Professor Emerita of Political Science and International Affairs Elizabeth Freund Larus

Elizabeth Freund Larus, professor emerita of political science and international affairs, has been invited to speak at the 2025 Polyglot Conference in Taipei, November 10-12. Larus will offer her Chinese-English bilingual presentation “How to Prepare for Public Speaking in a Foreign Language — Lessons from Learning to Speak Mandarin,” to more than 400 teachers, interpreters, translators, students, scholars, language bloggers, linguists and writers, from some 60 countries. Larus speaks Mandarin Chinese and is studying Taiwanese.

Other media mentions for Larus include:

Analysis-China Likely to Take Wait-and-See Approach to Taiwan After Recent Election (RTI Novosti)
Larus suggests that Beijing would likely continue military sorties into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone and later carry out naval exercises near the island closer to Lai’s inauguration in May.

US experts believe negotiations with China will continue despite Trump’s new tariffs (RTI News)
Larus noted that both countries have time to soften their positions before November 1 and the APEC summit, where the planned meeting between Trump and Xi is scheduled to take place. Read more.

Setting the tone for US-China relations is difficult, and the “dominance test” between Xi Jinping and Trump continues (BBC News)
Larus told BBC Chinese that China’s leaders may be able to see through Trump’s vanity and vulnerabilities, but they may also have misjudged him: “Trump gets along well with strong male leaders until they test his patience, at which point he will strike back fiercely. Zhongnanhai should also take note of this.” Read more.

Professor Emerita of  Political Science and International Affairs Elizabeth Larus

Professor Emerita of Political Science and International Affairs Elisabeth Larus was quoted in RTI News on China’s decision to restrict exports of rare earths and minerals. Larus said the move was aimed at pressuring the U.S. President ahead of a tariff deadline, but instead reignited a cycle of escalating trade threats. “Xi may have overplayed his hand,” she noted, adding that the restrictions could backfire by accelerating U.S. efforts to develop alternative sources and reduce reliance on China. Read the article from RTI News.

Other media mentions for Larus include:

China Gathers Allies to Shape Global Security Vision (Deutsche Welle)
Larus commented in Deutsche Welle on this year’s Xiangshan Forum, China’s annual international security gathering. Larus indicated that the U.S. decision to send a lower-level Pentagon official to the gathering does not indicate a lack of interest on the part of the U.S. administration, but the choice of the U.S. representative indicates that the real discussions are happening through back channels and not in front of the cameras. Larus also commented that China’s leader Xi Jinping would use the forum as an opportunity to promote his peace narrative on issues ranging from the Ukraine war to the South China Sea and Taiwan despite Beijing’s support for Russia and China’s increasing aggression in the Asia-Pacific. Read more.

Professor Emerita of Political Science and International Affairs and Adjunct Senior Fellow at Pacific Forum Elizabeth Freund Larus

Professor Emerita of Political Science and International Affairs and Adjunct Senior Fellow at Pacific Forum Elizabeth Freund Larus was an invited speaker at the 2025 Asia Retreat for Senior Congressional Staff in Charlottesville, VA August 6-8, 2025.

Professor Larus offered her insight on the Chinese government’s decision making process, as well as on current economic and social issues affecting China’s foreign policy, to chiefs of staff of a dozen members of congress and senators. The program was organized and hosted by the Congressional Study Group on Japan, a program of the Former Members of Congress (FMC), and the Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA.

Other media mentions for Larus include:

Professor Emerita of Political Science and International Affairs Elizabeth Larus

Professor Emerita of Political Science and International Affairs Elisabeth Larus, a China expert and adjunct senior fellow at the Pacific Forum, was featured in a BBC News article titled “Trump looks forward to visiting China: Will Rubio, sanctioned by Beijing, become an obstacle to his trip?”

Commenting on meetings between U.S. Senator Marco Rubio and top Chinese officials, Larus observed, “Rubio’s meetings with Beijing’s top brass were inevitably awkward, including a lack of eye contact and faces that looked grim rather than smiling. But their primary role was to pave the way for a meeting between Trump and Xi, not to engage in in-depth, substantive discussions.” Read the full story. 

Professor Emerita of Political Science and International Affairs Elizabeth Larus

Professor Emerita of Political Science and International Affairs Elizabeth Freund Larus was quoted by BBC News in an article titled “Will the spillover effect of the US surprise attack on Iran cover North Korea and the Taiwan Strait? Asia-Pacific region hotly discusses Trump’s muscle flexing.” In the article, Larus, who serves as an Adjunct Senior Fellow at Pacific Forum, provided expert analysis on regional geopolitical implications, noting that if the U.S. mission against Iran’s nuclear weapons is ultimately successful, Beijing will grudgingly realize again that the United States is not a “wounded hegemon.” Read the article.

