Susan Shirk is a professor in the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California, San Diego, and research director of the University of California's system-wide Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC), which is based at UCSD.
Shirk served as deputy assistant secretary for China at the U.S. State Department from 1997-2000. She was the IGCC’s director from 1991-97, during which time she founded the Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue, a track-two security forum. Shirk has served on the Defense Policy Board, which advises the U.S. Secretary of Defense on international security issues, and on the boards of the East-West Center in Hawaii and the U.S.-Japan Foundation.
She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Featured Work
APR 5, 2007 • Podcast
China: Fragile Superpower: How China's Internal Politics Could Derail its Peaceful Rise
The more developed and prosperous China becomes, the more threatened its leaders feel. What are the internal issues that create this insecurity?