China 411

Purpose:

The United States and China are the largest and second largest economies in the world. President Obama calls the relationship the most important bilateral relationship of the 21st century. Yet the relationship is fraught with mistrust and miscalculation, with the potential for catastrophic conflict. Many scholars have written about the complex reasons behind the agreements and disagreements by taking a particular narrative. What they missed is that, on every single issue of importance, there are four underlying perspectives: how Americans view themselves, how Chinese view Americans, how Chinese view themselves, and how Americans view Chinese. Without understanding the four often competing and contradictory perspectives, and the historical and practical reasons giving rise to them, one cannot truly appreciate the vast potential and danger resident in the defining bilateral relationship of our age.

Description:

China 411 is a PodCast / YouTube series that explores the differing perspectives that underpin the US China relationship. Ken and Zheng each has spent significant time in the US and in China. Ken was raised in the Mideast, rose to be the Chairman and CEO of Silicon Valley Bank and spent three years in China setting up a joint venture bank. Zheng was born in China and spent half of his life in China and the other half in the US. They are great friends but find that on topics related to US and China they seem to always agree to disagree. Every week they invite a noted speaker to come and discuss a topic of broad interest in which US and China play significant roles.

Ken Wilcox:

Wilcox joined Silicon Valley Bank in 1990 when he co-founded the company’s East Coast Technology Division. In this role, Wilcox managed the first regional office of Silicon Valley Bank and was responsible for all lending activity east of the Mississippi River. Upon promotion to chief banking officer in 1997, Wilcox moved from Massachusetts to California and became president and CEO within four years.

Prior to joining Silicon Valley Bank, Wilcox spent two years as a member of the Technology Lending Group with the Bank of New England and five years at Shawmut Bank in Boston. Prior to his banking career, Wilcox was a professor of German at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Wilcox received a bachelor’s degree in German studies from Oakland University and a Ph.D. in German Studies from The Ohio State University. He also earned a master’s of business administration from Harvard Business School.

In addition to his board seat at Equilibrium Capital, Wilcox is a member of the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Asia Society, the Bessemer Venture Partners, and the Young Adult and Family Center at UCSF. He is also an executive committee and board member of the Bay Area Council.

Zheng Huang:

Zheng has spent exactly half of his life living and working in the US, and the other half in China. Born soon after the end of the Cultural Revolution and shortly before the opening up and reform programs, he immigrated to the US at the age of ten with his parents. Educated at Stanford University and Harvard Business School, he worked for such American corporate icons as Intel Corporation and served under President Barack Obama as a White House Fellow and special assistant to the Administrator for US Agency for International Aid. Eight years ago Zheng returned to China, first to work for Intel and then to strike out on his own, and built a multi-million dollar business connecting global institutional investors with opportunities in the emerging markets. Through it all, and his search for an identity, – “Am I American or Chinese?” – led him to examine the four perspectives running through every Sino-US discourse.