Susan L Shirk

Susan Shirk, a Senior Advisor to The Albright Group LLC, is director of the University of California system-wide Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation and holds the Ho Miu Lam Chair of China and Pacific Relations in the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California, San Diego. From July 1997 to July 2000, Dr. Shirk served as deputy assistant secretary for China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong at the U.S. Department of State. 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, North Korea and South Korea. 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 , was published by Oxford University Press in Spring 2007. 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. For 2008 and 2009, Dr. Shirk is serving as the Arthur Ross Fellow at the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society in New York City.