Description
To: Sean Buffington Fr: Helena Kolenda cc: Mina Camacho; Li Ling; Yuting Li; Linda Ward April 9, 2020
Re: Discretionary grant recommendation of $50,000 to the University of Pennsylvania for The Future of U.S.-China Relations, a project of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China
Sino-American relations are at one of the lowest points witnessed since the 1970s prior to the resumption of bilateral ties in 1979. The downward slide had been gradual and precipitated by a variety of factors associated with China’s rise under the increasingly authoritarian leadership of Xi Jinping. The pace has been accelerated by the Trump administration’s hardline policies and rhetoric, including the trade war and, most recently, accusations surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. While the economic interdependence of our two countries is recognized by all sides, the narrative has shifted from “engagement” toward “decoupling.”
The state of the relationship has been of concern to the Asia Program for some time and we have supported a range of policy-focused efforts to address it, including the Asia Society’s Task Force on U.S.-China Relations, the Carnegie Endowment’s U.S.-China Civil Strategic Dialogue, the Forum on Asia Pacific Security of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, and Seton Hall University’s dialogue project on the South China Sea. Many of these projects have primarily involved seasoned and senior “China hands,” for obvious reasons, but we have also funded programs to encourage the younger generation of China scholars and practitioners to engage in public-facing scholarship and the policy process, such as the Public Intellectuals Program (PIP) of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and the Mansfield-Luce Asia Scholars Network of the Mansfield Foundation.
The Center for the Study of Contemporary China (CSCC) at the University of Pennsylvania has launched a new and promising initiative to bring next generation voices and perspectives more squarely into deliberations on the way forward for U.S.-China relations. As described in the proposal, it will convene younger China experts through a series of conferences to tackle thorny issues in the relationship: national security; trade and competitiveness; technology; human rights, law, and democracy; climate and environment; and society and values. Participants, representing a range of views, will be drawn from past and current PIP fellows as well as other networks such as the Next40 Initiative. Outputs include policy papers, podcasts and an eventual publication as well as outreach to the media and policy communities in Washington, DC and engagement with Chinese counterparts in Beijing. The project is timed with the November presidential election in mind, with briefings and actionable recommendations to be ready for presentation beginning in fall 2020.
Last year, Ling initiated conversation about this project with Neysun Mahboubi, a research scholar at CSCC and the host of its podcast series, and I attended a Penn China Research Symposium in late January in which a session was devoted to introducing the Future of U.S.-China Relations initiative. The project’s total budget is $150,000, the balance of which has been secured from the university’s Provost’s China Research and Engagement Fund and other internal Penn sources as well as from the Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Research Institute. Our grant would allow project enhancement and expansion over this and the next calendar year, assisting with Mahboubi’s podcast interviews of project participants and supporting travel for additional participants to activities planned for DC and Beijing. A portion of the grant would also cover editorial costs for the eventual publication. CSCC envisions involving undergraduate and graduate students in the proceedings as well as for research and editorial assistance. The first conference was originally scheduled to take place in June. Given pandemic-related travel restrictions, that event will now be held virtually, with plans for an in-person gathering in September.
