On Friday, February 4, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation hosted an online event to discuss U.S. corporations’ complicity in Beijing’s human rights abuses, surveillance state, and military modernization. The event featured an expert panel and revealed the findings of VOC’s newly released report — “Corporate Complicity Scorecard” — released in partnership with Horizon Advisory.
Event Recording
Speakers
Ambassador Andrew Bremberg (moderator) is the President and CEO of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. Previously Ambassador Bremberg served as the Representative of the United States to the Office of the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva. Ambassador Bremberg has a long history of public service. Prior to his work at the UN, he served as Assistant to the President and Director of the Domestic Policy Council for the Executive Office of the President. He previously served as Policy Advisor and Counsel on Nominations for the Office of Senate Majority Leader. He also worked for the non-profit MITRE Corporation as a senior health policy-analyst and department manager, and for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Ambassador Bremberg earned a B.A. from Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio and a J.D. from Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He and his wife Maria have four children and live in Virginia.
Richard Goldberg is a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). From 2019-2020, Richard served as the Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction for the White House National Security Council. He previously served as chief of staff for Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner and deputy chief of staff and senior foreign policy adviser to former U.S. Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois in both the U.S. House and Senate. As a staff associate for the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State-Foreign Operations, Richard worked on a wide range of issues related to U.S. foreign assistance, including foreign military financing, international security assistance, international peacekeeping, development, global health and economic support funds. He was a founding staff director of the House U.S.-China Working Group and was among the first Americans ever to visit China’s human space launch center. A leader in efforts to expand U.S. missile defense cooperation with Israel, Richard played a key role in U.S. funding for the Arrow-3 program, Iron Dome and the deployment of an advanced missile defense radar to the Negev Desert.
Nathan Picarsic is a co-founder of Horizon Advisory, a geopolitical consultancy, and a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). His work focuses on the development of competitive strategies that help businesses, investors, and governmental actors navigate economic, technological, and political change. His team’s research on topics ranging from geopolitical competition to human rights abuses have been profiled in The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, among other leading international outlets. His expertise has been cited by outlets ranging from Vice to Barron’s and he has testified before the US-China Economic Security and Review Commission on US-China relations and the strategic role of capital markets. He serves as a mentor and advisor to technology startups at Carnegie Mellon University’s Project Olympus. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard College and has completed executive education programs through Harvard Business School and the Defense Acquisition University.
Isaac Stone Fish is the founder and CEO of the research firm Strategy Risks, which quantifies corporate exposure to China. He is also a Washington Post Global Opinions contributing columnist, a contributor to CBSN, an adjunct at NYU’s Center for Global Affairs, a visiting fellow at the Atlantic Council, and a columnist on China risk at Barron’s. Previously he served as Foreign Policy Magazine’s Asia Editor: he managed coverage of the region, and wrote about the politics, economics, and international affairs of China, Japan, and North Korea. A fluent Mandarin speaker and formerly a Beijing correspondent for Newsweek, Stone Fish spent seven years living in China prior to joining Foreign Policy. He has traveled widely in the region and in the country, visiting every Chinese province, autonomous region, and municipality. He was also formerly a senior fellow at the Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations, and a visiting fellow at the German Marshall Fund. He is the author of America Second: How America’s Elites Are Making China Stronger, to be published by Knopf on February 15th.
Matthew Turpin is a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution specializing in U.S. policy towards the People’s Republic of China, economic statecraft and technology innovation. He is also a senior advisor at Palantir Technologies. From 2018 to 2019, Turpin served as the U.S. National Security Council’s Director for China and the Senior Advisor on China to the Secretary of Commerce. Before entering the White House, Turpin served over 22 years in the U.S. Army in a variety of combat units in the United States, Europe and the Middle East and as an assistant professor of history at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He retired from the Army in 2017. From 2013 to 2017, he served as an advisor on the People’s Republic of China to the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon. From 2010 to 2013, Turpin was the Chief of Crisis Planning at the United States Pacific Command in Honolulu.
Dr. Adrian Zenz is the Director and Senior Fellow of China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, and supervises Ph.D. students at the European School of Culture and Theology, Korntal, Germany. His research focus is on China’s ethnic policy, public recruitment in Tibet and Xinjiang, Beijing’s internment campaign in Xinjiang, and China’s domestic security budgets. Dr. Zenz is the author of Tibetanness under Threat and co-editor of Mapping Amdo: Dynamics of Change. He has played a leading role in the analysis of leaked Chinese government documents, including the “China Cables” and the “Karakax List.” Dr. Zenz is an advisor to the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, and a frequent contributor to the international media.
