Join Asia Society Northern California on Thursday, January 13, 2022 from 9:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Pacific for our fourth annual all-day Future of U.S. and China Conference! 

View the PDF Program for our conference here. 

This conference is fully virtual.  Although we have been very excited to host guests in-person for this program, with the rise of Omicron cases and the aim of keeping participants safe, our all-day conference is now entirely online.

Tickets are complimentary for members. Videos from last year’s conference had 200,000 YouTube views.

Registration will close on Wednesday, January 12 at 5:00 p.m. Pacific. 

Conference Agenda:

9:30 a.m. – 9:35 a.m. - Welcome Remarks

• Margaret Conley, Executive Director, Asia Society Northern California

9:35 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. - Session 1 - The Current Power Construct Between the U.S. and China

• Kevin Rudd, President and CEO, Asia Society

10:00 a.m. –11:00 a.m. - Session 2 - One Year into the Biden Administration

• Ira Kasoff (Moderator), Senior Counselor, APCO Worldwide
• Wendy Cutler, Vice President, Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI)
• Deborah Lehr, CEO, Edelman Global Advisory
• Anja Manuel, Co-Founder and Partner, Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC

11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. - Session 3 - Risks and Opportunities: The Cost of the Deteriorating Financial Relationship with the U.S. and China

• Andy Rothman (Moderator), Investment Strategist, Matthews Asia
• Nicholas Borst, Vice President and Director of China Research, Seafarer Capital Partners
• Nicholas Lardy, Anthony M. Solomon Senior Fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)
• Rui Ma, China Tech Analyst, Main Writer & Co-Host, Tech Buzz China
• Edith Yeung, General Partner, Race Capital

12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. - Lunch Break

 
1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. - Session 4 - Semiconductors and the Impact on the Relationship Between the U.S. and China

• Orville Schell (Moderator), Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations, Asia Society
• Syed Alam, Managing Director, Semiconductor Industry Global Lead, Accenture
• Stephen Ezell, Vice President, Director of Global Innovation Policy, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF)
• Don Rosenberg, Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Qualcomm
• H.-S. Philip Wong, Professor of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University

2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. - Session 5 - What is the Role of the Business Community Going Forward?

• Gary Rieschel (Moderator), Chair, Asia Society Northern California
• Myron Brilliant, Executive Vice President and Head of the International Affairs Division, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
• Howard Chen, Co-Chair of the Firm's China Practice, Greenberg Traurig
• James McGregor, Chairman, APCO Worldwide’s Greater China Region

3:00 p.m. – 3:20 p.m. Coffee Break


3:20 p.m. – 4:20 p.m. - Session 6 - Chinese Succession in 2022: Prospects for President Xi’s Re-election and Implications for China’s Global Ambitions

• Larry Diamond (Moderator), Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
• Joseph Felter, William J. Perry Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and Research Fellow, Hoover Institution
• Lingling Wei, Chief China Correspondent, The Wall Street Journal

4:20 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. Closing Remarks

• Gary Rieschel, Chair, Asia Society Northern California
   

Our all-day virtual conference will be followed by a half hour VIP Reception from 4:30 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. Pacific. The VIP Reception will be private and off-the-record with direct access to our speakers. Advisory Board, Groundbreaker Members, Innovator Members, and Sponsors will receive a link to join the VIP Reception the week of our program. To become a Groundbreaker or Innovator Member, visit here. 

Sponsorship opportunities are still available for this conference.  If you or your company would like to support us by making a contribution, please email Rahul Devaskar, Director of Partnerships, at [email protected]

This Conference is the final event in our eight-part Seeking Truth Through Facts U.S.-China program series. This year's series has covered topics including Intellectual Property in the Crossfire, The Quad and Potential for Future Cooperation, Belt and Road, Tech Policy, Energy Generation and Storage, Great Power Politics, and China Relations and Strategy Post-Cold War, and has engaged experts from the United States and Asia.

Last year, this event honored honorary chair of Asia Society Northern California and former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz for his lifelong contributions to U.S.-China relations and in celebration of his centennial birthday.  Tribute participants included Ambassador William J. Burns, Ambassador Winston Lord and Dr. Kiron Skinner. Secretary Shultz and Dr. Henry Kissinger participated in a joint interview, moderated by Asia Society Policy Institute Vice President Daniel Russel.

