The Pacific Council invites you to join us on Wednesday, October 14, at 10 am PT, to discuss President Xi Jinping's September 23–25 state visit to Washington, D.C., his first trip to the U.S. capital in a decade. It follows the Pacific Council's May discussion, "What's Next for U.S.–China Relations?", which looked at President Trump's trip to Beijing. 

The visit produced agreements on reciprocal tariff reductions covering $30 billion in goods, a new Council of Trade, and a bilateral AI dialogue set to meet in November. Still, core disputes over Taiwan, export controls, critical minerals, and Beijing's ties to Iran and Russia remain unresolved. This conversation will assess these outcomes and explore where the world's most consequential bilateral relationship may be heading.

Why it's important:

• CSIS experts called the summit "heavy on symbolism but light on substance." They noted that the concrete deliverables were largely limited to favorable tariff treatment and a new AI dialogue, while semiconductor controls, rare earth exports, and Taiwan arms sales continue to threaten the fragile trade truce.
• Taiwan remained the summit's most sensitive fault line. Xi pressed Trump to oppose Taiwan independence and to handle the issue "prudently." Trump had already postponed a $14 billion arms package for Taipei after calling such sales "a very good negotiating chip."
• Washington sought Beijing's help in isolating Tehran, but China, Iran's largest trading partner, offered no breakthrough, which shows the limits of cooperation between the two powers.

To register for this webinar, visit the Zoom Registration Page.

Speakers include:

Dr. Jeff Wasserstrom, Chancellor's Professor of History, University of California, Irvine

Moderator: Anka Lee, Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia and Pacific Council Member

Guest Speaker

Dr. Jeff Wasserstrom was born in California and educated largely in the state, getting a B.A. from UC Santa Cruz and a PhD from Berkeley, while also earning a Master's from Harvard and spending a year apiece studying at the University of London, as an undergrad, and Fudan University in Shanghai, as a doctoral student. He returned to California to join UCI's History Department in 2006. Before that, Dr. Wasserstrom spent two years teaching at the University of Kentucky and fifteen years at Indiana University in Bloomington, where, in addition to offering courses, he spent a year as the Acting Editor of the Bloomington-based American Historical Review and served for three years as the Director of IU's East Asian Studies Center. From 2008 to 2018, Dr. Wasserstrom was editor of the Journal of Asian Studies at UCI. 

Moderator

Anka Lee, a partner at the geopolitical and strategic consulting firm Scalare Advisors, is a national security expert with over two decades of experience leading large teams in the U.S. government, California state government, and in the private sector. Anka is based in Los Angeles and works closely with West Coast clients to navigate geopolitical challenges, mitigate risks, and find opportunities abroad – especially in the Asia Pacific. In between his time in public service in both Sacramento and Washington, DC, Anka was a global policy manager at WhatsApp, a consultant to Fortune 500 companies, and an Asia-based journalist.

In Sacramento, he served as California State Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon’s international policy director, where he created new bilateral initiatives with the governments of Mexico, Canada, Japan, and Germany, empowering state elected officials to address shared policy challenges with foreign counterparts — from climate to cross-border water pollution to data privacy. Earlier in his career, Anka was a news producer at KTVU-TV Fox 2 in the San Francisco Bay Area, covering national, state, and local campaigns. He also served as a legislative aide to State Senators Sheila Kuehl and Carole Migden. While in high school, he led a four-year campaign that convinced voters to approve a $40 million bond to renovate public schools across the West Contra Costa Unified School District.

In Washington, his senior leadership roles included Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia at the Pentagon, where he advanced bilateral defense relations with major allies and partners in the region and pursued collective action to meet growing security challenges in the Indo-Pacific. Prior to that, as USAID Deputy Assistant Administrator for multilateral affairs, he rallied like-minded countries to surge financial support for pressing global issues — from addressing Ukraine’s security needs to alleviating hunger to coordinating responses to China’s corrosive development practices globally. 

He has written for and appeared on The Atlantic, Bloomberg, The Diplomat, Just Security, Foreign Policy, NBC, Newsweek, POLITICO, Time, and San Francisco Chronicle. Born in Hong Kong, raised in California, and a first-generation college graduate, Anka received his B.A. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley, and M.A. in East Asian studies from Harvard University. He also did graduate studies at California State University, Sacramento, as part of the California Senate Fellows Program. He is a Distinguished Fellow at the Wilson Center and an External Senior Advisor at the Special Competitive Studies Project.

 

To register for this webinar, visit the Zoom Registration Page.