Role of youth in US-China ties stressed

A group of experienced professional women who have made careers out of growing US-China relations gathered in Atlanta on Jan 30 to take stock of this important yet complex relationship's history, present challenges and outlook for the future.

This year's Jimmy Carter Forum on US-China Relations, which opened on Jan 29 with a concert and keynote address by Sarah Beran, a partner at Macro Advisory Partners and a former senior diplomat, was dedicated to women's contributions and perspectives with an array of all-female speakers this year.

According to conference organizer Yawei Liu, a senior adviser on China at The Carter Center and an adjunct professor at Emory University, this conference series, held every two years, was started in 2012 in Beijing by former president Jimmy Carter.

Beran examined the ups and downs in relations over the previous decades, noting that the relationship has demonstrated notable resilience over nearly a decade of strategic competition but remains on a structurally declining path with no clear endpoint. Nevertheless, both sides do have an interest in preventing competition from spiraling out of control.

"The relationship has changed, the two countries are different, but we need to manage this competition and find a path forward,"Beran said.

More than a dozen panelists shared their US-China experiences and examined multiple issues surrounding the relationship.

Jan Berris, vice-president at the National Committee on US-China Relations, has been at the forefront of building bilateral relations since her involvement with Ping-Pong Diplomacy in 1971. As an active participant for 55 years, she helped the relationship develop and blossom from a "void and formless era". She lamented the current period as "the worst time in the relationship".

Other younger panelists have all experienced the "golden age" of US-China relations and shared their wonderful time spent in China.

Elizabeth Knup, an honorary senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis, emphasized the need to move beyond nostalgia for the past "golden age" and focus on writing new stories for the relationship.

"I'm interested in a transitional period." Knup worked as the US director of the Hopkins-Nanjing Center from 1998 to 2001.

The panelists also emphasized the need to empower the younger generation to get curious and involved in US-China relations.

There are some hopeful signs, according to Rosie Levine, executive director of the US-China Education Trust, who spent her childhood in Beijing from ages 4 to 9, and completed her master's degree in Chinese studies at the Yenching Academy of Peking University between 2014 and 2018.

Levine said that many young people have seen short videos about life in China on Instagram or TikTok that "give them a lot of curiosity about this country" and realize it's quite different from what they see in the headlines.

'Growing interest'

"I do think there's a growing interest among young people in China," said Levine. She took some US youth around the city of Chongqing.

"It's kind of taken off as an internet icon of an interesting place that inverts some people's stereotypes or perceived notions about what a Chinese city looks like," she said.

In fact, a few young people attended the conference.

Emily Conrad, a PhD candidate in international politics at Fudan University, said she attended The Carter Center's "Emerging Voices for US-China Cooperation" program two years ago.

"The topic is really timely and very applicable to me as I'm from the US, my husband is Chinese, and we are building, literally, a US-China family together in Beijing," said Conrad, who is originally from South Carolina.

Conrad went to China in 2015 for a master's degree at the Yenching Academy of Peking University and subsequently worked as a journalist there. Later, she began to pursue her PhD at Fudan University, which she will complete in June.

In the 10 years she has spent in China, Conrad has witnessed a decline in the number of US students in China, but she's optimistic.

"I think we have a lack of understanding," she said, referring to the declining student numbers."But at the same time, I think there are reasons to be optimistic because a lot of Americans went on Red Note — Xiaohongshu — for the first time," said Conrad.