On October 27 from 9:00 AM – 3:30 PM EDT, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC) hosted The China Forum at The Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C.
The China Forum is an annual conference convening scholars, experts, and policymakers in the areas of trade and economics, foreign policy and security, and human rights and political development. The goal of The China Forum is to help Americans understand the nature of the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese Communist Party, and key issues in U.S.-China relations.
Agenda
8:30 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. EDT
Registration
9:00 a.m. – 9:15 a.m. EDT
Opening Remarks: Amb. Andrew Bremberg, President and CEO, Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation
Chairman’s Remarks: Dr. Edwin J. Feulner, Chairman, Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation
9:15 a.m. – 9:45 a.m. EDT
Keynote Remarks
9:45 a.m. – 10:40 a.m. EDT
Technology, Authoritarianism, and Big Tech’s Compliancy
The unique paring of an authoritarian government with highly advanced technology has resulted in the world’s most sophisticated police state, and the CCP is determined to export these measures to regimes around the world. The panelists will discuss the extent to which the CCP seeks to disrupt global norms governing the use of technology to repress people both at home and abroad and how Silicon Valley is unwittingly or wittingly complicit.
10:45 a.m. – 11:40 a.m. EDT
Global Governance: World Order with Chinese Characteristics?
Now more than ever the CCP appears confident that their system of governance is ascendant. This now poses a serious question for the US and its allies: Does the CCP intend to export this system of governance in the same way that the Soviet Union did? This panel will explore the ways in which the CCP is promoting its authoritarian system overseas, or at least using its growing influence to silence dissent against it.
11:45 a.m. – 12:40 p.m. EDT
China’s Frontiers: The CCP and Colonial Legacies
How do we view China – a nation, a civilization, or an empire? In 1949 the CCP inherited a vast landmass that encompassed countless cultures, languages, and ethnic groups. Mao implemented a Leninist system that promised many of these unique groups autonomy within a socialist state. However, under Xi Jinping and his “second-generation ethnic policies”, it seems that the CCP has resurrected the same kind of colonialism that was practiced by the empires of the 19th century. This panel will focus on the crises facing the nations that live along China’s historical frontiers, namely the Turkic peoples, Tibetans, and Mongols as well as how Hong Kong fits into this discussion.
12:40 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. EDT
Luncheon
1:30 p.m. – 2:25 p.m. EDT
Supply Chain and Forced Labor
Reports published in the past year by VOC has presented new evidence that hundreds of thousands of indigenous laborers in Xinjiang are being forced to pick cotton, attend “vocational training”, and being deported to other parts of the country as part of a coercive state-mandated labor transfer and “poverty alleviation” scheme, with possibly drastic consequences for global supply chains. This panel will discuss this evidence, its implications, and what can be done to affect change.
2:30 p.m. – 3:25 p.m. EDT
The Myth of Chinese Financial Hegemony
China is home to the largest finance sector in the world, but it may not be as strong as it seems. The Global Magnitsky Act empowered free governments to sanction individuals responsible for human rights abuses. The free world appears to be on the verge of taking the next step, which is to target private companies whose support of governmental actions makes the abuses possible. This panel will discuss the risks run by U.S. and Chinese businesses providing material support for China’s human rights abuses. Additionally, panelists will discuss how multinational corporations are enabling Beijing’s repression and what can be done to hold them to account.
3:25 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. EDT
Closing Remarks: Amb. Andrew Bremberg, President and CEO, Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation
