Susan Shirk is director of the University of California system-wide Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation and professor of political science in the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego. Professor Shirk first traveled to China in 1971 and has been doing research there ever since.
During 1997-2000, Dr. Shirk served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs, with responsibility for the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mongolia.
She founded in 1993 and continues to lead the Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue (NEACD), an unofficial “track-two” forum for discussions of security issues among defense and foreign ministry officials and academics from the United States, Japan, China, Russia, South Korea, and North Korea.
Dr. Shirk’s publications include her books, How China Opened Its Door: The Political Success of the PRC’s Foreign Trade and Investment Reforms; The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China; and Competitive Comrades: Career Incentives and Student Strategies in China. Her latest book, China: Fragile Superpower, will be published by Oxford University Press in Spring 2007.
Dr. Shirk served as a member of the U.S. Defense Policy Board, the Board of Governors for the East-West Center (Hawaii), the Board of Trustees of the U.S.-Japan Foundation, and the Board of Directors of the National Committee on United States-China Relations. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and an emeritus member of the Aspen Strategy Group. As Senior Adviser to The Albright Group, Dr. Shirk advises private sector clients on China and East Asia. Dr. Shirk received her BA in Political Science from Mount Holyoke College, her MA in Asian Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and her Ph.D. in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Contact Info:
Office: RBC 1224
Phone: (858) 534-2660
E-mail: sshirk@ucsd.edu