SPIA to host talk on possibility of coevolution between U.S., China
The School of Policy and International Affairs at the University of Maine will host a talk titled “Can We Live with China? A Roadmap for Co-Evolution” at 5 p.m. April 2 in the McIntire Room of Buchanan Alumni House.
The talk will be given by Susan Thornton, visiting lecturer in law at Yale Law School and a senior fellow at the Paul Tsai China Center, as well as former assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs.
In 2018, she retired from the State Department after a 28-year diplomatic career focused primarily on East and Central Asia. In leadership roles in Washington, Thornton worked on China and Korea policy, including stabilizing relations with Taiwan, the U.S.-China Cyber Agreement, the Paris Climate Accord and leading a successful negotiation in Pyongyang for monitoring of the Agreed Framework on denuclearization.
Thornton holds degrees from the National Defense University’s Dwight D. Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy, the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and Bowdoin College. She speaks Russian, Mandarin and French, is a member of numerous professional associations and is on the Board of Trustees for the Eurasia Foundation.