Last month, Admiral Scott H. Swift, the commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet, spoke to an audience at the Stanford Center at Peking University (SCPKU) and at Stanford via their linked Highly Immersive Classrooms (HIC). Against the backdrop of increasing tensions and hostility in the South China Sea, Swift stressed the importance of building a trust-based relationship between China and the United States. Stanford professor Jean Oi opened the roundtable by introducing Swift at SCPKU while Karl Eikenberry, director of the U.S.-Asia Security Initiative and former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, chaired the session at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.

After his formal remarks, Swift engaged in a roundtable discussion with Chinese and American scholars on both sides of the Pacific. The participants at SCPKU included experts from Peking University and Chinese think tanks. Participants at Stanford included a diverse group of scholars from across campus with a number from the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. The HIC allowed a lively interactive session where Swift fielded questions from SCPKU and Stanford.

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