Scott Kennedy is an American political scientist and China specialist currently serving as senior adviser and Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

[1][3] In September 2022, he became the first western scholar to visit China for in-person exchanges with PRC officials and business executives since the COVID-19 lockdowns.

We're starting from a point in which the two sides have barely spoken to each other in three and a half years and the level of mistrust and cynicism has been layered on so thick.

"[8] In a Politico interview, he called Yellen's trip "long overdue" and said: “It’s nuts that the leading officials presiding over the world’s two largest economies have barely spoken to each other in over three years.

They should not be strangers.”[9] In a July 2023 NYT interview about the Chinese economy, Kennedy said: "China’s decision making is as hidden from our view as it has ever been, but China’s economic weakness is obvious for all to see, even China’s leaders, which can’t help but be one source of the recent moderation in foreign policy and willingness to engage Washington.