People

Lanxin Xiang

  • Distinguished Fellow
  • Strategic Foresight Hub

Dr. Lanxin Xiang (相蓝欣) is Professor Emeritus of International History and Politics at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID), Geneva.

He is the Founding Director of the Institute of Security Policy (ISP), China National Institute for SCO International Exchange and Judicial Cooperation (CNISCO), Shanghai, PRC, and Chair of Security Policy at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law (SHUPL). He has founded a track II dialogue forum named “Strategic Compass Dialogues” (SCD), which mainly engages in policy elite dialogues between China and the US, China and EU, and China and Russia. 

Prof. Xiang currently serves as a visiting scholar at the Belfer Center and visiting fellow at the Robert Schuman Center at EUI in Florence. He is also a senior advisor at the Club of Three based in London. He is a member of the Academic Council at the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi, Russia. Before moving to Geneva in 1996, Prof. Xiang was an associate professor at Clemson University in South Carolina. He held an Olin Fellowship at Yale University, MacArthur Fellowship in Germany and Truman Fellowship from the Truman Library. 

He was the 3rd Henry A. Kissinger Chair of Foreign Policy and International Affairs at the Library of Congress. He has also held distinguished chairs at Fudan University, East China Normal University and Foreign Affairs University, CFAU, Beijing. And he was a Senior Associate at CSIS, and a senior fellow at the Transatlantic Academy of the German Marshall Fund. He had collaborated with the National Intelligence Council (NIC) many times for Global Trend conference series in China, Geneva and Washington.

 A contributing editor at Survival, IISS, Prof. Xiang wrote comments on The Washington Post (U.S.A.), Der TagesSpiegel (Germany), South China Morning Post (HK), United Morning News (Singapore) and Global Times (China). A graduate from Fudan University in Shanghai , he has MA and PhD in European Studies from SAIS, Johns Hopkins University.

Prof. Xiang’s primary research interests are Chinese history and politics and China’s relations with the US and Europe. He has published four books in English and six books in Chinese. His latest book, The Quest for Legitimacy in Chinese Politics—A new interpretation, is published in December 2019.

Research & Writing