Washington, D.C.—This week Brookings’ John L. Thornton China Center hosted the U.S.-China Leaders Forum at The Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands. The forum, held from May 8 to May 10, 2016, brought together high-level policymakers, business leaders, military strategists, policy scholars, scientists, and innovators to foster greater trust between the United States and China, as well as develop ideas for increased collaboration between the two countries on issues of the day and topics of long-term strategic interest.
The John L. Thornton China Center focuses its research on the rise of China and its place at the forefront of global strategic change in the 21st century. Economic, geopolitical, technological, institutional, demographic, and environmental developments in the People’s Republic of China will be extraordinary in their scope and depth and will shape international politics and U.S.-China relations for decades to come.
The topics discussed during the U.S.-China Leaders Forum included economic and trade ties, China’s economic reform, regional and global security, technological innovation, and climate change. The in-depth and timely discussions also focused on the potential trajectory of U.S.-China relations under the next American president.
Participants in the inaugural Brookings U.S.-China Leaders Forum at Sunnylands included:
- Ambassador Jeffrey Bader, Senior Fellow, John L. Thornton China Center, Brookings
- Ambassador Cui Tiankai, Chinese Ambassador to the United States
- Deng Feng, Founding Managing Director, Northern Light Venture Capital
- Ding Jian, Managing Director, GSR Ventures
- Ambassador Fu Ying, Chairwoman, Foreign Affairs Committee, National People’s Congress
- Stephen Hadley, Former National Security Advisor to President George W. Bush
- Hu Angang, Dean, Institute for Contemporary China Studies, Chinese Academy of Sciences
- Ambassador Jon Huntsman, Former U.S. Ambassador to China; Former Governor, State of Utah
- Ambassador Martin Indyk, Executive Vice President, Brookings
- Cheng Li, Director, John L. Thornton China Center, Brookings
- Li Shan, Vice Chairman, Silk Road Planning Research Center
- Governor Terry McAuliffe, State of Virginia
- Janet Napolitano, President, University of California; Former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security
- Indra Nooyi, Chairman and CEO, PepsiCo
- Qiu Yong, President, Tsinghua University
- Stefan Selig, U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade
- John Thornton, Co-Chairman, Board of Trustees, Brookings
- Yang Bin, Vice President and Provost, Tsinghua University
- Jerry Yang, Founding Partner, AME Cloud Ventures; Co-Founder and Former CEO, Yahoo! Inc.
- Yang Yuanqing, Chief Executive Officer, Lenovo
- Major General Yao Yunzhu, Director, Center on China-America Defense Relations
- Zhu Min, Deputy Managing Director, International Monetary Fund
- Ambassador Robert Zoellick, Former President, World Bank; Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State
For questions or interview requests with the Forum’s organizers, please contact Gail Chalef, director of communications for Foreign Policy at Brookings, at either (202) 797-4396 or (202) 460-3212.