Experts

Harry Harding

Faculty Senior Fellow

Fast Facts

  • Specialist on Asia and U.S.-Asian relations
  • UVA University Professor Emeritus
  • UVA professor of public policy emeritus
  • Founding dean of UVA’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy
  • Expertise on Asia, China, U.S.-China relations, Cultural Revolution

Areas Of Expertise

  • Foreign Affairs
  • American Defense and Security
  • World Happenings
  • Asia
  • Economic Issues

Harry Harding, faculty senior fellow, is a specialist on Asia and U.S.-Asian relations. His major publications include Organizing China: The Problem of Bureaucracy, 1949-1966China’s Second Revolution: Reform after MaoA Fragile Relationship: The United States and China since 1972; and the chapter on the Cultural Revolution in the Cambridge History of China. His edited volumes include China’s Foreign Relations in the 1980s; Sino-American Relations, 1945-1955: A Joint Reassessment of a Critical Decade (co-edited with Yuan Ming); and The India-China Relationship: What the United States Needs to Know (co-edited with Francine R. Frankel).

A University Professor Emeritus and professor of public policy emeritus at the University of Virginia, Harding is also adjunct chair professor in the College of Social Science at National Chengchi University in Taipei, where he holds a Yushan Scholarship, the highest honor awarded by Taiwan’s Ministry of Education. He has recently held visiting appointments at the University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Harding served as the founding dean of UVA’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy between 2009 and 2014. Before joining the Batten School, he held faculty appointments at Swarthmore College and Stanford University and was a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution. From 1995 to 2005, he was dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University, and from 2005 to 2007 was director of research and analysis at Eurasia Group, a political risk research and advisory firm based in New York. He has served on the boards of several educational and nonprofit institutions, as well as on the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Science and Technology and the U.S. Defense Policy Board. A graduate of Princeton in public and international affairs, he holds a PhD in political science from Stanford University.

Harry Harding News Feed

Whenever it was, Hong Kong’s golden age now seems well in the past, and confidence in the model of one country two systems is at an all-time low. The prospects that Beijing will agree to continue applying that formula to Hong Kong after 2047, implied by a statement by Deng Xiaoping in 1988 that one country two systems would be practiced in Hong Kong for “at least” fifty years, suggesting that it might last longer, have significantly dimmed.
Harry Harding The ASAN Forum
Harry Harding The Asan Forum
Harry Harding, a veteran American specialist on China from the University of Virginia, also said Beijing’s new push for opening and reform was critical not only for China but US-China relations as well. “It’s important to note that compared to the situation 40 years ago, the challenge to this new wave of reform and opening comes as much from outside China as from within,” Harding said.
Harry Harding South China Morning Post
Now in the second year of his term, the president has repeatedly challenged America’s commitment to free trade, its reliance on regional trade and security architecture, and its devotion to human rights. How do thoughtful Asian observers evaluate these developments? And do they regard the president’s views simply as a temporary consequence of
his unexpected election that will be swept away at the end of his term, or as deeper, more enduring trends that foreshadow the decline and retreat of the United States in the Asia-Pacific region?
Harry Harding The Asia Foundation
The Miller Center is thrilled to announce its second class of senior fellows, seven accomplished academic professionals who will help the Center in its mission to provide national leaders with the history, perspective, and understanding they need to make effective decisions.