About

Anthony Saich is the Daewoo Professor of International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School and serves as the director of the Rajawali Foundation Institute for Asia. His teaching focuses on comparative political institutions, democratic governance, and transitional economies with a particular emphasis on China. As Institute Director, he also holds roles as faculty chair of various programs related to China and Asia, including the China Programs, the Asia Energy Leaders Program, and initiatives on the Vietnam Wars. Saich has a long-standing engagement with China, having first visited as a student in 1976, and he continues to visit annually. He is a guest professor at Tsinghua University’s School of Public Policy and Management and advises numerous government, private, and nonprofit organizations on work in China and Asia. His research concentrates on politics and governance in post-Mao China and philanthropy in China. Saich has authored several books on Chinese politics, including 'From Rebel to Ruler. One Hundred Years of the Chinese Communist Party' (2021) and 'Finding Allies and Making Revolution' (2020). He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Leiden, a master's degree from SOAS, London University, and a bachelor's degree from the University of Newcastle, UK.

Research topics

• Political science
• Economic growth
• Development economics
• Political economy
• Geography

Selected publications

• To Serve the People: Income, Region and Citizen Attitudes towards Governance in China (2003–2016)

  The China Quarterly · 2019-04-11 · 21 citations

  articleSenior author

  Abstract Through use of a unique, multi-year public opinion survey, this paper seeks to measure changes in self-reported governmental satisfaction among Chinese citizens between 2003 and 2016. Despite the persistence of vast socio-economic and regional inequalities, we find evidence that low-income citizens and residents living in China's less-developed inland provinces have actually reported comparatively greater increases in satisfaction since 2003. These results, which we term the “income effect” and “region effect” respectively, are more pronounced at the county and township levels of government, which are most responsible for public service provision. Our findings also show that the satisfaction gap between privileged and more marginalized populations in China is beginning to close, in large part owing to efforts by the Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping administrations to rebalance the gains of economic growth and shift resources towards the populations most overlooked during China's first few decades of reform.

  PublisherDOI

• CQY volume 240 Cover and Back matter

  The China Quarterly · 2019-12-01

  paratextOpen access

  Use pinyin without tone/diacritical marks, except for Chiang Kai-shek, Sun Yat-sen, Taipei, Kuomintang, and names of people living outside

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• What Does General Secretary Xi Jinping Dream About?

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2017-01-01 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• What Does General Secretary Xi Jinping Dream About

  Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University) · 2017-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This analysis argues that the period of easy reforms in China has ended, and the time of difficult reforms that touch core political interests has begun. The resulting challenges facing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) general secretary Xi Jinping when he is confirmed for another five-year-term span political, economic, and international spheres. This leadership must both maintain a domestic focus to strengthen economic growth and avoid the “middle-income trap,” while also engaging in a host of regional and global actions to cement China’s position on the world stage. Internally, Xi has consolidated significant political power, and this has created significant tension among vested interests and competing centers of influence. Externally, for the first time in several centuries, the largest economy in the world is not Western and will be under a leadership that does not share the same consensual values and political structures as those in the West. Xi has outlined several priorities, including: increased CCP control over state and society; the promotion of traditional Chinese culture; the importance of Marxism as a guiding principle; historical revisionism and censorship; the promotion of nationalism; and the pursuit of an aggressive national anti-corruption campaign. Given these goals and sets of challenges, the outcome in China is uncertain and there exist a range of possible scenarios.
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\nThe most attractive for the West would be an increase in social diversity and an accommodation with society to form a new social compact. However, it is difficult to see what would cause the current elite willingly to reject the existing beneficial system. A more unpredictable outcome would be chaotic pluralization in which democracy is not entrenched and elites and their families continue to benefit from their political connections to privatize public wealth. An alternative over the short to medium term would be the continuation of the fluctuation of soft and harder authoritarianism that would make bold initiatives unlikely. Rarely does a transition occur during a period of economic growth and is more likely to occur with the system under stress. As a result, the emergence of an illiberal democracy would be quite plausible under this final scenario.

  Publisher

• Values and Vision: Perspectives on Philanthropy in 21st-Century China

  Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University) · 2016-01-01 · 8 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Values and Vision: Perspectives on Philanthropy in 21st Century China is an exploratory study of philanthropic giving among China's very wealthy citizens. Recognizing the increasing number of successful entrepreneurs engaged in philanthropic activity in China, the study explores the economic and policy contexts in which this philanthropy is evolving; the philanthropic motivations, aspirations and priorities of some of the country's most engaged philanthropists; and the challenges and opportunities for increasing philanthropic engagement and impact in China.

