— MEET OUR TEAM
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Chief Investigator (2017-Present )
Amy King is an Associate Professor in the Strategic & Defence Studies Centre at The Australian National University, where she is also Deputy Director (Research) in the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs. She is the author of China-Japan Relations after World War Two: Empire, Industry and War, 1949-1971 (Cambridge University Press, 2016). Amy has undertaken intensive language study and fieldwork in China, Japan and Taiwan over the past 15 years, and engages regularly with the Australian policy community on issues of contemporary foreign and security policy.
Photo Credit: Flashpoint Labs
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Postdoctoral Research Associate (2019-2021)
Xiaoyu Lu is an Assistant Professor in the School of International Studies at Peking University. His monographs include Norms, Storytelling and International Institutions in China: The Imperative to Narrate (Palgrave MacMillan, 2021) and a non-fiction account of the Peruvian presidential election (Lima Dream: When a Chinese Wanders into an Election, Shanghai Literature Press, 2021). His work has also appeared in the Guardian, The Diplomat, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. He gained MSc and DPhil degrees in Politics at the University of Oxford.
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PhD Candidate & Research Assistant (2024-Present)
Bo commenced his Ph.D. in International, Political, and Strategic Studies at ANU in February 2024. His research expertise covers China's practices, ideas, and norms in global development finance. Bo's doctoral thesis examines China’s role in shaping the global order in the area of sovereign debt from both historical and normative perspectives. Prior to his studies at ANU, Bo received an MSc in International Political Economy (Research) from the London School of Economics, and an MSc in Economics with Distinction from the University of London. He has worked as a research assistant at several think tanks in China.
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Research Assistant (2026 - present)
Jascha is a graduate of the Master of Strategic Studies (Advanced) program at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University. His research focuses on the economic–security nexus in Southeast Asia, Indonesian strategic policy, and the intersection of security with cyber and emerging technologies in the region. He has published several op-eds and articles in The Strategist and The Jakarta Post. His latest research examines the evolution of Indonesia’s strategic autonomy discourse in the context of China’s deep economic enmeshment in Indonesia’s nickel sector.
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Research Assistant (2020-2026)
Wenting He holds a PhD in International Relations at ANU. Her research focuses on economic ideas, economic crises, development finance, and geoeconomics, particularly in relation to China. In 2026 she will take up a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Alberta’s China Institute.
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Research Assistant (2024 - present)
Reina completed a Bachelor of Philosophy – Humanities and Social Sciences (First Class Honours) at the ANU, majoring in History. She is interested in comparative colonial history, focusing in particular on the legacy in imperialism in East Asia. For her studies in history, Reina was awarded the 2025 ANU Mick Williams Prize and the 2023 ANU David Campbell Prize.
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Research Assistant (2023)
Milla recently completed a Bachelor of Asian Studies (Honours) at the ANU, majoring in China Studies. Her Honours thesis examined the way in which Chinese and Western International Relations frameworks characterise China’s Cold War foreign economic policy towards Mongolia. Milla received a Diploma of Chinese Language from Renmin University of China in 2020, where she studied under a scholarship from the China Scholarship Council.
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Research Assistant (2022-2023)
Meira works as a lawyer and research officer, having graduated from UNSW with a Bachelor of Laws and International Studies. She is a previous recipient of the Westpac Asian Exchange Scholarship and an Australia-Japan Youth Dialogue alumni. Meira also holds a Masters of Arts in International Relations from Waseda University through the Japanese Government (MEXT) scholarship. Her master's thesis examines the experiences of New Colombo Plan Scholarship alumni to explore ways that Indo-Pacific student mobility programs can be optimised for past, present and future participants.
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Research Assistant (2022-2024)
Alicia completed a Bachelor of Arts (Advanced) undergraduate at the University of Adelaide, majoring in International Relations. She is interested in exploring constructions of security in the Indo-Pacific region, particularly with regards to East Asia and the Pacific Islands, and how these relate to Australian security ideas. Passionate about Australian-Japanese relations, she was awarded the Westpac Asian Exchange Scholarship to facilitate her current exchange to Hosei University, Tokyo, where she studies Japanese language and politics.
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Selected Publications
Wallis, Joanne, Ireland, Angus, Robinson, Isabel and Turner, Alicia. 2022. “Framing China in the Pacific Islands.”Australian Journal of International Affairs 76 (5): 522-545.
Turner, Alicia. 2021. “Terrorism is Communication.” Illustratio; Adelaide Journal of Politics and International Relations, 2: 12-18.
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Research Assistant (2017-2021)
Nan Liu received a Master of Business Information Systems from the ANU’s College of Business and Economics, and her Bachelor of Economics and Finance from the University of Hong Kong. She is experienced in conducting both quantitative and qualitative research in the fields of economics, strategic and demographic studies.
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Selected publications:
Evelyn Goh and Nan Liu, ‘Chinese Investment in Southeast Asia, 2005-19: Patterns and Significance,’ SEARBO Policy Briefing, New Mandala, August 2021.
James Raymer, Xujing Bai and Nan Liu (2020). The Dynamic Complexity of Australia's Immigration and Emigration Flows from 1981 to 2016. Journal of Population Research 37, pp.213-242.
Research Collaborations
We are always delighted to hear from scholars working on related areas, as well as from prospective research assistants (particularly with Chinese or Japanese language skills) interested in joining our project.
Please fill out the form if you are interested in working with this research project.