On November 12th, Duke Kunshan University, in conjunction with the prestigious National Committee on U.S.-China Relations (NCUSCR), hosted the 2015 CHINA Town Hall on Duke Kunshan campus. This is the first time that this annual NCUSCR event is held at Duke Kunshan, a U.S.-China joint-venture university located in Kunshan, Jiangsu Province, China. Two leading experts on the role of science and technology in the U.S.-China relations ‘ Dr. CAO Cong and Dr. Pete Suttmeier, participated in this event as panel speakers.
‘Won’t you be, won’t you be, please won’t you be my neighbor?’ The event kicked off with Dr. Andrew Field, associate dean for undergraduate programs at Duke Kunshan, humorously quoting a famous line from Fred Rogers’ lyrics. ‘Simple as it sounds, it is actually a very profound statement. I believe that China and America are increasingly next-door neighbors.’ Despite the seeming simplicity of the quote, Dr. Field encouraged the audiences to derive deeper insights from those words before beginning the journey to discovering more about US-China relations.
Following the opening remarks was a video presentation of the plenary session panel on U.S.-China economic and trade issues held in October 2015 by the National Committee in the US. ‘ The panel, moderated by NCUSCR President Stephen Orlins, showcased a dialogue among several China experts who discussed various aspects of the increasingly expanding bilateral commercial and business relationship between China and the United States. The panelists identified China’s foreign direct investment in the U.S. as ‘a new critically important dynamic in the U.S.-China relationship,’ and one that strengthens the two countries’ ‘people-to-people relations like no other business activity.’
2015 China Town Hall Webcast
In his presentation following the webcast, Dr. Suttmeier, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Oregon provided a holistic review of the history of the science and technology interaction between China and the U.S. ‘In a very interesting way, science and technology relationship has opened up and deepened some aspects of the political relationship, ‘said Dr. Suttmeier. ‘If we fast forward to today, we can see that our vision in 1978, which was to create a dense network of interaction between the two countries in these areas, has certainly come to pass.” Today, it is clear that overall Sino-U.S. interdependence has grown because of the far reaching extent of S&T ties across academia, think tanks, government labs, corporations–big and small, and private individuals.
Dr. Richard P. Suttmeier
Dr. Suttmeier also commented on the current status of U.S.-China science and technology cooperation. ‘The government-to-government relationship persists, and there are vibrant ties through commercial and academic channels, too,’ said Dr. Suttmeier. ‘For instance, the increasing number of ‘co-authoring’ between US-based and China-based scientists is striking to see.’
Dr. CAO Cong, the other panel speaker, who heads the China Studies Program at the University of Nottingham-Ningbo, focused his talk on the talent issues in the two countries’ relations. Quoting from “China’s Emerging Technological Edge,” a book co-authored by Dr. Cao and Dr. Denis Simon, executive vice chancellor of Duke Kunshan University, he said that ‘China’s innovation challenge, in essence, is a challenge of talent,’ and that ‘attracting not only more but also high-quality returnees from overseas could enhance China’s innovation efforts.’
Dr. Cao Cong
Dr. Cao concluded his speech by bringing up several emerging issues in the educational exchange between China and the United States. ‘There is a significant imbalance between the two countries in terms of the number of students in the other country; intellectual property rights and some examples of unethical behavior by Chinese-American scientists doing research in China and the US are also pressing issues that we need to look at.’
Panel Speakers Interacting with Audience
Designed to educate and inform people across US and China about the latest trends in US-China relations, China Town Hall’s 2015 programming on China involved over 70 cities throughout the United States. More than 100 students, faculty and staff at Duke Kunshan as well as local officials, educators and business associates attended the session on Duke Kunshan campus. The event was organized by Duke Kunshan’sexecutive vice chancellor, Dr. Denis Simon, who is a long time member of the National Committee for U.S.-China Relations and has been a frequent speaker at China Town Hall events in the U.S., especially related to bilateral innovation and technology transfer issues.
Duke Kunshan Students, Faculty, Staff and Friends in the Audience
