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China Symposium - Speakers

Symposium / China Symposium

China: Bridges for a New Century

Speaker Information

(listed alphabetically) Updated: 3/26/03

Yomi Braester
Braester is currently an assistant professor in both the Department of Comparative Literature and Program in Cinema Studies at the University of Washington. He also teaches classes in the Department of Asian Languages and Literature and is a member the Chinese Studies Program and the Project for Critical Asian Studies. Braester's research interests include Chinese and Taiwanese literature, cinema, and theory of the arts, as well as post-colonial literatures and cinema. His forthcoming book from Stanford University Press, Witness Against History: Literature, Film and Public Discourse in Twentieth-Century China, rereads milestones in twentieth-century Chinese literature and cinema as well as the narratives woven around them. Braester has his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Yale University.

Chen Xiangming
Dr. Chen is Professor and Chair of the Department of Education & Human Development, School of Education, Peking University, Beijing. She received her Ed.D and M.Ed. from Harvard University. Dr. Chen has served as a Research Fellow at Oxford University, UK and Teaching Fellow at Harvard University. She is currently the team leader for the research projects: "General Education in Comprehensive Universities" and "Participatory Teacher Training, Beijing Philosophy and Social Sciences."

China Services Network (John L. Vaswig, Senior Pastor, Mt. View Lutheran Church; President, China Services Network)
China Services Network was a bi-product of an initial cooperative effort between Good Samaritan Hospital, Amity Foundation and Mt. View Lutheran Church as a potential mechanism of response to the rural poor in China with a particular emphasis on handicapped children with Cerebral Palsy and Polio. Subsequently, under the leadership of Dr. Don Mott, Rick Rouse and Pastor Vaswig a partnership was formed between Good Samaritan, PLU and Mt. View Lutheran Church. Pastor Vaswig's interest in working with China Services Network comes from his commitment to this vital ministry to the people of China.

He participated in two trips to China, the first in October 2002 and the second in November 2003. During the first trip assistance needs were made known in an initial exposure to circumstances. The second trip involved physical therapists and other medical professionals from Good Samaritan Hospital along with partners from PLU and Mt. View. Additionally, two of our Amity partners visited us in May 2002 to experience first hand the medical possibilities and responses to their ministry at Good Samaritan, PLU and area churches.

Future plans for China Services Network include providing additional medical resources and supplies, educational opportunities, a primary response to the children in need and perhaps student internships.

Martha Choe
Choe is the Director of Washington State's Office of Trade and Economic Development (OTED). This agency promotes programs that focus on job creation, international trade, economic growth, rural development, and improving the quality of life for our state's citizens. During her tenure, OTED has led successful trade missions to two of the state's emerging trading partners, China and Mexico. Prior to joining OTED, Choe served two terms on the Seattle City Council and is past Chair of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Washington and her master's degree in Business Administration from Seattle University.

Warren Cohen
Cohen, who received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington, is Distinguished University Professor of History and Presidential Research Professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) and Senior Scholar with the Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. He teaches American diplomatic history and his principal research interest is American-East Asian relations. Cohen has published seventeen books, the best known of which is America's Response to China (2000). Most recently, his Reischauer Memorial Lectures at Harvard was published as The Asian American Century (in March 2002). The book details how the United States and East Asia have influenced each other over the past century.

Robert W. Grenley
As President and CEO of IDmicro, Mr. Grenley is responsible for strategic direction, financial management and successful operations. He contributes over 20 years of financial management, business development and entrepreneurial experience to IDmicro. He has over 10 years of direct portfolio management and investment expertise to include common and preferred stock, stock options, corporate and municipal bonds as well as syndicated investments and private placement experience. Mr. Grenley was named E.F.Hutton's "Rookie Broker of the Year" and holds over 12 years experience managing start up organizations with equity capital.

Gregory Guldin
Gregory E. Guldin is a professor of anthropology at Pacific Lutheran University. He was awarded a Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1977. He has conducted extensive fieldwork in China and Southeast Asia. He also works as an applied anthropologist with a wide range of governments, businesses and community groups, including the World Bank and the Washington State School Directors Association. His major interests include rural development, ethnic diversity, and global policy formulation. His recent published work includes the books What's a Peasant to Do? Village Becoming Town in Southern China, Farewell to Peasant China, and Cultural Diversity in Schools.

He Chengzhou Dr. He is Associate Professor in the English Department, School of Foreign Studies, Nanjing University. Dr. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Oslo 2002. He was the recipient of the Ibsen Medal in Norway (2002). His expertise is in modern drama and British and American Literature. Among his essays was "Dramatic Poetry: Ibsen and Chinese Modern Drama" (1999).

