Harvard Fairbank Center For Chinese Studies

Speaker: Cheng Li, Director, John L. Thornton China Center, Brookings Institution Moderator/Discussant: Elizabeth J. Perry, Henry Rosovsky Professor of Government and Director of the opens in a new windowHarvard-Yenching Institute, Harvard University Cheng Li is the director of the John L. Thornton China Center and a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings. He is also a director of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. Li focuses on the transformation of political leaders, generational change, the Chinese middle class, and technological development in China. Li grew up in Shanghai during the Cultural Revolution. In 1985, he came to the United States, where he received a master’s in Asian studies from the University of California, Berkeley and a doctorate in political science from Princeton University. From 1993 to 1995, he worked in China as a fellow sponsored by the Institute of Current World Affairs in the U.S., observing grassroots changes in his native country. Based on this e