About Us

Elizabeth Freund Larus Ph.D., is Founder and President of E Larus Consulting LLC, and Professor Emerita of Political Science and International Affairs at the University of Mary Washington. A Fulbright Scholar and Taiwan Fellow, she specializes in East Asian political, economic, and security dynamics.

Dr. Larus draws on more than 30 years of experience with the Asia-Pacific. She is author of the books Politics and Society in Contemporary China and Economic Reform in China, as well as dozens of book chapters, articles and online commentary on Chinese politics, Taiwan politics, China-Taiwan relations, US in Asia, and security dynamics in the Asia-Pacific. She regularly contributes her insight to international media outlets, such as the Financial Times, Fortune magazine, CNBC, BBC, CGTN America, Channel NewsAsia, and Indus News.

Foreign Language: Mandarin Chinese.

Ms. Hargis is Nonresident Fellow at the Atlantic Council's Global China Hub and Digital Forensic Research Lab, a Term Member with the Council on Foreign Relations, and a Rhodium Group Fellow. She has more than a decade of research and practical experience in the foreign relations and domestic politics of China and Taiwan. Her areas of expertise include US-China relations, cross-Strait relations, and China-Africa relations.

She graduated cum laude with a BA in Political Science from the University of Mary Washington. She was awarded a National Security Education Program Boren Scholarship, an IIE Gilman International Scholarship, Huayu Enrichment Scholarship, and US Department of State Critical Language Scholarship. She also participated in the Taiwan-United States Sister Relations Alliance Ambassador Scholarship Program. Ms. Hargis co-authored “The US Space Force: Not Quite Ready for Liftoff” for IPP Review (2019) and “President Obama’s China Policy: A Critical Assessment,” for TEKA (2017) with Dr. Larus.

She regularly offers commentary on pressing issues in the Indo-Pacific to Al Jazeera and other international media.

Foreign Languages: Mandarin Chinese and Fante

Scott W. Fischer Ph.D., is our expert in American government and US domestic policy. Dr. Fischer and has twenty-five years of experience as a Congressional staffer and has taught American National Institutions at the undergraduate and graduate level. His 1994 dissertation from the University of Virginia was entitled, “Confrontation versus Compromise: The Role of the Minority Party in the House of Representatives under Divided Government.”  

Csaba Barnabas Horvath is a researcher at the Silk Road Research Group of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. (MTA-ELTE-SZTE Silk Road Research Group). He holds a PhD (2014) from Corvinus University in Budapest, Hungary. Dr. Horvath held visiting research positions at  Australian National University, National University of Singapore, Penang Institute in Malaysia, National Chengchi University in Taiwan, and Fudan University in China, and taught East European Studies at Corvinus University in Budapest. His research focus is geopolitics of the Asia-Pacific and of Europe.

Foreign Languages: Hungarian and Japanese