John L. Holden
Mr. Holden assumed the presidency of the National Committee on United States-China Relations on September 1, 1998, after an eighteen-year business career focused primarily on China. His China business experience involved high-tech and low-tech equipment and commodities, and ranged from imports, exports, joint ventures, and technology transfer, to services and wholly owned ventures. His last position was chairman/general manager of the China holding company of Cargill, Inc. Mr. Holden also served as general manager of BankAmerica World Trade Corporation's PRC business, general manager of the Asia subsidiary of Alimenta S.A., China trading manager of Unison International, and marketing manager of a Washington, D.C. translation company. He is a frequent speaker on China and has lectured at Harvard, Yale and Columbia universities, the University of Minnesota, and Hunter College. He appears often in Chinese and Western media, and was the subject of two Chinese television specials in August 2001 and Spring 2002.

Haruo Horaguchi
Horaguchi is a Professor of International Business at Hosei University, Japan. He has served as a Part-Time Lecturer at the University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Chuo University, and the Graduate School of Tsukuba University. In 1999, he was a Visiting Professor at the Graduate School of Economics, Universite Lumiere Lyon, France and from 1997-1996 was a Visiting Scholar to Harvard University under a Fulbright Scholarship Award for a Junior Researcher. Horaguchi received his Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo and he is the author of many works on Japanese foreign investment. His latest work from 2002 published with K. Shimokawa is Japanese Foreign Direct Investment and the East Asian Industrial System: Case Studies from the Automobile and Electronics Industries.

Nicholas R. Lardy
Dr. Lardy has recently accepted a position as Senior Fellow at The Institute for International Economics, Washington, D.C. Prior to this he served as a Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies program at the Brookings Institution (1995-2003) and Director of the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies (1991-1995). From 1997 through the spring of 2000, he was also the Frederick Frank Adjunct Professor of International Trade and Finance at the Yale University School of Management. He is an expert on Asia, economics of transition and the Chinese Economy. He is the author of numerous articles and books including Integrating China into the Global Economy (2002), and China's Unfinished Economic Revolution (1998).

Lu Ding
Lu is Associate Professor of Economics at the National University of Singapore and a Research Associate at the East Asian Institute (NUS). He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Northwestern University in 1991. Among his teaching areas are: Economics of Information and Communications, Comparative Economic Systems, the modern Chinese Economy, Industrial Organization, Managerial Economics (MBA), Economic Theory, Public Finance, Mathematical Economics. Ding is the author of numerous works including: China's Telecommunications Market: Entering a New Competitive Age (2003), State Intervention and Business in China: Role of Preferential Policies (1997) and Entrepreneurship in Suppressed Markets: China's Private-Sector Experience (1994).

Tese Wintz Neighbor
Neighbor is the Director of Professional Development for the World Affairs Council in Seattle. She has lived and worked in both Beijing and Hong Kong and holds a Master's degree in China Regional Studies from the University of Washington. For over a decade, she has taught East Asian history and culture in Seattle-area colleges; Neighbor currently teaches an intensive Asia Seminar class for the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia. She has led more than 25 tours to China and has also worked as a freelance writer for publications such as the Asian Wall Street Journal and the Far Eastern Economic Review. Recently she has written curriculum for teachers on China for both the East Asia Resource Center and the Seattle Art Museum.

Lit Ng
Mr. Ng was born in 1932 in Ma An Village, Ping Shan Market, Guangdong, China. In 1938 Ping Shan Market was bombed by the Japanese and Mr. Ng and his family escaped on foot to Hong Kong. The family immigrated to California in 1939 where Mr. Ng attended primary and middle school. In 1947 he returned to China with his father to attend Chinese school in the village. In March of 1949 Mr. Ng left China ahead of Mao Tse Tung's army and returned to the U.S. where he worked full time as a meat cutter. Ng built his family's first store in 1958. In 1980 he completed construction and opened the first of four stores. Mr. Ng set up the Mr. And Mrs. Liu Guo Charitable Foundation Trust in his parent's names in 1993. This Charitable Trust has provided support for several hospitals in California, scholarships for Hua Yuan students, the American Red Cross Disaster Fund, the Salvation Army, construction of the Life Sciences Building at Peking University, a gymnasium in Haushan, and construction of numerous elementary school in Guangxi, Shandong, Sichuan, Hunan, Shaanxi, Zhejiang, Heilongjiang and Anhui.

