ICAS 2026 Annual Conference

Thursday, December 3, 2026

Conference Hall, B1

1919 M Street, NW, Washington DC, 20036

The ICAS Annual Conference brings together scholars, former officials, diplomats, policy practitioners, and other specialists to assess major developments in U.S.-China relations and their wider regional and global implications. The 2026 conference will convene in Washington, D.C., at a time of renewed leader-level engagement, continuing strategic competition, shifting domestic political dynamics in the United States, and broader changes in the international strategic environment.
President Donald Trump’s state visit to China in May brought leader-level diplomacy back to the center of the bilateral relationship after a prolonged period of tension and uncertainty. During the visit, the two leaders agreed to pursue a more stable framework for managing bilateral relations and to sustain high-level engagement. President Xi Jinping’s reciprocal state visit to the United States in September further reinforced this diplomatic momentum, providing another opportunity for the two sides to address areas of cooperation as well as persistent strategic and economic differences.
The conference will also take place after the November U.S. midterm elections, whose results will help define the congressional landscape and broader domestic political environment during the second half of the Trump administration.
These diplomatic developments are unfolding against a wider backdrop of persistent strategic competition. Taiwan, the South China Sea, alliance politics, and the evolving security environment in the Indo-Pacific continue to test efforts to manage strategic risk. At the same time, U.S.-China strategic interaction increasingly extends beyond the bilateral relationship itself, shaping relations with allies and partners, regional alignments, international institutions, and debates over the future of the global order. Developments in Europe, the Middle East, the Global South, and other regions are also creating new settings in which Washington and Beijing compete, cooperate, and respond to one another’s growing international roles.
Economic competition is similarly taking on a broader strategic character. Advanced technology, critical minerals, industrial capacity, investment, supply chains, and other dimensions of economic security are becoming increasingly important in the policy agendas of both countries. These issues are closely connected to wider questions about technological leadership, economic resilience, and the rules and institutions that will shape the international economy in the years ahead.
Against this backdrop, the ICAS 2026 Annual Conference will examine what the year’s diplomatic, political, and strategic developments mean for the next phase of U.S.-China relations. Discussions will explore whether renewed high-level engagement can provide a more durable framework for managing differences, how U.S.-China competition is evolving across regional and global arenas, and where room may remain for practical cooperation or accommodation as Washington and Beijing look toward 2027 and beyond.

Info: A moderated discussion with a member of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the United States.

Info: This panel will examine whether the diplomatic momentum of 2026 has meaningfully altered the trajectory of U.S.-China strategic competition or has primarily strengthened the mechanisms available to manage it. It will consider how the post-midterm political environment may affect U.S. strategy, where the principal risks of miscalculation remain, how regional and global developments are influencing the bilateral security relationship, and what forms of communication, restraint, and crisis management may be workable as the two countries enter 2027.

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1919 M St NW, 1919 M Street Northwest, Washington, United States

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