Dr Liang Chen is a lecturer in the University of Botswana’s Chinese Studies Programme and a CIW Visiting Fellow. He is interested in China’s growing political and economic influence in the Global South. He has been researching technology transfer between China and Ethiopia and investigating the Chinese diaspora in Botswana and African expatriate communities in China.

Federico Pachetti is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Corvinus University of Budapest, a Research Fellow at Corvinus Institute of Advanced Studies, and a Research Fellow with the Geopolitical Frontiers Project, Future Potentials Observatory. Federico received his PhD in History from the University of Hong Kong. Interested in 20th century global history, Federico is working on a manuscript that explores how different American and international economic institutions integrated China into global capitalism during the 1980s. 

Chloë Starr is Professor of Asian Christianity and Theology at Yale University Divinity School. She works in the borderland of theology and literature, and has just published three edited volumes exploring Modern Chinese Theologies. At CIW she is pursuing her current project “A Life of Christ in Chinese Fiction,” concentrating on depictions of Jesus in c20 and c21 Chinese literature.

Ming Kin Chu is an Associate Professor in Chinese History and Culture in the School of Chinese. Before he joined the School in 2017, he had been a Research Assistant Professor in The Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology at Hong Kong Baptist University, a lecturer in the Department of History at Hong Kong Shue Yan University and a postdoctoral research associate at King’s College London and Leiden University. His research interests include political, educational, institutional, social and cultural history in Middle-period China (Five Dynasties, Song and Yuan) and Chinese historiography.

Ph.Ds. in art history and sociology. Professor of National Taiwan University of Arts (2013-). Senior reader of CHL, ANU (Taiwan Studies, 2010-2013). Director-General of National Museum of History (2018-2022). Award-winning Host of National Education Radio (2019-2022). Expertise: Taiwanese art history, sociology of art, postcolonial studies in visual art, Chines calligraphy.

Dr Linzhi Zhang is a visiting fellow at CIW. Her ongoing research examines labour issues in the art world against the backdrop of China’s demanding work culture. She received her PhD in sociology from the University of Cambridge and is currently a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the Courtauld Institute of Art. She also writes for art magazines and catalogues.

Hang (Ayo) Zhou is a political ethnographer interested in South-South relations, global China, politics of development, maritime anthropology, and everyday states in Africa. He received his Ph.D. from SOAS, University of London. He is currently a Postdoctoral fellow at Chr. Michelsen Institute and the incoming assistant professor at Université Laval.

Scott Brown is a lecturer in Politics & International Relations at the University of Dundee, Scotland, where he teaches mostly IR theory. His research focuses on the ‘strategic triangle’ of EU/rope-US-China relations. He is the author of Power, Perception and Foreign Policymaking: US and EU Responses to the Rise of China (Routledge, 2018).