David M. Lampton

David M. Lampton (born 1946) is the George and Sadie Hyman Professor and director of China studies emeritus at the Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and former chairman of The Asia Foundation. He served at SAIS from late 1997 to July 2018, during which time (2004-2012) he also served as a Dean of Faculty. After his retirement, the David M. Lampton chair was established in his honor.

Career In 1976, Lampton was an early American visitor to China as part of scientific exchanges between the two countries. At the time, exchanges with social scientists had been fraught, and Lampton substituted for an anthropologist who was more politically sensitive since the anthropologist had been expelled from China in 1950. He is the recipient of a 2011 Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio "Residency Award." His book, Following the Leader: Ruling China, from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping, was published in January 2014 and a second edition in 2020, both published by University of California Press.

Lampton is a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations Executive Committee and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He served on the board of trustees of Colorado College from 1999 to 2013 and now is a life trustee. He also serves on the advisory boards of the National Bureau of Asian Research and US-China Education Trust. In 2018, he was awarded the “Lifetime Achievement Award for Advancing U.S.-China Relations” by the Committee of 100. He served as enlisted and commissioned officer of the U.S. Army Reserve, was a fireman at Stanford University, and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Eta Sigma academic honorary societies.

On February 27, 2014, Lampton was part of a panel discussion sponsored by the US-Asia Institute entitled "Sino-Japan Dynamics and Implications for The U.S.-Japan Alliance." His May 2015 speech at The Carter Center is often cited as the earliest serious warning that U.S.-China relations were in serious decline--"The Tipping Point".

In January 2015, Lampton was named the most influential China watcher by the Institute of International Relations at the China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing. Researchers chose him after assessing the credentials of 158 China experts.

In July 2019, Lampton was among the signers of an open letter to the Donald Trump administration and United States Congress which argued that efforts by the United States government to isolate China would weaken "those Chinese intent on developing a more humane and tolerant society." Rivers of Iron: Railroads and Chinese Power in Southeast Asia, co-author (2020) Following the Leader: Ruling China, from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping (2014; reprinted, with a new preface, 2019) The Three Faces of Chinese Power: Might, Money, and Minds (2008) Same Bed, Different Dreams: Managing U.S.-China Relations, 1989-2000 (2001) The Making of Chinese Foreign and Security Policy in the Era of Reform, editor (2001) United States and China Relations at a Crossroads, co-editor (1993) Bureaucracy, Politics, and Decision-Making in Post-Mao China, co-editor (1992) China's Global Presence, co-editor (1988) Policy Implementation in Post-Mao China, editor (1987) Paths to Power: Elite Mobility in Contemporary China (1986; reprinted in 1989) A Relationship Restored, National Academy of Sciences, co-author (1986) The Politics of Medicine in China: The Policy Process, 1949-1977, Westview Press (1977)