissertation research, Dr. Prime’s research focuses on China’s economy and business environment, including China’s foreign trade and investment, industrial and technological progress, and provincial development, as well as applied business and economics cases on China and Asia. Dr. Prime's books include Global Giant: Is China Changing the Rules of the Game? and Taiwan’s Democracy: Economic and Political Challenges. She has taken over 400 students to China, conducted field research in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, analyzed China's economy for the Center for International Research at the U.S. Bureau of the Census and worked with companies on China strategy, business environment, negotiations, and cultural understanding.

Dr. Shitong Qiao is Professor of Law and the Ken Young-Gak Yun and Jinah Park Yun Research Scholar at Duke Law School. He also holds the title of Honorary Professor at the University of Hong Kong and is a core faculty member of the Asia/Pacific Studies Institute at Duke University. He was previously a tenured professor at the University of Hong Kong, a Law and Public Affairs (LAPA) fellow at Princeton University, and the inaugural Jerome A. Cohen Visiting Professor of Law at NYU. Professor Qiao employs mixed methods to explore the relationship between political power, law, and private ordering. His first monograph, Chinese Small Property: The Co-Evolution of Law and Social Norms (Cambridge University Press, 2017), investigates how a real estate economy took off without legal titles. His second monograph, The Authoritarian Commons: Neighborhood Democratization in Urban China (Cambridge University Press, 2025), provides an ethnographic account of how hundreds of millions of Chinese homeowners practice democracy in and beyond their condominium complexes. Professor Qiao has also published numerous articles in top American and Chinese law journals, and won multiple research prizes including the Judge Ralph K. Winter Prize (Yale), the Hessel Yntema Prize (American Society of Comparative Law), and The Masahiko Aoki Award for Economic Paper (Tsinghua). In addition, he has served as an expert witness on the Chinese property regime in China, Canada, and the U.S. He holds law degrees from Wuhan University (LL.B.), Peking University (MPhil), and Yale University (LL.M., J.S.D.).

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