Dr. Shixiong Ni is Dean of the newly-established School of International Relations, Fudan University and Director of the Center for American Studies. Dr. Shixiong Ni is a Chinese national. He is an Executive Member of the Shanghai Association of International Relations, Deputy General and Executive Member of the Shanghai Research Society of International Relations, Vice-President of the Chinese National Association of American Studies, and International Counselor for the Asia Society, New York. He has written extensively on Sino-US relations. Dr. Ni's most recent publications include Comparative IR Theories, co-authored with Jin Yinzhong, China Social Sciences Press, 1992; War and Morality: The Rise of Nuclear Ethics, Hunan Publishing House, 1992; International Human Rights, co-authored with Lai Pengcheng, Shanghai People's Press, 1993; and From Normalization to Re-normalization: 20 Years of Sino-US Relations, Fudan University Press, 1999.
Ambassador J. Stapleton Roy, a career Foreign Service officer since 1956, is former Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Research and former Ambassador to the People's Republic of China (1991-1995). He was assigned to Beijing from 1978-1981 where he was Deputy Chief of the U.S. Liaison Office in Beijing and later with the establishment of U.S.-P.R.C. diplomatic relations, Deputy Chief of Mission. He was Deputy Chief of Mission in Thailand (1981-1984) and Ambassador to Singapore (1984-1986). He returned to Washington as East Asian and Pacific Affairs as Deputy Assistant Secretary (1986-1989), and Special Assistant to the Secretary and Executive Secretary of the Department (1989-1991). He was U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia starting in 1995.
Ambassador Roy holds a B.A. in History from Princeton University, and has studied at the University of Washington in Seattle and the National War College. He speaks Mandarin Chinese, Russian and Thai.
Dr. Banning Garrett received his B.A. from Stanford University and his Ph.D. from Brandeis University. He has been a consultant to the U.S. government on Asian affairs since 1980. Dr. Garrett is also a Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a member of the International Institutes for Strategic Studies (London), and on the board of directors of the U.S. Committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific. He has written extensively on a wide range of issues, including Chinese foreign policy views on the strategic environment, Sino-American relations, U.S. defense policy and Asian security, multilateral security in the Asia-Pacific region, Northeast Asian geopolitical perceptions, and Russian strategy toward Asia. Dr. Garrett has published articles in International Security, the Washington Quarterly, Asian Survey, Arms Control Today, the Far Eastern Economic Review, the Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, Contemporary Southeast Asia, and other journals, and has contributed to many edited volumes on Asian affairs. Dr. Garrett has made more than two dozen visits to China in the last twenty years for talks with Chinese civilian and military officials and think-tank experts. His most recent visit to China was in January 2001.
Discourse
on civil society is no longer a monopoly of the West. Civil
society has shown that it is compatible with cultures around
the world. Civic virtues and voluntary associations that
form civil society's nucleus are to be found operating across
all boundaries. Even the Islamic world, long viewed as an
anathema to civil society, shows it is in fact rich in traditions
of charitable associations pursuing common good. Islamic
organizations, with public support at the grass roots level,
are in part behind democratization currently underway in
the world of Islam, particularly in Southeast Asia. Dr. Nakamura
will discuss recent developments in the area of civil society
in Southeast Asia. He will address whether Islamic civil
society is capable of overcoming exclusive communalism and
creating alliance with other elements of society.
