China and the United States in the Asia Pacific

Date: 15 August 2011

Although Wellington was experiencing the heaviest snowfall in the last several decades, more than 40 participants from the policy, academic and diplomatic communities attended the public lecture ‘China and the United States in the Asia Pacific’ jointly hosted by New Zealand Contemporary China Research Centre and Centre for Strategic Studies in Victoria University of Wellington on the evening of 15 August.

Professor Liru Cui, the president of China Institute of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR) and this year’s Prime Minister Fellow from China, was invited to present. At the beginning of the presentation, he emphasized that, as perhaps the single most important bilateral relations in the world today, Sino-US relations are largely modifying the regional economic and political environment that Asia–Pacific countries face today. In this background, how New Zealand and China could benefit more from the constructive and complementary Sino-NZ relationship is an interesting and significant issue for the policy makers in both Beijing and Wellington.

In his presentation, after reviewing the ups and downs in Sino-US relations from the 1970s to the 1990s, Prof. Cui pointed out in a new era of globalization and multipolarity, China is developing fast and its international stature has increased. This brings both opportunities and challenges for China to deal with the relationship with the solo superpower—the United States. Despite the complexity of the bilateral relations and the regular unhappiness regarding issues like Taiwan and South China Sea, the new generation of leaders in both countries are determined to build a ‘cooperative and comprehensive partnership’, which had been declared in the visits of President Hu Jintao to Washington and President Obama to Beijing. Although there are many obstacles ahead and vast efforts from both sides are required, Prof. Cui emphasized that Washington and Beijing should realize that as the structural interdependence develops between the two countries, they should strive for common interests when handling differences, finding a way to accommodate each other in the world. This needs to be done in the Asia–Pacific first, from the economic realm and then the politics and security area. Then the US, China, and other countries can build a more cooperative global community.

About the speaker

Professor Cui is President of the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), a leading national think thank and research institute on international relations in China, which is highly regarded for its provision of policy advice to the government and its contribution to academic and social debate in China. Professor Cui is this year’s Prime Minister’s Fellow from China.

The Professor has particular expertise on Sino-US relations which are being subjected to an historic re-balancing as China rises to the status of a global economic and strategic power. The lectures promises to offer special insights into this relative power shift and its implications for New Zealand and other countries in the region. Professor Cui graduated from Fudan University in 1976 and then joined CICIR as a research fellow, later Research Professor. Before working as a Counsellor at the PRC mission to the UN HQ in New York between 1992 and 1994, he was Director of the Division for International Exchanges at CICIR. Afterwards, he served as Director of the Division of American Studies of CICIR and then Director General of the Institute of World Information at the State Centre of Information.

President Cui is a well respected scholar in international relations and an influential leader in the policy community in Beijing. He has also taught at the University of International Relations, the National Defence University and Wuhan University. He is a member of the Foreign Policy Advisory Group of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, China; Vice Chairman of the Chinese National Association for International Studies; Vice Chairman of the Chinese Association of American Studies; and Senior Advisor of the National Security Policy Committee of China Association of Policy Science.