Spotlight on Dr Elizabeth Ingleson

In 2023-24, Dr Ingleson continued her participation with the Phelan US Centre’s UGRA program, working with LSE Law school undergraduate, Tali-Aisha Bourhis, on the project, From Engagement to Strategic Competition: US-China Relations, 1972-2023. This project explores the evolution of the United States’ China policies over the past five decades. Along with previous the Phelan US Centre UGRAs, this work has supported the research underpinning her second book, under contract with Bloomsbury Academic, China and the United States since 1949: An International History.

Read the report.

Dr Ingleson’s first book, Made in China When US-China Interests Converged to Transform Global Trade, was published by Harvard University Press in March 2024. Made in Chinaexamines how the United States and China rebuilt trade ties in the 1970s, after over twenty years of Cold War isolation – and in the process unwittingly reshaped global capitalism.

Read the book Made in China: When US-China Interests Converged to Transform Global Trade.

On 7 May 2024, the Phelan US Centre held an event, launching Dr Ingleson’s book in the Wolfson Theatre of the Cheng Kin Ku Building at LSE, and chaired by the Phelan US Centre Director, Professor Peter Trubowitz.

Find out more about this event.

In 2022-23, for the Phelan US Centre’s UGRA program, Dr Ingleson worked with LSE undergradaute student, Mei Yuzuki, from Department of International History on the project, Trade, Human Rights and US-China Relations:1979-2001. This project explores the relationship between trade and human rights in US-China relations, starting with the US-China Trade Agreement (1979) and concluding with China’s entry into the WTO (2001), and stems from Dr Ingleson's book project, China and the United States Since 1949: An International History.

Dr. Ingleson collaborated with Rosalie Roechert, an undergraduate student from the Department of International Relations at LSE, on the project, China and the United States Since 1949, in 2021–2022 for the Phelan US Center's UGRA program. The project creates a primary source database listing important speeches and documents (articles, reports etc) from each presidency from Truman to Biden. It also analyses these sources with particular attention to three key themes: discussion of China’s size (population size and land mass); meanings of engagement (including, during the Cold War, how lack of engagement was discussed and justified); and predictions of China’s economic future.

Read the report.

• Podcast of the book launch [LSE Player]
• Made in China: When US-China Interests Converged to Transform Global Trade [LSE Ballpark podcast interview]
• Will the US remain the world’s superpower? [LSE iQ and The Ballpark podcast]
• Rather than blaming China for deindustrialization, the US should look at its own domestic policies. [USAPP blog post]