In Person Event - 50 Years Later: Nixon in China Panel Discussion

• Counselor Edward F. Cox accompanied his father-in-law, President Nixon, on his trip to China. He will discuss his personal perspectives on the proceedings and their impact.
• Zhenyu Huang, President of the Committee of 100, will address how Richard Nixon's trip has affected the AAPI communities. 
• Charles Wang has been a leader of the Asian-American community since the mid-1960s. He will recount some of his domestic and international experiences that have flowed from President Nixon's trip, such as: his creation of the Asian-American community in Flushing, Queens; choreographing Deng Xiaoping's 1979 U.S. visit; trying to thread the needle for a consensus response to the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident; and even the legalization of acupuncture. 

Edward F. Cox is an American corporate and finance lawyer and the former chairman of the New York Republican State Committee. He has a record of public service in New York and nationally. He has served four Presidents, four New York governors and the Republican Party at the state and national levels. 

As a Trustee of the State University of New York (SUNY) from 1995 to 2009, he developed policies and programs for SUNY's community colleges, charter schools, teacher training, facilities construction and finance and administration. 

His writings on public policy have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, the Antitrust Law Journal and the New York Post. 

Cox was born in Suffolk County, Long Island and was raised in Yorkville, New York City, where he graduated from Trinity High School. He received his B.A. degree in 1968 from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. After attempting a career in architecture at Yale in 1968 and 1969, he earned his J.D. degree from Harvard Law School in 1972. Ed and Tricia Nixon met as high school students in New York and were married In the Rose Garden of the White House in 1971. 

Few people, if any, have a better grasp of U.S.-China relations, and the Chinese-American experience, than Charles Pei Wang. As an advisor to six consecutive U.S. Presidents 1975-2008 – both Democrat and Republican (Gerald Ford; Jimmy Carter; Ronald Reagan; George H.W. Bush; Bill Clinton; George W. Bush) – Charles has had a front-row seat on the diplomatic roller coaster ride with China: from cold war; to fast-growing partnership; to becoming the best of frenemies. 

Charles has also played a major role in making NYC and NYS a better, more equitable place. Since leading the Chinatown Planning Council (now Chinese-American Planning Council) in the mid-1960s, he has been a cornerstone of the Asian-American community in public, private, and non-profit roles. Charles led the successful charge to upgrade social services and infrastructure in Chinatown. He is also responsible for creating the Asian-American community in Flushing, Queens. 

Charles worked with six consecutive Mayors (John Lindsay through Mike Bloomberg), five consecutive Governors (Rockefeller through Pataki), and many regional U.S. Senators – again, both Democrat and Republican. Under Governor Mario Cuomo, Charles managed the nearly $30 billion budget for downstate Medicare and Medicaid. 

Charles Pei Wang is currently President of Chinese American Cultural & Art Association, and an Ellis Island Medal of Honor winner as an outstanding American immigrant. A former Board member of Emblem Health and the United Way, Charles is now semi-retired. 

Zhengyu Huang is President of the Committee of 100 – a non-partisan leadership organization of prominent Chinese Americans in business, government, academia, and the arts. He was born in Shanghai, China and came to the US at the age of ten. Zheng was educated at Stanford University, with a B.S. in Industrial Engineering, B.A. in Economics, and M.S. in Computer Science. He also earned his MBA from Harvard Business School. 

After graduation, Zheng worked at Intel Corporation and rose to Managing Director and then served under President Obama as a White House Fellow and special assistant to the Administrator for US Agency for International Aid. Thereafter, he started a financial service data firm that grew to 300 staff and 7 offices. He was most recently the Chairman of an education focused investment firm. He is the author of three books published in China that sold over 250,000 copies. He has lived in five countries, including the US, Germany, Japan, India, and China and traveled to over 80 countries. 

Kate Snow, '91 CALS, is the anchor of NBC Nightly News Sunday and an award-winning Senior National Correspondent for NBC News. Her reporting appears across all platforms of NBC News and MSNBC. She currently contributes regularly to Nightly News with Lester Holt, TODAY, and Dateline NBC. 

She also hosts NBC News' The Drink with Kate Snow, a digital series and podcast where she speaks with innovators and influencers and dives into their success stories. In 2019, Snow created and hosted Relentless with Kate Snow, which aired on Oxygen and featured stories of crime survivors who were relentless in their pursuit of justice for a family member. From 2015- 2017, Snow anchored a weekday news program on MSNBC, which featured newsmakers and fast-paced political coverage. 

Snow has also covered politics throughout her career, including six presidential elections, the White House and Congress. She has interviewed a wide range of newsmakers, from President Obama to Bono; Jeff Bezos to Ringo Starr. She pointedly questioned President Bill Clinton in his first interview after his wife lost the 2008 nomination. But she can just as easily sing a tune with Rick Springfield. 

Prior to joining NBC News in 2010, Snow was the anchor of the weekend edition of ABC's Good Morning America for six years. Previously, she was a White House correspondent for ABC News and a Congressional Correspondent for CNN.