U.S. China Relations: Coexistence in a Changing World

The emergence of China’s economic strength and ambition has changed the global order. Can this world accept multiple leaders? How has the current U.S.-China relationship been influenced by culture, philosophy, and history? Our esteemed panel of experts; Robert Daly, Director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Wilson Center; David Firestein, President and CEO of the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations; and Mary Kay Magistad, Deputy Director of Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations; will lay down a foundational understanding of the relationship and provide perspectives on the path forward.

A turbulent U.S.-China relationship is not new. These two countries have a long, deep-seated history which has led to a complex relationship that impacts the entire global community. We will examine how tensions past and present and the history of U.S.-China relations starting in the 1850s have influenced how we’ve arrived at where we are today. The workshop will include a Q&A session with our panelists and a discussion on how to use this material in secondary school classrooms.

This virtual Teachers Workshop supports educators who teach Social Studies, World History, Modern History, Languages, and Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Studies and/or Ethnic Studies but is open to all. Our co-sponsor for the event is Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations. Registration is open!

Robert Daly is the director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Woodrow Wilson Center in August 2013.  He came to the Wilson Center from the Maryland China Initiative at the University of Maryland.  Prior to that, he was American Director of the Johns Hopkins University-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies in Nanjing.  Robert Daly began work in U.S.-China relations as a diplomat, serving as Cultural Exchanges Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing in the late 80s and early 90s.  After leaving the Foreign Service, he taught Chinese at Cornell University, worked on television (北京人在纽约) and theater projects in China as a host, actor, and writer, and helped produce Chinese-language versions of Sesame Street and other Children’s Television Workshop programs. From 2000 to 2001, he was American Director of the U.S.-China Housing Initiative at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.  Mr. Daly has testified before Congress on U.S.-China relations and has lectured at scores of Chinese and American institutions, including the Smithsonian Institution, the East-West Center, the Asia Society, and the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.  He has lived in China for 11 years and has interpreted for Chinese leaders, including Jiang Zemin and Li Yuanchao, and American leaders, including Jimmy Carter and Henry Kissinger. 

David J. Firestein is the inaugural president and CEO of the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations (Bush China Foundation) and a founding and current member of the Foundation’s Board of Directors. He is based in Austin, Texas. Prior to joining the Bush China Foundation, Mr. 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. Before moving to UT, Mr. Firestein served as senior vice president and Perot Fellow at the New York City-based EastWest Institute (EWI), where he led the Institute’s track 2 diplomacy work in the areas of U.S.-China relations, East Asian security and U.S.-Russia relations. Mr. Firestein is the author or co-author of three books on China, including two China-published Chinese-language best-sellers, as well as a large number of China-focused monographs, policy reports and articles (and publications on non-China-related topics).

Mary Kay Magistad is the Deputy Director of the Asia Society Center on U.S.-China Relations. She is an award-winning journalist who lived and reported in East Asia for more than two decades, including in China for NPR (1995-99) and PRX’s The World (2003-13). She has taught international reporting at the University of California at Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, where she also led the audio journalism department. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Dupont-Columbia Silver Baton award, an Overseas Press Club award, and awards from Sigma Delta Chi/Society of Professional Journalists and the Scripps-Howard Foundation. She has an M.A. from the University of Sussex (UK) in international relations and a B.A. from Northwestern University in journalism and history.