The conference, which was co-sponsored by the Foreign Policy Research Institute and the Law School, included panels on constitutional reform and foreign policy in China, Japan, Taiwan, and Korea. deLisle directs FPRI’s Asia program and co-authored the paper on Taiwan. There was also a discussion, featuring Penn Law professor William Burke-White and 2007 Penn Law visiting professor Tom Ginsburg of the University of Illinois, on how these changes reflected the influence of U.S. constitutional ideas and the efficacy of U.S. efforts to promote constitutional change abroad.

Although deLisle says the Chinese constitution serves more as “an ideological and programmatic document than an operational blueprint for governance,” he pointed out how recent revisions indicate major changes in China’s external relations.

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