Suisheng Zhao is Professor and Director of the Center for China-U.S. Cooperation at Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver. He was a Campbell National Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, an Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Washington College in Maryland, an Associate Professor of Government and East Asian Politics at Colby College in Maine, and a visiting Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS) at the University of California, San Diego.

Zhao is the founder and Editor of the Journal of Contemporary China and the author and editor of more than a dozen of books, including The Construction of Chinese Nationalism in the Early 21st Century: Domestic Sources and International Implications (2014); The Rise of China and Transformation of the U.S.-China Relationship: Forging Partnership in the Age of Strategic Mistrust (2013); China’s Search for Energy Security: Domestic Sources and International Implications (2012); China and East Asian Regionalism: Economic and Security Cooperation and Institution-Building (2012); In Search of China’s Development Model: Beyond the Beijing Consensus (2011); Village Elections in China (2010); China and the United States, Cooperation and Competition in Northeast Asia (2008); China-U.S. Relations Transformed: Perspectives and Strategic Interactions (2008), Debating Political Reform in China: Rule of Law versus Democratization (2006); A Nation-State by Construction: Dynamics of Modern Chinese Nationalism (2004); Chinese Foreign Policy: Pragmatism and Strategic Behavior (2003); China and Democracy: Reconsidering the Prospects for a Democratic China (2000); and Across the Taiwan Strait: Mainland China, Taiwan, and the Crisis of 1995-96 (1999). His articles have appeared in Political Science Quarterly, The Wilson Quarterly, Washington Quarterly, International Politik, The Hague Journal of Democracy, European Financial Review, China Quarterly, World Affairs, Asian Survey, Asian Affairs, Journal of Democracy, Pacific Affairs, Communism and Post-Communism Studies, Problems of Post-Communism, and elsewhere.

Last Updated: October 12, 2016

Conversation

04.30.19

If the U.S. and China Make a Trade Deal, Then What?

Michael Hirson, Graham Webster & more
The U.S.-China trade war has always been about more than just trade. Among other issues, it represents a move towards the decoupling of the two economies. Sometime within the next few weeks, Washington and Beijing may call a truce on the trade war...

Conversation

02.15.18

Is American Policy toward China Due for a ‘Reckoning’?

Charles Edel, Elizabeth Economy & more
Former diplomats Kurt M. Campbell and Ely Ratner argue that United States policy toward China, in administrations of both parties, has relied in the past on a mistaken confidence in America’s ability to “mold China to the United States’ liking.”...

Conversation

11.14.17

Was the Trump-Xi Summit in Beijing a Hit or a Miss?

Isaac Stone Fish, Zha Daojiong & more
On November 8 and 9, Communist Party Secretary Xi Jinping and Donald Trump held their first Beijing-based summit, a year after Trump’s surprise victory and just weeks after the predictable announcement Xi would serve a second term. During the visit...

Conversation

10.06.16

Is the Growing Pessimism About China Warranted?

David Shambaugh, David M. Lampton & more from Washington Quarterly
There are few more consequential questions in world affairs than China’s uncertain future trajectory. Assumptions of a reformist China integrated into the international community have given way in recent years to serious concerns about the nation’s...

Conversation

03.11.15

Is China Really Cracking Up?

Suisheng Zhao, Arthur R. Kroeber & more
On March 7, The Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece by David Shambaugh arguing that “the endgame of Chinese communist rule has now begun...and it has progressed further than many think.” Shambaugh laid out a variety of signs he believes...

Conversation

02.12.15

Is Mao Still Dead?

Rebecca E. Karl, Michael Schoenhals & more
It has long been standard operating procedure for China’s leaders to pay tribute to Mao. Even as the People’s Republic he wrought has embraced capitalist behavior with ever more heated ardor, the party he founded has remained firmly in power and his...