This symposium, which considered whether China needs democracy instead of the conventional "how will China be democratized?", was organized and moderated by Lanxin Xiang, holder of the Henry Alfred Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Library of Congress, and professor of international history and politics at the Institut Universitaire de Hautes Etudes Internationales in Geneva, Switzerland.

In considering the future direction of China's political system and foreign policy, the panelists explore fundamental issues of Chinese reform, focusing on the relationship between Chinese tradition and modern Western political theories.

Panelists for the symposium were Carma Hinton, filmmaker with the Longbow Group and co-director/producer of "The Gate of Heavenly Peace" (1995); William Kristol, political analyst, commentator and editor of The Weekly Standard; Rep. James A. Leach (R-Iowa), chairman, Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs of the Committee on International Relations; Donald Munro, professor emeritus of Chinese philosophy, University of Michigan, and author of "The Concept of Man in Contemporary China" (2002); and Tu Wei- Ming, professor of Chinese history, philosophy and Confucian studies and director of the Yenching Institute at Harvard University.