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A comprehensive study of China’s policy toward Afghanistan from the founding of the People’s Republic to the present. Analyzes Chinese strategic interests, policy goals, and the evolution of bilateral and regional dynamics across seven decades, culminating in the aftermath of the Taliban’s return to power.
Palgrave Macmillan August 2025
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Co-authored with Richard Ned Lebow. Investigates how states and leaders learn—or fail to learn—from major crises such as wars and pandemics. Explores why certain lessons become deeply institutionalized while others fade, how lessons migrate across domains, and what conditions shape the durability and influence of historical analogies.
Oxford University Press Under Review
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Develops a novel framework for understanding U.S.–China rivalry by synthesizing relational and exemplarist traditions from both Chinese and Western political thought. Highlights the role of intellectual heritage, political psychology, and strategies of reassurance in shaping patterns of cooperation and competition.
Ongoing
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Advances a new theory of international leadership grounded in the Confucian philosophy of Xunzi. Contrasts this approach with Yan Xuetong’s moral realism and dominant Western theories of leadership. Employs a mixed-methods design—combining historical case studies and quantitative analysis—to evaluate how virtue and ritual shape international order.
In Progress
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Applies machine learning and natural language processing to analyze indigenous Chinese-language texts and trace shifts in Chinese foreign policy discourse. Builds a comprehensive corpus of PRC foreign policy documents and explores the potential for expanding to historical sources to capture deeper patterns of continuity and change.
In Progress
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Long-term collaborations with leading scholars in international relations and comparative politics.
Richard Ned Lebow
Professor Emeritus of International Political Theory, King’s College London
Google Scholar
Barry Buzan
Emeritus Professor of International Relations, London School of Economics
Google Scholar
Peter J. Katzenstein
Walter S. Carpenter, Jr. Professor of International Studies, Cornell University
Personal Website
Grand strategies of imperial China and the PRC, Chinese strategic thinking, intellectual foundations of Chinese strategy
US-China relations, Chinese exceptionalism, deep pluralism and civilizational politics, Confucian foreign policy traditions, Afghanistan, South China Sea and Southeast Asia
Moral realism, Confucian IR theory, Chinese approaches to international relations theory and practice
The tribute system, international relations in historical and contemporary East Asia