"U.S.-China Business Relations" is the focus of a three-day academic symposium that kicks off with a public conference from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. May 11 in Room 311, Anheuser-Busch Hall.

The May 11 program is free and open to the public, but registration is required. For more information, contact Melinda Warren at 935-5652; warren@wustl.edu; or visit the Weidenbaum Center Web site: http://wc.wustl.edu.

Andrew Mertha, conference co-organizer, has a new book on the politics of intellectual property rights in China.

U.S.-China commercial relations and intellectual property rights are among topics to be covered, including presentations by Gao Lulin, former head of China's State Intellectual Property Office; Robert Kapp, an intellectual property lawyer; and Douglass C. North, Ph.D., 1993 Nobel Laureate and the Spencer T. Olin Professor in Arts & Sciences.

The conferences is co-sponsored by the University of Oxford's Centre for Socio-Legal Studies and three centers at Washington University - the Murray Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy; the Center for New Institutional Social Sciences (CNISS) in Arts & Sciences; and the Whitney R. Harris Institute for Global Legal Studies in the School of Law.