The Lecture
Rising China and the Dangerous Beginning of a Post-American World

China's breathtaking economic development, military expansion, growing presence in Africa, Latin America and around the world and increasingly emboldened foreign policy are not only Changing China and Asia, they are fundamentally transforming the global balance of power. As China rises, the American led global system created in the aftermath of the Second World War is being challenged as never before and beginning to break down. With America less able to serve as guarantor of the international system, efforts to limit the growth of nuclear weapons, promote a single set of rules governing the global economy, and promote human rights around the world are faltering -- and the world is at risk.

Renowned Asia expert Jamie Metzl explores the rise of China, what it will mean to live in a post-American world, why this is such a frightening prospect, and what we can do help build a better future.

About Jamie Metzl

Jamie Metzl is Executive Vice President of Asia Society. He is responsible for overseeing the institution’s strategic direction and overall program activities across its network of eleven centers in Asia and the United States. At the Asia Society, he established the Asia Society studies department, which has issued task force reports on issues including climate change, food and water security, Afghanistan-Pakistan, Burma, global economic rebalancing, and other issues. He also created the Asia 21 Young Leaders initiative, which has become the leading network next generation leaders under the age of 40 across the Asia-Pacific region.

Metzl has served in the White House, the Department of State and the United States Senate. He has served as Deputy Staff Director and Senior Counselor of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senior Coordinator for International Public Information at the Department of State, and Director for Multilateral and Humanitarian Affairs on the National Security Council. At the White House, he coordinated U.S. government international public information campaigns for Iraq, Kosovo, and other crises. A Khmer speaker, he was a Human Rights Officer for the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) from 1991 to 1993, where he helped establish a nation-wide human rights investigation and monitoring unit for Cambodia.

While working in government, Metzl was an Adjunct Professor of Law at the Georgetown University law Center for five years, where he taught international law. In 2003, he directed a national task force on emergency preparedness for the Council on Foreign Relations which became the most widely covered report in the organization’s history and directly influenced ensuing homeland security legislation.

Metzl appears regularly on national and international media, including CNN, BBC, Bloomberg, and NBC and has been a guest on Meet the Press. The author of a book on human rights in Southeast Asia and the 2004 novel The Depths of the Sea, his syndicated columns and other writing on Asian affairs, genetics, virtual reality, and other topics has appeared in The New York Times, Foreign Affairs and many other publications around the world. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a founder and Co-Chair of the Board of the bipartisan national security organization Partnership for a Secure America, a member of the board of the Jewish refugee agency HIAS, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a former White House Fellow and Aspen Institute Crown Fellow.

He holds a Ph.D. in Southeast Asian history from Oxford University, a juris doctorate from Harvard Law School, and is a magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Brown University.

Metzl has completed eight ironman triathlons, 25 marathons, and one ultramarathon.