Abstract 

The intensifying intersection of economics and geopolitics has brought new urgency to understanding how states wield, defend, and adapt their economic tools in pursuit of strategic objectives. As global supply chains face unprecedented disruptions—from pandemics to sanctions, export controls, and technological decoupling—questions of economic statecraft and resilience have become central to both policy and scholarly debates. This workshop seeks to examine how economic statecraft operates within complex networks of interdependence and how state and non-state actors navigate these pressures to sustain national competitiveness and security. It invites contributions that explore how states, firms, and societies adapt and negotiate their positions amid global economic fragmentation.

About the Speakers

Ana Cristina ALVES is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Governance, Economics and Social Sciences at Mohammed VI Polytechnic University in Morocco. Her research examines China–Africa relations at the intersection of foreign policy analysis, development studies and international political economy, with a particular focus on China’s positive economic statecraft and its implications for development and global governance. Her current work explores how great-power rivalry shapes African agency, and the role of intermediary states that craft strategically ambiguous positions to navigate and bypass the emerging fragmentation of global capital flows, alongside the broader theoretical debates these dynamics raise for international relations. Her recent publications include: “African agency and China’s influence: Egypt and Morocco human rights preferences at the United Nations” and “Economic Statecraft in the New Cold War: the U.S. and China’s Competing Strategies in Ethiopian Industrial Parks” (both 2025, Third World Quarterly).

Bo CHEN is Senior Research Fellow at the East Asian Institute of the National University of Singapore. Additionally, he is a Research Associate at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and a Distinguished Fellow at the Jack Austin Center. Dr Chen’s research interests lie in international economics, development economics, and China’s economy. He has published more than 30 peer-reviewed papers in renowned economic journals such as the Journal of International Economics, Journal of Comparative Economics, Economics Letters, and the World Economy. Dr Chen also provides insights on a wide range of China’s economic issues, including Political Free Trade Zones/Ports of China, the Belt & Road Initiative, and Macroeconomic Dynamics. He has been invited to give talks at the Ministry of Treasury and the Ministry of Commerce of China, as well as the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council. His opinions have appeared in various mainstream media outlets such as China Central Television, Xinhua Media, Lianhe Zaobao, BBC, The Economist, and the Wall Street Journal. In addition to advising the central/federal governments of China, Canada, and New Zealand, Dr Chen has also provided consultations to many leading business groups and think tanks, including the Goldman Sachs Group, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, Deutsche Bank, BAML, Citi Bank, BMW, Huawei, the Asian Society, the Rhodium Group, and CEPII.

Shaofeng CHEN is an Associate Professor at the School of International Studies, Peking University (PKU). Prior to joining PKU, he served as a Research Official and Visiting Research Fellow at the East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore. He held visiting professor appointments at the University of Hong Kong (2014), New York University (2015), and the University of Würzburg (2023). His research focuses on energy security and energy transition from an international relations perspective, alongside regional integration in the Asia Pacific and government-business relations. He is the author of China’s Approach to Energy Security: An International Comparative Perspective (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023) and has published over 50 papers and book chapters in both English and Chinese. His work appears in journals including The China Quarterly, Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, China: An International Journal, Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies, Policy and Society, and Journal of Chinese Political Science.

Xue GONG is an Assistant Professor and Deputy Coordinator in China Programme of S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Her research focuses on China’s economic statecraft, China’s state-business relations and China-Southeast Asia relations. Dr Gong has contributed to peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Contemporary China, World Development, Political Science Quarterly, European Journal of International Security, International Affairs, the Pacific Review, International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, Contemporary Southeast Asia and so on. She has two co-edited books on China’s Belt and Road Initiative. She also serves as non-resident scholar at Carnegie China.

Kai HE is Professor of International Relations at the School of Government and International Relations, Griffith University, Australia. He served as a non-resident Senior Scholar at the United States Institute of Peace (2022-2023), an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow (2017-2020), and a postdoctoral fellow in the Princeton-Harvard China and the World Program (2009-2010). He is a co-editor of “Cambridge Elements in Indo-Pacific Security,” a short-book series published by Cambridge University Press. He has authored or co-authored seven books and edited or co-edited eight volumes. His new books include The Upside of U.S.-Chinese Strategic Competition: Institutional Balancing and Order Transition in the Asia Pacific (co-authored with Huiyun Feng, Cambridge University Press, 2025) and International Organizations and Peaceful Change in World Politics (co-edited with T.V. Paul and Anders Wivel, Cambridge, 2025). He received the 2025 James Rosenau Award from the International Studies Association. His peer-refereed articles have appeared in European Journal of International Relations, European Political Science Review, International Affairs, International Studies Review, International Politics, Political Science Quarterly, Review of International Studies, Security Studies, Cooperation and Conflict, Contemporary Politics, Ethics & International Affairs, Asian Survey, The Pacific Review, Journal of Contemporary China, The Chinese Journal of International Politics, Asian Security, Asian Perspective, Australian Journal of Political Science, Australian Journal of International Relations, International Relations of the Asia Pacific, Issues and Studies, Strategic Studies Quarterly, East Asia, Asia Policy, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, and Journal of Contemporary East Asian Studies.

Xinyue HU is a Senior Analyst in the China Programme at RSIS. She holds an MSc in International Political Economy from RSIS, where she was awarded the RSIS Lee Foundation Scholarship. Her research focuses on US-China technology competition, economic statecraft, and corporate diplomacy. Her work has been featured on reputable platforms such as the Diplomat, IDSS Paper, RSIS Commentary, and China-India Brief. Her insights have been frequently cited by leading media outlets such as AFP, South China Morning Post, and Weekendavisen. She has also provided expert insights for professionals in the U.S. technology industry and CNBC.

