U.S.-China Scholarly Exchange

Started amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, the U.S.–China Scholarly Exchange Project encompasses our efforts to promote scholarly exchange and dialogue between the two countries, particularly in the wake of the recent historic lows in travel and communication.

The first component is a series of exchanges between the program and partners in China. It began with an exchange of visits in 2022, in the midst of the pandemic, between Trustee Chair Scott Kennedy and Wang Jisi, Founding President of Peking University's Institute of International and Strategic Studies (IISS) and one of China’s leading authorities on U.S.-China relations. On the foundation of their visits, CSIS and IISS are in the process of organizing a pair of international conferences, with a dozen scholars from both countries, to be held in Beijing and Washington in the second half of 2023. The purpose of the meetings is to accelerate the resumption of in-person field research and scholarly exchange. This is being done through their own travel as well as an agenda that addresses questions of travel limitations, field-work conditions, access to data, financing research, and publications. We are grateful to the Henry Luce Foundation for its generous support for sharing our commitment to scholarly exchange and funding this stream of activity.

The other element of this project is a set of Track 2.0 dialogues between CSIS and counterparts in China, one on US-China relations and foreign policy issues, and the other on science and technology issues. Both were started in the early period of the pandemic and are held throughout the year.

In addition to exchanges and dialogues, this project produces commentaries and reports, and holds public events on related topics.