China Folk House is delighted to partner with CHINA Town Hall (CTH), a program that provides a snapshot of the current U.S.-China relationship and examines how that relationship reverberates at the local level – in our towns, states, and nation – and connects people around the country with U.S. policymakers and thought leaders on China.
China Folk House will host a virtual livestream of the 2026 CHINA Town Hall program, with two veteran senior diplomats discussing the current state and future trajectory of the U.S.-China relationship: Stephen Biegun, a member of the CFH Board and former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, and Sarah Beran, former deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. We will also host a local discussion following the national webcast featuring CFH Executive Director John Flower.
Stephen Biegun
Former Deputy Secretary of State
Stephen Biegun has more than three decades of international affairs experience in government and the private sector, including high-level government service with the Department of State, the White House, and the United States Congress. Mr. Biegun began his career as a foreign policy specialist with the United States Congress, with a focus on Russia, the former Soviet Union, and Europe.
He spent two years as the Executive Secretary of the White House National Security Council, serving as an advisor and deputy to the National Security Advisor. In 2021, Mr. Biegun concluded his most recent government service as the Deputy Secretary of State.
Sarah Beran
Former Deputy Chief of Mission, U.S. Embassy in Beijing
Sarah Beran has had a distinguished career in the U.S. Foreign Service, most recently as deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. From 2022 to 2024, Ms. Beran served as senior director for China and Taiwan Affairs at the White House National Security Council. Ms. Beran also served as then-U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s deputy executive secretary for the Indo-Pacific, led the office responsible for U.S. engagement in APEC, and served as former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s director of the office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs.
Local Speaker: John Flower
China Folk House Executive Director
Dr. John Flower is co-Founder of the China Folk House Retreat, along with his wife Dr. Pam Leonard. They saved a Yunnan farmhouse from a dam and rebuilt it as a site for experiential learning, environmental sustainability and people-to-people cultural exchange in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. John is the retired Director of the Sidwell Friends School Chinese Studies Program, a former associate professor of East Asian History at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and fellow at the East Asia Center at the University of Virginia. He has thirty-five years of experience living and doing research in the Chinese countryside, working in the multi-ethnic regions of northwest Yunnan Province for the last 15 years.
John and Pam just returned from three weeks of travel through mountain villages along the Nujiang and Mekong Rivers in Yunnan, where they encountered rural grassroots perspectives on US – China relations and deep historical roots of people-to-people exchange.