If you are an IR enthusiast/student doing your research on China or India, and if you are in the US, here's a great opportunity for you to listen to what the experts have to say.

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HARVARD COLLEGE
CHINA-INDIA DEVELOPMENT AND RELATIONS SYMPOSIUM (CIDRS)
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DATES: March 30 - April 2, 2007
LOCATION: New York City
WEBSITE: http://www.cidrs.org
APPLICATION DEADLINE: December 26, 2006
Financial aid available!

CIDRS is a four-day program of keynote speeches, breakouts, plenary
sessions, and student paper presentations focusing entirely on China's
and India's most pressing development and international relations
topics. CIDRS seeks to foster a fuller understanding of the link
between China and India through dialogue and exchange of ideas.

CIDRS is a being organized by a team of Harvard students under the
auspices of the Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations
(HPAIR), a registered student group of Harvard College. For fifteen
years, HPAIR has organized conferences on Asian relations and business,
hosting such officials as South Korean President and Nobel Laureate Kim
Dae Jung, Governor General of Australia Peter Hollingworth, and
Singapore President S.R. Nathan. CIDRS represents HPAIR's first major
conference in North America.

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PROGRAM
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Each day of our program is dedicated to a different overarching field of
study: Economics, Society and Culture, Government and Politics, and
International Relations. Session topics will include: Civil Society;
Sustainable Development; Energy Relations; Human Rights Protection;
China, India, and the U.S.; and more! A full listing of session topics
can be found here: www.cidrs.org/about/program.aspx.

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SPEAKERS
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Confirmed speakers include:
Lincoln Chen, Director, Harvard KSG Global Equity Center Nicholas Platt,
President Emeritus, Asia Society Jean Oi, Professor and Director,
Stanford University Center for East Asian Studies Dwight Perkins,
Professor, Harvard University Arundhati Banerjee, Director of MIT-India
Program Hafiz Pasha, Regional Director, UN Development Programme
Katharina Pistor, Professor, Columbia University Gowher Rizvi, Director,
Harvard Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation O. P.
Dwivedi, Professor Emeritus, University of Guelph And more!

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APPLICATION
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Applicants of all ages and backgrounds will be considered, but strong
preference will be shown to current graduate students and advanced
undergraduate students at internationally accredited institutions.
Interested students who wish to present a paper at the conference may
submit a paper abstract as part of their application. Both general
delegates and paper presenters are welcome! Applications are online at
www.cidrs.org.

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MORE INFORMATION
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To learn more about CIDRS conference, please go to http://www.cidrs.org/

Sounds interesting - thanks for the info, Isolated Freak. It says - " preference will be shown to current graduate students and advanced undergraduate students at internationally accredited institutions. " - so I suppose my chances of getting in are very slim ...LOL!

Hope all is well with you - good to see you around.

Ran into this in The Economist:

America and China
Paulson's party
Dec 7th 2006
From The Economist print edition

George Bush's entire economic team heads to China. Why?

IF YOU want to discuss American economic policy next week, go to Beijing. On December 14th and 15th, Washington's top brass—Hank Paulson, the treasury secretary, along with five other cabinet-level officials and Ben Bernanke, the head of the Federal Reserve—will sit down with their Chinese counterparts for the first meeting of a new semi-annual “Strategic Economic Dialogue”. Such a gathering is unprecedented. What (aside from frequent-flyer miles) will be gained?

Officially, the goal is to lift the Sino-American economic debate from narrow squabbling over China's cheap currency to bigger and broader subjects. Mr Paulson, a man who prides himself on close contacts with the Chinese leadership and who, as an investment banker, was famed for his assiduousness with clients, realised that his predecessors were perceived as hectoring foreigners in Beijing. Instead of taking that route, Washington would woo the Chinese with a dialogue among equals.

he agenda is certainly lofty, covering subjects from China's energy and environmental strategies to the country's role in the global economy. Even if it is just talk, it is a meeting worth having. It surely cannot be a bad idea for the world's two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases to discuss energy security and the environment. But the American visitors have more immediate hopes—to influence Chinese policy, and to fend off protectionist pressure from the new Democratic Congress.

