Scholarship
My academic work covers a broad range of topics relating to contemporary China and great power competition. My training is in economic and diplomatic history, but my interests cut across disciplinary boundaries. Much of my work draws on Chinese-language open source materials to understand how the Chinese Communist Party thinks about and plans for major strategic challenges, including competition with the United States, COVID-19, climate change, and AI.
I have written on U.S. and Chinese strategies of economic statecraft, financial warfare and RMB internationalization, economic coercion and neutral state agency, maritime security and naval blockade strategy, China's infrastructure diplomacy, the role of propaganda and historical revisionism in Xi Jinping's foreign policy, China's national strategy for climate adaptation, Arctic geopolitics, technology competition in the Indo-Pacific, and economic contingency planning for Taiwan crisis scenarios.
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BOOKS
One Belt One Road: Chinese Power Meets the World (Harvard University Press, 2021)
On Day One: An Economic Contingency Plan for a Taiwan Crisis, with Hugo Bromley (Hoover Institution Press, 2024).
The Arsenal of Democracy: Technology, Industry, and American Leadership in the Indo-Pacific, with Harry Halem (forthcoming, Hoover Institution Press)
Defending Taiwan: A Strategy to Prevent War with China (under contract, Oxford University Press, forthcoming April 1, 2026)
The Warming War: Power and Adaptation in the Age of Climate Change (forthcoming)
PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLES AND BOOK CHAPTERS
“The Malacca Myth: Understanding Neutral Incentives in Great Power Economic Conflict,” with Hugo Bromley [accepted for publication at International Security]
“The Logic of Partial RMB Internationalization: PRC Perspectives on “Financial War,” with Calvin Heng, The China Quarterly, February 2025, pp. 1–16.
“Security, Climate Change, and the Politics of Vulnerability,” with Ray Cai, in the SAGE Handbook on China’s Environment, Christopher Coggins and Yifei Li, eds. [forthcoming 2025]
“Making the Past Serve the Present: Historical Revisionism in China’s One Belt One Road Propaganda,” Asian Affairs, February 2021.
“Strategic Promiscuity: The Hambantota Port and Sri Lanka–China Relations,” in China and the Ports of the Indian Ocean, Richard Griffiths, ed. (International Institute for Asian Studies, 2023)
INVITED LECTURES AND KEYNOTES
“On Day One: An Economic Contingency Plan for a Taiwan Crisis”
Presented with Hugo Bromley at: Hoover Institution, Washington DC; Columbia University, Center for Global Energy Policy; U.S. Naval War College; Harvard University, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies; Center for Strategic and International Studies; Hoover Institution; Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies; Institute for Geoeconomics
“One Belt One Road: Chinese Power Meets the World”
Book talk presented at: Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies; Japan-U.S. Military Program; Hoover Institution, History Working Group; University of Oxford, Department of Politics and International Relations; Foreign Policy Research Institute; Observer Research Foundation; U.S. Naval War College
Other keynote lectures
U.S. State Department, Foreign Service Institute, “The Belt and Road and China’s Grand Strategy,” September 25, 2024
Institute for Geoeconomics, “Future Pathways for China’s Belt and Road,” July 25, 2023
Harvard Kennedy School, “Chinese Perspectives on Climate Geopolitics,” March 27, 2023
Columbia–Harvard China and the World Program, “The Geopolitics of Anticipatory Adaptation to Climate Change: Evidence from China,” February 6, 2023
SOAS China Institute, “Reinventing the Belt and Road,” October 31, 2022
University of Oslo, “The Polar Silk Road and China’s Ambitions for a Warming Arctic,” December 1, 2021
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, “China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Implications for the OSCE’s Comprehensive Security Agenda,” November 18, 2021
WORKSHOP PRESENTATIONS
International Studies Association, “China Prepares for Financial War: The Logic of Partial RMB Internationalization,” April 4, 2024
Hoover History Working Group, “The Malacca Myth: Lessons from the History of Naval Blockades,” with Hugo Bromley and Nicholas Lambert, December 14, 2023
Harvard Belfer Center, China Energy Workshop, “‘We Are the Lords of Nature:’ Russian Perspectives on Climate Geopolitics,” April 4, 2023
Harvard Belfer Center, China Energy Workshop, “Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization and Climate Adaptation,” November 1, 2022
PANEL PRESENTATIONS AND PUBLIC DISCUSSIONS
Fletcher School at Tufts University, “Global Repercussions of Russia-West Economic Warfare: China’s Conclusions,” with Mihaela Papa, Zoe Liu, and Arik Burakovsky, September 27, 2024
Global Taiwan Institute, “Taiwan Contingency Scenarios and Legal Deterrence: Issues for US-Taiwan Policy,” with Kai-Chieh Hsu and Julian Ku, August 25, 2024
Harvard University, Fairbank Center, “Prospects for the Belt and Road Initiative,” March 22, 2024
Hoover Energy Policy Working Group, “Energy Systems in the Indo-Pacific in a Regional Security Contingency,” panelist with Jim Ellis, Paul Wolfowitz, and Jason Hsu, December 5, 2023
Harvard Belfer Center, International Council, “Competition and Cooperation in the Arctic Under Climate and Geopolitical Change,” with John Holdren and Jennifer Spence, May 17, 2023
Bruegel, “BRI 2.0: How Has the Pandemic Influenced China’s Landmark Belt and Road Initiative?” with Xiaotong Zhang, Alessia Amighini, and Alicia García-Herrero, June 23, 2022
University of Edinburgh, “2022: China’s Next Steps,” with Rana Mitter, George Magnus, and Richard MacGregor, March 3, 2022
Chicago Council on Global Affairs, “China’s Rise and Reach: The Belt and Road City,” September 22, 2021
Oxford Political Review, “The Future of U.S.–China Engagement,” with Astrid Nordin, Da Wei, and Danny Quah, September 10, 2021
Yale University, Jackson Institute, International Security Studies, “Chinese Conceptions of World Order,” with Odd Arne Westad, Susan Thornton, and Bill Hayton, May 3, 2021
China Research Group, “Where Next for the Belt and Road?” with Tom Tugendhat, MP; Jonathan Hillman; and Meia Nouwens, March 11, 2021
Harvard University, Fairbank Center for China Studies and Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, “Iran and China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Between Desirable and Feasible,” with Nargis Kassenova, Nader Habibi, and Dina Esfandiary, February 22, 2021
Hudson Institute, “One Belt One Road and Great Power Competition,” with Nadia Schadlow, Patrick Cronin, and Eric Brown, February 16, 2021
University of Cambridge, Centre for Geopolitics, “One Belt One Road: Trainwreck or Masterstroke?” discussion with Jon Hillman, Theresa Fallon, and Kun-Chin Lin, December 9, 2020
Royal Society for Asian Affairs, “After the Elections: Where Next for U.S.-Asia Relations?” panel discussion with Bradford McGuinn, Jennifer Staats, James Schwemlein, and Michael Ryder, November 4, 2020
Harvard University, Department of History, “Explaining U.S.-China Relations After Tiananmen,” October 19, 2016
DISCUSSANT ROLES
Hoover Institution, “Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare,” with H.R. McMaster and Eddie Fishman, March 5, 2025
Hoover Institution, “Sino-Russian Relations in Historic Context: Ideology, Agency, and Interests,” with Joseph Torigian, January 18, 2024
Hoover Institution, “Sovereign Funds: How the Communist Party of China Finances Its Global Ambitions,” with Zoe Zongyuan Liu, January 18, 2024