Watch videos from our past three annual conferences: 2021 Future of U.S. and China Conference, 2020 Future of U.S. and China Conference; and 2019 Made in China 2025: The Policy Behind the Rhetoric.

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THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS

 

 

 

Lisa B. Barry

 

 

 

Dobkin Family Foundation

 

 

Fan Tan Smith

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SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES

The Honorable Kevin Rudd

The Honorable Kevin Rudd is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Asia Society, effective January 1st, 2021 and current President of the Asia Society Policy Institute. He served as Australia’s 26th Prime Minister (2007-2010, 2013) and as Foreign Minister (2010-2012). He is also a leading international authority on China. He began his career as a China scholar, serving as an Australian diplomat in Beijing before entering Australian politics. Mr. Rudd joined the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) in New York as its inaugural President in January 2015. ASPI is a “think-do tank” dedicated to using second-track diplomacy to assist governments and businesses in resolving policy challenges within Asia, and between Asia and the West.

Gary Rieschel

Gary has over 25 years of successful operating and investing experience as a senior executive, entrepreneur, investor, and global business strategist. He is Founding Managing Partner of Qiming, a firm with over $3 billion focused on early stage investments in China and one of China’s premier venture capital firms. Mr. Rieschel’s personal investment areas are Healthcare and Cleantech. He advised the China Greentech Initiative, and the Rocky Mountain Institute in its move to China. He actively supports the US China Clean Energy Forum, PERC (Property and Environmental Research), The Nature Conservancy, the Climate Leadership Council, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the U.S. Olympic Foundation. He served on the joint venture boards of Blackrock/Bank of China and Silicon Valley Bank/Shanghai Pudong Development Bank. Gary holds a BA in Biology from Reed College in Portland, OR, and an MBA from the Harvard Business School. He lived in Japan for five years in the late 1980s and lived in Shanghai from 2005 through 2016. He now lives in Seattle, WA. He is Chair of the Asia Society Northern California Advisory Board.

Wendy Cutler

Wendy Cutler is Vice President at the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) and the managing director of the Washington, D.C. office. In these roles, she focuses on building ASPI’s presence in the nation's capital and on leading initiatives that address challenges related to trade, investment, and innovation, as well as women’s empowerment in Asia. She joined ASPI following an illustrious career of nearly three decades as a diplomat and negotiator in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), where she also served as Acting Deputy U.S. Trade Representative. During her USTR career, she worked on a range of bilateral, regional, and multilateral trade negotiations and initiatives, including the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, U.S.-China negotiations, and the WTO Financial Services negotiations. She has published a series of ASPI papers on the Asian trade landscape and serves as a regular media commentator on trade and investment developments in Asia and the world. 

Ira Kasoff

Dr. Ira Kasoff is a recognized expert on Asia.  He has lived and worked extensively in the region – 10 years in mainland China (Beijing and Shanghai), eight years in Japan, eight in Hong Kong, and two in Taiwan.  He is a member of the International Advisory Council of APCO Worldwide, a global public affairs consultancy, and the Advisory Board of the Southern California branch of the Asia Society. 

From 2007-10 Kasoff served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Asia, where he oversaw Asia trade policy for the Department.  From 1985 to 2007, Kasoff was a diplomat, serving in senior positions in the US Consulate General in Shanghai, Osaka and Hong Kong and the US Embassy in Tokyo.  Earlier in his career Kasoff worked for the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), as the Beijing representative for Fuqua World Trade Corporation, and at the National Committee on US-China Relations.

Dr. Kasoff received his B.A. from Harvard University in 1973, and his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1982.  He is the author of a book on Chinese intellectual history, published by the Cambridge University Press, and translated into Chinese and published by the Shanghai Classics Publishing House. 

