University of Michigan Honors Brookings Senior Fellow Kenneth Lieberthal

Washington, D.C. – The Brookings Institution is proud to announce that the University of Michigan has renamed its Center for Chinese Studies in honor of Senior Fellow Kenneth Lieberthal. The center will now be called the Kenneth G. Lieberthal and Richard H. Rogel Center for Chinese Studies. Mr. Rogel is a University of Michigan alumnus and donor.

The newly named center will host lecture series, award student travel grants, provide funding for faculty and student research, and offer a master’s degree in Chinese Studies and joint degrees with several professional schools. In addition, Dr. Lieberthal and his wife, Jane, have generously endowed a fund to provide graduate and undergraduate fellowship support to center students.

In 1983, Dr. Lieberthal joined the University of Michigan political science faculty and served as the director of the Center for Chinese Studies from 1986 to 1989. From 1998 to 2000, he served as special assistant to President Clinton for national security affairs and senior director for Asia on the National Security Council. Upon his retirement from the University of Michigan in 2009, Dr. Lieberthal joined the Brookings Institution, where he is a senior fellow in Foreign Policy and Global Economy and Development. From 2009 to 2012, he served as director of the John L. Thornton China Center at Brookings.

Dr. Lieberthal’s government responsibilities encompassed U.S. policy toward Northeast, East and Southeast Asia. His latest book, Bending History: Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy (co-authored with Martin Indyk and Michael O’Hanlon), was published by the Brookings Press in March 2012.