— RESEARCH AREAS
My research contributes to three strands of scholarship, united by a focus on ideas in International Relations: China-Japan Relations, China and the International Economic Order, and the Economics-Security Nexus.
Explore my work:
— WHY CHINA & JAPAN?
I was first drawn to the China-Japan relationship as an undergraduate exchange student living in Japan. Since then, I have spent years studying in China, Japan, and Taiwan, fascinated by their histories, connections, and ideas.
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I study how relations between China and Japan have evolved since World War II, and how memories of war and colonialism shape contemporary China-Japan relations.
Drawing on multi-lingual archival research across four continents, my work explores the ideas that have shaped China’s Japan policy, and the ideas about imperialism, industrialisation and warfare that have flowed between China and Japan.
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Through an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellowship and a Westpac Research Fellowship, I lead a research team investigating China’s role in shaping international economic order.
This research program consists of two interrelated projects: A historical project exploring China’s role in shaping the post-World War II international economic order, from the Bretton Woods conference in 1944 to the Bandung conference in 1955; and a contemporary project examining the economic ideas and strategies underpinning 21st century Chinese initiatives.
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Eschewing standard International Relations approaches that emphasise trade-offs, or other theoretically-predetermined linkages between economics and security, my research has generated new findings on how states conceptualise the nexus between economics and security.
I take an ideational approach that pays particular attention to critical junctures, or key historical moments, when countries’ thinking about the relationship between economics and security evolved in important directions.
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I take an ideational approach to all of my work, studying how policymakers perceive the world, define their interests, wrestle with complex policy problems, and communicate with different audiences.
My research has explored the relationship between background, foreground, cognitive and normative ideas; the shared ideational basis of international orders; and the origins and role of ‘worldviews’, ‘historical memory,’ and well-known foreign policy ideas in China and Taiwan.
— FEATURED PROJECT
How China Shapes International Economic Order
Through an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellowship and a Westpac Research Fellowship, I lead a research team investigating China’s role in shaping the post-WWII international economic order, and the contemporary legacy of China’s historical economic ideas.
