Millennials weigh in on China-US ties

A group of young professionals in Washington is organizing a new China-US forum for the upcoming Oct 3 meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The ChinaUS forum aims to provide young professionals an opportunity to meet and discuss the most challenging issues between China and the US, according to the organization's press release.

"This is more like a launch party for young professionals," said Louis Lu, one of the initiators of the forum and a board member of the ChinaUS Forum committee.

Lu and his team are 32 young professionals, most under or around 30 years of age, who have volunteered their time to put together the event despite their fulltime jobs. Lu is an international sales manager at Destination DC.

"We are actually in the field for the China-US relation in politics, economy, culture, education and different entrepreneurships," Lu said. "It means that millennials are getting onto the world stage. We want to do the forum from our perspective, what we can do to promote the US-China relationship."

Based on the theme of "New Normals", the forum will have a summit panel discussion by two of its most prominent featured speakers, Ambassador Chas Freeman, an American diplomat who was also the principle interpreter for Richard Nixon during his 1972 visit to China, and Clarence Tong, chair of the Alexandria Democratic Committee.

"Particularly at a difficult time in our relationship, it's very important and timely to have open discussions of issues in an honest way," Freeman said. "I hope this forum will make a contribution to that sort of dialogue and understanding."

Freeman thinks US-China relations have entered a new phase. The relationship began as a way to manage a common strategic challenge from former Soviet Union. After reform in China, it became focused on the management of opportunities.

"We are the most robust, bilateral cooperation between any of the countries in the world," Freeman said.

"Now we've entered a phase in which the challenge is to manage differences. That's the difficult transition to go through. We have to share the world stage, which also means we have a potential partner, to deal with issues like climate change," he said.

Tong will discuss how Chinese Americans can get more involved in politics.

"I am passionate about encouraging more young people to become engaged in the political process," Tong said.

"Whether it is meeting with your congressman, working on a campaign, or running for elected office, being engaged is a very important way to seek better political representation."

Siqi Lin in Washington contributed to this story.