Foreign-born engineers are a significant and fast growing presence in Silicon Valley. This talk will examine how first generation Chinese and Indian immigrants--who represent one-third of the engineering workforce in the region--have integrated into the local economy while simultaneously building long-distance linkages to regions in Asia. AnnaLee Saxenian is a Professor of City and Regional Planning at the University of California at Berkeley and an internationally recognized expert on regional economic development and the information technology sector. Her current research examines the contributions of skilled immigrants to Silicon Valley and their growing ties to regions in Asia. Her recent publications include Silicon Valley's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs and Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128. She has written extensively about innovation and regional development, urbanization, and the organization of labor markets in the San Francisco Bay Area. Saxenian is the Gordon Cain Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research for the 1999-2000 academic year. She holds a Doctorate in Political Science from MIT, a Master's degree in Regional Planning from the University of California at Berkeley, and a BA in Economics from Williams College in Massachusetts.

The Honorable Wang Yunxiang has an extraordinary perspective on Chinese economic issues. His seminar will mainly concern the influence on China's economy and social development after China joins the WTO and will address key questions:

• How will America benefit from China joining the WTO? and
  
• What influences will be brought to the world's economy through China joining the WTO?
  

The Honorable Wang Yunxiang has had a distinguished diplomatic career. Since 1972 he served as Attache of the Chinese Embassy in the Republic of Malta(1972-1978), the first Secretary, Counselor of the Chinese Embassy in Uganda (1984-1988), and the Counselor of the Chinese Embassy in the Kingdom of Norway. Thereafter, he served as the Deputy Director General of the Information Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1991-1996). In 1996, he was appointed as the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the People's Republic of China to the Republic of Zambia. The Honorable Wang Yunxiang has served as Consul General of the People's Republic of China in San Francisco since 1999.

In Southeast Asia over the last two centuries, Chinese traders, workers, and immigrants adapted to a changing series of local environments--pre-national, colonial, and post-colonial. At each stage, they broadened the scope of their activities. They were on the brink of working the modern global economy when the post-World War II nation-states of Southeast Asia were created. Nationalist agendas and the politics of cold and hot wars soon obliged the ethnic Chinese to make readjustments. New forms of globalization are changing the Southeast Asian environment once again. Will former strategies of survivalÑadaptations honed during the last fifty years, if not the past two hundred--help the region's ethnic Chinese to deal with globalization in the 21st century? Or will such accommodations need to be replaced? Will the ethnic Chinese mainly seek (or be obliged) to concentrate on saving themselves? Or will they be able to share their own skills and values on behalf of the viable nations and vibrant economies that Southeast Asia will need if it is to cope successfully with the new century's challenges? Wang Gungwu is Director of the East Asian Institute and Faculty Professor in Arts and Social Sciences at the National University of Singapore; Distinguished Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, also in Singapore; and Emeritus Professor at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. Previously, he was Vice-Chancellor (President) of the University of Hong Kong (1986-1995) and Professor of Far Eastern History at ANU (1968-1986). He also taught at the University of Malaya (1957-1968). His many publications include The Chinese Overseas (2000), China and Southeast Asia (1999), The Nanhai Trade (new ed., 1998), and, as coeditor, The Chinese Diaspora (2 vols, 1998) and Changing Identities of Southeast Asian Chinese since World War II (1988). Prof. Wang was born in Surabaya, Indonesia, and grew up in Ipoh, Malaysia.

Zi Zhongyun is one of China's leading scholars on international relations. She is the author of The Origin and Evolution of U.S. Policy Towards China, 1945-1950; On the Shore of the Sea of Learning; Forty Years of U.S.-Taiwan Relations, 1949-1989; and the forthcoming Looking at the World with Cold Eyes: Revelations of the Ups and Downs in the 20th Century. Her edited volumes include, A History of Postwar U.S. Foreign Relations, from Truman to Reagan; Building up a Bridge of Understanding: American Studies in China, 1979-1992; and Initial Contributions to Theories on International Politics in China. She has served as Director of the Institute of American Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Editor-in-chief of the Journal of American Studies in China, and was the Founder & first President of the Society for Chinese Scholars of Sino-American Relations. Madame Zi was also Visiting Fellow, Institute of International Studies, Princeton University, and Fellow, Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington, D.C.