The 13th China Town Hall Annual Conference was held on Monday, November 18th, and was hosted by National Committee on U.S. Relations. As the local partner, Washington State China Relations Council gathered everyone in the Columbia Center to watch this conference together. George Stephanopoulos is served as moderator, and cooperated with Stephen Orlins, president of the National Committee on US-China Relations, Dr. Melanie Hart, senior fellow and director for China policy at the Center for American Progress, and Dr.  Yasheng Huang from the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dr. Ely Ratner, executive vice president and director of studies at the Center for a New American Security.

This year, the National Committee on US-China Relations slightly changed the format of the conference. The conference launched a series of discussions on hot topics. The US-China trade war is now in its 17th month, and experts agree that Trump is eager to reach a ” phase one deal.” According to Ely Ratner and marked “the end of a stage of US economic policy that has basically failed and that needs to be transitioned away from other aspects”. In addition, Dr. Melanie Hart also stressed that the deal was “just undoing the damage that has been done”. The losses include the counterattack from China after the United States imposed tariffs on China, which caused damage to the US agricultural economy. In addition, experts also talked about Xinjiang issues and Hong Kong issues, visa restrictions and the NBA, etc.

 

 

After the live broadcast, the senior economist Spencer Cohen gave a wonderful speech detailing the impact of the China-US trade war on Washington State and the United States.

WSCRC Executive Director Nor Coquillard recently participated in a panel conversation that was recorded for a Podcast episode of Crosscut Talks. The panel was convened to talk about the aborted WTO Ministerial Session in 1999 and whether the issues raised by the protestors of ’99 are still valid today.  

The panel was broken into three parts. The first section took a historical look at the events surrounding the WTO Protests, including footage from the documentary “This Is What Democracy Looks Like”. The moderator, Knute Berger, then led a discussion with Norm Stamper, the chief of the Seattle Police in 1999 and John Sellers who was the leader of the protestors. 

In the next section, Nikkita Oliver, community organizer, former mayoral candidate, educator and attorney and Nor talked about the issues of today including globalization and they discussed whether protests are an effective tactic for pushing policy changes. 

To conclude the evening, Edgar Villanueva, an expert on social justice philanthropy, talked about economic equity and how social philanthropy can help to right some of history’s past transgressions. 

A few of the panellists pushed back against large corporations and globalization to which Nor countered by noting how many people who had been lifted out of poverty due to the impacts of globalization citing China as an example.

 

The podcast will be available for listening in about a week’s time.