Wilson Center Experts

Shawn Shieh received his Ph.D. from Columbia University and was Associate Professor of Political Science at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, NY for 14 years before moving to Beijing where he resides.  He is currently a Visiting Professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University where he teaches classes on Chinese politics and foreign relations.  He is also the director of China Development Brief (English) (www.chinadevelopmentbrief.cn).  CDB (English) is a translation project of China Development Brief, an independent Chinese nonprofit that reports on China’s civil society sector.  Its mission is to promote understanding and dialogue between China’s civil society sector and the international community. 

His most recent publications on Chinese NGOs are State and Society Responses to Social Welfare Needs in China: Serving the People (Routledge, 2009), “China’s Quiet Activists” (YaleGlobal Online, 2009) and “An Emerging Civil Society: The Impact of the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake on Grassroots Associations in China” (The China Journal, January 2011).  He is writing a book on social activism in China that profiles the different personalities and personal networks in the NGO community.  He also has a blog devoted to NGOs in China at www.ngochina.blogspot.com, and has given talks about Chinese and international civil society at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, Ford Foundation, Foreign Correspondent’s Club of China, the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs, and the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.