Born Alice Edith Langley, Hsieh graduated from Queens College (Flushing, New York) in 1943 and did graduate work at Clark University (history and international relations), Stanford University (history and U.S. Foreign Policy), George Washington University (law), and the University of California at Berkeley (Chinese). She became an International Relations Officer and Foreign Service Officer for the Bureau of Far Eastern Affairs of the U.S. State Department (1945-1955) and was a member of the U.S. Delegation to the Far Eastern Commission (1946-1952). In 1951, she served as Special Assistant to the U.S. Political Advisor to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, Tokyo, Japan.

From 1955 to 1958, Hsieh served as a consultant to the RAND Corporation and became a member of the RAND Senior Staff (1958-1969), specializing in Communist China's foreign policy, military doctrine and developments (including nuclear), internal Army-Party relations, Sino-Japanese relations, and general security matters in the Far East.

In 1969, she joined the International and Social Studies Division of the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) as a research staff member, continuing to specialize in the same areas. From 1971 to 1973, she was incapacitated be a serious illness, regaining a limited level of activity in the latter year. She continued to write, do research, and accumulate reference materials through 1978, but her active publication period is confined to the earlier years. Hsieh served as a consultant to the U.S. State Department throughout her later career, and appeared several times before Congressional committees, testifying on Communist China's nuclear capability and intentions, and on the development of a U.S. Anti-China anti-ballistic missile system.

Hsieh died in November 1979.