Release of the Commission Report - Building U.S.-China Trust

Since 2012, a commission led by Ernest J. Wilson III, dean of the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, and Wang Jisi, then dean of the Peking University School for International Studies, have led a distinguished bi-national commission of scholars, former officials, and businesspeople in an investigation of how to best improve U.S.-China understanding. Such understanding is essential if we are to reduce our differences and work together to address pressing problems.

The commission's report draws on major public opinion surveys, extensive meetings and interviews with leading policy-makers, business people, and organization chiefs, and the deep experience and expertise of our distinguished commissioners. The commission found that as interaction and interdependence between the U.S. and China has grown, favorable attitudes towards the other country and trust in the other country has fallen. This is unacceptable and potentially even dangerous. The U.S.-China relationship is too important for our two peoples and for the world and the need for cooperation is too great for us to let suspicion and distrust to harden. At present, leaders and the media tend to focus almost exclusively on what separates the U.S. and China, paying insufficient attention to the many ways people in the two countries work together every day to deepen understanding and resolve shared problems. We need to act now to strengthen those effective collaborations and make them better known and we need to create new programs which utilize new technologies and involve a greater array of people. The report offers principles to guide such efforts and includes examples of effective programs.

The report presentations also introduced a new website, US-China Exchange, which offers a unique database of past and present exchange programs and will be the go-to reference for all those interested in U.S.-China affairs and, especially, for those eager to link up with standard-bearers in U.S.-China exchanges and to learn from the best practices of others.

Media Inquiries: Please contact Clayton Dube, executive director of the USC U.S.-China Institute at 213-821-4382 or cdube@usc.edu.

Click here to read the report.

April 24, 2014 (click here for the event listing)
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

The event was hosted by the Kissinger Institute on China and the U.S. Institute Director Robert Daly and USC's Clayton Dube moderated the event. Deans Wilson and Jia spoke, along with Commissioner Susan Shirk (former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific) and Ambassador Stapleton Roy. 

 

This video is also available on the USCI YouTube Channel.

April 22, 2014 (click here for the event listing)
University of Southern California Davidson Conference Center

Robert W. Liu
Founder and Chairman, Tireco, Inc.

Born in Hunan, Mr. Liu earned degrees in Taiwan and Utah. He founded and built Tireco into one of North America's largest importers and private brand marketers of tires and tire-related products from Asia. Liu and his family endowed the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies at Notre Dame University. It honors his father, Liu Fang-wu, a Chinese general who led forces in the rescue of 7,500 British and American soldiers held captive by Japanese forces in Burma. Liu serves on the board of the Pacific Council on International Policy and has been on the board of the Los Angeles Parks Foundation. In 2008, he was one of a select few to represent North American at the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

 

This video is also available on the USCI YouTube Channel.

Ren Sun
UCLA Associate Vice Chancellor for Internationalization

Associate Vice Chancellor Sun wears many hats at UCLA. He has been a professor of molecular and medical pharmacology since 1998. His research team works on tumor-associated viruses and he is a member of interdisciplinary research teams at the California NanoSystem Institute, the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Molecular Biology Institute, the Dental Research Institute, and the AIDS Institute. He’s Senior Associate Dean for Graduate Studies at the David Geffen School of Medicine. He is the driving force behind several UCLA and Zhejiang University collaborations.

 

This video is also available on the USCI YouTube Channel.

Ronald Cheng
Assistant U.S. Attorney, Los Angeles

Mr. Cheng served as the resident legal advisor at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing for several years. In that capacity he traveled extensively and met with Chinese legal officials and lawyers to discuss legal procedures and other matters.  Prior to that posting Mr. Cheng served in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California and served as acting chief of criminal division and chief of the criminal appeals section. Since returning to the United States, he worked on the prosecution team in the Bank of China case in which three Bank managers conspired to steal $482 million and launder a portion of those funds in the United States. He’s returned to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and is now specializing in cyber and intellectual property crimes. Mr. Cheng earned his undergraduate degree at Yale University and his law degree at Columbia University.

 

This video is also available on the USCI YouTube Channel.

April 26, 2014 (click here for the event listing)
Committee of 100 23rd Annual Conference

Panel Discussion: Building U.S.-China Strategic Trust Speakers: Jia Qingguo (dean, PKU School for International Studies), David Lampton (Johns Hopkins University), Eric X. Li (Chengwei Capital), and Cheng Li (director, John L. Thornton China Center, Brookings Institution)