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U.S.–China Relations

The Paul Tsai China Center at Yale Law School conducts programming on a wide range of issues concerning U.S.–China relations, involving practical inputs to each country’s policy-making community, research, and teaching.

Bilateral Dialogue

The centerpiece of the Center’s U.S.–China relations work is convening Track II and Track 1.5 dialogues between the two countries, with the support of and in consultation with high-level officials in both governments.

Since 2012, the Center’s flagship dialogue on U.S.–China Relations has been a thriving channel for sustained interaction between top U.S. and Chinese figures, committed to their own national interests and to stable, positive U.S.–China relations, who gather to develop and provide both governments with timely joint recommendations designed to expand areas of cooperation and manage differences and risks in bilateral ties. The dialogue on U.S.–China Relations convenes carefully selected former officials and practitioners from the United States with top thinkers and current and former officials from China. Together, they work toward strategic and diplomatic innovation over the full range of issues in the U.S.–China relationship, with dual emphases on security and economic issues.

The Paul Tsai China Center also brings together key figures from both countries for ad hoc meetings with counterparts inside and outside the governments to further the underlying goals of advancing cooperation and managing differences, as well as increasing understanding and developing new approaches to U.S.–China relations.

Research and Teaching

The Paul Tsai China Center’s faculty and fellows also regularly produce research on U.S.–China relations and engage in teaching. Their research and commentary are published in numerous outlets, and are a significant part of public discussions and debates about U.S.–China relations. China Center research has focused on U.S.–China diplomacy, strategic and military affairs, conflicting claims in the South China Sea, the role of two-way direct investment in bilateral ties, and the challenge of cybersecurity, among other topics.

The Center also hosts top Chinese and U.S. scholars and policy practitioners at Yale as guest speakers and visiting scholars who produce original research and interact with the broader Yale community.

Center faculty regularly teach at the Law School, with courses that are typically open to others in the Yale community. These have included courses in U.S. Foreign Policy, U.S. Foreign Policy and Law, a weekly Workshop on China-related issues, as well as supervision of individual students’ research projects. In Spring 2016, China Center faculty taught the Contemporary China Research Seminar at Yale Law School, in which students produced original research on issues of U.S.–China relations or Chinese legal reform.