China Forum

2022 China Forum

Highlights from 2022

VOC Hosts Eighth Annual China Forum

On December 6th, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC) held its eighth annual China Forum convening scholars, international affairs experts, policymakers, and supporters from around the globe to participate in hard-hitting discussions about the increasingly aggressive nature of the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and key issues in US-China relations. This year’s China Forum was viewed by an in-person and virtual audience of over 4,600 people who heard from the world’s leading experts on China and the ruling Communist Party.

Since 2014, VOC has provided a unique platform, unlike any other in DC, for experts to educate American leaders and engage in frank discussion about the immediate danger posed to the world liberal democratic order by the CCP. The 2022 China Forum featured five panels on Beijing’s repressive ethnic policies, the challenges of economic integration with China, and the CCP’s foreign policy and power projection. Watch the full China Forum.

Keynote Address

“Daniel Tobin“ China Studies Faculty, National Intelligence University

This year’s keynote address was given by Daniel Tobin, a renowned China scholar and a member of China studies faculty at the National Intelligence University. 

Uyghur Forced Labor and Prevention: New Trends in Coercive Labor and the Duties of Business

Panelists considered developments in the implementation of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act and how the business community is responding to Chinese companies attempting to evade the sanctions, supply chain risks related to intermediary countries, especially in Asia, and if supply chain regulations can catch up.

Irina Bukharin

Program Director for Human Security, Center for Advanced Defense Studies

John Foote

Partner, Kelly Drye & Warren LLP

Shelly Heald Han

Chief of Staff and Director of Engagement, Fair Labor Association

Virginia Wake

International Trade Specialist, Forced Labor Division, US Customs and Border Protection

Dr. Adrian Zenz

Director and Senior Fellow in China Studies, Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (moderator)

Entanglement and Dependencies: Addressing the Challenges of Economic Integration with China

This panel discussed the moral and strategic costs of doing business with China, the challenges of disentangling from problematic financial ties, and explored approaches toward strategic forms of decoupling from related entanglements.

Claire Chu

Senior Analyst, Janes Group

The Hon. Nazak Nikakhtar

Partner, Wiley Law

Michael Sobolik

Fellow in Indo-Pacific Studies, American Foreign Policy Council

Ana Swanson

Trade and International Economics Writer, New York Times (moderator)

Chains of Command: Beijing’s Policymaking on Xinjiang and the Direction of Ethnic Policy under Xi Jinping

Panelists considered what the latest evidence of the CCP’s Uyghur policy reveals about Beijing’s increasingly draconian ethnic policies particularly in Xinjiang, including their genesis and development, their nature and intent, the extent of central government involvement, and their future direction under Xi Jinping.

James Millward

Professor of Intersocietal History, Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University

Suisheng Zhao

Professor and Director, Center for China-US Cooperation at Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver

Sean Roberts

Professor of the Practice of International Affairs, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University

Adrian Zenz

Director and Senior Fellow in China Studies, Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (moderator)

Interview and Q&A Session

Cai Xia, a Chinese dissident and former professor at the Central Party School of the Chinese Communist Party, exposed the inner workings of the CCP and provided an outlook on the communist nation under Xi Jinping. 

Cai Xia

Editor-in-Chief, Yibao magazine

Adrian Zenz

Senior Fellow in China Studies, Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation

Global Ambitions: Beijing’s Foreign Policy and Power Projection

This panel assessed China’s means of power projection and explored research-driven counter-strategies and responses to Beijing’s growing global ambitions.

