If you want to think about China this evening...

... the National Committee on US-China Relations, an established (and Establishment) group dedicated to "constructive engagement" between the countries, is having a live "Town Hall" session from 8-8:45pm Eastern time with Kurt Campbell, the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs.

I mention this mainly because of the surprising scale of the undertaking. In addition to the webcast with Campbell, there will be local, live sessions in some 40 cities in the U.S. and China by a wide roster of China experts -- to choose one example, Sidney Rittenberg, in Phoenix. The full list is at the bottom of this page. Registration for webcast here. If I weren't going to be at an Atlantic meeting on a related but different topic at just that time, I'd listen in.

While I'm at it, here is one more example of the humiliating failure of Barack Obama's recent trip to Asia, which Kurt Campbell will presumably discuss. It's an item from the East Asia Forum, in England from the Australian National University in Canberra*, about some promising developments regarding North Korea in the wake of the trip. In passing it mentions my own arguments with mainstream coverage of the trip, but I cite it now because of the news and analysis there concerning North Korea. FWIW

* Brainlock episode: the author of the article, Amy King, is now at Oxford, in England; the EAF journal itself is from the ANU, in Australia -- as I knew in some corner of my brain but did not convey to my fingers while typing.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2009/12/if-you-want-to-think-about-china-this-evening/31448/