  Publisher

• President Xi’s Chinese dream means a more multi-polar world

  2015-01-21

  preprint1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The National People's Congress: Functions and Membership

  Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University) · 2015-11-01 · 14 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  From time to time, the attention of the media in the United States and around world turns to China’s National People’s Congress (NPC), typically around the time the NPC meets in March. This paper is intended to provide an overview of the NPC's role in China's governmental hierarchy, its functions, and its membership.

  Publisher

• Reflections on a Survey of Global Perceptions of International Leaders and World Powers

  Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University) · 2014-12-01 · 7 citations

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  A recent survey asks citizens from 30 countries for their views on 10 influential national leaders who have a global impact (see Appendix). There are many rich findings among the data. However, two general trends stand out. The first is that the responses are influenced by geopolitics. Differences between nations and national leaders are clearly reflected in the attitudes of their own citizens. Thus, it is plain that the tensions between China and Japan result in very poor evaluations of China and its leader by Japanese citizens and vice versa. Second, there is a correlation in responses between the nature of the political system and citizen opinions of their own nation’s leader. On the whole, in multiparty systems or genuine two-party systems such as in Europe and the U.S., citizens are more critical of their national leaders and policies than is the case in those nations where politics is less contested.

  Publisher

• Reforming China's Monopolies

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2014-01-01 · 7 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• China, the USA, and Asia’s Future

  RePEc: Research Papers in Economics · 2012-11-01 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The relationship between the US and China is at the core of both economic and geopolitical trends that will define the future of Asia in this century. China’s economic rise and its more assertive diplomacy have created a new environment for neighboring countries to react. This has necessitated other powers in Asia to work within a regional order that is no longer based on US primacy as the key guarantor of global and regional public goods. Despite relative decline, the Obama administration, first with its unwieldy phrase of a pivot to Asia and the later notion of rebalancing, has indicated clearly that it intends to retain a key role in Asia. The potential danger that this can give rise to is shown by the tension that arises periodically over territorial disputes. Most recently, there have been three unsettling trends. First, is the dispute between the Philippines and China over the Scarborough Shoal, which falls within the long tongue of the South China Seas that China claims as a “core interest.” Second, in mid-June 2012, China announced that it had set up a prefectural city, Sansha, to oversee three South China Sea islands. Third, there has been yet another escalation of sovereignty claims over the Senkaku islands between China and Japan. There have also been territorial spats between Japan and South Korea. Whether the US will be drawn into an avoidable conflict by its allies in the region or whether it will renege on its alliances to maintain a viable relationship with China heightens the insecurity. It is even more important for the US and China to find a way to cooperate in the Asia region than it is for the other countries within the region. There is no alternative leader within the region or group of countries that can provide the kind of balance that will enable the necessary public goods to be produced. This will entail modification of behavior by both the US and China, and it will not be easy. China’s strategic goals are directed to the defense of a continental power with growing maritime interests, as well as to Taiwan’s unification and other sovereignty claims and are largely conservative, not expansionist from their own perspective. China’s continued economic rise may nevertheless spawn a new security dilemma in East Asia, increasing regional instability and undermining China’s attempts at the diplomacy of reassurance. China has always shown itself willing to use force to protect what is sees as “legitimate” territorial claims. To be effective, both the US and China will have to make accommodations. China will have to define its national interest more clearly, and this will mean acknowledging that other principles of its foreign policy may be overridden under certain circumstances. China’s commercial activities have become a major issue in the domestic politics of a number of countries in the region. China needs to feel comfortable with the framework for international governance of which it is now a key member; reduce its suspicion of hostile foreign intent; and adjust its outdated notion of sovereignty to accept that some issues need transnational solutions and that international monitoring does not have to erode the Chinese Communist Party’s power.

  PublisherOA PDF

Frequent coauthors

• Katherine A. Mason

  Brown University

  4 shared

• Edward Cunningham

  4 shared

• Jesse Turiel

  Harvard University Press

  4 shared

• Felicity Aulino

  University of Massachusetts Amherst

  4 shared

• Barry R. Bloom

  4 shared

• Arthur M. Kleinman

  Harvard University

  4 shared

• Paula Johnson

  1 shared

• Duan Pei-jun

  1 shared