Skip to Navigation
University of Pittsburgh
Ask Pitt's Experts

People's Republic of China

Peoples Republic of China FlagPeoples Republic of China Map

Population: 1,338,612,968 (July 2009 est.)

Government: Communist state; Chief of State: President Hu Jintao (since March 15, 2003); Head of Government: Premier Wen Jiabao (since March 16, 2003)

Economic Overview

Department of Economics

Thomas G. Rawski

Professor,
Department of Economics,
School of Arts and Sciences
office: 412-648-7062
cell: 412-512-3853
tgrawski+@pitt.edu
Faculty Bio

For assistance in reaching this faculty member, contact
Sharon Blake
office: 412-624-4364
cell: 412-277-6926
blake@pitt.edu

Areas of expertise

Economy of China, economy of Japan, reform of socialist systems, economy of East Asia

Background

Rawski has been an observer of China’s economy since the 1960s. He coedited China’s Rise and the Balance of Influence in Asia (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007), a multifaceted examination of China in the areas of economics, trade, investment, politics, diplomacy, technology, and security. He also coedited China’s Great Economic Transformation (Cambridge University Press, 2008).

Rawski’s work has received international recognition in the form of lecture invitations and paper presentations, most recently in the form of an Astor Visiting Professorship at the University of Oxford.

department of history

Evelyn Rawski

University Professor,
Department of History,
School of Arts and Sciences
office: 412-648-7458
esrx@pitt.edu
Faculty Bio

For assistance in reaching this faculty member, contact
Patricia Lomando White
office: 412-624-9101
cell: 412-215-9932
laer@pitt.edu

Areas of expertise

Chinese history, modern East Asia, late Imperial China, modern China

Background
Rawski, a University Professor of History, is at work on a project titled “Rulership in Northeast Asia” in which she is examining the historical evolution of a northeast Asian tradition of political and social organization that affected polities in ancient and premodern Korea and Japan as well as the Qitan Liao, Jurchen Jin, and Manchu Qing dynasties in Chinese history.

Rawski's books include The Last Emperors: A Social History of Qing Imperial Institutions (University of California Press, 1998); Education and Popular Literacy in Ch'ing China (University of Michigan Press, 1979); and Agricultural Change and the Peasant Economy of South China (Harvard University Press, 1972).

Graduate School of Public and International Affairs

William W. Keller

Wesley W. Posvar Chair in International Security Studies,
Graduate School of Public and International Affairs
office: 412 624-7399
cell: 412-596-0431
bkeller@pitt.edu

Faculty Bio

For assistance in reaching this faculty member, contact
Amanda Leff
office: 412-624-4238
cell: 412-337-3350 aleff@pitt.edu

Areas of expertise

Internal security, terrorism, homeland security, China, weapons of mass destruction, proliferation, East Asian economic and security issues, the political economy of multinational corporations, and the arms trade

Background

Formerly the director of the Matthew B. Ridgway Center for International Security Studies at Pitt and executive director of the Center for International Studies and the research director of the Japan Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Keller is the author of China's Rise and the Balance of Influence in Asia (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007), Hitting First: Preventive Force in U.S. Security Strategy (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006), The Myth of the Global Corporation (coauthor; Princeton University Press, 1998), Arm in Arm: the Political Economy of the Global Arms Trade (Basic Books, 1995), and The Liberals and J. Edgar Hoover: Rise and Fall of a Domestic Intelligence State (Princeton University Press, 1989). He also is the coeditor of Crisis and Innovation in Asian Technology (Cambridge University Press, 2005).