Stanley Rosen
Rosen, a professor of Political Science and the University of Southern California since 1979, is a specialist on Politics in the People's Republic of China, Asian Politics, Comparative Politics, Politics and Social Change and Chinese Film. He is the author of several books (including Red Guard Factionalism and the Cultural Revolution in Guangzhou), and since 1983 has been the editor of the journal Chinese Education. Rosen is currently working (with David Zweig) on a book-length study on students and scholars who have studied abroad and returned to China, and an edited book on state and society (with Peter Gries). Another recent project focuses on Hollywood's relationship with China and its influence on the future of the Chinese film industry.

Roy Schwarz
Schwarz, a 1959 graduate of PLU, is currently President of the China Medical Board, New York. He has served on the faculties at the University of Washington, McGill University, and the University of Colorado. He currently holds Professorships at the University of Washington, University of California of San Diego, and the University of Illinois. His research interests include cellular immunology, nucleic acid metabolism, experimental medical education, and the use of communications satellites in education and health care. Schwarz was awarded his M.D. at the University of Washington. He is the author of over 150 articles, books and abstracts. Dr. Schwarz is Chairman of the Board of the National Center for Health Education.

Gordon Slethaug
Slethaug, a 1962 graduate of Pacific Lutheran University, is a Chairman of the Programme in American Studies at The University of Hong Kong. Along with his work with American Studies, he is also a senior lecturer in English, specializing in American literature, with emphasis on the American Renaissance and the contemporary novel and film. He is especially interested in the relationship of realism to irrealism (the fiction of John Barth, Don De Lillo, Thomas Pynchon, Carol Shields and Cormac McCarthy) and of film adaptations of the novel. He is also author of Beautiful Chaos: Chaos Theory and Metachaotics in Recent American Fiction and Play of the Double in Postmodern American Fiction.

Lisa Stearns
Ms. Stearns is Director of the China Program, Norwegian Center for Human Rights, Oslo. Previously she has worked at NOVI (Non-Governmental Dutch Development Organization), the Chinese State Statistical Bureau, The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), the Ford Foundation, Beijing, and UNDP- United Nations Development Program, Beijing. From 1991-1992 she served as a Fulbright Scholar in Law at the University of Peking and from 1985-1991 was Associate Director of Columbia University Law School Legislative Drafting Research Fund, New York. Stearns was awarded her LL.M. in 1985 from Columbia University School of Law and her LL.B in 1979 from University College, Cardiff Wales.

Karen Sutter
Ms. Sutter is Director of Business Advisory Services at the U.S.-China Business Council, Washington D.C. She has worked at The Atlantic Council of the United States, The National Bureau of Asian Research, and The Asia Society. She received an M.A. in International Studies from the University of Washington, where she was a Henry M. Jackson Fellow. Ms. Sutter has worked and studied in Strasbourg, Beijing and Taipei. Her analyses of the China market and broader Asian issues have appeared in various U.S.-China Business Council publications, the Asian Wall Street Journal, the Journal of Northeast Asian Studies, and other publications. She most recently wrote WTO and the Taiwan Strait: New Considerations for Business (January-February 2002, China Business Review).

Paul Tai
Tai is Professor Emeritus of International Political Economy at the University of Detroit Mercy and serves as President of American Society of China Scholars. Tai has served as the Editor in Chief of the American Journal of Chinese Studies, Chairman of the Department of Political Science and Director of the Asian Studies Program at University of Detroit. He has worked as a visiting professor at University of Michigan-Dearborn, National Cheng-kung University, and National Taiwan University. Major publications include United States, China, and Taiwan: Bridges for a New Millennium (1999), International Political Economy (1995), The Private Life of Chairman Mao (Translation into English 1994). He received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in 1961.

David K.Y. Tang
Tang is a Managing Partner of Preston Gates Ellis, LLP, a law firm with offices in Hong Kong and in several U.S. cities. His Seattle law practice concentrates in the areas of international business transactions, real estate and financings. Tang is member of the American Law Institute and Council on Foreign Relations, and is included in the International Who's Who of Real Estate Lawyers and Washington Law & Politics Super Lawyers. Tang, who has his J.D. from Columbia University, is the current chairman of the Trade Development Alliance of Greater Seattle, and sits on the Boards of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, American Bar Foundation, the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, and the Pacific Council on International Policy.

Robert Thomas
Thomas is the Dean of College of Science and Professor of Physics at Wayne State University. He is well known in the scientific community for publishing the first-ever experiment using thermal wave imaging in 1978. His laboratory in applied physics has been receiving visiting scholars from mainland China and around the world for over twenty years. Thomas, who has visited China six times for various aspects of scientific exchange, has participated with Chinese students, scholars and faculty who have been a part of "Da Jia Ting (Big Family)," Thomas's thermal wave imaging group. Thomas, who received his Ph.D. from Brown University, is an elected member of Wayne University's Academy of Scholars, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society.

