"Bridging the Pacific: Charting the Course of U.S.-China Relations" (2025)

In the recent past, the U.S.-China bilateral relationship has been marked by moments of convergence and divergence. Despite their differences, these two powers remain inextricably linked, like crossing currents that shape a shared body of water, where every shift influences the broader tides of global affairs. While U.S.-China relations are restabilizing, the world faces increasing tension and difficult challenges: climate change, artificial intelligence, technological rivalry, economic inequalities, increased tariffs, disrupted trade, border conflicts, humanitarian crises, regional wars… Now more than ever, we ask the question: Where do we go from here? 

 The path forward will require navigating a balance between strategic interests and cooperating on issues that have often been marked by competition. How can “burned bridges” be rebuilt? Will new channels of cooperation be found? How can the U.S. and China work together on pressing global issues like climate action, public health, technological advancement, security concerns, and economic recovery? Where do their strategic interests align, and where must they chart separate paths? 

We aim to explore these questions and the future of the world’s most important bilateral relationship in the 2025 Duke-UNC China Leadership Summit: Bridging the Pacific: Charting the Course of U.S.-China Relations.

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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 2024.

14 Annual Summits​

40 Represented Universities

1337 Student Delegates

CLS 2025 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 2025 summit speakers are no different:

Ms. Min Fan is the Executive Director of the United States Heartland China Association (USHCA, www.usheartlandchina.org), a 501(c)3 nonprofit committed to promoting a stable and productive U.S.-China relationship to protect and advance the interests of the American Heartland community. Ms. Fan was born in China and studied at Peking University before emigrating to the United States. After receiving her MBA from UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, she embarked on a wide-ranging career that included leading the innovation program at a global technology company, mentoring startups at two Colorado incubators, leading a Houston-based nonprofit, and launching US China Now, a small nonprofit, to build a bridge of understanding across the cultural divide between the U.S. and China. Under Ms. Fan’s leadership over the past five years, USHCA has become a recognized leader in U.S.-China subnational diplomacy through innovative programs that created new oasis of bilateral engagement. Some of the best-known programs of USHCA include the U.S.-China Agriculture Roundtable, Yangtze-Mississippi Regional Dialogue, and the Heartland Mayors Delegation to China, for which she received a personal Thank-You letter from US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns. Ms. Fan has led many senior level bilateral dialogues, moderated numerous panels with international experts, and given keynote remarks at high-level events. On November 16, 2023, Ms. Fan was invited to the special reception and dinner in San Francisco in honor of Chinese President Xi Jinping. She was also a translator for President Xi at the dinner.

David J. Firestein is the inaugural president and CEO of the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations and a founding member of its Board of Directors. Previously, he was the founding executive director of The University of Texas at Austin’s China Public Policy Center and a clinical professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. Prior to that, he served as senior vice president and Perot Fellow at the EastWest Institute, where he led U.S.-China and U.S.-Russia track 2 diplomacy efforts. A decorated U.S. diplomat from 1992 to 2010, Mr. Firestein specialized in U.S.-China relations, earning distinctions such as the Secretary of State’s Award for Public Outreach and the Linguist of the Year Award. He also served on the Board of Governors of the American Foreign Service Association. Mr. Firestein is the author or co-author of three books on China, including two Chinese-language bestsellers, and has published extensively on U.S.-China relations. A fluent Mandarin speaker, he was the first foreign diplomat to publish an original book in China. He frequently speaks and briefs investors, policymakers, and scholars on U.S.-China affairs. In 2023, Mr. Firestein received the Maurice R. Greenberg Global Leadership Award for his contributions to U.S.-China relations. He has served on numerous advisory boards, including the Harvard College China Forum. A native of Austin, Texas, he holds a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University and two master’s degrees from The University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. Nick Zeller is a senior program associate for The Carter Center’s China Focus initiative in the Office of the Vice President for Peace Programs and editor of the English-language U.S.-China Perception Monitor website. He is also a podcast host for New Books in Chinese Studies for the New Books Network. Prior to joining the Carter Center, Nick was a Visiting Assistant Professor of World History in Kennesaw State University’s Department of History and Philosophy, Visiting Assistant Professor of Asian History in the University of South Carolina’s Department of History, and an NSEP Boren Fellow at Tsinghua University in Beijing. He received his Ph.D. in modern Chinese history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Dr. Wei-chin Lee is a Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Wake Forest University. He has published several books, including the recently edited volume, Protests, Pandemic, and Security Predicaments - Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, and the US in the 2020s, Palgrave Macmillan, 2023. His articles have appeared in scholarly journals, such as Asian Security, Asian Survey, Journal of Asian and African Studies, Journal of Chinese Political Science, Journal of Contemporary China, Journal of Comparative Communism, Journal of Northeast Asian Studies, The Nonproliferation Review, and Ocean Development and International Law. His teaching and research interests are China and Taiwan, East Asia, international security, and international institutions. He is currently the editor of American Journal of Chinese Studies.

