The Duke-UNC China Leadership Summit (CLS) is an annual student conference that brings together distinguished student leaders and eminent individuals in the fields of academia, politics and business to examine the rise of China.

[1] Inspired by student conferences like The Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations and the Forum for American/Chinese Exchange at Stanford, CLS is the first conference of its kind in the southern United States.

Established in 2010 with the goal of providing sustained collaboration between students and faculty at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and to connect students in the Research Triangle to innovative research and professional development opportunities in field of US-China relations.

In 2012, the Duke-UNC China Leadership Summit established a working relationship with Wuhan University and sponsored Wuhan students to attend the second annual Summit.

[4] CLS 2012 received sponsorship from the prestigious Kenan-Biddle Grant[5] and was able to offer admission to non Duke and UNC Students.