China’s Next Act: How Sustainability and Technology are Reshaping China’s Rise and the World’s Future
If the COVID-19 pandemic taught us anything, it is that the world is bound together by shared challenges—and that at the center of those challenges stands China. Thanks to decades of breakneck growth and development, Chinese officials, businesses, and institutions now play a critical role in every major global issue, from climate change to biotechnology.
China’s Next Act re-envisions China’s role in the world in terms of sustainability and technology. This reframing is essential both because none of these increasingly pressing, shared global challenges can be tackled without China, and because they are reshaping China’s economy and its foreign policy, with major implications for the world at large. At the same time, sustainability and technology issues present opportunities for intensified economic, geopolitical, and ideological competition—a reality that Beijing recognizes.
The danger is that China’s next act will drive divergence on the rules and standards the world desperately needs to tackle shared challenges in the decades ahead. In some areas, like clean technology development, competition can be good for the planet. But in others, it could be catastrophic: only cooperation can lower the risks of artificial intelligence and other disruptive new technologies.
The challenges posed by climate change, pandemics, and emerging technologies make dealing with China’s state, its firms, and other institutions more complex and more critical than ever before. China’s Next Act helps foreign countries, companies, and other organizations prepare for a future shaped by sustainability, technology—and a dramatic new chapter for China and the world.
“An intelligent take on why so much of China’s future will be determined by the path it forges on climate change and with technology.”
— Kevin Rudd, 26th Prime Minister of Australia and President of the Asia Society
About Me
I am a political scientist and university administrator focused on China, sustainability, and emerging technology. I study how ecological and technological challenges shape politics and public policy — and vis versa. My main research interests center on water security and climate change adaptation in China and neighboring countries, but I also follow China’s growing role in the global biotechnology sector. Beyond academia, I have extensive experience in the policy world, having served as a Young Professional and Water Resources Management Specialist with the World Bank Group’s Water and Climate Change units; and as Environment, Science, Technology, and Health Officer for China at the U.S. Department of State, where I worked extensively on the Paris Agreement. At Penn, in addition to teaching and research I manage the $15 million Global Research and Engagement program and lead strategic initiatives for the Vice Provost for Global Initiatives. My work has appeared in The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, The China Quarterly, and Nature, among others. I hold master’s and doctoral degrees from Oxford University, where I was a Rhodes Scholar, and an undergraduate degree from Princeton.