Allen Suess Whiting (October 27, 1926 – January 11, 2018) was an American political scientist and former government official specializing in the foreign relations of China. Whiting was University of Arizona Regents' Professor of Political Science from 1993 to his retirement, having joined the university in 1982. He graduated from Cornell University in 1948, earned a master's degree from Columbia University in 1950 and a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1952. After first joining the Department of Political Science at Michigan State University, he became a researcher at the RAND Corporation and served in several capacities in the U.S. Department of State, including head of the Far Eastern Division of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research and deputy consul general in Hong Kong. He then tau