November 18: WACC China Town Hall 2019

This year’s national webcast will be moderated by George Stephanopolous, Chief Anchor of ABC’s Good Morning America and former Senior Advisor to President Clinton for Policy and Strategy, and will feature:

Reception: 5:30 – 6:00pm – Reception

Webcast: 6:00 – 7:00pm – Webcast

Town Hall: 7:00 – 7:30pm – Town Hall

 

 

 

• Register online
• Credit card payments (non-PayPal transactions): Please call 704-687-7762 for payment processing over the phone
• Check payments: Please make your check payable to “World Affairs Council of Charlotte” and mail it to the following address:

World Affairs Council of Charlotte
UNC Charlotte – CHHS 227
9201 University City Blvd.
Charlotte, NC 28223

All reservation cancellations must be completed at least 3 business days prior to an event for a full refund. Pease let us know in advance if you have dietary restrictions so that we can make the appropriate accommodations.

Biography

George Stephanopoulos Chief Anchor, Good Morning America and This Week with George Stephanopoulos

George Stephanopoulos is ABC News’ chief anchor. He also serves as anchor of Good Morning America and anchor of This Week with George Stephanopoulos. As chief anchor, Mr. Stephanopoulos leads the network’s coverage on all major live events and breaking news around the world. Mr. Stephanopoulos has conducted interviews with a wide range of subjects – including former FBI Director James Comey, President Trump, former President Barack Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Russian Presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin, four former United States Supreme Court Justices to Mark Zuckerberg, Jason Collins, Lady Gaga, George Clooney, and Reese Witherspoon. For more than two decades his range and expertise have played a pivotal role at the network, garnering three Emmys, a DuPont, three Edward R. Murrows, and two Cronkite Awards. Mr. Stephanopoulos joined ABC News in 1997 as an analyst for This Week. Prior to joining ABC News, he served in the Clinton administration as the senior advisor to the president for policy and strategy. He is the author of All Too Human, a No. 1 New York Times bestseller. Mr. Stephanopoulos received his master’s degree in theology from Balliol College, Oxford University, England, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia University and graduated summa cum laude in political science. Mr. Stephanopoulos and his wife, Alexandra Wentworth, have two daughters, Elliott and Harper.

Stephen A. Orlins President, National Committee on United States-China Relations

Steve Orlins has been president of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations since 2005. Prior to that, he was the managing director of Carlyle Asia and the chairman of the board of Taiwan Broadband Communications, one of Taiwan’s largest cable television and high speed internet providers. Prior to joining Carlyle, Mr. Orlins was a senior advisor to AEA Investors Inc., a New York based leveraged buyout firm, with responsibility for AEA’s business activities throughout Asia. From 1983 to 1991, Mr. Orlins was with the investment banking firm of Lehman Brothers where he was a Managing Director from 1985 to 1991. From 1987 to 1990, he served as President of Lehman Brothers Asia. Based in Hong Kong, he supervised over 150 professionals with offices in Hong Kong, Korea, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Manila and Singapore. Prior to joining Lehman Brothers, Mr. Orlins practiced law with Coudert Brothers and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York, Hong Kong and Beijing. From 1976 to 1979, Mr. Orlins served in the Office of the Legal Advisor of the United States Department of State, first in the Office of the Assistant Legal Advisor for Political-Military Affairs and then for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. While in that office, he was a member of the legal team that helped establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China. Mr. Orlins is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College and earned his law degree at Harvard Law School. He speaks Mandarin Chinese and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In 1992, Mr. Orlins was the Democratic nominee for the United States Congress in New York’s Third Congressional District.

Melanie Hart Senior Fellow; Director, China Policy at the Center for American Progress Expertise: China, Asia-Pacific, Chinese energy and climate policy

Melanie Hart is a senior fellow and director of China Policy at American Progress. She focuses on U.S. foreign policy toward China and works to identify new opportunities for bilateral cooperation, particularly on energy, climate change, and cross-border investment. Her research also covers China’s political system, market regulatory reforms, and how China’s domestic and foreign policy developments affect the United States. Hart has worked on China issues for more than a decade. Before joining American Progress, she worked as a project consultant for the Aspen Institute International Digital Economy Accords project. She also worked on Qualcomm’s China business development team, where she provided technology market and regulatory analysis to guide Qualcomm operations in Greater China. She has worked as a China adviser for The Scowcroft Group, Albright Stonebridge Group, and the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. Hart currently serves on the board of the American Mandarin Society, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting the professional development of current and future stewards of the U.S.-China relationship. She is also a charter member of the East Coast Advancement Committee of the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California, San Diego, and a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. Hart has a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, San Diego, and a B.A. from Texas A&M University. She studied Chinese at China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing and has worked as a Chinese-English translator for Caijing Magazine.

