Clemson University to sponsor discussion on U.S.-China relations

CLEMSON, SC – June 3, 2011 – Ping Zhang, minister counselor of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the United States, will present The Sino-U.S. Relations Before and Beyond 2012 at noon Friday, June 3, at The Lazy Goat in downtown Greenville. It is sponsored by the Clemson University Center for China Studies.

The discussion is part of the Center for China Studies Speaker Series and is co-sponsored by the Clemson University Small Business Development Center and the Arthur M. Spiro Institute for Entrepreneurial Leadership.

China is very important to South Carolina because it is the third largest market for South Carolina exports, and South Carolina also hosts a growing number of Chinese investments, said Xiaobo Hu, political science professor at Clemson and director of the Center for China Studies. Given the upcoming U.S. presidential election and new leadership at the next Party Congress in China, both in 2012, we are very interested in understanding what directions this critical bilateral relationship will likely take beyond the next year.

Before becoming minister counselor in July 2006, Zhang was director of the Department of North American and Oceanian Affairs of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing. He also was the political counselor in the Chinese Embassy in Australia from 2000 to 2004. In the 1980s and 1990s, he was on similar diplomatic missions in the Chinese Consulate in New York and the Chinese Embassy in Vietnam, respectively.

The lunchtime discussion costs $30 and registration is requested at http://workgroups.clemson.edu/SBDC_Workshops/form.php. 

Image by: Embassy of the People’s Republic of China