Dr. Kenneth Lieberthal
USCPF Boardmember
Kenneth Lieberthal currently serves as Senior Fellow and Director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution. He has held several positions at the University of Michigan: Distinguished Fellow and Director for China at the William Davidson Institute, Professor of Political Science, William Davidson Professor of Business Administration, and Research Associate of the Center for Chinese Studies. He has been on the Michigan faculty since 1983. He earlier taught at Swarthmore College for 1972-83. He has a B.A. from Dartmouth College, and two M.A.'s and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University.Dr. Lieberthal served as Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and Senior Director for Asia on the National Security Council from August 1998 to October 2000. His government responsibilities encompassed American policy toward all issues involving Northeast, East, and Southeast Asia. For October-December 2000 Dr. Lieberthal was a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Dr. Lieberthal has written and edited nearly a dozen books and authored about four dozen published articles. His books include: Governing China: From Revolution Through Reform (W.W. Norton, 1995) – second edition to be published in January 1994; Policy Making in China: Leaders, Structures, and Processes (Princeton University Press, 1988) and Policy Making in China's Energy Sector (U.S. Department of Commerce, 1986), both co-authored with Michel Oksenberg; Bureaucracy, Politics, and Decision Making in Post‑Mao China (U.C. Berkeley Press. 1991), co-editor with David Lampton; Revolution and Tradition in Tientsin (Stanford University Press, 1980); Paths to Sino‑US Cooperation in the Automotive Sector (US Trade Development Program, 1989), with Michael Flynn and others; and Central Documents and Politburo Politics in China (University of Michigan, 1978). His most recent articles are: “China Tomorrow: The Great Transition,” Harvard Business Review (October 2003), “The End of Corporate Imperialism” (with C.K. Prahalad), Harvard Business Review (July-August 1998), republished as an “HBR classic” in Harvard Business Review (August 2003), “China in 2033,” China Business Review (March-April 2003), “China’s WTO Entry: The Challenge of Transformation, Global Perspectives (Winter 2002), “The US in Asia: Changing Agendas,” Asian Survey (January-February 2002), along with articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and South China Morning Post.
Professor Lieberthal was Director of Michigan's Center for Chinese Studies for 1986‑89. He has consulted widely on Chinese affairs and serves or has served as a consultant for the U.S. Department of State, the World Bank, the Kettering Foundation, the Aspen Institute, the United Nations Association and corporations in the private sector. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C., and a number of professional organizations. He serves as Senior Director for Stonebridge International LLC, is a member of the Boards of Directors/Advisors of the National Committee on US‑China Relations, the National Bureau of Asian Research, East Asian Institute of the National University of Singapore, the Hong Kong WTO Research Institute, and The Research Center for Contemporary China at Peking University, and is on the editorial boards of China: An International Journal, The China Quarterly, The China Economic Review, the Journal of Contemporary China and the Journal of International Business Education.
Dr. Lieberthal’s wife, Jane Lindsay Lieberthal, is a former University administrator. He has two sons: Keith is with the law firm of Covington and Burling and Geoffrey is with the consulting firm Bain & Co. Dr. Lieberthal speaks Chinese and Russian.
