Drawing on decades of experience at the center of U.S. policy toward China, Mark Lambert, former State Department China Coordinator and recently appointed China Policy Fellow at Stanford’s Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), and Ambassador Laura Stone, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for China and Mongolia and currently affiliated with Stanford’s Center for East Asian Studies, offer an insider’s assessment of the Trump-Xi state visit and its implications for U.S.-China relations.

Lambert and Stone will examine what Washington and Beijing each sought from the visit, what the two leaders actually achieved, and what the agreements, rhetoric, and notable omissions reveal about the state of the relationship. They will assess the implications for trade and economic ties, Taiwan and regional security, strategic competition, and the prospects for managing tensions between the world’s two most powerful countries. Please join us for a candid discussion of what the state visit changed, what it did not, and where U.S.-China relations may be headed next.

Speakers: 

Mark Lambert is the China Policy Fellow at Stanford University’s Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC). A career U.S. diplomat and one of the State Department’s leading China experts, he most recently served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for China and Taiwan and as the Department’s China Coordinator. Over the course of his Foreign Service career, Lambert held senior positions focused on China, East Asia, and international organizations, including multiple assignments in Beijing. He also served as a senior advisor in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs, where his work focused on China’s role in the United Nations and other multilateral institutions.

Ambassador Laura Stone is affiliated with Stanford University’s Center for East Asian Studies. A career member of the Senior Foreign Service, she most recently served as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Previously, she served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for China and Mongolia, with responsibility for managing U.S.-China relations during the Obama and first Trump administrations, and as Deputy Assistant Secretary for South Asia. Her other senior positions include Director of the Office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs, Director of the State Department’s Office of Economic Policy in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, and Economic Counselor in Hanoi. She served three tours at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and has spent more than three decades working on U.S. policy toward China and the Indo-Pacific.

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