Biennial event celebrates UMKC-China relationship

The biennial Edgar Snow Symposium returns to Kansas City this week with an array of events celebrating the 36-year-old partnership between the Kansas City-based Edgar Snow Memorial Foundation and the Beijing-based China Society for People’s Friendship Studies.

Featured events include a gala banquet featuring Chinese Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai and Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer; panel discussions including CBS Chief White House Correspondent Major Garrett, and author and former U.S. Ambassador Nicholas Platt; and an Edgar Snow Memorial Concert at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.

Go to the Edgar Snow Symposium web page for more information about the Symposium.

Snow, a Kansas City-born journalist, was one of the first westerners to observe and report on the Chinese revolution of the 1940s and its aftermath. His historic travels and stories, from the front lines to Mao’s encampment, gave western readers their earliest glimpse into this nation on the brink of monumental change.

Snow’s feats became the foundation of an abiding connection that is celebrated with a biennial symposium, alternating between Beijing and Kansas City. The symposium provides a forum for continuing dialogues between scholars and public figures in China and the U.S.; and provides citizens of both countries the opportunity to participate in those dialogues and to forge greater exchange and understanding of each country’s culture.

E. Grey Dimond, a founder of UMKC’s School of Medicine, was instrumental in the creation of the symposium and the foundation.

A sampling of Symposium events includes:

Friday Oct. 5, InterContinental Hotel Kansas City

Gala Reception and Banquet

Keynote Opening Remarks: Chinese Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai

Welcoming Remarks: Kansas Governor Jeff Colyer; University of Missouri System President Mun Choi; Acting Consul General Liu Jun; UMKC Chancellor C. Mauli Agrawal

Recognition of Sister City delegations from Yan’an and Xi’an by Kansas City Mayor Pro Tem Scott Wagner

Keynote Speaker: Ambassador Nicholas Platt, author of “China Boys: How U.S. Relations with the People’s Republic of China Began and Grew: A Personal Memoir”

“The Future of U.S.-China Trade and Global Economic Development”

Panelists will include Dr. Maria Adele Carrai, a fellow at the Princeton-Harvard China and the World Program; Xie Yuan, Vice President, Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries; Gao Zhendong, Vice President of the China Society for People’s Friendship Studies; Virginia Harper Ho, Associate Dean for International Law, University of Kansas Law School, and National Committee on U.S.-China Relations Public Intellectuals Program Fellow

“Practicing Journalism in an Era of Globalization.”

Panelists: Major Garrett, CBS Chief White House Correspondent; Prof. Ernest Zhang, MU School of Journalism; Prof. Yong Volz, MU School of Journalism; Prof. Wenxiang Gong, Peking University; Prof. Larson Powell, UMKC

Saturday Oct. 6, InterContinental Hotel Kansas City

U.S.-China Trade and Investment: Understanding the Big Picture

Panelists: Virginia Harper Ho, Associate Dean for International and Comparative Law, University of Kansas School of Law; Chu Fang, Director, Governance Institute; Eric Branstad, Managing Director, Mercury LLC, and former Senior White House Advisor, U.S. Dept. of Commerce; Liu Xinsheng, Vice President of People’s Friendship Society; Toby Rush, Senior Director, International Technology Investments, Ant Financial-Alibaba; Sidne Ward, Director, Bloch Global Management Education Initiatives, UMKC.

Emerging Opportunities in Key Sectors of U.S.-China Trade

Panelists: Narbeli Galindo, Director of International Affairs, Economic Development Corporation of Kansas City; Darcy Howe, Managing Director, KCRise Fund; Frederick Jiang, Managing Partner, Coalescence Partners Investment Management; Fang Shen, Partner, Husch Blackwell; Sidne Ward, Director, Bloch Global Management Education Initiatives, UMKC.