Dr. Clara Park is a visiting assistant professor at Duke University. Her research interests include international trade and finance, climate change, and US foreign economic policy in the Asia-Pacific region. She is the author of Making Financial Globalization: How Firms Shape International Regulatory Cooperation (Oxford University Press 2024). She is currently working on a new book on the Geopolitics of the Critical Minerals Supply Chain (with Kyle Beardsley and Pei-Yu Wei).

Dr. Shelley Rigger is Brown Professor of East Asian Politics and Vice President for Academic Affairs/Dean of Faculty at Davidson College. She has a PhD in Government from Harvard University and a BA in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University. She has been a Fulbright scholar at National Taiwan University (2019), a visiting researcher at National Chengchi University in Taiwan (2005) and a visiting professor at Fudan University (2006) and Shanghai Jiaotong University (2013 & 2015). She is a non-resident fellow of the China Policy Institute at Nottingham University and a senior fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI). She is also a director of The Taiwan Fund, a closed-end investment fund specializing in Taiwan-listed companies. Rigger is the author of two books on Taiwan’s domestic politics, Politics in Taiwan: Voting for Democracy (Routledge 1999) and From Opposition to Power: Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (Lynne Rienner Publishers 2001). She has published two books for general readers, Why Taiwan Matters: Small Island, Global Powerhouse (2011) and The Tiger Leading the Dragon: How Taiwan Propelled China’s Economic Rise (2021). She has published articles on Taiwan’s domestic politics, the national identity issue in Taiwan-China relations and related topics.

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.).

Dr. Lina Benabdallah is Associate Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Wake Forest University. She is the author of Shaping the Future of Power: Knowledge Production and Network-Building in China-Africa Relations (University of Michigan Press, 2020). Her research has appeared in International Studies Quarterly, International Studies Reviews, The Journal of International Relations and Development, Third World Quarterly, African Studies Quarterly, Project on Middle East Political Science, as well as in public facing outlets such as Foreign Affairs, the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage and Foreign Policy. In the 2023 – 2024 academic year, Dr. Benabdallah was a visiting fellow at Harvard University’s Center for African Studies and is currently serving as a co-editor of PS: Political Science and Politics.

Dr. Edmund Malesky is a Professor of Political Economy in the Political Science Department at Duke University and a noted specialist in economic development, authoritarian institutions, and comparative political economy in Vietnam. In August of 2020, Malesky became the director of the Duke Center for International Development (DCID), a unit within Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy that advances international development policy and practice through interdisciplinary approaches to post-graduate education, mid-career training, international advising, and research. In 2019, he was elected Chair of the Southeast Asia Research Group (SEAREG) Council. Since 2014, he has been a member of the board of the International Political Economy Society (IPES). He also serves on the editorial boards of several publications, including the Journal of Politics, Comparative Political Studies, and the Journal of East Asian Studies. In 2012, he received a state medal from the Government of Vietnam for his role in promoting economic development for USAID’s Vietnam Provincial Competitiveness Index. In 2013, Malesky was appointed by President Obama to serve on the board of the Vietnam Education Foundation. Malesky has published extensively in leading political science and economic journals and has received several academic awards including the Harvard Academy Fellowship (2004-2005; 2007-2008) and the Rockefeller Bellagio Residency Fellowship (2014).

Dr. Angel Hsu is an Associate Professor of Public Policy and the Environment at UNC-Chapel Hill and holds a PhD in Forestry and Environmental Studies from Yale University. She is the founder of the Data-Driven EnviroLab, an interdisciplinary research group that innovates and applies quantitative approaches to pressing environmental issues. Dr. Hsu previously held appointments at Yale-NUS college in Singapore as Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, and the World Resources Institute (WRI) where she led WRI’s efforts to develop corporate greenhouse gas accounting and reporting initiatives in developing countries, including China. Dr. Hsu has provided expert testimony to the US-China Economic Security and Review Commission and is a member of the National Committee on US-China Relations and a Public Intellectual Program Fellow. She was also an author of a recent report released by the National Academy of Sciences on greenhouse gas emissions information necessary for decision making, the lead author of the 2018 UNEP Emissions Gap report chapter on non-state actors and an author for the IPCC AR6. Professor Hsu has been named a lead author of the upcoming IPCC Special Report on Cities and Climate Change. Angel holds an M Phil in Environmental Policy from the University of Cambridge, and a BS in Biology and BA in Political Science from Wake Forest University.