Deborah Lehr

Deborah Lehr serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Edelman Global Advisory, a strategic business consulting firm. In addition, she is the Executive Director of the Paulson Institute, a think tank founded by former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson located at the University of Chicago. Deborah previously built and managed three successful consulting businesses representing diverse Western and Chinese companies such as Sesame Workshop, Tory Burch, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Pfizer, Sony Music, Time Warner and Boeing. She provided strategic advice and counsel on their growth in China and other markets.

In addition, she served as Senior Advisor to the Chairman and CEO of Merrill Lynch, was a Senior Managing Director at the New York Stock Exchange focused on emerging markets and was President of Stonebridge China, with offices in Beijing and Shanghai. Prior to joining Stonebridge, Deborah was a partner at Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw, a global top-10 law firm, where she helped build a successful trade business. Deborah also served in the U.S. government where she was the Deputy Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for China, a Director of Asian Affairs at the National Security Council, and involved in export control and trade policy issues at the Department of Commerce.

Anja Manuel

Former diplomat, author, and advisor on emerging markets, Anja Manuel is Co-Founder and Principal along with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, in Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, a strategic consulting firm that helps U.S. companies navigate international markets.  She is the author of the critically acclaimed This Brave New World: India, China and the United States, published by Simon and Schuster in 2016. From 2005-2007, she served as an official at the U.S. Department of State, responsible for South Asia Policy.

Earlier in her career, Ms. Manuel was an attorney at WilmerHale working on corporate governance, international and Supreme Court cases, and represented special committees of major corporate boards before the US Congress, Department of Justice and the SEC. She was also an investment banker at Salomon Brothers in London. A graduate of Harvard Law School and Stanford University, Manuel now also lectures and is a Research Affiliate at Stanford University.

Nicholas Borst

Nicholas joined Seafarer Capital Partners in 2018. He is Vice President and Director of China Research. Prior to joining Seafarer, Nicholas was a senior analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco covering financial and economic developments in Greater China. Previously, he was the China Program Manager and a research associate at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Nicholas has also worked as an analyst at the World Bank. Nicholas’ research and commentary has been featured in The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Bloomberg, and The South China Morning Post. Nicholas is a 2021-2023 Public Intellectuals Program Fellow at the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and has testified before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission on multiple occasions.  Nicholas holds a B.A. in Political Science and International Studies from the University of Arizona and a Master’s degree in International Relations and Economics from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He is a CFA charter holder and a member of the CFA Institute.

Nicholas Lardy

Nicholas R. Lardy is the Anthony M. Solomon Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He joined the Institute in March 2003 from the Brookings Institution, where he was a senior fellow from 1995 until 2003. Before Brookings, he served at the University of Washington, where he was the director of the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies from 1991 to 1995. From 1997 through the spring of 2000, he was also the Frederick Frank Adjunct Professor of International Trade and Finance at the Yale University School of Management. He is an expert on the Chinese economy. Lardy's most recent books are The State Strikes Back: The End of Economic Reform in China? (2019), Markets over Mao: The Rise of Private Business in China (2014), Sustaining China's Economic Growth after the Global Financial Crisis (2012), The Future of China's Exchange Rate Policy (2009), and China's Rise: Challenges and Opportunities (2008). He received his BA from the University of Wisconsin in 1968 and his PhD from the University of Michigan in 1975, both in economics.

Edith Yeung

Edith is a General Partner at Race Capital - an early-stage Silicon Valley venture capital fund. A few sectors she is particularly interested in are infrastructure, fintech, and deep tech verticals. Edith has invested in 3x Decacorns (FTX, Solana, Stellar), 1 Unicorn (Agora.io) and 60 other startups. Prior to Race Capital, Edith was a partner at 500 Startups, the world's most active early-stage fund and incubator invested in Twilio, Credit Karma, Grab, and 2000 more companies. Before 500, Edith was the general manager at Dolphin Browser, a Sequoia-backed mobile browser with over 150 million installs worldwide. Edith also worked with many Fortune 500 companies such as Siebel, AMS, AT&T Wireless, and Autodesk. She frequently speaks on China and Silicon Valley technology and investment landscape. She is also a frequent guest lecturer at Berkeley and Stanford and commentator on BBC, CNBC, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, SCMP, Techcrunch, etc. 