In trade disputes, at least, the Bush team seems to be shifting gears. Until Mr Paulson's arrival, the Treasury sounded tough on China's currency, while Mr Bush's trade team held back from taking legal action on trade disputes. (America has filed only one case against China at the WTO, on car parts.) Now Mr Paulson sets a conciliatory tone, while the trade negotiators are getting tougher.

Washington may soon file a WTO case accusing China of inadequate enforcement of intellectual-property rights. A second WTO case, against illegal Chinese export subsidies, may also be filed next year. America may also consider levying countervailing duties against Chinese goods that the Commerce Department considers artificially subsidised.

Overall, the currency and trade imbalances remain the biggest political irritations. Chinese officials talk a lot about shifting towards a greater focus on consumption, but American policymakers doubt whether much has really been done. China's overall current-account surplus, they point out, has soared to around 8% of GDP. And protectionists frequently complain that the bilateral trade deficit exceeded $200 billion last year and is still rising. Nicholas Lardy, a China expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, recently wrote that the country's transition to more consumption-driven growth was “off to a slow start”. That view is echoed throughout official Washington, though there is a recognition that the pace of yuan appreciation—at least against the dollar—is gathering steam (see chart). Since September, the currency has risen by 7% on an annual basis.

Politically, the big question is whether Beijing will keep up this pace of appreciation against the dollar and whether that will placate the new crowd on Capitol Hill. Conventional wisdom holds that the arrival of the Democrats has raised the risks for China, an idea Mr Paulson and his team are only too happy to propagate. There is some truth to it. Nancy Pelosi, the incoming speaker of the House of Representatives, is a staunch critic of China's human-rights record as well as a trade sceptic. She has scuffled with Chinese police on Tiananmen Square and called American trade relations with China “a disaster”. Set against that, the most dangerous piece of anti-China legislation—a bill to slap 27.5% tariffs on Chinese goods if the currency is not revalued by the same amount—has been formally withdrawn. Its proponents have promised to work with other senators on a more modest law that would not break WTO rules, a process that is likely to take at least six months.

There will be much huffing about China in congressional hearings, but the Democrats seem prepared to give Mr Paulson's new strategy a shot. That could change if the economy goes into recession and unemployment rises sharply. For now, dragging much of the cabinet to Beijing seems a small price to pay for diffusing protectionist pressure at home.

Isolated Freak, btw, are you based in China?

Hey Captain,

Given your experience, interest and knowledge, I think the chances of you getting in are actually very high.

Thanks for the Economist article. To be honest, I don't understand econ. a lot. The only class I ended up with a C was intro. to Macroecon. (For the rest, I ended up with D+es: ) I have been hearing about this currency issue a lot these days, but I really don't understand this. All I know is, the US wants China to raise (evaluate) its Yuan and the Chinese governmnet has its own reasons to not to do so. So what is likely at this point is: They will either agree to disagree or to put off the issue for some time.

I have sent you an email regarding my whereabouts. If you find yourself in my part of the world, let me know. Pitchers and pitchers and pitchers of local brew await you.

Thanks for the email. Same offer if you are here:)

It's interesting to hear your comments on economics - for someone like me, obviously with much less academic credibility than you, I almost see the two as inseparable, especially when it comes to the US and China. I think of history from the days of the Silk Route to the East India Company and wonder if it isn't mammon that is the engine of world politics.

Just a thought.

Hope you are having a good day.

Dear Captain,

You are 100% right. Politics is all about economics. (Probably this is why Chanakya/Kautilya called his book on statecraft, Arthashastra.)

But for someone like me who is not so good at maths, econ. is the most difficult thing to comprehend. All those charts, graphs, equations GDP GNP stuff really scare me. However American liberal arts curriculum lets you do whatever you want, and I was lucky enough to graduate with only one class on econ.

Econ. was always important, and it is even more important in politics today, absolutely no question regarding that. But there are other factors such as nationalism, arms race, aliiances, unresolved issues that are also important when analyzing various IR issues. (But I do agree that all these issues originate from econ.) Since they are a bit detached from econ. studying them is not difficult. There's no maths and I focus on those.

Now, my academic ability and credibililty, I am just a student and I believe I have much to learn from you and other sajha posters.

you too, have a good one.