David Shambaugh

David Leigh Shambaugh (born January 18, 1953) is an American political scientist, Sinologist and policy advisor. He currently serves as the Gaston Sigur Professor of Asian Studies, Political Science, and International Affairs at George Washington University, where he is also the director of the China Policy Program at GW’s Elliott School of International Affairs. He is also a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution (2024—). He was previously a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Shambaugh served in the Department of State, and on the White House National Security Council staff during the presidency of Jimmy Carter. As an author, Shambaugh has authored 12 and edited 21 books, and over 200 scholarly articles and newspaper op-eds.

Early life and education Shambaugh is the youngest son of George E. Shambaugh, Jr., an otolaryngologist and founder of the American Hearing Research Foundation. He grew up in Illinois and attended boarding school in Arizona. His brother George E. Shambaugh III is also a physician at Emory University. Shambaugh earned his BA cum laude in East Asian Studies in 1977 from the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University—where he now serves on the faculty. He received his MA in International Affairs in 1980 from Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and his PhD in Political Science from the University of Michigan in 1988, where he studied under Michel Oksenberg.

Career Shambaugh began his professional career as Program Associate and Acting Director of the Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC (1986-87), before being appointed as Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, and Reader in Chinese Politics at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), where he was on the faculty from 1987-1996. During this time, he also served as the Editor-in-Chief of the prestigious journal The China Quarterly (1991-96). In 1996 he left England and returned to the United States, when he was appointed as Professor of Political Science & International Affairs, and Director of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University.

Regarded as an international authority on China, Shambaugh is a frequent media commentator and has acted as an advisor to the United States government and several private foundations and corporations. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and other professional organizations. His books China Goes Global (2013) and China’s Future (2016) were selected by The Economist as one of the best books of the year (2014, 2016). In 2015, researchers at the China Foreign Affairs University named him the second-most influential China expert in the United States, behind David M. Lampton. Shambaugh has given testimony before the US Senate and House of Representatives, the UK House of Commons, and the Canadian Parliament. He has been a visiting professor or scholar in Australia, Austria, Brazil, China, Denmark, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. He holds a continuing appointment as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow to the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.