Shirley Martey Hargis is a multilingual strategist with over a decade of experience in China and Taiwan's domestic politics and foreign affairs. She works at the nexus of technology and finance/economy, focusing on rare earths, including critical minerals.

Currently, as a Senior China Policy Fellow for Third Way, she uses her wealth of experience to communicate the digital and technology-related challenges of the U.S.-China strategy to policymakers on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.

Her work spans defense and security, economy/finance, and technology in consulting, intelligence, and policy research. She covers U.S.-China relations, and cross-Strait tensions, including China’s affairs in Russia, the Indo-Pacific, and Frontier Markets (“Global South”), particularly Africa and Latin America.

Before Third Way, Hargis led and managed CRDF Global’s Countering PRC Acquisition and Misuse of Weaponizable Technology and Talent team for the U.S. Department of State and is a current consultant for their team. She supported the intelligence community, the U.S. Department of Defense, and federal law enforcement communities. She was a contributor and guest-hosted the POLITICO China Watcher newsletter. Early in her career, Hargis provided risk assessments for Taipei’s financial industry and co-authored a journal article about former President Barack Obama’s China policy, edited a book, Politics and Society in Contemporary China Edition 2, and provided consultation services, including risk assessments about geopolitical trends in the Indo-Pacific, and insight into U.S. foreign policymaking for U.S. entities and Taipei-based financial investment firms.

Her writings and commentary appear in the Wall Street Journal, POLITICO China Watcher, American Purpose, Taiwan Insight, TEKA Commission of Political Science and International Affairs, and Politics and Society in Contemporary China Edition 2.

She serves on the Truman National Security Project’s and Scoville Peace for Fellowship’s Board of Directors, the George H.W. Bush Foundation for US-China Relations’ and CJPA Global Advisors’ Board of Advisors. She is a Council on Foreign Relations term member, a nonresident fellow at Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub and Digital Forensic Research Lab, and Taiwan NextGen Foundation. Additionally, she is a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, the American Association for Chinese Studies, and the Pacific Council on International Policy.

Hargis has a bachelor’s in Political Science and a China Law, Trade, and Intellectual Property Certificate from UC Berkeley School of Law. She has attended the top schools in the Chinese language and lived and worked in various areas of China and Taiwan. She has advanced Chinese (Mandarin) language skills. As a second-generation American, born and raised in the Washington D.C. metro area, she is fluent in three Ghanaian dialects (Twi, Fanti, and Ga).