Paul E. Schroeder Ph.D. – Longtime Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science

Dear Colleagues:

For many years China studies focused on the Rise of China. That focus has shifted because China has risen. The implications of that rise seem to many to suggest a new Cold War, this time between the West (especially the United States) and China. In March, for example, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines testified to the Senate that China, and specifically its governing Communist Party, “represents both the leading and most consequential threat to U.S. national security and leadership globally.”

For many years some commentators have defined China as a threat to the U.S. economy – especially blaming Chinese competition for loss of manufacturing jobs in places like Ohio. Hostility to the Chinese “economic threat” was possibly the only thing on which Ohio’s major-party U.S. Senate candidates agreed in the 2022 election. But increasingly, any potential “threat” from China is framed in geopolitical terms. For example, the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 is designed to maintain a U.S. strategic advantage over China in chip manufacturing on the grounds that China is a national security threat.

This Friday Dr. Paul Schroeder, CWRU’s longtime Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science who designed our set of Chinese politics courses, will discuss these geopolitical arguments or stakes. The first Cold War with the Soviet Union had a single flash point – a divided Berlin. A potential Cold War with China has several flash points (and therefore more dangerous), including Taiwan, the South China Sea, the Korean Peninsula, cyber space, China’s goal of upending the Western World Order, and the obvious growth of China’s military and its push globally, not just regionally. Does China pose a threat to the world order established by the United States after World War II? Many say yes. Dr. Schroeder says not necessarily so.

This will be the final meeting of the “Friday Lunch” for “Spring” semester of 2023. With reasonable fortune, we should be able to start again on the first Friday of the Fall 2023 semester, so September 1.

I would like to offer special thanks to all our speakers over this past year; to Erick Bruckner-Iriarte for his help in running the event in the Dampeer Room each week; to Dr. Andrew Lucker for maintaining our websites and producing these newsletters; to Angela Sloan and her colleagues at Kelvin Smith Library for arranging and facilitating our use of the Dampeer Room for our meetings; to the MediaVision staff who helped us use both the old (Fall 2022) and new (Spring 2023) a.v. equipment for delivering the Zoom portion of our programs; and to the College of Arts and Sciences and a few donors for funding our operations. I am proud of the 28 programs we have been able to produce each academic year, and I hope we can present a good series for even more than our 35 or so participants per week when we return next Fall.

As part of that, please do send me ideas about topics and speakers, most easily by e-mail to joseph.white@case.edu.

Wishing you a great Summer,

Joe White
Luxenberg Family Professor of Public Policy and Director, Center for Policy Studies

In-Person and Virtual Attendance

In order to make it easy for people to protect themselves and still participate, the meetings can be attended on Zoom. Participants can register for each meeting in the same way they did for the past two years. The link is posted below.

The discussion begins at 12:30 p.m., but the room should be open no later than Noon. We try to have beverages and refreshments set up soon after that. Participants should be able to sign on to Zoom also by Noon. But please remember not much will be happening online until the talk begins at 12:30 pm. Please also be prepared to show identification when entering Kelvin Smith Library.

Zoom participants should speak up when asked for questions or comments, or submit thoughts through Zoom’s chat function. Please keep yourself muted until you are choosing to speak.

Each week we will send out this newsletter with information about the topic. It will also include a link to register (for free) for the discussion. When you register, you will automatically receive from the Zoom system the link to join the meeting. If you do not get the newsletter, you should also be able to get the information each Monday by checking http://fridaylunch.case.edu Then if you choose you can use the contact form on that website to request the registration link.

This week’s Zoom link for registration is:

https://cwru.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYvf–grDotGddfRPkpaNJfLBRRvkCv9Dbv

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Please also e-mail padg@case.edu if you have questions about arrangements or any suggestions. Or call at 216 368-2426 and we’ll try to get back to you. We are very pleased to be partnering this semester with the Siegal Lifelong Learning Program to share information about the discussions.

About Our Guest

Paul Schroeder earned his Ph.D. from Ohio State in Chinese Politics in 1987, writing his dissertation on regional power in the Chinese political system. Before embarking on his Ph.D. studies, he was a journalist covering police, city, county and state government for several Ohio newspapers. While doing his dissertation research, Paul represented the State of Ohio Department of Development in Wuhan, China. He then joined the staff of the National Committee on U.S. ― China Relations in New York, managing programs in law and economics.

From 1995-2007, Dr. Schroeder was managing director of East-West Trade Development, Ltd., a firm that assisted American businesses with international trade opportunities, especially with China. He also co-founded Families of the Fallen for Change, a lobby group advocating a political solution to the Iraq war, and as part of that has worked with senior members of Congress to develop policy alternatives. As Visiting Professor of Political Science for over a decade, Dr. Schroeder taught inherited courses including “Introduction to International Relations,” “Politics of Development in the Global South,” “The United States and Asia,” and, “The Politics of China,” and added courses on “China’s Foreign Policy,” and “Political Thought and Political Change in China.” He also created a SAGES seminar on China’s environmental challenges and policies.

* Kelvin Smith Library requires all entrants to show identification when entering the building, unless they have a university i.d. that they can magnetically scan. We are sorry if that seems like a hassle, but it has been Library policy for a while in response to security concerns. Please do not complain to the library staff at the entrance, who are just doing their jobs.