Professor Watchlist

Deborah Seligsohn is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Villanova University. According to Seligsohn’s website, her career includes serving in the US State Department and the climate activist organization World Resources Institute. 

Seligsohn also contributes to China File, an online commentary dedicated to COVID-19 and climate change efforts. One of Seligsohn’s peer-reviewed papers—“The Partisan Divide in U.S.-China Congressional Communications after the China Shock” — reveals her disdain for conservative lawmakers’ foreign relationships. 

In the Abstract, Seligsohn and her co-author stated:

“In this paper…[w]e propose a theory of China-bashing to explain how members of Congress frame the negative impacts of trade to their voters. Using press release data from members of Congress, we show that, even though Chinese import competition impacted both Republican- and Democrat-held districts, Republican politicians in adversely affected districts responded by increasing their anti-China rhetoric, while there is no similar difference among Democrats.”

As an outspoken advocate for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Seligsohn defended the regime’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis despite two things— (1) lifting travel restrictions during peak infection times and (2) failing to accurately report infection spikes and rising death tolls. 

During a podcast interview titled “Ep. 149: Deborah Seligsohn on What Everyone Gets Wrong on China’s COVID and Climate Policies,” she commented on Chinese citizens’ responses to national mask mandates. She observed:

“By the time I was [in Beijing] in November…people were already really modifying their behavior. What they weren’t really modifying was mask use. Certainly, by the time I got there, the mask use was entirely for show. People would put them on to walk through a gate with a guard and then take it off again.” 

In 2021, The National Pulse exposed Seligsohn as an advisor to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The source said she “addressed the Central Party School of the [CCP]” in 2011, spoke at the Shanghai World Expo in 2010, and served as a research fellow at Nanjing University. The source also links to Seligsohn’s editorial “Demands for a Lab Leak Investigation Are a Dangerous Distraction.”

During international calls for vaccine mandates, Seligsohn wrote:

In June 2024, Seligsohn participated in an event called “Decoding China’s Climate Agenda” where she spoke on topics such as “how climate is prioritized in China’s bureaucracy” and China’s role in “international climate diplomacy.”

Send tips and updates on Deborah Seligsohn to Watchlists@tpusa.com. 

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Published – November 8, 2024