Navigating the US-China relationship will be one of the great challenges of our time. It will impact everything from geopolitics to global growth to technological innovation. Can this pivotal international relationship be managed peacefully and productively, or are we heading toward a world of economic fracture, military rivalry, and multiple blocs?

This panel of leading experts will consider the possibilities for progress on issues ranging from international security to international trade, to climate change.

Meet our speakers and chair

G. John Ikenberry is the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University in the Department of Politics and the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. He is also Co-Director of Princeton’s Center for International Security Studies. Ikenberry is also a Global Eminence Scholar at Kyung Hee University in Seoul, Korea. In 2018-19, Ikenberry was a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford University. In 2013-2014 Ikenberry was the 72nd Eastman Visiting Professor at Balliol College, Oxford. Ikenberry is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His most recent book, A World Safe for Democracy, was published by Yale University Press.

Rana Mitter is ST Lee Chair in US-Asia Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is the author of several books, including Forgotten Ally: China’s World War II (2013) which won the 2014 RUSI/Duke of Westminster’s Medal for Military Literature, and was named a Book of the Year in the Financial Times and Economist. His latest book is China’s Good War: How World War II is Shaping a New Nationalism (Harvard, 2020). His writing on contemporary China has appeared recently in Foreign Affairs, the Harvard Business Review, The Spectator, The Critic, and The Guardian.  He has commented regularly on China in media and forums around the world, including at the World Economic Forum at Davos. His recent documentary on contemporary Chinese politics "Meanwhile in Beijing" is available on BBC Sounds.  He is co-author, with Sophia Gaston, of the report Conceptualizing a UK-China Engagement Strategy (British Foreign Policy Group, 2020). He won the 2020 Medlicott Medal for Service to History, awarded by the UK Historical Association.  He previously taught at Oxford, and is a Fellow of the British Academy.

Nathalie Tocci (@NathalieTocci, @nathalietocci.bsky.social) is Director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali, part-time professor at the School of Transnational Governance (European University Institute), Honorary Professor at the University of Tübingen and independent non-executive director of the multi utility company Acea. She has been Special Advisor to EU High Representatives Federica Mogherini and Josep Borrell. In that capacity, she wrote the European Global Strategy and worked on its implementation. She is Europe’s Futures fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences (Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen, IWM). She was Pierre Keller Visiting Professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and, prior to joining Acea, she was independent board member first of Edison and then of Eni. She has held research positions at the Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels, the Transatlantic Academy, Washington, the European University Institute, Florence, and has taught at the College of Europe, Bruges.

Peter Trubowitz (@ptrubowitz) is Professor of International Relations, and Director of the Phelan US Centre at LSE and Associate Fellow at Chatham House, Royal Institute of International Affairs.

More about this event

This event is part of the LSE Festival: Visions for the Future running from Monday 16 to Saturday 21 June 2025, with a series of events exploring the threats and opportunities of the near and distant future, and what a better world could look like. Booking for all Festival events will open on Monday 19 May.  

The Phelan United States Centre (@LSE_US) is a hub for global expertise, analysis and commentary on America.

Hashtag for this event: #LSEFestival