David Shambaugh

David Shambaugh is a professor of political science and international affairs at the George Washington University in Washington DC,^[1] as well as a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.^[2]

Biography

Shambaugh earned his bachelor's degree from the Elliott School of International Affairs, where he now teaches. He received his M.A. in international affairs from the Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, and his PhD in political science from the University of Michigan.

His father was George E. Shambaugh, Jr..

Shambaugh is regarded inside and outside China as an authority on China's foreign policy, military and security issues and Chinese politics, and has been cited in the state media.^[3] He is a regular media commentator, and has acted as an advisor to the United States government and several private foundations and corporations.^[1] He was formerly the editor of the China Quarterly, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.^[2] Shambaugh's book China Goes Global was selected by The Economist as one of the best books of the year.^[4] In 2015 researchers at the China Foreign Affairs University named him the second-most influential China expert in the United States.^[3]

"The Coming Chinese Crackup"

In March 2015, an essay he had published in The Wall Street Journal stunned political circles, and generated a huge debate.^[5] Shambaugh pointed to five indicators suggesting that "endgame of Chinese communist rule has now begun" and that the demise of the Communist Party was "likely to be protracted, messy and violent".^[6][3] He cited Hurun's study on China's wealthy which found that 64% of 393 millionaires and billionaires it polled had plans to emigrate; political repression on expression, dissidents, lawyers, NGOs, minorities, university students and textbooks has become increasingly draconian since 2012, most notably in the form of a Central Committee diktat in 2013 named Document No. 9 to purge any apparent endorsements of the "universal [Western] values"; even high-ranking officials now appear to be uninterested in propagating the party line; the endemic corruption, the crackdown, and their effects on the fabric of Chinese society; finally, much needed economic reforms touted by Xi are being strongly opposed by entrenched interests within the state sector.^[6] Shambaugh observed that since 2009, every single political reform measure implemented under Xi's two predecessors had been reversed. However, he did not offer any predictions of how the collapse would be triggered or unfold.^[6]

After the initial shock, most commentators appeared to disagree with the prognosis of this usually conservative China-watcher or be sceptical of his analysis.^[7] Most notable was the rebuke from the official China Daily, which criticised the fantasy of China's political collapse and asserted that "In the 1990s, some American scholars and journalists indulged themselves in forecasting a China collapse into several republics, like the Soviet Union. Some based their arguments on the growing regionalism in the country, others bet on the passing away of Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping... To their disappointment, China has not disintegrated into six or seven republics".^[8]

Publications

• China Goes Global: The Partial Power (Oxford University Press, 2013)
• Charting China's Future: Domestic and International Challenges (2011)
• China's Communist Party: Atrophy & Adaptation (2008)
• American and European Relations with China (2008)
• International Relations of Asia (2008)
• Power Shift: China & Asia's New Dynamics (2005)
• China Watching: Perspectives from Europe, Japan, and the United States (2007)
• China-Europe Relations (2007)
• Modernizing China's Military (2003)
• The Odyssey of China's Imperial Art Treasures (2005)
• The Modern Chinese State (2000)
• Is China Unstable: Assessing the Factors (2000)
• China's Military Faces the Future (1999)
• The China Reader: The Reform Era (1998)
• Chinese Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice (1996)
• Deng Xiaoping: Portrait of a Chinese Statesman (1995)
• Beautiful Imperialist (1993)
• China's Military in Transition (1991)
• The Making of a Premier: Zhao Ziyang's Provincial Career (1984)

His books have been translated into Chinese and published in China.

References

External links

• The China Challenge May 8, 2014 issue New York Review of Books including Shambaugh 2013 book