Karl Weaver
Karl J. Weaver is a Washington State based international business executive with Chinese and multilingual skills. He has geared his entire professional career around developing business opportunities through employment as a marketing and sales strategist promoting the export of high-tech communications products to Asia-Pacific and Greater China markets in the emerging Pacific Century. He is also a member of the Washington State China Relations Council and Washington Software Alliance.

Karl earned a B.S. in Business Management from Salve Regina University, studied Mandarin Chinese language under scholarship from the ROC, Ministry of Education, from 1982 until 1985 at the prestigious National Taiwan Normal University, in the Mandarin Training Center facilty, Taipei, Taiwan. Taiwan helped launch his International business career, and in late 1992, after ten years of combined language and high-tech industry work experience in Taiwan's Microcomputer mainboard/systems manufacturing industry, Karl returned to the USA and settled in Washington State. For the past decade, he has worked in the Eastside high-tech corridor for three well-known communications equipment and component manufacturers (Zetron, Metawave, and Leviton Voice and Data) to promote Washington State exports of wireless and telecommunications products into Asia-Pacific and Greater China markets.

Evelyn and James Whitehead (Whitehead Associates)
Dr. Evelyn Whitehead was awarded her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. She is a social and developmental psychologist who writes and lectures on issues of adult development, the interplay of culture and personality, and social analysis of communities in transition.

Dr. James Whitehead is a pastoral theologian and historian of religion. His academic interests include the philosophy of religion and the wisdom traditions of China. Whitehead received his Ph.D. from Harvard University.

Both Whiteheads have been members of the faculty of Loyola University Chicago since 1970, and have been associated since 1998 with the Ricci Institute's initiative on Social Change and Spiritual Development in China Today. The Whitehead's traveled annually to China, offering lectures and short courses at universities in Shanghai, Nanjin and Hangzhou. In Fall 2001, they taught together in the newly established program of Religious Studies within the Philosophy Department of Fudan University (Shanghai).

Wing Thye Woo
Wing Thye Woo is Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of California at Davis. Since July 2002, he is also the Special Advisor for East Asian Economies in the Millennium Project of the United Nations, and Visiting Professor at the Earth Institute of Columbia University, where he is also Director of their East Asia Program within the Center for Globalization and Sustainable Development. His current research focuses on the redesign of the international financial architecture, the initiation of endogenous economic growth, global adjustments to the emergence of China as a major trading economy, and regional growth in China. Woo, who has a Ph.D. from Harvard, is editor of Asian Economic Papers and Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies.

Xue Lan
Xue Lan is professor and Executive Associate Dean of School of Public Policy and Management and Executive Vice President of the Development Research Academy for the 21st Century of Tsinghua University in Beijing. Dr. Xue holds his Ph.D. in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University. His teaching and research interests include public policy analysis, public administration, science and technology policy, and educational policy. Trained as an engineer, Xue has led and participated in many research projects, including ones funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Commerce, the Ford Foundation and the Chinese Ministry of Education. Xue has served as an advisor to the Chinese government, and also consulted for several organizations including the World Bank and the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Winston Zee
Zee, with both a B.A. and M.B.A. from Pacific Lutheran University, is a partner in the Hong Kong law office of Baker & McKenzie and is co-chair of the firm's China Practice Group. Zee, who speaks Cantonese and Mandarin fluently, is a leading advisor on issues related to foreign investment in the People's Republic of China. These include establishment of foreign investment enterprises, mergers and acquisitions, structuring of investments, sales and distribution arrangements, and dispute resolution issues. Mr. Zee authored the China Forex Handbook, co-authored the China Tax Guide, is the editor of Investing in China:B Shares, and was voted one of Asia's leading lawyers in the Asia Law Leading Lawyers Survey, 2000.

Yingjin Zhang
Zhang, who received his Ph.D. in comparative literature from Stanford University, is currently a professor of Chinese Literature and Film, Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies at the University of California, San Diego. His teaching interests include Chinese and comparative literature, Chinese cinema, Asian and Asian American cinema, media industry, visual culture, urban studies, transnational cultural politics and cultural history. He has published five books and a dozen essays in English, and his research articles have appeared in several publications, including Asian Cinema, Cinema Journal, Film Art, East-West Film Journal and Modern Chinese Literature. Zhang is currently writing Chinese National Cinema for Routledge's national cinema book series and doing research on modern Chinese literature in relation to visual and urban culture.