China’s Re-bounding Economy, TikTok Ban, and What’s Next?

 

China’s economy is rebounding. Beijing let Alibaba's Jack Ma out in public again, sending good vibes to private businesses.  Meanwhile, the United States is leading the charge on banning Chinese products like TikTok.  What does this all mean for the world’s second largest economy and for consumers at home?  How are we to assess political risk in Chinese markets given the state of current affairs?  Join us for a panel with leading figures in business and academia for a timely analysis.

 

 

 

Craig Allen is the president of the US-China Business Council (USCBC), a private, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization representing over 260 American companies doing business with China. Prior to joining USCBC, Craig had a long, distinguished career in US public service.

 

Craig began his government career in 1985 at the Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration (ITA). He entered government as a Presidential Management Intern, rotating through the four branches of ITA. From 1986 to 1988, he was an international economist in ITA’s China Office. In 1988, Craig transferred to the American Institute in Taiwan, where he served as Director of the American Trade Center in Taipei. He held this position until 1992, when he returned to the Department of Commerce for a three-year posting at the US Embassy in Beijing as Commercial Attaché. In 1995, Craig was assigned to the US Embassy in Tokyo, where he served as a Commercial Attaché. In 1998, he was promoted to Deputy Senior Commercial Officer. In 1999, Craig became a member of the Senior Foreign Service.

 

After a four-year tour in South Africa, Craig became Deputy Assistant Secretary for Asia at the US Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration. He later became Deputy Assistant Secretary for China. Craig was sworn in as the United States ambassador to Brunei Darussalam on December 19, 2014. He served there until July 2018, when he transitioned to President of the US-China Business Council.

 

 

 

Kristen Hopewell is Canada Research Chair in Global Policy in the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, Director of the Liu Institute for Global Issues, and Co-Director of the Centre for Chinese Research at the University of British Columbia. Her research specializes in international trade, global governance, industrial policy and development, with a focus on emerging powers. She is a Wilson China Fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC.

 

Dr. Hopewell is the author of Clash of Powers: US-China Rivalry in Global Trade Governance (Cambridge University Press, 2020) and Breaking the WTO: How Emerging Powers Disrupted the Neoliberal Project (Stanford University Press, 2016).

 

 

 

Kyle Jaros is Associate Professor of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs. He is also a faculty fellow of the Keough School’s Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies. Jaros’s research explores the politics of regional development, central-local relations, and metropolitan governance with a focus on China. His first book, China’s Urban Champions: The Politics of Spatial Development (Princeton University Press, 2019) examines the policy logics and political factors driving uneven development in China’s provinces.

 

He is currently at work on a second book project that examines changes in the structure and workings of China’s big-city governments to understand the evolution of the party-state system under Xi Jinping.