MIT Starr Forum: The Future of US-China Relations with Former Ambassador Nicholas Burns

Join us for a conversation with Nicholas Burns, the US ambassador to China from 2021-2025.

Speaker: Nicholas Burns is the Goodman Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Relations at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He is the founder and faculty chair of the Future of Diplomacy Project and a faculty affiliate at Harvard’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. Burns worked in the United States government for over three decades, serving six presidents and nine secretaries of state. Most recently, he served as the US ambassador to the People's Republic of China from 2021-2025, leading public servants from forty-eight US government agencies at the US mission to China in overseeing one of America's most important bilateral relationships. 

Moderator: Yasheng Huang is the Epoch Foundation Professor of Global Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He also serves as the faculty director of the MIT-China Program at the Center for International Studies. From 2013 to 2017, he served as an associate dean of MIT Sloan’s GlobalPartnership programs and its Action Learning initiatives. His previous appointments include faculty positions at the University of Michigan and at Harvard Business School. Huang is the author of 11 books in both English and Chinese and of many academic papers. His most recent book, “The Rise and Fall of the EAST: How Exams, Autocracy, Stability, and Technology Brought China Success, and Why They Might Lead to its Decline”, was a 2023 Best Book of the Year by Foreign Affairs magazine. 

This event is co-sponsored by MIT Center for International Studies and the MIT-China Program.

Free & open to the public.

A recording will be posted on YouTube following the event.

Starr Forums, our flagship public event series, brings to campus leading academics, policymakers, and journalists to discuss pressing issues in the world of international relations. Sign up for Starr Forum emails to get notified about upcoming events.

A full listing of Starr Forums is available here.

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