Victor C Shih is a political economist at the University of California at San Diego specialising in China. An immigrant to the United States from Hong Kong, Dr Shih received his doctorate in Government from Harvard University, where he researched banking sector reform in China with the support of the Jacob K. Javits Fellowship and the Fulbright Fellowship.

He is the author of a book published by Cambridge University Press entitled Factions and Finance in China: Elite Conflict and Inflation. It is the first book to examine the linkages between elite politics and banking policies in China. He is further the author of numerous articles appearing in academic and business journals, including The American Political Science Review, The China Quarterly, Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Politics, The Wall Street Journal and The China Business Review, and a frequent adviser to the financial community. Dr Shih holds a B.A. from the George Washington University, where he studied on a University Presidential Fellowship and graduated summa cum laude in East Asian Studies with a minor in economics.

His current research concerns coalition composition under Mao and Deng. Specifically, his research inquires whether Mao and Deng strategically promoted certain types of officials into senior positions in the military and the party in order to safeguard their power. Dr Shih also has ongoing research projects on quantitative measurements of factions and the impact of factional politics on elite promotions, rent-seeking activities, and the growth of the private sector.