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WATCH: “Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise”

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Asia-Pacific Security Asia-Pacific China 2022

“Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise” A Conversation with Susan L. Shirk

With Susan L. Shirk
Moderated by Susan A. Thornton
November 10, 2022

For three decades after Mao’s death in 1976, China’s leaders adopted a restrained approach to foreign policy. They determined that any threat to their power, and that of the Chinese Communist Party, came not from abroad but from within—a conclusion cemented by the 1989 Tiananmen crisis. To facilitate the country’s inexorable economic ascendance, and to prevent a backlash, they reassured the outside world of China’s peaceful intentions.

Then something changed. China went from fragile superpower to global heavyweight, threatening Taiwan as well as its neighbors in the South China Sea, tightening its grip on Hong Kong, and openly challenging the United States for preeminence not just economically and technologically but militarily.

Susan Shirk is a Research Professor and Chair of the 21st Century China Center at the School of Global Policy and Strategy, UC San Diego. From 1997-2000, she served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, with responsibility for China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mongolia. Shirk’s book China: Fragile Superpower helped frame the policy debate on China in the U.S. and other countries. Her other publications include The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China; How China Opened its Door; Competitive Comrades: Career Incentives and Student Strategies in China; and her edited book, Changing Media, Changing China. Her articles have appeared in leading academic publications in the fields of political science, international relations, and China studies.
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