Asia Program Conference

China Rising: Assessing China’s Economic and Military Power

Monday, March 12, 2007

Union League of Philadelphia

Conference Report

China Rising: Assessing China’s Economic And Military Power— A Conference Report: by Jacques deLisle; The Chinese Communist Party holds its Seventeenth National Congress this month. That congress and the session of China's national legislature next March mark the midway point and the reconfirmation in power of the Hu Jintao-Wen Jiabao leadership and provide occasions for assessing China's recent rise and its road ahead. In anticipation of these two congresses, FPRI convened a group of experts to consider the extent and implications of China's rise as a military and economic power. [continue]

Speakers and Topics

Welcoming Remarks: Harvey Sicherman, President, FPRI
Assessing the Foundation of China’s Rise: Strengths, Weaknesses and Prospects for China’s Economy: Paper: Albert Keidel, Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Commentator: Thomas G. Rawski, Professor of Economics and History, University of Pittsburgh, and Xiaobo Hu, Director, China Program, Clemson University; Moderator: Jacques deLisle, Director, FPRI Asia Program, and Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania
China’s Energy Needs and Policies: International Economic and Security Issues: Paper: Erica S. Downs, China Energy Fellow, The Brookings Institution; Commentators: Felix Chang, Management Consultant, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Jacques deLisle, Director, FPRI Asia Program; Moderator: Harvey Sicherman, President, FPRI
John Pomfret, author of Chinese Lessons: Raised in New York City and educated at Stanford and Nanjing universities, John Pomfret is an award-winning journalist with The Washington Post. He has been a foreign correspondent for 15 years, covering big wars and small in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Congo, Sri Lanka, Iraq, southwestern Turkey and northeastern Iran. Pomfret has spent seven years covering China - one in the late 1980s during the Tiananmen Square protests and then from 1998 until the end of 2003 as the bureau chief for The Washington Post in Beijing. Pomfret speaks, reads and writes Mandarin, having spent two years at Nanjing University in the early 1980s as part of one of the first groups of American students to study in China. In 2003, Pomfret was awarded the Osborne Elliot Award for the best coverage of Asia by the Asia Society.
China’s Power and Will: Two Views of the PRC’s Military Strength and Grand Strategy: Paper: Chinese Military Power: What Vexes the United States and Why? (16 pages, 123K ) by Jonathan Pollack, Professor of Asian and Pacific Studies, and Chair of Strategic Research Department, U.S. Naval War College; Paper: China’s Power and Will: The PRC’s Military Strength and Grand Strategy (14 pages, 123K ) by June Teufel Dreyer, Professor of Political Science, University of Miami, and Senior Fellow,FPRI; Commentator: Avery Goldstein, Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania, and Senior Fellow,FPRI; Moderator: James Kurth, Editor, Orbis and Claude Smith Professor of Political Science, Swarthmore College
China’s Rise and the Cross-Strait Issue: Taiwan and U.S.-PRC Relations: Paper: John J. Tkacik Jr., Senior Research Fellow, The Heritage Foundation; Commentators: Harvey Feldman, Heritage Foundation, and RADM Michael McDevitt (USN, Ret.), Director, Center for Strategic Studies, CNA Corporation; Moderator: Jacques deLisle, University of Pennsylvania/FPRI

Multimedia/Webcasts

A|V - Assessing the Foundation of China’s Rise: Strengths, Weaknesses and Prospects for China’s Economy, Albert Keidel, 3/12/2007
A|V - China’s Energy Needs and Policies: International Economic and Security Issues, Erica S. Downs, 3/12/2007
A|V - China’s Power and Will: Two Views of the PRC’s Military Strength and Grand Strategy, Jonathan D. Pollack and June Teufel Dreyer, 3/12/2007
A|V - China’s Rise and the Cross-Strait Issue: Taiwan and U.S.-PRC Relations, John J. Tkacik Jr., 3/12/2007

For additional information, please e-mail fpri@fpri.org