Event Date:
Fri, 2003-04-04
A Report on
The 16th Annunal ACPS Meeting
The 16th annual meeting of the Association of Chinese Political Studies (ACPS) was successfully held between April 4-6, 2003 at Hilton hotel in Knoxville, Tennessee. The theme of the conference was the fourth generation of Chinese leadership and the building of a new political order in China. The conference was co-sponsored by the Provost Office, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Political Science, Global Studies and Asian Studies, all at the University of Tennessee. Over thirty scholars from the U.S., mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong participated in the meeting. Dr. Yang Zhong, then president-elect of the ACPS, presided the opening session. Dr. Loren Crabtree, Provost of the University of Tennessee and a Chinese historian, and Dr. Patricia Freeland, Head of Political Science Department at the University of Tennessee, delivered warm welcoming remarks to the participants at the opening session. The honorable James Sasser, a former U.S. Ambassador to China and a former U.S. Senator from Tennessee, delivered the keynote speech. Ambassador Sasser, speaking from his personal experience, provided insightful views on U.S.-China relations in the new era of global anti-terrorism and the possible new directions that China may take under the new Chinese leadership. He also answered a number of questions fielded from the audience.
After the opening session, Dr. Weixing Chen, then President of the ACPS and Professor of Department of Political Science at East Tennessee State University, chaired a roundtable discussion of possible new developments in Chinese domestic politics, society and foreign policy participated by Shulong Chu, Professor and Director of Center for Strategic Studies, Hsinghua University of China, Xinning Song, Professor and Associate Dean, School of International Relations of Remin University of China, Gang Lin, Woodrow Wilson Center of Washington, DC, and Yang Zhong, Professor of Department of Political Science at the University of Tennessee. The roundtable discussion was followed by a number of interesting panels dealing with the 16th party congress of the Chinese Communist Party, China? foreign relations, cross-Taiwan Straits relations and social issues in China. At the business meeting of the ACPS during the conference a new ACPS Board of Directors was elected: Yang Zhong (president), Shiping Hua (president-elect), Zhiyue, Bo, Joseph Cheng, Baogang Guo, Sujian Guo and Ka Zeng. Conference participants also took some time out of their busy schedule to tour the Great Smoky Mountains and Gatlinburg, two well-known tourist attractions near Knoxville.