Harding has advised several US presidents on developments in the PRC; before the Tiananmen Square demonstrations he was brought to Camp David for informal discussions with the George H. W. Bush administration.
Dr. Harding served on the political science faculties of Swarthmore College (1970–71) and Stanford University (1971–83) and was a national fellow at the Hoover Institution.
He then became senior fellow in the foreign policy studies program at the Brookings Institution (1983–94), and, later, dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, a post he held for more than 10 years (January 1995 – June 30, 2005).
Dr. Harding is widely credited for making the Elliott School an internationally competitive graduate program.
On August 1, 2005, Harding joined Eurasia Group, a global political risk consultancy, as the firm's Director of Research and Analysis.