Some of the organizations we conducted meetings with, focused specifically around the grand strategy "term sheet," as we called it.
I will post a final draft of the term sheet agreement here in conjunction with a second WPR column that recounts the journey and summarizes the feedback/impressions gathered.
Here's the official rundown:
The Proposed China-US Grand Strategy Agreement was drafted by John Milligan-Whyte and Dai Min of the Center for America-China Partnership and Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett of Wikistrat.
In the past week, we have been meeting series of distinguished individrals and institutions in China to discuss and improve this proposal. They are include but not limited to (in sequence of meetings):
- President of Shanghai Institutes of International Studies 上海国际关系研究院院长
- Former PRC Minister of Foreign Affairs 前中国外交部长
- Two Former PRC Ambassadors to US and UN 前中国驻联合国大使
- Former Deputy Chief of the General Staff of People's Liberation Army (PLA) 前中国人民解放军副总参谋长
- Former PLA attache to North Korea and Israel 前中国驻北朝鲜和以色列大使馆武官
- Former PRC Vice Minister of Commerce 前中国商业部副部长，中国国际经济交流中心秘书长
- IISS-PSCC - Institute of International Strategic Studies of Central Party School 中央党校国际战略研究所
- CCIEE - China Center for Economic Exchange, 中国国际经济交流中心
- CIISS - China Institute For International Strategic Studies, 中国国际战略学会
- CFISS - China Foundation for International & Strategic Studies. 中国国际战略基金会
- CPIFA - The Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs 中国外交学会
- The Boao Forum 博鳌论坛
- BFSU - Beijing Foreign Studies University 北京外国语大学
- CICIR - China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations 中国现代国际关系研究院.
To say the least, the lengthy dialogues in each instance were fascinating. I learned a ton, because this time, instead of being in book promotion mode, the whole discussion centered around the proposal, which everybody really was thrilled to discuss. They kept saying that this was such a new and innovative way to to something like this, instead of the usual presentation of respective views that get bundled up in these joint statements (something the Chinese take very seriously but I can't say that we do on our side).
Much as in the case of the Russians today, I think China should be putting its own experts up on American TV rather than having their country interpreted by U.S. experts on China. I think that if this was the case, Americans would view China very differently. I just don't think the country's real story gets through.