Rui Ma

Rui Ma has nearly two decades of experience in technology and finance, spanning seed stage to pre-IPO investing spread evenly between the US and China. She founded Tech Buzz China in 2018 to educate and consult investors, funds and entrepreneurs on Chinese tech companies’ products, strategies and trends. She previously worked at 500 Startups as an investment partner, and she spent a decade in private equity and mergers and acquisitions roles at the Raine Group, Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch in Silicon Valley and China. Rui holds a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley, and additional degrees from Tsinghua, INSEAD, UIUC and Harvard University.

Andy Rothman

Andy is an Investment Strategist at Matthews Asia. He is principally responsible for developing research focused on China’s ongoing economic and political developments while also complementing the broader investment team with in-depth analysis on Asia. In addition, Andy plays a key role in communicating to clients and the media the firm’s perspectives and latest insights into China and the greater Asia region. Prior to joining Matthews Asia in 2014, Andy spent 14 years as CLSA’s China macroeconomic strategist where he conducted analysis into China and delivered his insights to their clients. Previously, Andy spent 17 years in the U.S. Foreign Service, with a diplomatic career focused on China, including as head of the macroeconomics and domestic policy office of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. He earned an M.A. in public administration from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and a B.A. from Colgate University. He is a proficient Mandarin speaker.

Syed Alam

Syed Alam is global lead for Accenture’s Semiconductor practice. He is responsible for Accenture’s semiconductor business across the semiconductor ecosystem including IDMs, fabless, equipment manufacturers, foundries and IP companies, Syed brings 20+ years of high tech and semiconductor experience in advising major semiconductor companies on growth strategy, M&A opportunities, go-to-market strategy, joint ventures, partnerships and service revenue models. Prior to Accenture, Syed worked at Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector and Freescale Semiconductor.

Stephen Ezell

Stephen Ezell is vice president, global innovation policy, at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). He focuses on science and technology policy, international competitiveness, trade, manufacturing, and services issues. He is the coauthor of Innovating in a Service-Driven Economy: Insights, Application, and Practice (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) and Innovation Economics: The Race for Global Advantage (Yale, 2012). Ezell comes to ITIF from Peer Insight, an innovation research and consulting firm he cofounded in 2003 to study the practice of innovation in service industries. At Peer Insight, Ezell led the Global Service Innovation Consortium, published multiple research papers on service innovation, and researched national service innovation policies being implemented by governments worldwide.

Prior to forming Peer Insight, Ezell worked in the New Service Development group at the NASDAQ Stock Market, where he spearheaded the creation of the NASDAQ Market Intelligence Desk and the NASDAQ Corporate Services Network, services for NASDAQ-listed corporations. Previously, Ezell cofounded two successful innovation ventures, the high-tech services firm Brivo Systems and Lynx Capital, a boutique investment bank. Ezell holds a B.S. from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, with an honors certificate from Georgetown’s Landegger International Business Diplomacy program.

Don Rosenberg

Donald J. Rosenberg recently retired as executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary of Qualcomm Incorporated. As chief legal officer, he was responsible for overseeing Qualcomm's worldwide legal affairs including litigation, intellectual property and corporate matters. In addition, he led Qualcomm's Global Government Affairs organization and Qualcomm’s Corporate Compliance department. He played a significant role in shaping and executing the company’s Strategic and Policy initiatives. Prior to joining Qualcomm, Mr. Rosenberg served as senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary of Apple Inc. Prior to that, he was senior vice president and general counsel of IBM Corporation.

Mr. Rosenberg has had extensive experience in corporate governance, compliance, law department management, litigation, securities regulation, intellectual property and competition issues. He has regularly engaged with high ranking officials worldwide on significant policy issues, with a particular focus on Asia and the European Union and its member states. Mr. Rosenberg is a board member of NuVasive, Inc. His non-profit board memberships include Corporate Directors Forum, Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego, Rady Children’s Institute for Genomic Medicine, Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute and La Jolla Playhouse. He is a past National Co-Chairman of the Board of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, where he continues to serve on the Board and the Executive Committee. Mr. Rosenberg is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Advisory Board, University of California San Diego (UCSD) School of Global Policy and Strategy, and the China Leadership Board for the 21st Century China Center at
UCSD. He has served as an adjunct professor of law at New York's Pace University School of Law, where he taught courses in intellectual property and antitrust law.