Yasheng Huang Epoch Foundation Professor of International Management & Faculty Director of Action Learning, MIT Sloan School of Management

Yasheng Huang is Epoch Foundation professor of international management and faculty director of action learning at Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Between 2013 and 2017, he served as an associate dean in charge of MIT Sloan’s global partnership programs and its action learning initiatives. His previous appointments include faculty positions at the University of Michigan and at Harvard Business School. Dr. Huang is currently involved in research projects in four broad areas: 1) a book project on “The Nature of the Chinese State,” 2) collaboration with researchers at Tsinghua University to create a complete database on historical technological inventions in China, 3) as a co-PI in “Food Safety in China: A Systematic Risk Management Approach” (supported by Walmart Foundation, 2016-), and 4) research on venture finance, production of scientific knowledge, work of the future in China. He has published numerous articles in academic journals and in media and 11 books in English and Chinese. At MIT Sloan School, Professor Huang founded and runs China Lab and India Lab, which have provided low-cost consulting services to over 360 small and medium enterprises in China and India. Between 2015 and 2018, he ran a program in Yunnan province to train small and medium women entrepreneurs (funded by Goldman Sachs Foundation). He has held or received prestigious fellowships such as National Fellowship at Stanford University and Social Science Research Council-MacArthur Fellowship. He was named by National Asia Research Program as one of the most outstanding scholars in the United States conducting research on issues of policy importance to the United States. He is or has been a fellow at the Center for China in the World Economy at Tsinghua University, a research fellow at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, a fellow at William Davidson Institute at Michigan Business School, and a World Economic Forum Fellow. He has served as a consultant at World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and OECD and is serving on a number of advisory and corporate boards of non-profit and forprofit organizations.

Tate Nurken, Founder and CEO of OTH Intelligence Group

Tate Nurkin The founder and CEO of OTH Intelligence Group LLC, a company established in March 2018 to provide research, analysis and advisory services on geopolitical, security and defense issues to U.S. and allied defense and intelligence community organizations, the global defense industry, and non-defense private sector industry. Before establishing OTH Intelligence Group, Mr. Nurkin spent 12 years with the defense analysis and publishing firm Jane’s by IHS Markit. While at Jane’s, he ran the national security consulting group and for the last four years served as the head of Jane’s Strategic Assessments and Future Studies Center, an internal think tank focused on the implications of emerging technology for defense and security interests. From 2012 until his departure in 2018, Mr. Nurkin was a member of the Jane’s leadership team, which was responsible for overall Jane’s business operations. He currently serves as a Senior Associate for Jane’s. Substantively, Mr. Nurkin’s research and analysis is focused on China’s military modernization and defense innovation capacity; the global defense industry; and the future of defense technology and military capabilities. He also has 20 years’ experience in the design and delivery of alternative futures analysis methods, such as scenario planning, wargaming and red teaming in support of both private sector industry and the U.S. and allied defense and intelligence communities. He is a frequent speaker and author on global defense and security issues, including recent speaking appearances at the New America Foundation’s Future of War Conference in Washington, DC (April 2018), the Unmanned Systems Exhibition (UMEX) conference in Abu Dhabi (February 2018), and providing testimony to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (February of 2018). His analysis is also frequently published in Jane’s and third party publications. In May 2018, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission published his 250-page report entitled China’s Advanced Weapons Systems. In September of 2014, Mr. Nurkin began a two-year term on the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Nuclear Security and led the Council’s Nuclear Futures exercise work-stream. In 2016, he joined the World Economic Forum’s Future Council on International Security, which is focused on assessing how technology is shaping the future of global defense and security environments. Mr. Nurkin joined Jane’s Information Group (Jane’s) in March of 2006 and subsequently joined IHS through its acquisition of Jane’s in the summer of 2007 and IHS Markit through merger in June 2016. Prior to 2006, he worked for the Modeling, Simulation, Wargaming and Analysis Group of Booz Allen Hamilton; the Strategic Assessment Center of Science Application International Corporation and Joint Management Services, a small firm based in Atlanta, GA that assesses defense technology competitions. He holds a Masters of Science in International Affairs from the Sam Nunn School of international affairs at Georgia Tech (1999) and a Bachelors of Arts in history and political science from Duke University (1994).