Peter Hessler is a staff writer at The New Yorker, where he served as the Beijing correspondent from 2000 to 2007, and is also a contributing writer for National Geographic.

Originally from Columbia, Missouri, he has spent most of his writing life overseas. In 1996, he joined the Peace Corps, which sent him to Fuling, a small city in southwestern China. For two years, he taught English and American literature at Fuling Teachers College, an experience that eventually became the subject of his first book, River Town, which was published in 2001. This book was followed by two others about China: Oracle Bones (2006), and Country Driving (2010). Together they comprise Hessler’s “China trilogy,” covering the decade in which he lived in the country, from 1996 until 2007. Hessler won the 2008 National Magazine Award for excellence in reporting, and he was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2011. He lives in Colorado.

Susan Shirk is one of the most influential experts working on U.S.-China relations and Chinese politics in the U.S. She is a research professor and the founding chair of the 21st Century China Center, a unique academic research center and university-based policy center at the School of Global Policy and Strategy.

Shirk held the Ho Miu Lam Chair in China and Pacific Relations for many years and is director emeritus of the University of California’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC). She is the author of many books, including most notably The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China, China: Fragile Superpower, and Overreach: How China Derailed its Peaceful Rise. Her latest book, “Overreach,” received the Lionel Gelber Prize as the best non-fiction book published in English language on international affairs and the Silver Medal of the Arthur Ross Book Award by the Council on Foreign Relations.

Besides her academic work, Shirk is also known for her extensive policy experience, especially in U.S.-China relations. From 1997-2000, Shirk served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs, with responsibility for China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mongolia. She is the founder of, and remains active in, the Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue (NEACD), a Track II forum for discussions of security issues among defense and foreign ministry officials and academics from the United States, Japan, China, Russia and the Koreas.

Shirk co-chairs a task force of China experts that issued its third report “China’s New Direction: Challenges and Opportunities for U.S. Policy” in Sept. 2021. She is also co-chair of the UC San Diego Forum on U.S.-China Relations, an ongoing high-level forum focused entirely on the U.S.-China relationship.

Savannah Billman is the Senior Digital Communications Associate of the National Committee on US-China Relations since 2023.

Before joining the National Committee, she worked in communications, content creation, and marketing as a Fellow at Digital Asia Hub, an Asia-based think tank covering internet and society in Asia, and as Content Manager for China Admissions, a Beijing-based ed-tech startup marketing top Chinese universities to international students.

Savannah graduated in 2021 with a MA in China Studies from the Yenching Academy of Peking University, where she researched the evolution of policy in Gansu province during the Republican period, and served as Director of Public Relations for the Yenching Global Symposium. She graduated from NYU Shanghai in 2019 with a BA in Global China Studies and Chinese language, where she researched the mythology of the Silk Road dating back to the Han dynasty. During her six years living between Shanghai and Beijing, she was an active organizer of multiple student-let initiatives promoting better understanding of China.

Inspired by her experience living in and studying China, Savannah has written for multiple news organizations such as The Jamestown Foundation’s China Brief, The World of Chinese, TechNode, SupChina, and Sixth Tone. When she’s not writing copy about China, Savannah enjoys running and art museums.