Orville Schell

Orville Schell is the Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at Asia Society in New York. He is a former professor and Dean at the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.  Schell is the author of 15 books, 10 of them about China, and a contributor to numerous edited volumes. His most recent books are: Wealth and Power, China’s Long March to the 21st Century; Virtual Tibet; The China Reader: The Reform Years; and Mandate of Heaven: The Legacy of Tiananmen Square and the Next Generation of China’s Leaders. He has written widely for many magazine and newspapers, including The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Time, The New Republic, Harpers, The Nation, The New York Review of Books, Wired, Foreign Affairs, The China Quarterly, and The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times.

Schell was born in New York City, graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard University in Far Eastern History, was an exchange student at National Taiwan University in the 1960s, and earned a Ph.D. (Abd) at University of California, Berkeley in Chinese History. He worked for the Ford Foundation in Indonesia, covered the war in Indochina as a journalist, and has traveled widely in China since the mid-70s.  He is a Fellow at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University, a Senior Fellow at the Annenberg School of Communications at USC and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Schell is also the recipient of many prizes and fellowships, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Overseas Press Club Award, and the Harvard-Stanford Shorenstein Prize in Asian Journalism.

H.-S. Philip Wong

H.-S. Philip Wong is the Willard R. and Inez Kerr Bell Professor in the School of Engineering at Stanford University. He joined Stanford University as Professor of Electrical Engineering in September, 2004. From 1988 to 2004, he was with the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. From 2018 to 2020, he was on leave from Stanford and was the Vice President of Corporate Research at TSMC, the largest semiconductor foundry in the world, and since 2020 remains Chief Scientist of TSMC. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and received the IEEE Electron Devices Society J.J. Ebers Award, the society’s highest honor to recognize outstand technical contributions to the field of electron devices that have made a lasting impact. He is the founding Faculty Co-Director of the Stanford SystemX Alliance — an industrial affiliate program focused on building systems, the faculty director of the Stanford Non-Volatile Memory Technology Research Initiative (NMTRI), and the faculty director of the Stanford Nanofabrication Facility.

Myron Brilliant

Myron Brilliant is executive vice president and head of the International Affairs Division at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the world’s largest business association. He provides strategic direction to over 80 regional and industry experts working to advance transparent, rules-based trade and investment policies around the globe. Previously, he served as the Chamber’s vice president for Asia. Under Brilliant’s leadership, the Chamber developed the largest international government relations program of any U.S. trade association, conducting programming in over 50 markets. During the past decade, Brilliant has strengthened the organization’s ties to the global network of American Chambers of Commerce and foreign business associations and deepened engagement with multilateral and regional organizations, including the G20, IDB, IMF, World Bank, and WTO.

Brilliant is a frequent commentator for national media outlets, covering international business and trade policy. He serves on the boards of the Atlantic Council, the U.S. Council for International Business, the Center for International Private Enterprise, the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, and the Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid for USAID. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the National Committee on United States-China Relations and an economic development adviser to the governor of China’s Guangdong Province. Before joining the Chamber in 1994, Brilliant was an attorney with Stewart and Stewart in Washington, D.C. He received his J.D. from American University’s Washington College of Law and his B.A. in government and politics from the University of Maryland.

Howard Chen

Howard Chen advises international companies doing business in Asia and the United States on intellectual property strategies, licensing negotiation, and litigation arising from intellectual property disputes. With deep knowledge of the business environment in China and strong relationships Asia based enterprises, Howard understands the cultural and business objectives of companies involved in cross-border transactions and litigation matters. He frequently travels to Asia and is well-recognized in several overseas markets.

