Zeidman Memorial Lecture

31st Annual John Fisher Zeidman Memorial Lecture
Cheng Li, “China’s New Leadership and Political Trajectory”
March 13, 2013 at 8:00 PM, Robert L. Smith Meeting Room

Cheng Li is director of research and a senior fellow at the John L. Thornton China Center in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. Li is also a director of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. He focuses on the transformation of political leaders, generational change, and technological development in China.

Li grew up in Shanghai during the Cultural Revolution. In 1985 he came to the United States, where he received an MA in Asian studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and a PhD in political science from Princeton University. Li is the author or editor of numerous books, including Rediscovering China: Dynamics and Dilemmas of Reform (1997), China’s Leaders: The New Generation (2001), Bridging Minds Across the Pacific: The Sino-U.S. Educational Exchange 1978-2003 (2005), China’s Changing Political Landscape: Prospects for Democracy (2008), China’s Emerging Middle Class: Beyond Economic Transformation (2010), and The Road to Zhongnanhai (2012, in Chinese).

Frequently called on by the media as an expert, Li also advises a range of government, business, and nonprofit organizations on working in China. Before joining Brookings in 2006, he was a professor of government at Hamilton College, where he had taught since 1991.

Each spring Sidwell Friends School hosts the John Fisher Zeidman Memorial Lecture, which brings to campus an extraordinarily distinguished group of experts on various dimensions of Chinese history, culture, and  society. The Zeidman Lecture is viewed as an important and valuable event within the larger China-interest community in Washington.

Past Zeidman Lectures

  • 1983 - John King Fairbank, Professor of Chinese History, Harvard University, “Chinese-American Relations: Problems and Prospects”
    1984 - John Hersey, Professor of English, Yale University; author of A Bell for Adano (1945 Pulitzer Prize) and Hiroshima, "Readings from Treadup of the China Field”
    1985 - Jonathan Spence, Professor of History, Yale University, "The Dream of Love in Ming China and Shakespeare’s Mind”
    1986 - Harrison Salisbury, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for The New York Times, “China’s New Long March to Modernization”
    1987 - Arthur Miller, Playwright and author of Death of a Salesman (1949 Pulitzer Prize), “Salesman in Beijing: Directing an American Play on the Chinese Stage”
    1988 - Han Xu, Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to the United States, "Forging Bonds of Friendship between the Chinese and American Peoples”
    1989 - Harry Harding, Dean of the Elliot School of International Affairs, George Washington University, “The Challenge of a New Relationship: The United States and China in the 1990s”
    1990 - Michel Oksenberg, Professor of Political Science, University of Michigan, “Reflections on the Sino-American Relationship”
    1991 - Perry Link, Professor of East Asian Studies, Princeton University, “Politics and the Chinese Language”
    1992 - Nien Cheng, Author of Life and Death in Shanghai, “China under Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping”
    1993 - Oleg Troyanovsky '37, Soviet Union Ambassador to Japan, the United States, and China, "Sino-Russian Relations: Past, Present, and Future”
    1994 - Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, Pulitizer Prize-winning journalists for The New York Times, “China’s Revolution Today”
    1995 - Warren Cohen, Professor of History, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, “A New Epoch in Sino-American Relations”
    1996 - Nicholas Hope, Director of the World Bank's Operations in China and Mongolia, “China’s Economic Development in the Next Century”
    1997 - Mary Gardner Gates, Director of the Seattle Art Museum, “Artistic Treasures of Ancient China”
    1998 - Andrew Nathan, Professor of Political Science, Columbia University, “Taiwan, China, and the U.S.: A Tail Wagging Two Dogs?”
    1999 - Li Zhaoxing, Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to the United States, “An Exploration of U.S.-China Relations in the Twenty-first Century”
    2000 - Jonathan Spence, Professor of History, Yale University; author of Mao Zedong (1999), “Judging Mao: Is the Verdict In?”
    2001 - James Lilley and Steven Mufson, Lilley served as Ambassador of the United States to Korea (1986-1989) and the People’s Republic of China (1989-1991); Mufson served as the Beijing correspondent for The Washington Post, 1994-1998, "The Tiananmen Papers: Contending Forces Then and Now”
    2002 - Maxine Hong Kingston, Chinese-American author, “Readings from The Fifth Book of Peace”
    2003 - Yang Jiechi, Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to the United States, “China-United States Relations in the New Century”
    2004 - Orville Schell, Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley, “The China Miracle: Long Boom or Bubble?”
    2005 - Huston Smith, Professor of Religion and Philosophy, Emeritus, Syracuse University; author of The World’s Religions, “China’s Place in World History”
    2006 - Carma Hinton, Filmmaker and Da Chen, Writer, moderated by Anne F. Thurston, Independent Scholar, "Forty Years Later: The Legacy of China's Cultural Revolution"
    2007 - John Pomfret, The Washington Post Los Angeles Bureau Chief and Author of Chinese Lessons: Five Classmates and the Story of the New China, "A Gambling Nation: Four Bets China Is Making on Its Future"
    2008 - Rob Gifford, former Beijing correspondent for National Public Radio and Author of China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power, "China at the Crossroads: Future Directions of a Rising Power
    2009 - Losang Rabgey, Director and co-found of the NGO Machik, Tashi Rabgey, co-founder of Machik and co-Director of the Tibet Center at the University of Virginia, and David Germano, Professor of Religious Studies, University of Virginia, Tibet: Hope through Engagement
    2010 - James Fallows National Correspondent, The Atlantic, and author of Postcards from Tomorrow Square, "Reports from China"
    2011 - Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Professor of History, University of California, Irvine, editor of the Journal of Asian Studies, author of China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know, “China’s Changing Place in the American Imagination: 1900 – 2010”
    2012 - Prasenjit Duara, Professor of Humanities at the National University of Singapore, Director of Asian Research Institute and Research in Humanities and Social Sciences, Chinese Civilization and the Problem of Sustainability

2009 - Tashi Rabgey, Losang Rabgey, and David Germano

2008 - Rob Gifford



In The Gallery

Rob Gifford

2008 Zeidman Memorial Lecture

The 26th Annual Zeidman Memorial Lecture, titled "China at the Crossroads: Future Directions of a Rising Power," featuring Rob Gifford of National Public Radio.

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