Cheng Li is a speaker and the Director of Research and Senior Fellow of the John. L. Thornton China Center at The Brookings Institution.

Cheng Li grew up in Shanghai during the Cultural Revolution. In 1985, he came to the United States, where he received an M.A. in Asian Studies from the University of California, Berkeley and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Princeton University. From 1993 to 1995, Dr. Li worked in China as a fellow with the U.S.-based Institute of Current World Affairs, observing grassroots changes in his native country. Based on this experience, he published a nationally acclaimed book, Rediscovering China: Dynamics and Dilemmas of Reform (1997).

Dr. Li is also the author or the editor of China’s Leaders: The New Generation (2001), Bridging Minds Across the Pacific: The Sino-U.S. Educational Exchange 1978-2003 (2005), China’s Changing Political Landscape: Prospects for Democracy (2008), and China’s Emerging Middle Class: Beyond Economic Transformation (2010). He is currently completing two book manuscripts: “Chinese Technocrats” and “Urban Subcultures...