A leading authority on Taiwan, Shelley Rigger is Brown Professor of East Asian Politics at Davidson College in North Carolina. She earned a PhD in government from Harvard University and has been studying and visiting Taiwan for nearly four decades. She has been a visiting researcher at Chengchi University in Taipei and a visiting professor at Fudan University in Shanghai. Her books include Why Taiwan Matters: Small Island, Global Powerhouse, and she consults for the US government on East Asian national security issues.