Shaleen KHANAL is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Trusted Internet and Community, National University of Singapore. He received his Ph.D. in Public Policy from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. Prior to his current role, he was a Fox International Fellow at Yale University, and a postdoctoral research fellow at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. His research examines how socio-political institutions shape the governance of emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence and digital platforms. He has published in peer-reviewed journals, including Policy and Society, Journal of Contemporary China, and Nature Humanities and Social Sciences Communications among others. He can be reached at [email protected].

Gongmulan KONG is a PhD candidate at RSIS. Her research focus on International Political Economy, Chinese Economic Diplomacy, Overseas Investment and Corporate Social Responsibility.

Kee Hyun PARK is an Assistant Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University. He holds a Ph.D. in Government and Politics from the University of Maryland and B.A. and M.A. degrees in International Relations from Seoul National University. Before joining NTU, he was a postdoctoral scholar in the School of Politics and Global Studies at Arizona State University before joining NTU in 2025. His research spans several areas within international political economy, including the political economy of trade, U.S. foreign economic policymaking, firms’ political behavior in global value chains, and economic sanctions. Together with his postdoctoral supervisors, he is currently developing a novel database on government-mandated economic restrictions from the U.S., the EU, and the UN, covering the entire post–Cold War era. This effort is part of the “Government-Imposed Restrictions on International Economic Relations” project, funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation. The database will be made publicly available in June 2026.

Yong WANG is a Professor at the School of International Studies and the director of the Center for American Studies, Peking University. He is also a Professor at the Party School of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, an appointed Lecture Professor for the HKSAR Senior Civil Servants Training Program on Chinese Affairs at Peking University, and a Lecture Professor for the Ministry of Commerce African Diplomat Training Program at Peking University. He is a Member of the Board of Directors of the China Society of American Studies, World Economic Forum (WEF), and Global Agenda Council (GAC) on Geopolitics. He has published papers and book chapters in Chinese, English, Japanese and Spanish, on the topics of Chinese political economy, Chinese foreign relations, China-US relations, regional cooperation, international political economy, the World Trade Organization (WTO),) and global governance.

Trissia WIJAYA is a McKenzie Research Fellow at the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne. She is the author of The Political Economy of Japanese and Chinese Infrastructure Financing Governance: Organizing Alliances, Institutions, and Ideology (Bristol University Press 2025). She enrolled in a PhD in Politics at Murdoch University and subsequently worked at the Asian Development Bank, the UNDP Indonesia, and Ritsumeikan University, cultivating a sustained interest in the political economy of development, evidence-informed policy making, and the dynamics of social policy. Her current research focuses sit at the intersection of geopolitical economy and responses to it in East Asia, encompassing green infrastructure financing, industrial policy, and critical mineral development. She has conducted intensive fieldwork across Indonesia, Japan, and China, distilled in a number of high-impact journals. She was awarded the 2023 Herb Feith Centre Fellow from Monash University and the 2024-2025 Australian National University Indonesia Project Visiting Fellowship. She was elected as a fellow of Transpacific and Asian Dialogue by the Penn Project on the Future of U.S.-China Relations. Trissia is an ECR Representative of the Asia Institute and serves as a member of the Environmental Politics and Policy Research executive committee of the Australian Political Studies Association.

Binyi YANG is a PhD candidate at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, specializing in the political economy of clean technologies. Her dissertation compares China’s solar and wind industries to explain why the former produced sustained private-led innovation while the latter stalled in state-dependent replication, focusing on how public and private agency combine to produce supply chain resilience. Her research draws on over 150 elite interviews across 11 Chinese cities and an original firm-level dataset tracking listed companies’ strategic responses to national policy across both sectors from 2005 to 2024, combining supervised machine learning with qualitative fieldwork. She has published in Politics and Governance, the Asian Journal of Political Science, and Asia Policy, and has presented at APSA, ISA, and MPSA. Her current fieldwork examines Chinese clean-tech investment across Southeast Asia.

Hongzhou ZHANG is an Assistant Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University. Dr. Zhang Hongzhou’s main research interests include regional and global resource conflicts and governance, the role of Big Tech in international politics, and the governance of emerging technologies such as AI and biotechnology. He is the author/editor of three books and has published in leading peer-reviewed journals, including The China Quarterly, Policy and Society, Journal of Contemporary China, Global Food Security, Digital Government: Research and Practice, WIREs Water, Pacific Review, Marine Policy, Water International, Global Policy, Asia Policy, Contemporary Southeast Asia, Globalizations, China Review, and International Journal of Water Resources Development, among others.

Minghao ZHAO is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of International Studies/Center for American Studies, Fudan University. Prior to joining Fudan University in 2019, he served as a senior fellow and deputy director for strategic studies at the China Center for Contemporary World Studies, the in-house think tank of the International Department of the CPC’s Central Committee (IDCPC). He has been awarded the IDCPC Prize for Excellence in Policy Research several times. He also holds the following positions: Member of the China National Committee, Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP); Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Institute of International and Strategic Studies, Peking University; Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for International Security and Strategy, Tsinghua University. His research focuses on China’s foreign policy, Sino-US relations, and Asia-Pacific security. He is the author of Strategic Restraint: Is New-type Sino-US Relationship Possible and The Belt & Road Initiative and China’s Connectivity-oriented Global Diplomacy. He has authored over 40 peer-reviewed scholarly articles and chapters in books. The policy reports written by him have informed Chinese leaders, including members of the Politburo Standing Committee of the CPC. He has also briefed officials from the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and other Chinese government agencies. He has also contributed policy papers for the Center for American Progress, the US National Bureau of Asian Research, and the Italian Institute of International Affairs, among other research institutions.