On March 29, 2019, SIAS held the first lecture of the Shanghai American Forum of 2019, the third since its launch in 2016, at the Shanghai Federation of Social Science Associations (SFSSA). He Weiwen, former economic and commercial counselor of Chinese Consulate-General in San Francisco and New York, made a keynote speech on the China-US trade dispute.

Having tracked world economics and trade, globalization and global governance, the American economy, the One Belt One Road Initiative (OBOR) and China’s opening-up policy in the past two decades, Mr. He has gathered extensive knowledge and experience on the American economy and China-US economic and trade relations. He is a senior research fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China and the Center for China and Globalization (CCG). He also serves as co-director of the Strategic Center for Chinese, American and European Economic Studies at the China Association of International Trade (CAIT), executive director of the China Society for World Trade Organization Studies (CWTO) and research fellow at the China Foundation for International Studies (CFIS). 

In his lecture, Mr. He looked back on the trade dispute between China and the US in the past year and illustrated what it has brought for both sides with detailed statistics. While probing into the origin, essence and development mechanism of the China-US trade dispute from both the macro and micro perspectives, he also shared his insights on its future development.

The meeting was moderated by Long Fei, deputy director of the Office of Research at SIAS. Pan Rui, professor from the Center for American Studies at Fudan University, Shen Yi, associate professor from the School of International Relations and Public Affairs at Fudan Uniersity, Xue Lei, assistant research fellow from the Institute for World Economy Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (SIIS) and Wu Qisheng, assistant research fellow from the Institute of International Relations at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences (SASS) shared their views with Mr. He on a variety of issues. More than 50 academics and students from local institutions joined SIAS research staff at the meeting.