Professor Emerita of Political Science and International Affairs and Adjunct Senior Fellow at Pacific Forum Elizabeth Freund Larus

Professor Emerita of Political Science and International Affairs and Adjunct Senior Fellow at Pacific Forum Elizabeth Freund Larus was invited by the Centre for Geopolitics at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom to speak at the Indo-Pacific Roundtable 2025.

Larus’s panel focused on China’s relations in Northeast Asia, and she assessed Taiwan’s readiness to an invasion or embargo by China. Larus indicated that Taiwan is unprepared to respond to influence operations as well as military aggression from China, and that China’s Shuiqiao 水桥 extendable oversea road bridges are just the latest maritime military development that could facilitate China’s invasion of Taiwan.

Professor Emerita of Political Science and International Affairs and Adjunct Senior Fellow at Pacific Forum Elizabeth Freund Larus

Professor Emerita of Political Science and International Affairs and Adjunct Senior Fellow at Pacific Forum Elizabeth Freund Larus published her book chapter, “Taiwan: One of the Most Dangerous Places in the World” in Contemporary Security Problems (Lublin: UMCS Press, 2024).

The May 1, 2021 cover of the Economist magazine declared that Taiwan is “the most dangerous place on Earth.” Similarly, the WEF’s annual Global Risk reports since 2022 have labeled Taiwan as a dangerous hot spot because of its proximity to the PRC. The chapter, co-authored with Polish scholar and Professor Larus’ Fulbright host Agata Ziętek, analyzes the potential for cross-Strait conflict by examining the conditions contributing to tensions in the Taiwan Strait.

Professor Larus regularly travels to Taiwan. Despite the chapter title, she finds Taiwan to be a dynamic democracy and economy, and a remarkably safe place to travel and live.

Professor Emerita of Political Science Elizabeth Larus

Professor Emerita of Political Science and International Affairs and Nonresident Fellow at the Atlantic Council Indo-Pacific Strategic Initiative Elizabeth Freund Larus commented on Times Now India’s “News Hour” talk show on China’s new deep sea cable cutter technology. Professor Larus indicated that China’s new deep sea cable cutter is likely responsible for severing one of Taiwan’s undersea cables. China is proud of the technological advances that have made that country a peer maritime competitor with the United States but employs plausible deniability to shield itself from culpability. She also indicated that a series of cable cuttings near Taiwan is part of China’s gray zone tactics that are aggressive but short of war. See more.

Other recent media mentions for Larus include:

Trump’s midnight tariffs spark global reaction and warning (WION News)
Larus commented that President Trump’s early April 2025 tariffs are not only intended to bring manufacturing back to the United States but are also intended to prevent China from merely moving operations to neighboring countries, such as Vietnam, to circumvent the tariffs. https://www.nwitimes.com/partners/video-elephant/news/video_5dd2714b-c308-5e26-9a78-7252986829ce.html

Israel Strikes Lebanon After Rocket Attack; Lebanon Warns Against New War (NewsX World)
Larus commented that President Trump indicated that the his administration’s deportation of members and alleged members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua criminal gang without being charged with a crime raises a host of legal questions. See more.

US-China tariff war: China says it will ‘ignore’ further hikes, moves WTO on violations (WION News)
Larus commented on the U.S.-China tariff war, indicating that U.S.-China trade is heading for rough seas not just for trade in goods but also in services, commenting that China and the United States have worked each other into respective corners. President Trump had campaigned in 2016 and 2024 against China in a policy of “ChinaPrima.” Although he imposed a moratorium on tariff hikes with other countries, he has held fast with China. Trump is trying to bring Beijing to the table after years of promise fatigue in which China fails to follow through on market-oriented economic reform. At the same time, China’s leader Xi Jinping, who projects China as a peer superpower, cannot appear as backing down. Larus also indicated that despite outreach from Spain and Germany to China, most European countries will not dramatically strengthen economic relations with China because they are suffering from the same promise fatigue. https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/us-china-tariff-war-china-says-it-will-ignore-further-hikes-moves-wto-on-violations/vi-AA1CKE5p

Professor Emerita of Political Science and International Affairs Elizabeth Larus

Elizabeth Freund Larus, Professor Emerita of Political Science and International Affairs and Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council Indo-Pacific Security Initiative, commented on WION News on President Trump’s tariffs. Professor Larus indicated that it will be difficult for the US to have good relations with allies when Trump is imposing uncertainty on foreign businesses. She also indicated that Trump’s supporters will continue to back him in the short run despite tariff hikes, but he might lose a lot of that support if prices do not begin to come down. https://youtu.be/rn9-Y1dm2Wk?si=iDmRIND6fpk9s1rM

Other media mentions for Larus include: