Amid heightened U.S.-China strategic and technology competition, bilateral scientific collaboration has become increasingly challenging. China’s broad military-civil fusion and espionage efforts have heightened Washington’s concerns that any collaboration could be exploited to advance Beijing’s military development.
Jing Qian co-founded the Center for China Analysis (CCA) at the Asia Society Policy Institute alongside the Hon. Dr. Kevin Rudd, to whom he served as a Senior Advisor for almost a decade. As the Managing Director of CCA, Jing leads its strategy, research, and policy work on China, which includes coordination of a series of Track 1.5/2 dialogues. Jing also co-leads the Decoding Chinese Politics and Cure4Cancer International Clinical Trials Collaboration projects.
Qian serves as an Advisory Board Member of the Bloomberg New Economy Forum and is a founding member of both the Bloomberg New Economy International Cancer Coalition and the AstraZeneca Global Health Equity Advisory Board. Qian is also a Senior Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto.
Qian’s own research is focused on China's elite politics and its impact on China's domestic and foreign policy, particularly regarding U.S.-China relations. His analyses have appeared in Bloomberg, CBC, The Economist, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Nature, Nature Medicine, etc.
A graduate of Harvard, Qian is deeply interested in the liberal arts. He co-founded Project Agora, with H.E. George Papandreou, aiming to educate the citizens and citizen-leaders for our society through the transformative power of a liberal arts education.
Brendan Kelly has worked at the center of U.S.-China economic and financial relations for the past 15 years in Washington, Beijing and New York. He most recently served as Director for China Economics Issues on the National Security Council (NSC) staff at the White House from June 2023 to July 2024, where he was responsible for coordinating U.S. Government economic policy issues and engagement related to China.
From 2018-2023, Kelly served at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, including as Deputy Head of International Relations and Country Risk, after leading the bank’s analysis on Asia and engagement with Asian central banks, including extensive coverage of China’s financial markets and economy, and its impact on U.S markets.
Previously Kelly served in several China and Asia-focused roles at the U.S. Treasury Department, including helping coordinate all 8 U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogues (S&EDs), as Treasury Attaché and Deputy Attaché in Beijing, 2014-2018, in the Office of International Banking and Securities Markets and Office of the U.S.-China S&ED.
Kelly also served as China Country Director in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and as a legislative aide in the Office of Senate Majority Leader William H. Frist.
Currently, Kelly is a Non-Resident Fellow on Chinese Economy and Technology at the Asia Society, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and a Fellow in the U.S.-Japan Leadership Program. Brendan holds a B.A. in Social Studies from Harvard University and an M.A. in International Economics and China Studies from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).
