A West Coast window on China
Established in 2011 within the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego, the 21st Century China Center (21CCC) set out to develop and share evidence-based research on China — and, in its own words, to advance U.S.–China mutual understanding through scholarly collaboration, policy convenings, and public communication in both countries. Its research areas span leadership politics, economic and industrial policy, society and public opinion, climate and environment, and science, technology, and innovation.
The center was founded by Susan Shirk, who chaired it from 2011 until June 2023. Victor Shih directed it from July 2023 to June 2026; Margaret E. Roberts — also co-director of the China Data Lab — took over as director on July 1, 2026. A 2020 gift from Joe and Clara Tsai endowed the center’s directorship and funded its research.
Its flagship convening is the UC San Diego Forum on U.S.–China Relations, described by the university as the first ongoing high-level bipartisan forum in the United States focused entirely on the bilateral relationship.
The China Data Lab
Inside the center sits the China Data Lab, a data initiative directed by Margaret E. Roberts: a hub of data resources, analytical tools, blog posts, and training workshops for studying China, including the “China from the Ground Up” survey project. The Lab’s resources are described by UC San Diego as open. The Lab’s own founding date has not been established — a university document from about 2017 calls it “newly created” — and is not asserted here.
Limits a reader should know
University-based China research works within real constraints: PRC data access and fieldwork restrictions shape what can be studied and how, a general domain limitation rather than a criticism of this center. Funding includes the Tsai-family gift and, for the Data Lab, support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Henry Luce Foundation, and the Alfred Sloan Foundation — attributed to university sources; no independent assessment of influence on the research agenda is made here. A minor discrepancy exists in sources over whether the center dates to 2011 or 2012; the university’s own announcements consistently say 2011, which is used here.
No Chinese name for the center has been located in open sources, and none is used here.
Using the 21st Century China Center in research
The center is the site’s anchor for censorship and digital-politics research (Roberts) and for U.S.–China tech-policy convening (the Forum) on the governance and digital pages. The China Data Lab is a candidate dataset-wave source — its data resources and tools are described as open. Margaret E. Roberts’s expert record is anchored here as director and Data Lab co-director.