China's Rare Earth Monopoly: Hong Kong Finance and Threats to Taiwan & the Pacific
Organizer: Hong Kong Affairs Association of Berkeley
Learn how Beijing’s dominance in rare earth mineral mining is enabled by Hong Kong’s USD-pegged markets, banking networks, dollar clearing, and sanctions evasion. Join us for an assessment of risks to Taiwanese security, and potential countermeasures via the US led Rare Earth Alliance.
April 09, 2026| 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM|820 Social Sciences BuildingCloud Capitalism and the AI TransitionWith Kathy Thelen, Ford Professor of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Join MIT political scientist Kathy Thelen at BESI as she explores the origins and implications of the new cloud business model powering the AI boom. She’ll elaborate on how this model differs from the traditional platform model out of which it grew, as well as the technological, political, and distributional impacts of the rise of this new business model. She...
April 9, 2026 | 3:30 - 5 PM | 223 Philosophy Hall IIS Spring 2026 Speaker Series - Rupture: The U.S. and the Fate of World Order Register
Rupture #3: Trade
Is the Trump administration’s winner-take-all, “America First” embrace of economic nationalism and protectionism sustainable economically, politically and environmentally?...
Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Nobel Laureate Michael Spence for a discussion of his new book, The Next Convergence. Professor Spence discusses his intellectual odyssey focusing on his Nobel Prize research on information and market structure. He then explains how his work as Chairman of the Commission on Growth and Development led him to write his new book. Tracing the impact of the internet, globalization, and domestic and international policy on the trajectory of economic growth in the emerging economies, he highlights the implications of the resulting high speed...
In this edition, UC Berkeley's Harry Kreisler talks with Laura D'Andrea Tyson, the Class of 1939 Professor of Economics and Business at UC Berkeley. They discuss her research in international economics, her service in the Clinton administration, and the interaction between national economic policy and the international economy.
Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Berkeley’s Laura D'Andrea Tyson, Professor of Business Administration and Economics, for a discussion of inequality. Professor traces her academic career and her work in Washington where she served as Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors in the Clinton Administration. After comparing the Washington political environment during the Clinton and Obama presidencies, she characterizes the role of government as a venture capitalist drawing on the ideas and resources of the states and the private sector to catalyze solutions to national...
Conversations with History host Harry Kreisler interviews economist Kenneth Boulding. Professor Boulding talks about his theory of a stable peace and discusses the role of peace movements.
KEYWORDS: Theory, Peace Movements, National Security, Berkeley Graduate Lecturers.
Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Stuart Altman for a discussion of the struggle to reform healthcare in the U.S. Altman traces his intellectual odyssey and recalls his long term involvement in national policymaking. In his reflections, he considers the successes and failures of reform in the context of U.S. political culture and history. Analyzing efforts by Presidents from Roosevelt to Obama, he highlights the twin goals of cost reduction and universal access. He concludes with an examination of the Obama plan speculating on the future of cost control. In his conclusion, he...
