Susan Shirk is a research professor at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy and director emeritus of its 21st Century China Center. She received her BA in Political Science at Mount Holyoke College, MA in Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkley, and her PhD in Political Science from MIT. Shirk is one of the most influential experts working on US-China relations and Chinese politics. She is also director emeritus of the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC). From 1997-2000, Shirk served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs, with responsibility for China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mongolia.<\/em><\/p>\n Shirk co-chairs a task force of China experts that issued its second report \u201cCourse Correction: Toward an Effective and Sustainable China Policy,\u201d in February 2019. She is also co-chair of the UC San Diego Forum on US-China Relations, the first ongoing high-level forum focused entirely on the US-China relationship. Shirk\u2019s many books include <\/em>China: Fragile Superpower (2008), which helped frame the policy debate on China in the US and other countries, <\/em>Competitive Comrades: Career Incentives and Student Strategies in China (1982); <\/em>The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China (1993); <\/em>How China Opened its Door (1994); and her edited book, <\/em>Changing Media, Changing China (2010). Her most recent book is <\/em>Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise (2022).<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Furman University, March 2025<\/b> \u2014 As part of the Tocqueville Center’s spring lecture series, Susan Shirk, a renowned China expert, delivered a sweeping, often sobering, analysis of <\/span>U.S.-China relations, Xi Jinping’s leadership, and the mounting uncertainty surrounding <\/span>China’s political future. Drawing from her award-winning book <\/span>Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise<\/span><\/i><\/a>, Shirk offered students, faculty, and community members a deep look into Beijing’s internal dysfunction and international ambitions.<\/span><\/p>\n From the dangers of deteriorating <\/span>Taiwan relations to the rise of “long-distance fishing” (a euphemism for politically motivated extortion of private wealth), the discussion painted a complex picture of a powerful yet vulnerable regime facing backlash from within and abroad.<\/span><\/p>\n Watch Susan Shirk’s lecture here:<\/p>\n\n
\u201cChina hasn’t always looked the way it does under Xi Jinping. Its future is far from predetermined.\u201d<\/span><\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n