Tufts' fifth annual China-U.S. Symposium will be held today and tomorrow in the Cabot Intercultural Center to discuss relations between the two countries.
Symposium Co-Director Ye Shen noted that the overarching topic of this year's symposium, leadership transitions, is particularly relevant in light of the coming shifts in both Chinese and U.S. political leadership.
"The presidential elections are happening in the United States this year, and in China, the current vice president Xi Jinping will be the president soon as well," Shen, a sophomore, said.
The two-day symposium consists of four panels focusing on development, international relations and economics, according to Symposium Co-Director Ian Kelly.
Keynote speaker Joseph Fewsmith, the director of Boston University's Center for the Study of Asia and professor of international relations and political science, will deliver the David J. RawsonJr. Memorial Lecture this afternoon, according to Programming Team and Operations Team Member Annie Donovan.
Kelly said the first panel today is titled "The Role of Law in Political Reform" while the second panel, "20 Years After DengXiaoping," will examine how these leadership changes will affect the economic facet of Sino-U.S. relations.
Military Security Panel Coordinator and Alliance Linking Leaders in Education and the Services (ALLIES) Representative Philip Ballentine said the two panels scheduled for tomorrow, titled "America's ‘Return to Asia' and China's Broadening Pacific Power" and "Engagement with China," will delve into military security as well as diplomacy, negotiation and conflict resolution.
The symposium's Executive Board said the event has expanded in every respect over the last two years. The event budget increased from $500 in its inaugural year to $8,000 last year and to $14,000 this year, according to Kelly, a sophomore. He added that ticket sales have increased more than threefold over last year's.
In addition to the budget, Ballentine, a sophomore, said that the symposium itself has also grown in size.
"We went from an ALLIES-only event to a big community of people who all have an interest in China's various issues," he said.
He cited the abundance of sponsors as an indication of the conference's expansion. Sponsors include the Institute for Global Leadership, ALLIES, the Tufts Community Union Senate, Fletcher Security Fund, the Arts, Sciences and Engineering Diversity Fund, Tufts Global China Connection, the Student Life Fund, the International Center and the Asia Studies Fund.
In an effort to ensure that the symposium reflects a truly international focus, the Board has invited speakers from various locations, ranging from universities in Washington, D.C. to Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, China, Shen said.
"We would like to provide different perspectives, not just from the American side but also from the Chinese side," Shen said. "We would like to have speakers from both sides interact with each other during and after the panels so that the symposium is about interactions in addition to presentations."
The conference's diverse outreach is also evident in the event planners and attendees, Kelly said.
"One of the really interesting things about our organization is that we've been working with so many different kinds of students," he said. "One part of that is the graduate and undergraduate student collaboration, something that I don't think you really see in a lot of groups."
The symposium organizers believe the symposium is relevant to both Tufts students and people from around the world.
This year's symposium will be streamed online so that students in other countries, China in particular, can watch and send in questions for the panelists, Kelly said.
"It's really a networking experience, connecting Tufts to the outer world and the outer world to Tufts," Donovan, a freshman, said.
"Tufts is grounded in international relations, and we feel that the China-U.S. relations are one of the most important relations happening in the world right now," Shen added.
As for the Board's future plans, Kelly said the group is already searching for individuals interested in helping out at next year's symposium.
"We're hoping to become a year-round organization and to do more than just the symposium next year," he said.
