The Summer Palace Dialogue (SPD) is an economic forum which brings together economists from both China and the United States to discuss economic cooperation between the two largest economies in the world.[1] SPD is co-hosted by Chinese Economists 50 Forum and the Columbia Global Centers East Asia, and was formerly co-hosted by the Brookings Institution. It was founded in 2009 by former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and current Chairman of AEA Investors Admiral Bill Owens and Vice Minister Liu He of the Chinese Central Leading Group on Financial and Economic Affairs.[2] The forum extends for two days. Participants spend the first day in private discussions and then convene a half-day public session to summarize their observations, analyses, and conclusions with the press and a broader audience. The Summer Palace Dialogue is scheduled annually in mid-September in Beijing, right before the Summer World Economic Forum in Dalian. The third annual Summer Palace Dialogue was held on September 12–13, 2011.[3]
Other than the forum, SPD sends a delegation of Chinese economists who participated in the forum to major cities in both the east and west coasts of the United States in order to conduct first hand research on political, social and economic conditions in the U.S.[4]
In 2009 the economists at the Summer Palace Dialogue discussed possible economic incentives which could slow down and stop climate change, especially in regards to the actions and policies of the United States and China.[5]
In 2010 Lou Jiwei, the chairman of the China Investment Corporation and an economist at the Summer Palace Dialogue, said that China should sell its U.S. dollars and diversify its foreign currency holdings if the United States continues its loose monetary policy. Lou Jiwei also had some advice for the United States, in which he said that the US Federal Reserve should tighten monetary policy and the United States Congress should continue with raising stimulus spending.[6] [7] Also in 2010, the economists at the Summer Palace Dialogue supported a deal between China's Ansteel Group and Mississippi-based Steel Development Co. which establishes a joint venture in the United States.[8]
The 2011 Summer Palace Dialogue focused on rebalancing the global economy in light of a stubbornly persistent economic downturn.[9] Participants stressed that the United States is going through a painful but necessary process of decreasing household debt. This restructuring is severely undermining demand in the U.S. economy, thus harming economic output and employment. Part of global rebalancing, participants said, was pushing the United States to greater export dependence, in line with President Obama's 2010 initiative to double U.S. net exports in five years.[10]
SPD economists and policymakers also assessed China's current economic challenges: inflation, local debt, and the possibility of a housing crisis.[11] Beijing's primary rebalancing task remains to increase Chinese domestic consumption. Such a shift will provide a new boom in Chinese economic growth while also decreasing China's trade surplus. Increasing Chinese outward foreign direct investment to the United States and small business purchases of U.S. goods were also solutions to help resolve the U.S.-China trade imbalance.
Professor, School of Law, University of Chicago; Former Deputy Secretary of the Treasury; Former Deputy Secretary of State.
S.K. and Angela Chan Professor of Global Management at the Haas School of Business, University of California Berkeley; Member of President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board.
Vice Chairman, Hills and Company; Former Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs.
Professor of International Trade/WTO Law, Director of International Finance and Economic Policy Program, and Co-Director of the APEC Study Center, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University; Former Member, Appellate Body from North America, World Trade Organization (WTO).
Party Secretary, Development Research Center of the State Council; Deputy Head, Office of the Central Leading Group on Financial and Economic Affairs.
Chairman of the China Investment Corporation.
Vice President of China Society of Economic Reform; President of National Economic Research Institute.
Former President of Institute of World Economy and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).