Michael Auslin

Payson J. Treat Distinguished Research Fellow in Contemporary Asia, Hoover Institution

Emily de La Bruyère

Co-Founder, Horizon Advisory

Russell Hsiao

Executive Director, Global Taiwan Institute

Craig Singleton

China Program Deputy Director and Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Amb. Andrew Bremberg

President, Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (moderator)

2022 photos

Thank You To Our Sponsors

Thank you to our sponsors who made this event possible, especially the Diana Davis Spencer Foundation, The Taiwan Foundation for Democracy

Gold Sponsors

Silver sponsors

Bronze sponsors

2021 China Forum

Technology, Authoritarianism, and Big Tech’s Compliancy

The unique pairing of an authoritarian government with highly advanced technology has resulted in the world’s most sophisticated police state, and the CCP is determined to export these measures to regimes around the world. This panel will discuss the extent to which the CCP seeks to disrupt global norms governing the use of technology to repress people both at home and abroad and how Silicon Valley is unwittingly or wittingly complicit. 

Emily de La Bruyère

Co-Founder, Horizon Advisory

Ian Easton, Senior Director

Project 2049 Institute

Nathan Picarsic

Co-Founder, Horizon Advisory

Dr. Adrian Zenz,

Senior Fellow and Director, China Studies, Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation

Global Governance: World Order With Chinese Characteristics?

Now more than ever, the CCP appears confident that their system of governance is ascendant. This now poses a serious question for the U.S. and its allies: Does the CCP intend to export this system of governance in the same way that the Soviet Union did? This panel will explore the ways in which the CCP is promoting its authoritarian system overseas, or at least using its growing influence to silence dissent against it.

Peter Mattis

Director of Research and Analysis, Special Competitive Studies Project

David Sauer

Retired CIA Officer Miles Yu, Ph.D., Professor of History, U.S. Naval Academy

Amb. Andrew Bremberg

China’s Frontiers: The Ccp and Colonial Legacies

How do we view China – a nation, a civilization, or an empire? In 1949, the CCP inherited a vast landmass that encompassed countless cultures, languages, and ethnic groups. Mao implemented a Leninist system that promised many of these unique groups autonomy within a socialist state. However, under Xi Jinping and his “second-generation ethnic policies,” it seems that the CCP has resurrected the same kind of colonialism that was practiced by the empires of the 19th century. This panel will focus on the crises facing the nations that live along China’s historical frontiers, namely the Turkic peoples, Tibetans, and Mongols, as well as how Hong Kong fits into this discussion.

Bhuchung Tsering

Interim President, International Campaign for Tibet

James Millward, Ph.D.

Professor of Inter- societal History, Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University

Jeffrey Ngo

Hong Kong Activist Historian and Ph.D. Candidate, Georgetown University

Olivia Enos

Supply Chain and Forced Labor

Reports published in the past year by VOC have presented new evidence that hundreds of thousands of indigenous laborers in Xinjiang are being forced to pick cotton and attend “vocational training,” and being deported to other parts of the country as part of a coercive, state-mandated labor transfer and “poverty alleviation” scheme, with possibly drastic consequences for global supply chains. This panel will discuss this evidence, its implications, and what can be done to effect change.

Allison Gill

Forced Labor Director, Global Labor Justice International Labor Rights Forum

Michael Sobolik

Fellow in Indo-Pacific Studies, American Foreign Policy Council

Adrian Zenz, Ph.D.

Senior Fellow and Director, China Studies, Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation

Ethan Gutmann

Research Fellow in China Studies, Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (moderator)

Finance: The Myth of Chinese Financial Hegemony

China is home to the largest finance sector in the world, but it may not be as strong as it seems. The Global Magnitsky Act empowered free governments to sanction individuals responsible for human rights abuses. The free world appears to be on the verge of taking the next step, which is to target private companies whose support of governmental actions makes the abuses possible. This panel will highlight the risks run by U.S. and Chinese businesses providing material support for China’s human rights abuses. Additionally, this panel will discuss how multinational corporations are enabling Beijing’s repression and what can be done to hold them to account. 

William Browder

CEO, Hermitage Capital Management

Dexter Roberts

Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council

Roger Robinson

President and CEO, RWR Advisory Group

Jillian Melchior

2021 Photos

Thank You To Our Sponsors

Thank you to our sponsors who made this event possible, especially the Diana Davis Spencer Foundation, The Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, and Mr. Brian Mcnally

Mr. Brian Mcnally