School Notes: Yale Law School
March/April 2018

Paul Tsai China Center to collaborate with Brookings Institution

Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center and the Brookings Institution’s John L. Thornton China Center are launching a new collaboration to advance each institution’s agendas related to China. The new initiative will involve joint programming, research, publications, and cooperative educational activities with an eye toward informing policymaking and public debates on US-China relations.

The Brookings-Yale initiative will leverage the leading roles of each institution in the field of China studies, generating new, creative, and influential policy ideas for addressing the challenges and opportunities of the US-China relationship, often considered the most consequential bilateral relationship in the world. Through this partnership, the expanding Tsai Center will increase its Washington, DC, presence and its capacity to inform public debates on US-China relations. The Thornton Center will build on its reputation for academic depth and policy analysis through deeper collaboration with a pioneering university center focused on China.

The new project will feature a variety of cooperative activities, including an annual symposium on US-China relations, working group meetings and Track 1.5 or Track 2 diplomatic initiatives, and new professional development opportunities for students and young professionals. In addition, scholars from each institution will publish working papers and other policy-relevant analyses leveraging the academic resources, extensive networks, and public platforms of the respective centers.

The Paul Tsai China Center at Yale Law School is a leading university-based center undertaking research, teaching, and policy analysis related to China. The center, under the direction of Potter Stewart Professor of Constitutional Law Paul Gewirtz, is a unique institution dedicated to helping advance China’s legal reforms, improving US-China relations, and increasing understanding of China in the United States. The center’s multifaceted activities include dialogues, workshops, seminars, and public programs in the United States and China, research visits to China and to Yale University, and policy-relevant articles and books by leading US and Chinese scholars.