Executive Roundtable on Global Risks and Opportunities in Restructured Asian Supply Chains

Join Asia Society Northern California for an off-the-record Executive Roundtable discussion for Board, Advisory Council, Groundbreaker and Innovator Members on Global Risks and Opportunities in Restructured Asian Supply Chains with William Chik, Consul General of Singapore in San Francisco, Etel Solingen, Distinguished Professor and the Thomas T. and Elizabeth C. Tierney Chair in Peace and Conflict Studies, Jeff Rittener, Chief Trade Officer and General Manager of International Trade Group (ITG) at Intel, and Lani Tito, Senior Export Administration Specialist with the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security’s (BIS) Western Regional Office. on Thursday, September 29, 2022 from 11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. Pacific in Silicon Valley. This program will be moderated by Advisory Council Member and Director of the Asia IP Law Project at University of California Berkeley Center For Law & Technology Mark Cohen. Lunch will be served.

Beginning with Trump-era tariffs imposed against Chinese imports, a wave of geo- political, economic and other factors have been forcing multinationals based in China to consider whether some or all of their production needs to be relocated outside of China. The reasons are many, but include such factors as: higher costs of production in China, access to strategic materials or technologies (such as semiconductors), over-dependence on China for key medical supplies, increasing costs and delays in shipping goods, US export controls and other trade sanctions, and concerns about government interventions or retaliation.  

The Asia Society of Northern California is pleased to bring together experts, who are trying to navigate this complicated landscape to assess and ultimately reduce any perceived risks they may face. In this first program on global supply chains in Silicon Valley, we hope to quantify the risks, consider the appropriate strategies, and exchange experiences and best practices for increasingly fraught supply chains.

This event is the third of eight in our popular Seeking Truth Through Facts U.S.-China Program Series, which focuses on new strategic frameworks for the bilateral relationship, plurilateral relationships, rebalancing trade, national security, technology, and climate change; as well as the global impact of the political and economic landscape. This program will lead up to our annual Future of U.S. & China Conference held in January 2023. 

This Executive Roundtable Program is a special benefit for our Board, Advisory Council, Groundbreaker and Innovator Members. Learn more and become a member today: https://asiasociety.org/northern-california/join-our-community. Membership will be verified by Asia Society. We will send you the RSVP confirmation via Eventbrite* one week before the program begins.

Space is limited. 

AGENDA

Date: Thursday, September 29, 2022 from 11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. Pacific 
Board, Advisory Council, Groundbreaker and Innovator Event.

11:00 a.m.     Event Registration and Networking
11:30 a.m.     Event and Q&A Discussion, lunch will be served
12:45 p.m.     Networking
1:00 p.m.       Event Concludes 

Location: Venue address in Silicon Valley will be confirmed upon RSVP confirmation. We will send you the venue location via Eventbrite* 1 week before the program begins.

*If Eventbrite emails frequently go to your spam folder, add the following email addresses to your contacts: noreply@campaign.eventbrite.com, noreply@event.eventbrite.com, noreply@order.eventbrite.com, noreply@reminder.eventbrite.com. This will help your email provider better route the emails to your inbox.

All guests must show ID and proof of vaccination before entry, and are encouraged to bring a mask.

SPEAKER BIOS

Asia Society Northern California Advisory Council Member Mark Cohen (Moderator) is Senior Fellow and Director of the Asia IP Law Project at University of California Berkeley Center For Law & Technology. With over 30 years’ experience as a law firm attorney, in-house counsel, government official, and adjunct and visiting professor of law, Cohen was previously Senior Counsel and Senior Advisor to the Undersecretary of Commerce/Director of the USPTO. He is widely recognized as the leading expert in the U.S. on intellectual property law in China.

Some of Mark’s articles on supply chain disruptions: A Techno-globalist Approach to IP and Supply Chain Disruption (with Philip Rogers); When Sino-America Struggle Disrupts the Supply China: Licensing IP in a Changing Trade Environment (with Philip Rogers), and Overlooked Strategies for Surviving the Trade War (with Dan Prud’homme).

William Chik, is Consul General of Singapore in San Francisco since 2020. Mr Chik joined the Singapore Foreign Service in 1994, and has specialized in the Southeast Asia and South Asia regions throughout his career.

At the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr Chik was assigned to various roles including Country Officer for Malaysia and Vietnam in the Policy, Planning & Analysis Directorate, Senior Technical Cooperation Officer at the Technical Cooperation Directorate, Assistant Director for Thailand in the Policy, Planning & Analysis Directorate, and Assistant Director at the ASEAN Directorate and Policy, Planning & Analysis Directorate. His overseas assignments include postings in Bangladesh, Cambodia and Myanmar. Prior to his current appointment, Mr Chik was Singapore’s Consul to Bangladesh in Dhaka from June 2017 to August 2020. 

Mr Chik graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from National University of Singapore in 1991. He obtained his Master’s Degree (Arts) in 1994 from National University of Singapore and second Master’s Degree (Strategic Studies) in 2002 from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Professor Etel Solingen is a Distinguished Professor and the Thomas T. and Elizabeth C. Tierney Chair in peace and conflict studies at the University of California, Irvine. She received the 2018 William and Katherine Estes Award from the National Academy of Sciences recognizing basic research on issues relating to nuclear weapons. She is a former President of the International Studies Association and the recipient of the 2019 Distinguished Scholar award in International Security. Solingen also served as Chair of the Steering Committee of the University of California’s systemwide Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, President of ISA’s International Political Economy Section, President of APSA’s International History and Politics Section, and member of the APSA’s Presidential Taskforce on U.S. Standing in World Affairs. Her recent publications include Geopolitics, Supply Chains, and International Relations in East Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2021) and Rising Risks to Global ValueChains in GVC Development Report 2021.

Jeff Rittener is Chief Trade Officer and General Manager of International Trade Group (ITG) at Intel. As Intel’s top Trade representative, he is the key decision maker on trade matters, as well as the lead advisor to the CEO, board, and General Counsel on the implications for Intel’s business.
 
Jeff leads a global team of over 120 employees that represent Intel’s more than 70 sites around the world, shaping the trade environment to advance business strategy, open new market opportunities, ensure compliance, and accelerate growth. He is responsible for directing a unified strategy on a range of priorities that are critical to Intel, its customers, and the industry, across international trade policy, laws, regulations & compliance. He has spent over 30 years at Intel and is a recognized change agent and industry thought leader on global trade. 

Lani Tito is a Senior Export Administration Specialist with the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security’s (BIS) Western Regional Office. Ms. Tito conducts BIS outreach and educational activities for the western region of the United States and is a lead contributor to BIS’ outreach efforts to small- and medium-sized enterprises and academia. In 2021, Ms. Tito was awarded a Department of Commerce Bronze Medal for developing educational videos for the business community. Prior to joining BIS’s Western Regional Office, Ms. Tito supported a number of programs for BIS in Washington D.C. She represented BIS at the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States interagency meetings, supported the Operating Committee, reviewed export license applications and classification requests, and assisted in the drafting of annual reports to Congress on Offsets in Defense Trade. Ms. Tito also worked for the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). Ms. Tito served as a national program manager for HSI’s Commercial Fraud Unit, overseeing customs trade fraud cases. She received her Bachelors of Science in Commerce and Economics from Santa Clara University and her Master in Public Policy from American University.