Ms. Jincheng Zhang is a Communications Associate at the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, where she manages the organization’s Chinese digital and social media platforms, develops targeted marketing strategies, and creates bilingual content for audiences in Greater China. She also engages in public relations and strategic outreach, conducting interviews with U.S.-China experts and public figures to highlight key aspects of people-to-people cultural exchange. Prior to joining the National Committee in 2022, Ms. Zhang served as a Public Information Intern at the United Nations Secretariat, supporting the Department of Management Strategy, Policy, and Compliance. In this role, she contributed to high-level policy initiatives led by the Human Resources Office, assisting with internal communications and strategic messaging. Ms. Zhang holds a Master of Communication and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Washington, with a minor in International Relations.

Dr. Andy Rodekohr teaches Chinese and East Asian film, literature, and popular culture at Wake Forest University and is the Chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures. 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. Andy’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.

Dr. Xiang He received her Ph.D. from the Department of Comparative Literature at New York University and her M.A. and B.A. from the Chinese Department of Peking University. Before teaching at New York University, she was an assistant professor of East Asian Studies at the University of New Mexico. Her research focuses on modern Chinese literature and film, literary criticism, and critical theory. Among her bilingual academic publications, one of her most recent articles “A Mortal World without the Cross: The Epiphany of the Chines Mother - Rereading Lu Xun’s Tremors of Degradation” was a finalist for the 2023 Tangtao Youth Literature Research Prize in China. She is currently working on a book about Chinese women writers, focusing on authors such as Xiao Hong, Ru Zhijuan, and Wang Anyi.

Dr. Alex Wang is Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law and the Walter & Shirley Wang Endowed Chair in US-China Relations and Communications. He is also the faculty co-director of UCLA’s Emmett Institute on Climate Change & the Environment. His research focuses on US-China relations and the interaction of environmental law and governance institutions in China, the United States, and other countries. He is a member and former fellow of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He serves on the board of the Environmental Law Institute, and is a co-chair of the academic advisory committee for the California-China Climate Institute, a collaboration between the State of California and China on climate change law and policy. Prof. Wang was previously a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the founding director of NRDC’s China Environmental Law & Governance Project. He was a Fulbright Fellow to China in 2004. He holds a B.S. in Biology from Duke University and a J.D. from New York University School of Law.

Dr. Charles A. Laughlin is Ellen Bayard Weedon Chair Professor of East Asian Studies at the University of Virginia. Born in Minneapolis, he received his B.A. in Chinese Language and Literature from the University of Minnesota in 1988, and completed a Ph.D. in Chinese Literature at Columbia University in 1996. Laughlin’s first book, Chinese Reportage: The Aesthetics of Historical Experience, was published by Duke University Press in 2002. He is the editor of Contested Modernities in Chinese Literature (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), and his second monograph, The Literature of Leisure and Chinese Modernity was published by University of Hawai’i Press in April 2008. Laughlin has translated Chinese stories, articles and poems for several collections, and his translations of Ma Lan’s poetry have appeared in Modern Poetry in Translation and Zhang Er and Chen Dong, eds., Another Kind of Nation: An Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Poetry, and Ma Lan’s 2023 bilingual collection, How We Kill a Glove. He also co-edited and contributed an introduction and translations to By the River: Seven Contemporary Chinese Novellas (Oklahoma University Press, 2016). Laughlin’s current research includes the dynamics of desire in revolutionary fiction and film, and images of aging in Chinese film.

Dr. Jennifer Turner has been the director of the China Environment Forum at the Woodrow Wilson Center for 25 years where she creates meetings, exchanges and publications focusing on a variety of energy and environmental challenges facing China, particularly on water, energy and green civil society issues. Between 2010 and 2020 she led the Wilson Center’s Global Choke Point Initiative. Working together with Circle of Blue, she co-produced multimedia reports, films, and convened on water-energy-food confrontations in China, India, Mexico, South Africa, and the United States. Her other major initiatives include: Cooperative Competitors: Building U.S.-China Clean Energy Partnerships, From Farm to Chopsticks: Food Safety Challenges in China, and Storytelling is Serious Business Workshops For Chinese Environmental Professionals. Jennifer serves as Senior Editor for the Wilson Center’s InsightOut publication and the China Environment Forum column on the New Security Beat blog. She received a Ph.D. in Public Policy and Comparative Politics in 1997 from Indiana University, Bloomington. Her dissertation examined local government innovation in implementing water policies in China.

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