Elizabeth Economy

Elizabeth Economy is the C.V. Starr senior fellow and director for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations., Council on Foreign Relations

Dr. Economy has published widely on both Chinese domestic and foreign policy. Her most recent book, with Michael Levi, is By All Means Necessary: How China's Resource Quest is Changing the World (Oxford University Press, 2014). She is the author of The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to China's Future (Cornell University Press, 2004; 2nd edition, 2010; Japanese edition, 2005; Chinese edition, 2011), which was named one of the top 50 sustainability books in 2008 by the University of Cambridge, won the 2005 International Convention on Asia Scholars Award for the best social sciences book published on Asia, and was listed as one of the top ten books of 2004 by the Globalist as well as one of the best business books of 2010 by Booz Allen Hamilton's strategy+business magazine. She also coedited China Joins the World: Progress and Prospects (Council on Foreign Relations Press, with Michel Oksenberg, 1999) and The Internationalization of Environmental Protection (Cambridge University Press, with Miranda Schreurs, 1997). She has published articles in foreign policy and scholarly journals including Foreign Affairs, Harvard Business Review, and Foreign Policy, and op-eds in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal, among others. Dr. Economy is a frequent guest on nationally broadcast television and radio programs, has testified before Congress on numerous occasions, and regularly consults for U.S. government agencies and companies. She writes about topics involving China on CFR's Asia Program blog, Asia Unbound, which is syndicated by Forbes.com, and authors a monthly column on China's environment for the Diplomat. Dr. Economy serves on the board of managers of Swarthmore College and the board of trustees of the Asia Foundation. She is also on the advisory council of Network 20/20 and the science advisory council of the Stockholm Environment Forum. She is a member of the World Economic Forum (WEF)'s Global Agenda Council on the United States and served as a member and then vice chair of WEF's Global Agenda Council on the Future of China from 2008 to 2014. Dr. Economy has also served on the board of the China-U.S. Center for Sustainable Development. She has taught undergraduate and graduate level courses at Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, and the University of Washington's Jackson School of International Studies. Dr. Economy received her BA from Swarthmore College, her AM from Stanford University, and her PhD from the University of Michigan. In 2008, she received an honorary doctor of laws degree from Vermont Law School. She lives in New York City with her husband and three children.

Articles by Elizabeth Economy

After decades of stalled or blocked reforms, China’s environmental protection effort may finally be gaining traction. There are scores of new initiatives; some positive indicators, such as falling levels of coal consumption; and a brand new minister of environmental protection, Chen Jining, who brings actual environmental expertise to the table. Still, as Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has noted, the country’s environmental challenges were a long time in the making and will be a long time in the fixing. So before touting China as an environmental success story, here are four indicators to watch over the next 12 to 18 months

Everywhere you look in China, progress in protecting the environment is evident. China rang in 2015 by adopting a new, stronger environmental protection law. The leadership has issued tough new targets for regional coal consumption and air quality. Chart-topping levels of investment in clean energy continue despite plummeting oil prices. And courts are levying significant fines on polluting enterprises to help force improved practices. Yet all of this effort will come to naught if the continued mismatch between the leaders’ ambitions and the capacity of local officials to realize that ambition is not addressed. While there are a number of reasons for weak implementation of central laws and directives—corruption, lack of interest, and misaligned incentives among them—at heart Beijing demands too much and invests too little in the fundamentals of environmental protection. Local officials are ill-equipped to meet the ever-growing list of environmental challenges central officials set before them.