Institute for US-China Issues

The Institute for US-China Issues was established in 2006 with the generous financial support of Harold J. and Ruth Newman (see earlier in this issue for an overview of the life and career of the late Harold Newman). The institute seeks to enhance the understanding and management of US-China relations by simultaneously addressing two sets of interrelated issue clusters: the security, technology, economic, environmental, public health and political (STEEPP) issues, and the instrumental role culture plays in shaping how the two nations perceive and engage each other. To achieve this goal, the institute works along parallel tracks through public programming, research, publications, symposiums and teaching to tackle both the STEEPP and cultural issues confronting the two nations.

In fall 2021, the Institute for US-China Issues welcomed Newman Postdoctoral Fellow Zhu Zhang. Zhu received her doctorate in political science from Tulane University in 2021, and she conducts research in comparative politics with a focus on Asian politics and political economy.

The institute's Newman Prize for English Jueju, a poetry award sponsored in conjunction with the Newman Prize for Chinese Literature, moved from being a biannual to an annual prize, and was awarded in both 2021 and 2022. The contest also expanded to include international applicants. The prize awards students in elementary, middle school, high school and college categories, as well as adults, who submit the best poems written in jueju, a style of classical Chinese poetry.

In summer 2022, Institute Co-Director Jonathan Stalling led a month-long UNESCO writing workshop, “Creative Writing and East-West Ecologies.” The workshop was co-sponsored by the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program and was the first ever UNESCO workshop held between the first cities of literature in China (Nanjing) and Iowa (Iowa City). The opening ceremony was hosted at the Global Nanjing Literature Hall on Aug. 5, 2022, and the workshop continued to the end of the month.

The institute hosted a series of talks each semester in the 2021-2022 academic year, with speakers from across the country as well as China. In the fall of 2022, the institute had the opportunity to host a two-part series of talks by Chinese scholars, "US-China Relations Against the Backdrop of the Russo-Ukraine War: A View from Beijing" with Zhao Hai of the National Institute for Global Strategy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), Beijing; and "US-China Rivalry in the Indo-Pacific Region: A View from Shanghai," with Shen Dingli of Fudan University. The institute has more interesting events planned for 2022-2023, including awarding the next Newman Prize for Chinese Literature in 2023.

Photos: Institute Co-directors Jonathan Stalling (left), Newman Chair of U.S.-China Issues, and Bo Kong, ConocoPhilips Associate Professor of Chinese and Asian Studies