China's 20th Party Congress: Outlook and Implications
featuring
Kim Fassler, Senior Analyst, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command's China Strategic Focus Group
and
Dr. Denny Roy, Senior Fellow, East-West Center

China's Communist Party will hold its 20th Party Congress the week of October 16 in Beijing. The every-five-year convening of China's top leaders is one of the biggest events on China's political calendar and will set the country's foreign and domestic policy direction through 2027. Xi Jinping is also vying for a historic third term as head of the Party, breaking norms deliberately put in place by recent predecessors to prevent a return to one-man rule. What can we expect from this landmark gathering? What are the implications for China's domestic and foreign policies? Taking place during the Congress, this expert panel will discuss what to watch and implications for the region.

Kim Fassler is a Senior Analyst at the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command’s China Strategic Focus Group. She has worked for the Department of Defense since 2011, including serving in the Office of the Defense Attaché at U.S. Embassy-Beijing and as an analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency in Washington, D.C. Kim has an M.A. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and a graduate certificate from the Hopkins Nanjing Center which she attended on a Boren Fellowship. She also has a B.A. from Williams College. Her research interests are China’s political and military leadership and decision-making.

Denny Roy's work has focused mostly on Asia Pacific security issues, particularly those involving China. Recently Roy has written on Chinese foreign policy, the North Korea nuclear weapons crisis, China-Japan relations, and China-Taiwan relations. His interests include not only traditional military-strategic matters and foreign policy, but also international relations theory and human rights politics.