James McGregor

James McGregor is chairman of APCO Worldwide’s greater China region and author of two highly regarded books: No Ancient Wisdom, No Followers: The Challenges of Chinese Authoritarian Capitalism, and One Billion Customers: Lessons from the Front Lines of Doing Business in China. He also wrote the noted APCO monograph China’s Drive for Indigenous Innovation—A Web of Industrial Policies. Prior to joining APCO, Mr. McGregor was the founder and CEO of a China-focused consulting and research firm for hedge funds, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal and a chief executive of Dow Jones & Company in China. Mr. McGregor is also a former chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, and has long served as a leader of AmCham’s U.S., government relations. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, the International Council of Asia Society and a board member of the U.S.-China Education Trust. Mr. McGregor is a professional speaker, regular television and radio commentator and a contributor of essays and opinion articles for a variety of publications. He lived in China for three decades and has been U.S.-based since last year when the COVID-19 outbreak led to border restrictions. 

Larry Diamond

Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also professor by courtesy of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford. He leads the Hoover Institution’s programs on China’s Global Sharp Power and on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region.  At FSI, he leads the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy, based at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, which he directed for more than six years.  He also co-leads with (Eileen Donahoe) the Global Digital Policy Incubator, based at FSI’s Cyber Policy Center. He is the founding coeditor of the Journal of Democracy and also serves as senior consultant at the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy. His research focuses on democratic trends and conditions around the world and on policies and reforms to defend and advance democracy. His latest edited book (with Orville Schell), China's Influence and American Interests (Hoover Press, 2019), urges a posture of constructive vigilance toward China’s global projection of “sharp power,” which it sees as a rising threat to democratic norms and institutions. He offers a massive open online course (MOOC) on Comparative Democratic Development through the edX platform and is now writing a textbook to accompany it. 

Joseph Felter

Joseph Felter is the William J. Perry Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and research fellow at the Hoover Institution.  From 2017 to 2019, Felter served as US deputy assistant secretary of defense for South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania. There he was the principal advisor for all policy matters pertaining to development and implementation of defense strategies and plans in the region and responsible for managing bilateral security relationships and guiding Department of Defense (DoD) engagement with multilateral institutions.  At Stanford, Felter is codirector of the Empirical Studies of Conflict Project and coauthor of Hacking for Defense, a defense innovation­–focused academic curriculum sponsored by the DoD and taught at more than 20 universities across the country. His previous academic positions include director of West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center, assistant professor in the US Military Academy’s Department of Social Sciences, and adjunct associate professor at Columbia University’s School for International and Public Affairs.

A former US Army Special Forces and Foreign Area officer, Joe served in a variety of special operations and diplomatic assignments across East and Southeast Asia. His combat deployments include Panama with the 75th Ranger Regiment, Iraq with a Joint Special Operations Task Force, and Afghanistan, where he commanded the COMISAF Counterinsurgency Advisory and Assistance Team, reporting directly to Generals Stanley McChrystal and David Petraeus.He received a BS from the US Military Academy at West Point, a masters in public administration from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, a graduate certificate in management from the University of West Australia, and a PhD in political science from Stanford University.

Lingling Wei

Lingling Wei is the chief China correspondent for The Wall Street Journal and co-author of “Superpower Showdown.” She covers China's political economy, focusing on the intersection of business and politics. Born and raised in China, she has an M.A. in journalism from N.Y.U., got her start covering U.S. real estate, and has won many awards for her China coverage. In 2021, she's among a team of reporters and editors whose work was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. 

Margaret Conley

Margaret Conley, a Bay Area native, is the Executive Director of Asia Society Northern California. Her non-profit experience includes the Berggruen Institute, where she launched a Philosophy + Culture Institute with a focus on the US and China. Margaret was based in Asia for several years as a television news correspondent with ABC News in Jakarta and Tokyo, and with Bloomberg Television in Shanghai. She was part of the global ABC team that won a News and Documentary Emmy Award for presidential inauguration coverage. Her interviews include Howard Schultz, Richard Branson, Ban Ki-Moon, LeBron James and Beyoncé. She has a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University and a master’s in journalism from the University of Hong Kong, which specializes in coverage of Asia. Margaret was selected as one of the Most Influential Women in Bay Area Business by the San Francisco Business Times in 2019. She is a member of the International Women's Forum.