A Conversation with Dr. Susan L. Shirk

Dr. Susan L. Shirk is a research professor at US San Diego, Chair of the 21st Century China Center, and director emeritus of the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC). Her viewpoint on a plethora of pressing issues today like modern Chinese politics is highly respected and sought. Her newest book, Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise (Oxford University Press, 2022), is centered on China’s politics as they have evolved in the global limelight since 2008 and addresses the interpretation of China as a looming threat and what the West could do. She has also published China: Fragile Superpower (Oxford University Press, 2008), and others including, “The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China”; “How China Opened its Door”; “Competitive Comrades: Career Incentives and Student Strategies in China”; and her edited book, “Changing Media, Changing China.”

Shirk also co-chairs the UC San Diego Forum on U.S.-China Relations, and a task force of China experts that published their most recent report in February 2019: Course Correction: Toward an Effective and Sustainable China Policy.

She has extensive experience, having worked in China, and from 1997-2000 served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs, covering China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mongolia.